BU Honors President Emeritus John Silber

The many sides of Boston University President Emeritus John Silber — teacher, leader, politician, father, formidable foe, and loyal friend — were recognized and honored on Friday, April 13, at a tribute to the University’s seventh president and his late wife, Kathryn.

The event — bookended by the afternoondedication of the John and Kathryn Silber Administrative Center at OneSherborn Street and the former president’s announcement of hisintention to donate $1 million to endow a new scholarship at theCollege of Fine Arts — drew nearly 1,000 dignitaries from the academicand political spheres and featured live and video tributes from friendsand colleagues including President George H. W. Bush, Henry Kissinger,Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and Silber’s daughter, Rachel SilberDevlin. The speakers recounted Silber’s decades of history with Boston University, his impact on both the Boston Public Schools and Bostonpolitics, and his unflagging devotion to his family. And all notedthat, while his opinions have not always been popular, his role intransforming BU into a major research institution is unparalleled.

"During his leadership, this place was infused with a sense of urgency— what we could accomplish in a day, a week, a year," said UniversityPresident Robert A. Brown. "We have come an extraordinary distance.John has led this transformation."

Silber — like Brown, a native Texan — arrived at Boston University in 1971 after serving as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.When he arrived, the University had a $9.9 million deficit and waslargely a commuter school. He balanced the budget in 18 months and wenton to hire distinguished new faculty, raise admission standards, expandthe campus, and build the endowment.

Sheldon Glashow, theArthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Physics, a 1979 Nobel Prize winner,and one of Silber’s prize faculty recruits, recalled the president’scommitment to building BU’s reputation in the sciences, resulting inthe construction of the Metcalf Center for Science and Engineering in 1983 and the Boston University Photonics Center in 1994. Representative Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) spoke of the University’s management of the Chelsea Public Schoolsystem, which began in 1989 and over the course of 10 years revitalizedthe struggling district. Senator Edward Kennedy noted the strikingphysical changes to the campus that took place during Silber’s tenure,such as the construction of the Rafik B. Hariri Building for the School of Management in 1996.

Silber’s moments of local and national notoriety were also referencedthroughout the evening. The former president has long been known as adirect, if blunt, speaker who will always, as one tribute put it,choose truth over tact. "I called him the last candid man," author TomWolfe said before the ceremony. "There aren’t many left who say whatthey mean and mean what they say."

Yet many speakers alsotalked of Silber’s less-known kindness, recalling letters and phonecalls that came at times of illness or trouble, his habit of eatingbreakfast and dinner with his children every day, even at the mostdemanding moments of his career, and his long and loving relationshipwith his wife, Kathryn, who died in 2005.

“You have satthrough so much of my apotheosis, I really should be elevated and takenaway," Silber said when the tributes finished. "I can’t claim to beterribly modest, but I’m modest enough to be embarrassed."

Silber served BU for more than three decades, first as president until1996, then as University chancellor until 2003. In addition to theadministrative center now named for him and his wife, a chair in hishonor has been established in the department of philosophy.

"What I am most grateful for was the honor and privilege of serving formore than 30 years," Silber said on Friday evening. "BU was one of thefinest toys I was ever allowed to play with — a great toy with enormouspotential, if you polished it up and gave it a few tools to make itrun."

Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.