Stanford President Retains His Humor and His Job : Education: Donald Kennedy withstands a torrent of bad publicity, refusing calls for his resignation.

Donald Kennedy, president of Stanford University since 1980, has just been through the stuff of academic leaders’ nightmares.

He has been brutally grilled by Congress about alleged abuses in Stanford’s spending of federal research money. He has received reams of bad publicity questioning luxurious items at his official residence, even the bed in which he and his wife sleep. He has apologized to alumni for Stanford’s handling of those federal billings and publicly argued with a professor calling for his resignation. Now he has to cope with a sharp cut in government research funds.

All that in a year when Stanford was supposed to be joyfully celebrating its centennial, not countering damaging media coverage.

And yet, when asked how officials at other universities treat him these days, Kennedy still shows the acuity and humor that made him a popular president for most of his decade-long reign at the stunningly beautiful, 8,180-acre campus. “I think my fellow presidents view me with a mixture of sympathy and relief. And very little envy,” he said, laughing.

According to his critics, Kennedy’s remaining days as Stanford’s chief may be briefly numbered, his legacy soiled by the investigation of the allegedly improper research billings, his progressive image clouded by his arrogance and mismanagement. Yet according to his supporters, Kennedy is bouncing back from his worst crisis and is sure to stay at the head of the Northern California campus for at least another year or two. Whatever the future brings, Kennedy said he never--”not for a millisecond”--thought of “leaving the scene of the accident.”

“When you are embroiled in a tough crisis, when you are getting very adverse attention, you constantly ask yourself the questions: ‘Am I doing this right? How can I improve the chances the institution will survive this challenge in good shape?’ ” said Kennedy, 59, a neurobiologist with three degrees from Harvard and an ebullient manner of speaking. “ . . . I thought all along to myself: ‘Look this happened on your watch.’ And I think everybody who sees the institution is involved in a problem wants to be part of the solution.”

For most of his career in science, education and government, Kennedy built a reputation as someone who skillfully sought solutions and ably explained his ideas. For example, he argued forcefully for the continued use of animals in medical research. As head of the Food and Drug Administration during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Kennedy unsuccessfully sought to restrict saccharin because of its possible cancer-causing effects, yet won respect for his efforts. As Stanford president, he debated then-U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett, who opposed Stanford’s addition in 1988 of more required books by women and minorities to the freshman Western Civilization course.

Kennedy also is among the most gregarious and energetic of university presidents. He jogs and bicycles with undergraduates, and juggles his time between such duties as advising freshmen and being the host of a campus visit last year by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Image Battered

When Stanford’s men’s swimming team won the national championship in 1985, Kennedy posed for a photo with the team. He wore a suit and tie while the athletes had on their skimpy swimsuits. Kennedy promised the team that he would switch garb the following year if another championship was won. Sure enough, there is now a commemorative photo of the team in formal dress, surrounding Don Kennedy, bare-chested in a Speedo.

That happy warrior image was battered this year with the federal investigation of Stanford’s research spending. In his critics’ eyes, Kennedy looked haughty in his early explanations of why the school had partly charged the government for such items as a yacht, and antiques for his residence. Later, they found him evasive and floundering as he was surprised by media leaks by congressional investigators. Even his friends concede that Kennedy and Stanford were outmaneuvered by U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), whose subcommittee won national headlines during its March hearings.

The government inquiry took a personal toll on Kennedy, according to supporters who point out that he has gotten a little more testy and looks more tired. Kennedy finally may be losing the golden boy aura he had carried into his late middle age.

“I think it’s been hard on him; it would be hard on anybody,” said John W. Gardner, the former head of Common Cause who was a Stanford trustee and now teaches at its graduate schools of business and education. “He’s a very positive, buoyant, vital leader. And that makes me want him to get this behind him, because it’s very hard to be vital and buoyant when you are being hammered over the head.”

Sources close to Stanford’s trustees, his real bosses, insist that there is no move to oust Kennedy. The trustees recently issued a public statement of support for Kennedy, symbolizing to some faculty members how worried the school’s leaders are about the situation. There is hope on campus that the worst is over as federal audits are shifting to other schools.

During an interview at his office, Kennedy was asked about Stanford’s treatment by the government. “Well, look, I think it’s both fruitless and unwise to argue about a process that did in fact turn up problems, problems that were embarrassing to us, problems we needed to fix,” said Kennedy, a lean man whose large eyeglasses are often the joy of editorial cartoonists.

The crux of the dispute was whether Stanford should remain among schools getting the highest reimbursement rates for indirect costs of federally sponsored research, such as maintenance and administration. Pushing that rate upward, investigators charged, were questionable billings for, among other things, entertainment and silverware at Kennedy’s residence. Kennedy stressed that the university has withdrawn more than $700,000 in billings, hired an outside accounting firm to review research spending and appointed a panel of experts to check policies. “We’re entirely oriented to reform,” he said.

A recent poll by the Stanford Daily, the student newspaper, found students evenly divided on Kennedy’s handling of his job (35% approved and 35% disapproved, while 30% had no opinion). But only 19% wanted the president to quit, compared to 54% who wanted him to stay and 27% with no opinion.

“A university is like a family. When the head of the family is dealing with problems, certainly other members are going to have some doubts and frustrations,” said Jervey Tucker, a co-president of Stanford’s student government. “But in the end if that person is doing the best job he can and is looking out for the best interests of the family, they are not going to leave that person by the wayside.”

On the other hand, Kennedy’s most vocal critic, political science professor John Manley, recently stood up at a faculty Senate meeting and, face-to-face, urged Kennedy to resign. The president’s allies say that Manley’s opinion should be discounted because the professor has clashed with Kennedy on many issues. Some other faculty members insist that Manley has support from a good number of teachers too afraid or too diplomatic to speak up.

“Kennedy is trying to persuade people that, although he is intimately connected to the worst scandal in Stanford’s history, he can somehow lead Stanford back to respectability and that he is the one to clean our house. And I just think that is an untenable proposition,” Manley said in an interview.

Biology professor Dow Woodward agrees with Manley but thinks Kennedy probably will stay for a while. Woodward compared Kennedy’s resiliency to the so-called “Teflon presidency” of Ronald Reagan. “Kennedy tends to be one of those kinds of guys who has the self-confidence and stick-to-itiveness that allows them to get through these difficult times no matter how bad it gets. But then somebody has to pay the price,” Woodward said, “and I’m afraid in this case the university is going to have to pay the price.”

Popular Professor

Kennedy grew up on the East Coast and in Michigan, and first wanted to be a writer or forest ranger. His mother was a teacher and journalist, and his father was the editor of Ford Motor Co.’s magazine. He entered Harvard as a freshman and remained straight through for a doctorate in biology. He came to Stanford as an assistant professor in 1960 and stayed for 31 years except for his 1977-79 stint at the FDA, a job he took in part because, he recalled, students who heard his talks about public policy and health dared him “to put my money where my mouth is.” Of Congress’ reversal of his saccharin ban, he joked: “That established a principle. You shouldn’t have cancer-causing substances in the food supply unless people like them a lot.”

He was a popular teacher, winning a coveted faculty service award, and a talented researcher, winning membership in the National Academy of Sciences for his work on physiology of central nervous systems. He also became someone whom the powers at Stanford watched during the 1970s as student protests helped drive two campus presidents from office. After his term at the FDA, he returned to Stanford as vice president-provost and a year later became chief of the 13,441-student university, a job that now pays him $194,000.

Kennedy has attracted national attention with still-unfinished initiatives to strengthen the humanities and the teaching of undergraduate students. More clear-cut is his success in fund raising, crowned by the near-completion of a $1.1-billion fund drive marking the school’s current centennial.

Kennedy was criticized from the political left for the university’s continued ownership of land leased by a farm that uses migrant labor and for Stanford’s continued investments in companies that did business in South Africa. More often, his disputes were with the political right, such as over Stanford’s changes in its Western culture courses for freshmen that Education Secretary Bennett saw as an attack on the classics.

Gerald J. Lieberman, professor of operations research and statistics, who was chairman of the Faculty Senate at the time, recalls the televised debate between Bennett and Kennedy as a draw. But he stressed that Kennedy, on and off campus, “clearly spoke on the issues he felt were important and articulated them in a fairly persuasive way. That doesn’t mean he changed individual minds, but his support for the changes was important.”

Although he has been criticized for having too much of a corporate-style administration and being too distant from the faculty, Kennedy is praised for keeping in close touch with students.

“Anyone who ever heard Don welcoming the freshmen at their first night at Stanford or bidding the seniors farewell at graduation has to have just enormous respect for the human qualities of this person,” said Carolyn Lougee, associate dean of humanities and sciences.

Biology professor Woodward, however, recalls things differently. “I think his style is authoritarian and dogmatic. All he has is a very flowery way of covering it,” Woodward said.

Kennedy also has spoken out at times when some Stanford people wished he hadn’t. The school had repeatedly ranked first in U.S. News & World Report surveys of the best research universities. But in 1987, Kennedy criticized the survey, which was based on opinions of college presidents. The following year, the method was changed to include more objective criteria and Stanford’s ranking dropped below some Ivy League institutions.

Divorce

Many people at Stanford say that a personal matter most hurt his reputation in the past. In the gossipy world of academia, in which presidents are expected to lead model lives, Kennedy in 1987 divorced the woman to whom he had been married for 34 years and soon afterward married a university employee, who is now a staff attorney. Some alumni and trustees were shocked.

(Intentionally or not, Dingell’s staff revived that issue. Among the taxpayer billings Stanford withdrew under pressure a few months ago was about $4,000 for a reception the trustees held for Kennedy to introduce his new wife to the faculty and staff. Another disputed billing was for repairs to widen the Kennedys’ bed.)

During the federal spending controversy, Kennedy withdrew embarrassing billings while first stressing that they were legal. That contention may prove true but only further angered people resentful of Stanford’s elitism. An editorial cartoon in the San Jose Mercury News showed Kennedy with his hand in a cookie jar, whining “my accountant says I’m entitled to every one of these.”

The ultimate cost for Stanford may be enormous. The government two weeks ago sharply cut Stanford’s reimbursements by an estimated $23 million a year, a decision the university hopes to reverse. Stanford last week announced resulting budget-tightening on the heels of non-teaching layoffs last year and $160 million in 1989 earthquake damage.

And the effect on Kennedy’s future? He denies speculation that he wants to run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate or that he expects a Cabinet post in the next Democratic White House, perhaps in the Department of Health and Human Services. A dedicated bird-watcher and trout fisherman, he said his next dream job would help improve the environment.

Kennedy clearly does not want to feed rumors that he may announce his retirement from Stanford’s presidency when the big fund drive ends in February. “I’ve got lots of appetite for this job and my enthusiasm hasn’t been chilled by this experience,” he said. “I regard it as one of those things that you go through if you undertake the risks that are inherent in a big visible job like this.”