Gu Names Philosopher President Robert Spitzer An Expert In Business Ethics

If Gonzaga University was looking for a president to do the job of three people, it found him.

Philosopher, motivational speaker and boyish, overgrown student, the Rev. Robert Spitzer will become Gonzaga’s 25th president.

“I want to connect with this campus in every way I can,” the energized priest told 200 faculty and staff members assembled on the steps of Crosby Student Center on Monday. “If I didn’t connect, I’d probably die.”

Nearly one year after the surprising ouster of the Rev. Edward Glynn, the university’s board of trustees hired Spitzer to guide the Catholic school into the next century.

Spitzer, a Seattle University associate professor of philosophy, will take over July 1.

Spitzer, who suffered a mild heart attack in December, arrives at a time when the 111-year-old university is ailing.

Full-time student enrollment has fallen below 4,500 and $1.5 million must be cut from the budget. The taint of past racial harassment lingers at the law school, while Gonzaga supporters still feel stung by the board removing Glynn in 1997, just days after commencement.

Spitzer, whose inspirational business ethics courses are becoming a global phenomenon, is Gonzaga’s great hope to rebuild bridges between faculty, students, administration, trustees, alumni and the Spokane community.

“His spirit is contagious,” said the Rev. Stephen Kuder, co-chairman of the presidential search committee and a member of the Jesuit corporation that owns Gonzaga. “He’ll have a following here in a very short time.”

Spitzer, who turns 46 next month, wasted no time Monday making new friends.

“That’s the first time a president ever stopped to say hello to me,” sophomore Jeremy Hoffart said moments after Spitzer surprised three students soaking in the campus sunshine. “He seemed very unpresidential.”

He is. Spitzer has almost no administrative experience. At Seattle University, however, he founded several research institutes and currently is serving as the endowed chair in professional ethics at the university’s Albers School of Business and Economics.

In this role, he frequently conducts business seminars for corporate executives who earn Spitzer’s $125-per-month Jesuit salary in an hour. Spitzer also is organizing a 1999 conference of U.S. and Russian business leaders in St. Petersburg.

Gonzaga chairman James Jundt said the board was confident that Spitzer would learn the day-to-day operations of managing the university with the support of the existing administrative team.

“The board has no desire to micro-manage Gonzaga,” Jundt said. “We’ve found in him a person who knows how to tap into the experts and campus community.”

Jundt believes that Spitzer will generate new support from Gonzaga’s private donors, helping the private school out of its current financial woes. Jundt said a contributor recently made out a sizable, unsigned check to Gonzaga and gave it to him to hold, with this encouragement: “Hire Father Spitzer, and I’ll sign the check.”

Spitzer returns to Gonzaga nearly a quarter century after he earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Gonzaga in 1974. It was at Gonzaga that the young man, who said he dated two women in college, felt called to the Jesuit priesthood.

During the next 15 years, Spitzer earned three master’s degrees and a doctorate in philosophy from four different schools. The Hawaii native also taught at Georgetown University and Seattle University.

Spitzer was hospitalized at Christmas after blocked arteries triggered a heart attack. Surgeons inserted steel stints to support the arteries, a solution that should last at least 15 years, he said.

Spitzer said he has replaced his habit of eating pizza and cheeseburgers in the student dining hall with salads and linguine, his favorite food. He rides an exercise bike daily and takes long walks.

“There’s a tremendous love, spirit and energy here at Gonzaga,” he said, “and I want to tap them and let them catalyze me and the university forward.”

SPITZER PROFILE Age: 45 Last position: Associate professor of philosophy at Seattle University, where he founded several research institutes and taught professional ethics.

WHERE HE STANDS In an interview Monday after being introduced as Gonzaga University’s new president, the Rev. Robert Spitzer outlined his position on issues at the 111-year-old college. Support for a new vice president of diversity to recruit and retain minority students, and full funding for the Institute for Action Against Hate, created in December to study why people hate. A balanced budget, without layoffs. Spitzer favors cutting expenses, generating private contributions and postponing the hiring for positions left empty by retirement or attrition. He opposes using endowment funds to balance the budget. The need for a series of “listening sessions” for him to assess the needs and concerns of students, faculty, staff and outside supporters. He plans to begin holding those meetings in September.