Rutgers video casts shadow on president

TRENTON - The day that he took over as president of Rutgers University in September, Robert Barchi faced the organizational equivalent of building a giant skyscraper.

His mission was to bring most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, a sprawling health sciences institution that trains medical and dental students and conducts scientific research, under the Rutgers umbrella - while reengineering its deficit-ridden Division I sports program.

And all of that in less than a year.

There was plenty on his resumé to suggest he could. He had overseen a vast building program as president of Thomas Jefferson University in Center City and served as a senior administrator at the University of Pennsylvania before that.

Yet on Friday, when Barchi faced reporters at a packed news conference in New Brunswick, he confronted a challenge that he likely could not have foreseen when he took over as president of the 58,000-student university.

Days earlier, a videotape had emerged showing men's basketball coach Mike Rice verbally and physically abusing his players, and questions swirled about Barchi's handling of the incident.

Barchi stood before reporters and offered a broad apology for the university's actions, admitting that he himself should have handled the incident differently. Shortly after the news conference, Gov. Christie issued a statement praising Barchi's actions and saying it was time to move on, ending at least for now speculation about Barchi's job security.

Barchi's performance at a pivotal moment for himself and Rutgers reflected what former colleagues say about him: He is decisive and cool under pressure.

"He was very ambitious for his institution and very hard-driving," said Drexel University president John Fry, who worked with Barchi at Penn.

"Bob is a master strategist, with an exceptional analytic mind, an ability to think critically, and hard-wiring for decisive, bold leadership," said Mark Tykocinski, dean of Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. "But above all, the two greatest compliments I would reserve for Bob Barchi are authenticity and integrity."

Among those in his corner: the chairman of the university's board of governors, Ralph Izzo, who on Friday endorsed Barchi's tenure "for many years to come"; and more than three dozen faculty members who released an open letter after the news conference Friday saying they "fully support Dr. Barchi's vision and leadership."

But there are signs of division. A group of Rutgers faculty members is calling for Barchi's resignation and demanding an inquiry. State lawmakers are vowing an investigation, and legal action is already under way. Barbara Buono, a Democrat challenging Christie in the governor's race, made it clear that those who hoped the crisis had ebbed had another think coming.

"President Barchi has shown the opposite of decisive leadership," Buono said in a statement that also criticized Christie for all but declaring the scandal over. "He ducked the tough choices by not firing Mike Rice when notified of his behavior."

Barchi's initial decision to suspend the now disgraced coach still rankles. Despite the support he has garnered, the calls for his dismissal still ring.

"If he knew the full dimensions of this thing and failed to do anything about this, that should cost him his job," said Mark Killingsworth, a Rutgers economics professor. "Unfortunately, like any chief of any large organization, you have to be able to deal with multiple things. You can't just say the merger is my only priority."

Barchi on Friday confidently parried questions about his knowledge of the video in December, when athletic director Tim Pernetti fined Rice $75,000 and suspended him for three days.

Barchi said that he relied on the representations of Pernetti and general counsel John Wolf, both of whom have resigned, and that he had not seen the damning videotape until last week.

That sequence of events reveals a management style. In an interview with The Inquirer shortly after he assumed the presidency, Barchi made it clear that he lets managers manage. "Recruit the right people, and let them do what they can do," he said. "I'm not a micromanager."

In Rice's case, he accepted the recommendations of legal advisers who deemed that the coach could not be fired for cause. Only when he saw the video himself did Barchi decide to fire Rice. That decision, he said Friday, was reached in minutes.

"I am not here to defend myself," he said. "That is up to the people I report to to make that decision."

Born in Philadelphia, Barchi spent much of his youth in Westfield, an affluent North Jersey commuter town just west of Newark.

He earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, then obtained a Ph.D. and a medical degree from Penn, where he joined the faculty in 1972.

His career has had a sharply upward trajectory. He founded Penn's department of neuroscience and was its first chair.

In 1999, Penn named him provost, giving him direct responsibility for its 12 schools and its intercollegiate athletic program. Drexel's Fry, who was executive vice president while Barchi was provost, gave Barchi high praise for his focus on academics and his ability to make tough decisions.

When they served at Penn together, he said, the university budget was under some strain, and Barchi strove to make sure money was not diverted from academic programs.

Amid the furor over Rice's antigay remarks, Barchi asserted at Friday's news conference that while at Penn he was a strong supporter of the LGBT community.

He left Penn in 2004 to become president of Thomas Jefferson. There he undertook a similarly ambitious program. Faculty was bolstered, and new buildings went up for medical and nursing schools and other functions. The once-gritty urban campus was refurbished and landscaped.

"He had very high standards, and he had vision of where he wanted things to go," said Susan Phillips, a Penn vice president who worked with Barchi there.

The emergence of the Rice videotape has exposed previously hidden frictions at Rutgers.

Adrienne Eaton, a professor of labor studies and employment relations, said hopes were high among faculty and students when Barchi took over in September. Since then, she said, relations have soured.

"People are not warming up to him," she said.

Killingsworth and other faculty have long been critical of Rutgers' money-losing sports programs, and they wanted Barchi to make them less central to the university. According to Killingsworth, the university's $64 million sports program runs a deficit of nearly $27 million that is made up out of student fees and other allocations.

Greg Trevor, spokesman for Rutgers, said Barchi had moved on his previously stated goal of reducing the amount the school spends subsidizing the athletics program. Funding for the athletic department has been cut by $1 million in the 2012-13 fiscal year, Trevor said.

Other faculty have accused Barchi of shifting resources and academic clout away from Rutgers-Camden, which has the highest minority enrollment, and failing to rein in the sports program.

But Wendell Pritchett, chancellor of Rutgers-Camden, is an avid defender. He said on Saturday that Barchi had brought transparency to the budget process and provided Rutgers-Camden money for building projects and academic programs. "I think he's brought a lot of rigor to his job and is really trying to move the university forward," he said.