Tulsa World David Boren Special Section

A jointly produced special section from the Tulsa World and The OklahomaN • Sunday, June 10, 2018

Farewell a commemorative section

After five decades of public service, David Boren leaves a lasting legacy.

INSIDE Molly Boren: Her husband still brings people together. S2

OU’s academic excellence rose during Boren years. S4

OU athletics revitalized under Boren’s leadership. S5

Timeline: The life and times of David Boren.

S6, S7

Boren gave up politics to be OU president but still spoke out. S11

Four people shaped by Boren speak about his influence. S14, S15

S2 Sunday, June 10, 2018

Boren

The presidency

A commemorative secti on

Lost in the kitchen and behind the wheel

University of Oklahoma President David Boren holds hands with his wife, Molly Shi Boren, as he leaves the Donald W. Reynolds Performing Arts Center after announcing his retirement Sept. 20.

MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

But Molly Boren says his public tenacity is his private personality, too

Wayne Greene Editorial editor wayne.greene @tulsaworld.com

I

f you’re going someplace with David Boren, Molly Shi Boren has some advice: Offer to drive.

As her husband prepares to retire, Molly Shi Boren says it isn’t true that he’s going to have to learn to drive a car again, although university presidents, senators and governors usually have someone who can do the driving for them, and Boren has been all three.

He still knows how to drive a car, except when he does it, he has a bad habit of getting involved in whatever conversation is going on in the car, and, well, his mind will wander a bit away from the road, Molly Boren said.

“Those who know him know: It’s always best to volunteer to drive,” Molly Boren said.

When I was asked to contribute a column to the special section honoring David Boren, I quickly said yes. I figured I could write something about Boren’s politics or his public service or how he transformed the University of Oklahoma in his 24 years there. Those things I knew.

But I was asked to write about what I knew the least about: Boren’s personal life — what makes him an interesting person when he wasn’t being a governor, a senator or a university president.

Yes, I said I’d be glad to do it, but that’s going to take a little work.

I turned to the person who knows Boren best, the woman who has been his partner from the governor’s mansion to the U.S. Capitol and on to Boyd House on the OU campus.

Molly Shi Boren was a special district judge in Pontotoc County when she met and, later, married Boren in a quiet, family-only ceremony inside the governor’s mansion. From there it was off to the races.

Almost immediately after they married, she was part of her first statewide political campaign, which put Boren in the U.S. Senate.

In the years that followed, she would meet a who’s-who of political luminaries: Anwar Sadat, Nelson Mandela, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Desmond Tutu, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, President George H.W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher, just to name a few.

(When Thatcher came to Boren’s OU homes, Molly Boren offered her tea. The

a t tuls a w orld .c om/pho t o

See a photo gallery of David Boren through the years.

former British prime minister declined tea and asked for whiskey instead — two drinks before she made her speech, which was perfect, Boren said.)

Amusing stuff, but the idea here was to get a few insights into David Boren’s private side.

Here’s one thing: The man’s lost in the kitchen.

On their first date, Molly and David went to an Oklahoma City dinner theater with another couple, and they all wound up back at David’s place, which was, of course, the governor’s mansion.

The mansion staff was off for the night, and Gov. Boren invited his guests into the kitchen, where he was barely able to offer them a glass of water.

These days, President Boren is able to make a cup of coffee in the morning but not much else, his wife said.

President Boren is the same high-energy, get-it-done personality in private as he is in public, she said.

“If you asked me for a one-word description of David, it would be ‘tenacity,’”

Business and lifestyles director

Assistant editor

Photo editor

Clytie Bunyan

Adam Daigle

John Clanton

The Oklahoman

Tulsa World

Tulsa World (cover photo)

Researcher Hilary Pittman Tulsa World

she said. “He’s a real bulldog. When he sets a goal, he gets it done.”

That caused some friction early in the Borens’ married life. Boren makes lists, things to get done.

About the third morning that he presented her with a to-do list for the day, she tore it up in front of him.

“I tore the paper into shreds and said, ‘I don’t do lists,’ ” Molly said. “I’m not your secretary.”

Boren’s favorite meal? Chicken and dumplings, although he doesn’t get it very often because it’s not good for his health.

His most remarkable ability? Making friends of opponents. Molly Boren says she’s seen it happen again and again — political opponents become friends with Boren, whose noted political desire to bring disparate camps together is just as true in his personal life, she said.

Boren’s decision to retire was bittersweet, Molly Boren says, but it was also the right decision. She said she doesn’t worry about having Boren underfoot in their retirement home near Newcastle.

Boren will increase his teaching load at OU, write, hold regular office hours for students at his office in the student union and do some traveling.

“He will make himself busy,” Molly Boren said.

That said, the transition to retirement — especially the need to downsize as the couple moves from the university’s official residence at Boyd House to their retirement home — may be difficult for both Borens, she said.

“You just brought up the hardest decisions we’re going to have to make,” she said. “What do we take and what do we not take?”

Putting special emphasis on the word “think,” Molly Boren says she thinks they have a mutual agreement that anything they don’t have room for won’t be stored but instead will be given away to friends who can enjoy it now.

“This is going to be a very difficult process: What do we keep and what do we give away?” she said.

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James Royal

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Tulsa World

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 S3

S4 Sunday, June 10, 2018

Boren

The presidency

A commem orative se ction

OU became a world-class university Its academic excellence is attributed to President Boren’s vision, leadership

By K.S. McNutt The Oklahoman

NORMAN — The University of Oklahoma was ranked among the top 100 colleges and universities in the nation by U.S. News & World Report this year for the first time. OU is ranked No. 97 overall and No. 41 among public institutions.

“The hard work and dedication of all members of the OU family have made this achievement possible. It confirms the high quality of education and standard of excellence that have become synonymous with the University of Oklahoma,” President David Boren said.

OU’s chief academic officer gives most of the credit to one person. The academic growth in the past 24 years is directly tied to Boren’s vision that the university was “capable of truly national and global excellence,” said Kyle Harper, senior vice president and provost.

Boren helped people see not just what was there but what was possible, Harper said.

“He was just absolutely made to be a university president,” Harper said. “From day one, academics have been front and center for President Boren. That’s what our mission is, and that’s what Oklahoma needs.”

The secret to academic excellence is not a secret at all, Boren said.

“Great students interacting with great faculty members, … and that’s exactly what we’ve done,” he said.

Boren immediately sought top faculty from the best graduate programs in the country and the

The National Weather Festival draws crowds to the National Weather Center on the University of Oklahoma’s Research Campus in Norman. The Oklahoman file

world but had to convince some people that OU could compete for those educators.

“We went after the best we could find anywhere and had the confidence to do that,” he said. “Before you can really make progress, you have to believe in yourselves.”

OU increased the number of endowed chairs and professorships from 94 to more than 500 under Boren’s leadership.

Harper said that focus is critical because “nothing is more important than the faculty. It’s the most important ingredient.”

Boren also has focused on re-

cruiting the best and brightest students throughout his administration, raising the requirements for admission three times.

“We’ve made a huge jump in terms of the quality of the students that are coming here,” said Boren, who often points out that OU is the only public university in U.S. history to rank first among both public and private universities in the number of freshman National Merit Scholars.

OU also is the only university in the nation, public or private, whose students have won Goldwater, Mitchell, Truman, Rhodes, Marshall and Fulbright scholarships in the same year.

“We’ve continued to break records that I never dreamed a public university could break,” Boren said.

Although OU has become more selective in admissions, it has more freshmen from Oklahoma than ever before due to soaring applications in recent years, Harper said.

“As a public institution, we’re a place of opportunity for students from small towns, inner cities, suburbs and even other countries,” he said, noting that a variety of students from different backgrounds is important.

Boren puts it like this: “We learn and grow not when we spend all of our time with people just like ourselves, but we learn and grow when we spend time with people who’ve had different life experiences and come from different ethnic backgrounds. It increases the intellectual stimulation of this place. It’s really an important part of our academic mission.”

The transformation under Boren’s leadership is most visible at OU’s Research Campus, where academia, industry and government come together, Harper said. The Research Cam-

pus is home to the National Weather Center, Tom Love Innovation Hub, K20 Center for education research and development, and more.

It didn’t exist 15 years ago.

Today, the federal and private entities housed on the Research Campus represent more than 750 technology and knowledgebased jobs for the Norman community and the state of Oklahoma.

“It’s vitally important to Oklahoma to have a top-tiered university,” Harper said. “In the postindustrial society, knowledge is the basis of creativity and productivity. It’s necessary for the government to work and for the economy to grow.”

What students need to know continues to grow, as well.

OU launched its School of Biomedical Engineering in 2016 and will open the new 70,000-square-foot Gallogly Hall in 2019 to house the program. It required one of the largest investments in recent years, Harper said.

The discipline will be one of the major 21st-century fields and will both create jobs and improve lives, he said. “It’s going to be a fundamental part of the future.”

Today’s students will have to adapt to changing conditions of the 21st-century job market and are expected to change careers five or six times, Harper said.

The university is tasked with “creating adaptive graduates” who can think and solve problems, he said.

The academic excellence achieved under Boren’s leadership will continue after his retirement, Harper said.

“There’s a strong sense that we have tremendous momentum, and we’re still on the move.” kmcnutt@oklahoman.com

Sunday, June 10, 2018 S5

Bore n

The presidency

A c ommemor ative se c tion

A cinderell a story Boren oversees resurgence of OU athletics program into national power

N

ORMAN — David Boren has made some athletic news over his 24 years as the University of Oklahoma president.

Conference realignment. Coaching hires and fires. Celebrating NCAA championships on the field, in post-game revelry.

Boren’s college classmates get a big kick out of it. At OU reunions, they tell him he was the “least likely person to appear on the sports pages.”

Boren’s connection to sports was minimal before November 1994, when he moved into Evans Hall’s big office.

As a kid growing up in Seminole, Boren would go to OU football games Berry with his father, Lyle, Tramel including the historic Sports 1957 loss to Notre Dame, Columnist which ended a 47-game winning streak. btramel @oklahoman.com “I excelled in the church bowling league,” Boren said. “I did row at Oxford, which I greatly loved. That personal experience helped me understand how important team sports are.”

That understanding mushroomed in the last 24 years. There is scant chance of an OU president learning anything different about athletics.

As Boren nears the end of his presidency — he leaves office June 30 — he has frequent reflections about his quarter century of helping transform the university. And that includes athletics.

He still chuckles at his 1994 interview, when a regent asked him if he believed in football. Boren, a politician by trade and by nature, answered in the affirmative.

“I said, ‘Well, I certainly do,’ ” Boren said he said. “How can you live near Norman growing up and not? I came with my father since I was 4 to all the home football games.”

But regent G.T. Blankenship asked a follow-up question. “Do you believe in it enough to invest in it?”

Boren thought of that question the other day, when driving south through campus en route to OU softball’s NCAA regional at Marita Hynes Field. He noticed all the athletic facility improvements, including a renovated football stadium. “I thought, G.T. would get such a kick out of seeing all these facilities and the fact that they’ve been built in my tenure.”

OU athletics was not in a great place when Boren took office. And it didn’t improve in his first few years. Boren had hired Heisman Trophy hero Steve Owens as athletic director, but Owens resigned in March 1998 with the athletic department in debt $7 million to the university, and another $2 million shortfall expected in that fiscal year.

A month later, Boren hired away Mis- O U football coach Bob Stoops (from left), President David Boren and Athletic Director Joe C astiglione listen to the pep rally crowd on Dec. 1, 1998, when Stoops was hired. Tulsa World file souri athletic director Joe Castiglione, and six months later Boren and Joe C. hired Bob Stoops as football coach.

You know the rest. The Sooners restored their proud football tradition, and OU sports have won 17 team national titles in the 2000s. The Sooners won 13 in the entire 1900s.

“I think Joe has really helped change the culture of the athletics department,” Boren said.

Boren recalled his first full football season as president, 1995, and thinking he should mimic his mentor, George Lynn Cross, who was OU’s president from 1943-68. Cross often would go to football practice and address the team.

“I went out there, tried to talk to them, and just the looks on their faces, they were not very engaged in what I had to say,” Boren said. “Just a whole different group of people that had been brought in.”

He compares that to now. Boren extols the academic achievements and campus leadership of athletes in general and football players in particular.

“I have a greater appreciation for athletics than I had when I came here,” Boren said. “The fact that it is a way up for a lot of young people who are filled with all kinds of talent.

“Excellence in athletics and physical training, it leads to excellence in other things, too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence so many corporate CEOs I’ve known were varsity athletes. I think that’s a direct result (of ) what you learn ad 100465813-01 from athletics.

“The changes in the department since I’ve been here — I give Joe Castiglione the lion’s share of credit — have been inspiring to me. These kids, they’re involved in everything. They’ve been effective student leaders and helped build the spirit of community. I’m definitely more sympathetic to the role of athletics.”

Forgive Boren if he romanticizes OU athletics as his time winds down. He knows there have been rough times.

The Rhett Bomar dismissal. Basketball probation. The Joe Mixon punch, which he calls the most difficult athletic issue he’s faced.

But OU’s renegade reputation from the 1950s through the 1980s largely has been replaced. While schools with pristine pedigrees like North Carolina and Penn State have suffered major scandals, Oklahoma has built a good name.

“I’m very proud that our program is known for its standards, not known for its scandals,” said Boren, whose connection to OU athletics is forever sealed.

Berry Tramel can be reached at (405) 760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman. com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/ berrytramel.

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The Life and

times

Boren

The presidency

A c ommemor ative se c tion

1941-1976 1946

1941

Dad loses re-election to Congress, an outcome that left the Boren family in bad financial shape but left a lasting impact on David Boren. “I think it made me feel even stronger that I should go into politics,” he said.

Born in Washington, D.C., the son of Christine and Lyle Hagler Boren, a Congressman from 1937-1947. He attended public school in Bethesda, Maryland, and Seminole.

According to his first-grade teacher in Seminole, when students were talking about what they planned to be when the grew up, the 6-year-old Boren “stood up and said, ‘I’m going to be president of the United States of America.”

1963

Graduates from Yale University with a major in American history. Finishes in top 1 percent of his class and elected Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in America.

David Boren was the son of C ongressman Lyle Boren and attended schools in both Bethesda, Maryland, and Seminole.

David Boren, 24, takes the oath of office on N ov. 23, 1966, after winning a seat in the House of R epresentatives. The Oklahoman

1967

1965

courtesy/Oklahoma Historical Society

Earns master’s degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University, England.

Wins election for state House seat, serving the first of four terms in the state’s lower chamber. He failed to draw an opponent after that first election. Serves on panel that investigated the University of Oklahoma for allowing Paul Boutelle, a black militant and Vietnam War activist, to speak on campus.

1977-1991 1977

Advocates and signs into law the state’s Open Meeting Law. The Oklahoma Arts Institute is established. Married Molly W. Shi, a special district judge in Pontotoc County, a low-key affair that was known by only family and top-level staffers until hours before the ceremony. Was the first governor to get married while in office and exchanged vows in the governor’s mansion. After being the first governor to endorse Jimmy Carter for president, announces that Carter had “lied to me” by reneging on campaign promises to the oil and gas industry.

1978

Decides against seeking another term as governor and instead announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate and wins election in November. He carries nearly every county en route to a 177,000-vote win over Republican and OSU President Robert Kamm, believed to be the widest margin of victory for a U.S. Senate seat in over 40 years. He beat Gene Stipe and Ed Edmondson, both longtime elected officials in Oklahoma, in the primary.

1979

Gov. David Boren addresses the joint opening session of the 36th O klahoma Legislature on Jan. 4, 1977. The Oklahoman

Recognized by Time magazine as one of America’s most promising young leaders.

Followed by a broom brigade, U.S. Senate candidate Gov. David Boren marches in a parade in Moore on Aug. 11, 1978, with son Dan in his arms and daughter C arrie at his side. The Oklahoman

1992-2001 1992

Wins Henry Yost Award as Education Advocate of the Year by the American Association of University Professors.

1994

Resigns from his seat in the U.S. Senate to become president of the University of Oklahoma. Expresses frustration with Senate, whose members are becoming more “conspiratorial” and “polarized” while “personalizing their arguments.”

Cites his father’s death in 1992 as part of his motivation to leave politics. “He definitely was my political hero,” he said of the elder Boren.

Notes three years earlier he could have been the president of Yale.

1995

Launches “Reach for Excellence” campaign with a five-year goal of $200 million and ends up exceeding $500 million, placing OU in the top 15 public universities in the country in private endowment per capita.

O U President David Boren rides the Sooner Schooner after a touchdown during a 1999 game at O wen Field. The

1998

Hires Joe Castiglione as athletic director. Castiglione, who had been AD at the University of Missouri, hired Bob Stoops as head football coach later that year.

The three would remain together for 18 years.

Oklahoman

2002-2018 2011

2005

Publishes “A Letter to America.” OU opens the $128 million Peggy and Charles Stephenson Cancer Center in Oklahoma City, the state’s only comprehensive cancer center.

Son Dan sworn into Congress to represent Oklahoma’s 2nd District.

2006

OU opens the $69 million National Weather Center on the Norman campus.

2012

President Barack O bama and V ice President Joe Biden (left) flank O U President David Boren on O ct. 28, 2009, as the president announces Boren as co-chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. AP file

2009

Named co-chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board by President Barack Obama.

Citing his displeasure with the two-party political system, he announces he is a delegate for Americans Elect, which sought to have a bipartisan presidential ticket on the ballot in all 50 states.

2013

Noting that there were 10 times the number of health care providers in other parts of the city, Boren heads the opening of OU’s $20 million Wayman Tisdale Specialty Clinic in north Tulsa.

2014

Rescinds a section of the university’s band handbook prohibiting students from making negative public comments about the band, saying it hindered free speech.

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Boren

The presidency

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1968

1975

Earns law degree from University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he won the Bledsoe Prize as outstanding graduate by faculty vote. Also marries Janna Lou Little, the daughter of Oklahoma politician Reuel Little of Madill.

After the couple had two children, they divorce in 1975.

Little was the sister of Dan Little, whose daughter, Janna, is married to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Admitted to the Oklahoma bar and starts practicing law in Seminole.

1974

With a theme of “Boren Broom Brigade,” wins race for governor over longtime Republican state legislator Jim Inhofe in the general election and incumbent David Hall in the primary. Boren beat Inhofe in a landslide, 64 percent to 36 percent, after reports indicated he was given virtually no chance at winning when he announced 15 months before. The loss left Inhofe so dejected that he said he would leave politics after his last two years in the Legislature. Boren also beat Congressman Clem McSpadden in the runoff for the Democratic primary after McSpadden was the favorite and finished first in the primary.

1970

Longtime federal judge Alfred P. Murrah, while addressing the board of regents in a letter, suggests they name Boren, then 29, as OU president “to bridge the generation gap without leading us to destruction.” Named chairman of Department of Political Science at Oklahoma Baptist University.

David Boren speaks as governor-elect on N ov. 5, 1974, after he beat state legislator Jim Inhofe to become governor at the age of 33. The Oklahoman

Inaugurated as governor at age 33, the second-youngest governor in state history. Sponsors legislation that included eliminating the inheritance tax between spouses as well as reducing the income tax, the first cut in 27 years. Sponsors statewide referendum to partially reorganize the executive branch, making the offices of secretary of state, labor commissioner and chief mine inspector appointed positions.

1976

First state funding for gifted and talented classes are provided.

For the next two years, Oklahoma ranks first in percentage increases to higher ed funding.

Promotes reform of the state’s corrections program following a 1972 prison riot in McAlester.

Gov. David Boren signs into law the last 78 bills submitted to him after the 1976 Legislature. The Oklahoman

1987

1984

Re-elected to U.S. Senate with 76 percent of the vote.

Named chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a spot he held for six years, and had an impact on U.S. relations with China, Russia and South Africa.

Also served on the historic committee to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal.

1988

David Boren, flanked by his wife, Molly, speaks following his re-election to the U.S. Senate on N ov. 6, 1984. The Oklahoman

1985

Brings together business and community leaders to create the Oklahoma Foundation For Excellence, which provides $125,000 in scholarships and cash prizes each year to outstanding high school seniors and teachers.

Begins nine-year presence on Yale University board of trustees.

U.S. Sen. David Boren and his wife, Molly, arrive at Guthrie’s T erritorial C hristmas Ball on Dec. 14, 1991.

1990

Re-elected to what would be his final term in the U.S. Senate with 83 percent of the vote and his final election.

The Oklahoman

1999

OU acquires Schusterman Center, elevating its presence in Tulsa, especially in the area of community medicine.

2001

OU starts new year with a 13-2 win over Florida State in the BCS National Championship, its first of four appearances in the national championship game during Boren’s tenure.

T he R ev.

Desmond T utu listens to O U President David Boren during the 2000 Academic C onvocation. The

O U President David Boren talks with head coach Bob Stoops on stage during the O U rally to celebrate the team’s national championship. The

Oklahoman

Oklahoman

2017

2015

Bans the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity from campus two days after a video surfaces of leaders singing a racist song with the line, “there will never be a n---- in SAE” while on a party bus and expels two students. Leads effort for a proposed 1-cent sales tax to fund education in Oklahoma, a measure that fails at the ballot box.

O U junior Marquis Ard holds a fist up as President David Boren speaks about a video of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members allegedly chanting a racist song March 9, 2015. At left are students Jesse R obbins Joshua Murphy. MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

Undergoes heart bypass surgery but still offers supervision and direction from home.

Now 77, announces retirement in September and says he no longer possesses the “reservoir of energy” he once had. OU ranks No. 1 in the nation — public and private institutions — for enrollment of National Merit Scholars with 279 enrolled for the fall 2016 semeter.

2018

Suffers a minor stroke during a ceremony to unveil a statue of longtime football coach Bob Stoops.

T he statue of University of O klahoma President David L. Boren is unveiled on April 21 on the O U campus. The Oklahoman

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Boren

The presidency

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Clarity of mission helped fundraising People donated to Boren’s causes because he was trusted, one official says

Major campaigns During David Boren’s presidency, OU has conducted three major fundraising campaigns.

Reach for Excellence Campaign (1995-2000) raised $514 million in cash and gifts-in-kind from 65,622 donors. The goal was $200 million. The funds went to: •Capital • projects: 30 percent •Endowments: • 44 percent •Research • support: 11 percent •Program • support: 15 percent

By K.C. McNutt The Oklahoman

NORMAN — As president of the University of Oklahoma, David Boren has raised more than $3.1 billion in private support from more than 209,000 donors.

“That word (billion) was not spoken here prior to that,” said Tripp Hall, vice president for university development the past 10 years.

“David Boren has truly been the best fundraiser for the university in its history thus far, there is no doubt about it. His thoughts and ideas and his hands-on approach have been remarkable. He has known when to ask and what for. I think that comes from clarity of mission, clarity of purpose.”

The university’s endowment has increased from $135.5 million in 1993-94 to more than $1.15 billion, Hall said. All new project budgets include endowment dollars for deferred maintenance “so that preservation and maintenance will not be at the burden of a future president,” he said.

The money raised has funded new construction, classroom renovations, technology upgrades and the OU Research Campus that “was just a prairie” when Boren arrived.

“What has developed there is spinoffs that have benefited the university,” Hall said. “These are private companies that go there and work with the university on projects or products and then reinvest back into the university structure. Weather News is a good example. National Weather Service is a good example.”

Private donations for scholarships during Boren’s administration have totaled $404 million, in-

Campaign for Scholarships (2004-14) raised $250 million from 21,015 donors. The goal was $50 million. Approximately two-thirds of funds raised were designated to endowed scholarships.

O U President David Boren greets N azih Agha (center) and Anmar Agha (left) after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the O U-T ulsa campus in 2014. MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World file

cluding his own contributions to the Sooner Heritage Scholarship program. He has given $575,000 of his salary, as well as proceeds from book sales, Hall said.

Scholarship disbursements have grown nearly 260 percent, from $6 million in 1994 to $21.8 million in 2018.

Donors have provided $4 million in study abroad scholarships.

Giving every undergraduate that opportunity was one of Boren’s goals when he took office in 1994.

Since then, the percentage of students studying abroad has grown from 2 percent to one in three.

‘Donors trust him’ Hall credits Boren with teaching him about the critical relationship between university development and the donor.

As a student at OU in the 1980s, Hall began working in the alumni office. He returned to OU in 1994

as assistant director of the OU Alumni Association and special assistant to Boren.

Major donors to OU often are alumni, but others are simply friends of the university. The most important donor, Hall said, is the student who pays tuition, fees, room and board.

“They keep this university going, and it’s an incredibly important pipeline as we move forward that we have the tools in those classroom necessary to teach,” he said. “The value of our students is critically important.”

The donors who help provide scholarships, facilities and faculty for those students are making a great investment in the future, Hall said.

Some people apologize that they can only give $500 a year, but that’s incredibly important because it can be matched with other donations, Hall said. “That $500 can really grow.”

Everyone is being asked to give more to places of worship, local charities, schools, homeless programs and other community needs, Hall said.

“It’s a competition there, much more than it used to be 10 or 15 years ago. We’re having to compete against very worthwhile projects,” he said.

That makes the fundraising Boren has achieved at OU even more incredible, Hall said.

“People trusted him as a leader.

Our donors trusted him,” he said.

“I can have the best idea in the world, I can have a top classroom experience, I can have a faculty member that is just off the charts, but people, at the end of the day, give to people. That’s where President Boren has been so successful — because they trusted him.”

Boren said it is the nature of Oklahomans to give.

“We may have our faults in Oklahoma, but I will put us up

Live On, University — the 125th Anniversary Campaign (201416) raised $1.3 billion in cash and gifts-in-kind from 79,004 donors. The goal was $500 million. The funds went to: •Capital • projects: 17 percent •Endowments: • 19 percent •Research • support: 1 percent •Program • support: 63 percent

against any people in the country for our sense of community, for our sense of caring about each other, helping each other,” Boren said. “I think it happens to a greater degree than it happens anywhere. We’ve always had that.”

OU honors individual donors whose cumulative gifts to OU total $1 million or more with membership in the Seed Sower Society. There are more than 200 members, including David and Molly Boren, who have been very generous, Hall said. In addition, the Borens have named the university the beneficiary of their $1.5 million life insurance policy.

“He and Molly, what they have done together and separately is incredible,” Hall said. kmcnutt@oklahoman.com

Sunday, June 10, 2018 S9

Boren What D avid Boren an d others “ ha ve s aid over the ye ars

“

“There was something special about David. He was lovable, and he loved everybody.”

— Ruth Robinson, Boren’s firstgrade teacher in Seminole.

“I think the thousand who voted against him (in Seminole County) were just staunch Republicans, not enemies. I’ve been here for seven years, and I’ve never heard a bad thing about the boy.”

— Seminole Chamber of Commerce manager Bob Jones after Boren was elected governor in 1974.

“Let’s work and look boldy to the future.”

— Boren on election night in 1974 when he beat Tulsan Jim Inhofe.

“I would be taken down to the White House and put on President (Franklin) Roosevelt’s lap.”

— Boren said of being born in a political family.

“Someone once asked me who had the greatest impact on the state of Oklahoma, and two names that came to mind were Henry Bennett (former OSU president) and George Cross, former OU president. And only then did I start thinking about (former U.S. Sen) Bob Kerr.

Interesting that I thought about educators before politicians.”

— Boren, on noting the nobility of teaching after leaving the U.S. Senate to become OU president.

“(Divisions) are much worse than when I came here. I’ve almost come to believe in term limits. I don’t believe that either party is right all the time.”

— Boren upon exiting the Senate.

“When I came here (to the U.S. Senate), Howard Baker (a Tennessee Republican) said the people who play between the 40-yard lines are the ones who make a difference.”

— Boren on his conciliatory approach to governing.

“David Boren is undoubtedly one of the most respected leaders in our state and nation. His work to promote excellence in education and his remarkable political career as a reformer of the American political system have earned him nationwide esteem.”

— Henry H. Zarrow when Boren was honored by the Tulsa Region of The National Conference.

“I think I’m still a kid from Seminole, basically. Sometimes I kind of think, ‘What’s a kid from Seminole doing in a place like this?”

— Boren on his time in the U.S. Senate.

“In many ways, Boren is still the most important person in Oklahoma in affecting the future of Oklahoma. I don’t know a single politician who doesn’t respect him. I don’t know a state leader who doesn’t think highly of him.”

— U.S. Rep. Tom Cole

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Quot able “David is a longtime champion of intelligence reform. He was the longest-serving chairman in the history of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In that time, he authored the legislation that created an independent inspector general at the CIA and major reforms to our oversight of covert actions.

David was also the leading force behind legislation that has encouraged thousands of American college students to study abroad to deepen their knowledge of the world and cultures. I thank David for agreeing to serve in this capacity, even as he continues to lead the University of Oklahoma.”

— President Barack Obama

“I wouldn’t be here without him.

And I really think that’s one of the great characteristics, the example of his incredible leadership. Because he hired the right people and stayed involved, but (gave) them the opportunities to use their skills, their talents, their gifts to lead, and then be supportive.”

— athletic director Joe Castiglione

“He’s meant a great deal. One of the primary reasons that I’ve been here 18 years, because I so trusted the leadership. In fact, even my contracts were tied to the president for probably 15 of the past 18 years.”

— former OU football coach Bob Stoops

“I’ve never had a day’s regret.”

— Boren after marking 20 years as OU president.

“Personally, while I respect his decision, I regard his departure as a great loss for OU and the state of Oklahoma. Every Oklahoman and OU alumni realizes his departure is a genuine loss and it will be hard to replace him with someone of his vision, talent and stature.”

— U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

“I want to thank him for his commitment to Oklahoma and America throughout his many years of public service. I also deeply appreciate his guidance and friendship for our entire family.”

— Gerard P. Clancy, president of the University of Tulsa and former president of OU-Tulsa

“President Boren is an Oklahoma institution. Throughout his five decades of public life, President Boren has honorably served the people of his state and nation.”

— U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.

“His courageous leadership will leave a legacy in Tulsa that will stand for many generations, most visibly through institutions such as the Schusterman Center and the School of Community Medicine. His impact will also live on through OU’s partnership with the University of Tulsa on a four-year medical school, and through his leadership in focusing attention on improving health outcomes for Tulsans living in underserved areas.”

— Mike Neal, Tulsa Regional Chamber president and CEO

“Politicians should be ashamed of themselves (when they) go around saying, ‘Yes, we need better education, yes we need better health care, yes we need other things in our state, we need better mental health, we need to invest.’ But they don’t want to pay for it. (They will) cut your taxes, because that’s popular to do. But we need to be telling the people the truth. ... A business doesn’t have a future if it doesn’t invest in itself. A state doesn’t have a future if it doesn’t invest in itself.”

— Boren upon retiring.

“And as they pack their bags, I hope they think long and hard about what they’ve done. I hope they think long and hard about how words can injure and hurt other people. This is not our way. These are not our values.

This is not who we are and we won’t tolerate it, not for one minute, from anybody.”

— Boren after Sigma Alpha Epsilon was banned from campus following a racist video that surfaced in 2015.

“The University of Oklahoma was in such a state of disrepair, both physically and academically, if we hadn’t hired him we could have become a secondclass university.”

— Tulsa businessman Tom Clark, an OU regent and longtime Boren associate “There aren’t many leaders who have both the grand vision and know the details of how to get there. David and Molly Boren are unique in that way. They are two of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.”

— former House Speaker Jeff Hickman

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OU-Tulsa the result of quick thinking

Without Boren’s action to get funds quickly, school’s success far less likely

By Tim Stanley Tulsa World

David Boren knew he had to act. After all, it’s not every day that a chunk of urban real estate big enough to accommodate a college campus becomes available.

Already committed to consolidating the University of Oklahoma’s offerings in Tulsa, the OU president realized there would be no better opportunity to do that than the one that was presenting itself.

“He had the vision and foresight of what it would mean for the future of Tulsa and OU-Tulsa,” said Leeland Alexander, OU-Tulsa assistant vice president, who would help coordinate the deal in 1999 for the 60-acre former oil company site that’s now home to the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa Schusterman Center at the corner of 41st Street and Yale Avenue.

It’s due in no small part to that deal — with Boren as the driving force — that OU-Tulsa has grown to where it is today, officials said: Eight colleges, more than 30 degree programs and more than double the students it had in the late 1990s.

OU has had a presence in Tulsa since the late 1950s. From the first few classes it offered then, it expanded, most notably with the establishment in 1972 of what is now the School of Community Medicine.

But the various classes and programs were scattered all over town and would remain that way until 1999. That was the year when Boren, four years into his OU presidency, found himself

campaign or passage of bonds, he worked out an arrangement with the OU Foundation to borrow money. He also secured a $10 million donation from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

“That made the purchase even more attractive,” Alexander said.

When the deal was made, the building was renamed the Schusterman Center. By 2002, all OU programs in Tulsa had moved into it — the first time they were all under one roof.

That set the stage for all that followed, including the OU Schusterman Clinic, a research and medical facility that was later established nearby, made possible by $30 million in the city’s Vision 2025 package.

Said new OU-Tulsa President John Schumann: “Quite simply without (Boren’s) leadership, OU in Tulsa would have continued as a disparate set of medical training programs and a separate array of degree offerings in different locations. … Unifying into one campus allowed OU-Tulsa to consolidate, grow and flourish.”

Building on the foundation Boren helped establish, Schumann said, Tulsa will continue to be a focus for the university.

Schumann “sees Tulsa has a strategic opportunity,” he said, and he plans to expand class offerings, especially in undergraduate programs.

Added Alexander: “Without David Boren, I believe we University of O klahoma President David Boren speaks during a grant announcement ceremony announcing the univerwould not own this campus sity’s purchase of the BP Amoco R esearch C enter on Dec. 8, 1999. T he facility was been renamed the O U Schusterman today, and OU-Tulsa would not Health Sciences C enter. Tulsa World file be the university it is with such a positive impact on Tulsa and with an unexpected opportunity. an existing building with offices, million sale with BP. The only Northeast Oklahoma.”

BP Amoco announced it was labs and classrooms — to serve problem was funding wasn’t readily available. putting its 60-acre property in the community.

Tim Stanley 918-581-8385 So Boren had to move quickAbout 30 institutions were midtown Tulsa up for sale. Moretim.stanley over, it specified that it wanted interested, but in the end, was ly. @tulsaworld.com Without time for a capital the property — which included OU was able to negotiate a $24 Twitter: @timstanleyTW

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Departure from OU ‘liberates’ Boren

By Randy Krehbiel Tulsa World

David Boren agreed to give up politics when he became University of Oklahoma president in 1994.

What he didn’t agree to give up, Boren said recently, were “my First Amendment rights.”

“I gave a third of my life savings to the effort to try to get an extra penny for education,” Boren said, referring to a failed 2016 state ballot initiative. “I’ve spoken out on several issues I think are very important ... I’ve never shied away from speaking out about things I think are important.”

“As long as I’m acting as a citizen. I’ve always made that distinction. I’m speaking as David Boren, concerned Oklahoma citizen, and I’ve never given up my right of free speech. I don’t think the president of any university should give up their rights as a citizen to speak out on things that are important.”

Not that anyone really believed David Boren would become completely apolitical.

In 1994, when he was hired, it seemed more likely he would give up breathing than give up politics. For all practical purposes Boren was politics in Oklahoma. He was literally born into it, in a Washington, D.C., hospital right in the middle of father Lyle Boren’s 10 years in Congress.

As a child, young David played peek-a-boo with Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and sat on President Franklin Roosevelt’s knee. He was an insider to what some might consider the golden age of Oklahoma power politics — Robert S. Kerr, Carl Albert, Mike Monroney, Page Belcher, Ed Edmondson in Washington; in Oklahoma, J. Howard Edmondson’s Prairie Fire swept the state and Henry Bellmon took the Republican Party to the people.

And David Boren soaked it all in. He went to Yale.

He went to Oxford. He was elected state representative at 25, governor at 33 and U.S. senator at 37. And for 15 years, from 1979 to 1994, it seemed as if a deal was being made in the Senate, David Boren was in the middle of it.

And he was going to leave that to become president of a football school with, admittedly, a middling reputation?

“People said, ‘Why would you give up this position of influence to go be a university president?’ Which was then not viewed as influential.

I said, ‘Well, public service

David Boren, the president of the University of O klahoma, sits at his desk in his office inside Evans Hall in 2014. N ow, at 77, Boren says he’s through with elected politics. But, he adds, his retirement from O U on July 1 “liberates” him to be even more outspoken about the state’s leadership.

JOHN CLANTON/ Tulsa World file

is not about power. Public service is about service,’” Boren said.

Even Boren’s wife, Molly, had her doubts.

“I went home and talked to Molly, and she said, ‘Don’t get (your) hopes up. You’re too much into politics. You’ll never give up politics. You were campaigning for your father when you were 5.’ ” But the fact was David Boren had grown restless.

His political career was built from the center, brokering deals and bringing sides together. By the early 1990s, deal-making was falling out of style. Intractability and confrontation were the coming thing.

“I was frustrated … by the growing partisanship, the growing polarization in Congress,” Boren said.

“I’ve always tried to be bipartisan. I’m certainly a Democrat ... I’m not ashamed of that, but I’m an American first.”

So when Lawton publisher Steve Bentley, an OU regent, broached the subject, Boren says “it was something I immediately considered.”

When asked now about his agreement to stay out of politics, Boren hedges somewhat. He says the understanding was that he would not be a partisan figure or run for office, but that didn’t mean he would leave the arena entirely.

“I certainly haven’t gotten out and run for office.

I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Boren said. “But

I have occasionally supported certain figures. I have gotten involved, particularly in educational issues.”

In truth, not many jobs are more immersed in politics than the presidency of a major state university.

Between fending off legislators convinced college campuses are awash in radicals and subversives and pacifying faculty who wish it were only so, presidents require the diplomatic skills of a United Nations secretary-general and the Byzantine instincts of a John Le Carre character.

When OU extended its offer to Boren, several colleges in the state had recently hired presidents with political backgrounds; one of Boren’s former Senate colleagues, Terry Sanford, had just become president of Duke University.

Boren sought Sanford’s advice.

“He said, ‘Take it before they change their minds,’” Boren often says.

Boren says he never really considered going back into elective politics, but opportunities did come along. The most publicized was Ross Perot’s 1996 attempt to recruit Boren as his Reform Party running mate.

“I wouldn’t say he offered me the position of being his running mate, but he certainly sounded me out about whether I’d be willing to run with him

on the ticket,” Boren said.

“He called me on the phone ... he had taken some veteran to get medical treatment somewhere, and he said, ‘Can I land and talk to you?’”

“I said, ‘You can land and talk to me, but I have to tell you that conversation is not going to go anywhere,’” Boren recalled.

OU hired David Boren to upgrade the university’s academic reputation, and he used his political connections to do that.

He brought many of the people he’d worked with in Washington to campus and attracted nationwide attention, almost all of it to the school’s benefit.

That, in turn, helped Boren and the university raise an enormous amount of money — $3 billion — during his tenure.

But, ironically, it can

be argued that one of the areas in which Boren has been the least successful is state politics.

While Boren has always had friends in both major parties, many in the current generation of Oklahoma Republicans see him see him as the last vestige of the state’s old Democratic regime. The university’s appropriations have actually fallen over the past decade or so, and some of the cuts have been interpreted as retaliation against Boren for his efforts to rally public support for public education and other positions that, while not exactly liberal, have been further to the left than some Oklahoma shot-callers would like.

The education sales tax initiative seemed to particularly gall the Republican-led Legislature, as did

his criticism of the GOP’s tax policies in general.

There were also the usual complaints about liberals on campus and exorbitant spending by the university.

“I think we made a tremendous mistake reducing the income tax as much as we did,” said Boren. “We wrecked our schools. We wrecked our health care. We wrecked our other kinds of basic services in order to give a tax cut to those who really didn’t need it.”

As a politician, Boren advocated tax cuts and got several through during his one term as governor. But he did so, he said, “when we had a huge surplus.”

The more recent reductions, he says, were made “when we were broke. We went ahead and cut taxes willy-nilly anyway — and really helped only a very small number of Oklahomans who weren’t really asking for it.”

At 77, Boren says he’s through with elected politics. But, he adds, his retirement from OU on July 1 “liberates” him to be even more outspoken about the state’s leadership.

“Tell our people the truth,” he said. “I think that’s been the greatest failing of our political leaders in the past. Not all of them by any means. There have been exceptions to that. (But) we’ve got to tell people the truth. I think people will respond to the truth.”

Randy Krehbiel 918-581-8365 randy.krehbiel @tulsaworld.com Twitter: @rkrehbiel

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Kyle Harper | A life greatly impacted by OU, Boren

By K.S. McNutt The Oklahoman

University of O klahoma Provost Kyle Harper speaks on April 30 in N orman. Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman

Kyle Harper came to the University of Oklahoma as a freshman in 1998, four years after David Boren became president.

“It was a time you could really feel the momentum and surge to take OU to the next level,” said Harper, now OU’s senior vice president and provost.

Harper got to know the president through student activities.

“He’s so student-oriented. He gets to know students on an individual basis,” Harper said. “There really is a unique connection between President Boren and the students, and there always has been.”

Harper recalls Boren inviting

him, a mere undergraduate, to Boyd House for coffee with him and U.S. Sen. John McCain.

“He encouraged students to care about civic responsibilities and established a culture that affects your sense of why you are here and what education is all about,” Harper said. “I fell in love with the humanities unexpectedly.”

By the time he graduated from OU with a bachelor’s degree in letters, Harper knew he wanted a career teaching, researching and writing.

When he earned his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 2007, OU hired him to be an assistant professor of classics and letters.

There were many job offers, but “to see starkly how rapidly the in-

stitution had progressed” under Boren’s leadership in the six years Harper had been away made his decision to return an easy one.

“It was a chance to work with the leader who had made this one of the greatest public universities anywhere,” he said.

In 2009, Boren tapped him to be the founding director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage and in 2015 named him provost.

“My own life, and so many others’, has been deeply impacted by the fact that the state of Oklahoma has a truly great public university, and that’s directly related to the transformational leadership,” Harper said. kmcnutt@oklahoman.com

It was a chance to work with the leader who had made this one of the greatest public universities anywhere. — Kyle Harper, OU’s senior vice president and provost

Beth G arre t t | One of Boren’s ‘most extraordinary people’

By Chris Casteel The Oklahoman

Of all the successful proteges of David Boren, the late Elizabeth “Beth” Garrett might have had the most impressive resume.

A life of extraordinary achievement culminated with being named in 2015 as the first woman president of Cornell University, one of the nation’s most prestigious schools.

She had been a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a top administrator at the University of Southern California, a law professor at the

University of Chicago and Harvard, and one of Boren’s most trusted aides when he was in the U.S. Senate.

Garrett grew up in Oklahoma City and went to the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a degree in history in 1985 and led the student government.

Garrett graduated first in her class from the University of Virginia School of Law. While in college, Garrett did an internship in Boren’s office and later worked for him full time in Washington.

Boren served on the powerful Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over

tax policy, and Garrett was his tax adviser.

Garrett died of colon cancer in 2016, less than a year after being named president at Cornell. She was 52.

“Beth Garrett is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known,” Boren said after her death. “She is one of the most outstanding students to ever graduate from the University of Oklahoma. Her remarkable intelligence was matched by her caring heart and strong character. She will be missed by all who have known her.” ccasteel@oklahoman.com

Beth Garrett is pictured at C ornell University, where she was president. Courtesy

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Jabar Shuma te | Boren ‘has made OU the pacesetter’ on diversity

By Michael Overall Tulsa World

Jabar Shumate speaks after being introduced by O U President David Boren following the SAE scandal on the O U campus. He was named vice president of the university community. The Oklahoman file

During Jabar Shumate’s senior year at Booker T. Washington High School, the debate team coach made a point of introducing him to David Boren, who was still addressed as “senator” back then.

Shumate was heading for the University of Oklahoma as a freshman that fall.

And Boren would become president of the university a few months after Shumate started classes. The debate coach, who had worked on Boren’s campaigns, “wanted to make sure he knew I was going to be one of his kids,” Shumate said.

“From almost that moment on,” Shumate said, “David Boren has played a significant role in basically every aspect of my life.”

At OU, Boren encouraged Shumate to be a student leader. And his senior year, he became one of the first black students elected student body president, working closely with Boren that year on diversity issues.

“He made it very clear that his first and greatest love was for students,” Shumate said. “He made all of us feel, and certainly made me feel, like he cared.”

After graduation, Shumate became Boren’s press secretary, which in hindsight, Shumate said, was Boren’s way of grooming him for a political career.

Shumate went on to serve 11 years in the Legislature.

Then came perhaps the biggest controversy to hit OU during Boren’s tenure as president. In March 2015, members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon were filmed singing a racist song that refer-

enced lynching and asserted that black students would never be admitted to the fraternity.

In the aftermath, Boren created a new “vice president of the university community” and invited Shumate back to campus to fill the role. The job gives Shumate oversight over all diversity programs at the university, including admissions. And he works directly with Boren and other officials to broaden the pool of applicants for faculty and staff positions.

The approach has set new standards for “inclusion and diversity” with other universities starting to follow the example, Shumate said.

“I hope people realize that David Boren has started something nationally,” he said. “He has made OU the pacesetter.”

He made it very clear that his first and greatest love was for students. He made all of us feel, and certainly made me feel, like he cared. — Jabar Shumate, OU’s vice president for the university community

Conor Cle ar y | Boren emphasized the value of public service

By Michael Overall Tulsa World

After thinking about going out of state for college, Conor Cleary went to the University of Oklahoma despite the school not having a debate team.

“It was a big deal to me,” said Cleary, a Tulsa native who began debating in high school and won a state championship. “I really almost didn’t go to OU because of that.”

Then David Boren, a widely successful competitor in debates while attending Oxford University in the 1960s, started a debate team at OU in 2003,

as Cleary was heading into his sophomore year.

Cleary became one of the original members of the team and had almost immediate success.

“Boren took a personal interest in how the team was doing,” Cleary said.

“Even though the team was just getting started, there was a lot of talent there at OU.” During Cleary’s senior year he and his debate partner won the Harvard, Wake Forest and Northwestern University debate tournaments before winning the Cross Examination Debate Association national championship.

Then Cleary got to know Boren better while coaching two national championship teams while attending law school.

Boren has done very well for himself, of course, but could have had a much more lucrative career in the private sector, Cleary said.

“Public service was always very important to him,” Cleary said, “and he saw a lot of value in giving back to the community.”

Cleary now serves as a trial attorney with the Office of the Solicitor in the U.S. Department of the Interior and serves on

the board of directors of the Tulsa Debate League, Youth Services of Tulsa, Oklahomans for Equality and Tulsa CARES. Boren’s example is not solely responsible for inspiring his own devotion to public service, Cleary said.

“But he was one influence, an important one,” Cleary said. “His story, his life, has always been very inspiring.”

Michael Overall 918-581-8383 michael.overall @tulsaworld.com Twitter: @MichaelOverall2

C onor C leary says David Boren’s influence on his life began when the O U president began the university’s debate team in 2003. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World

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SAE incident defining moment for OU

By K.S. McNutt The Oklahoman

NORMAN — March 2015 was the most difficult period of David Boren’s career as University of Oklahoma president.

When two videos surfaced of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members laughing and singing a racist song, Boren acted swiftly to expel SAE from the campus and two of its members from OU. “It was so huge,” Boren recalled in an interview three years later.

He was hosting a group of historians who were at OU for an event when someone showed him the video. His first thought was, “This couldn’t be our students.”

Boren sent an administrator to find out.

“We worked so hard to build a sense of family, and I just couldn’t believe that it could happen on our campus,” he said. “So in a way it was the worst moment for me that I’d experienced, and then what happened afterward with all the national press attention and all the rest of it.”

The long-term effect on the university, however, has been positive, Boren said.

“Our sense of community is even stronger as a result of it,” he said. “So what was the most difficult moment for me became, as I look back on it, one of the most rewarding times in terms of being able to deal with something in a way that makes a difference to the future of the university.”

Boren dealt with it quickly, despite advice from many people to delay action, consider all the implications and appoint a committee. They warned of lawsuits and other problems.

Going through his head the whole time was his favorite saying, “Do right and fear not.”

“There are moments in your life you can’t put off the decision.

You have to have enough of a

University of O klahoma President David Boren speaks with students as they protest a campus fraternity’s racist comments on March 9, 2015, in N orman. Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman

moral compass to make a decision right away and be decisive,” Boren said.

He decided to close the fraternity house and expel the two young men seen in the video.

“It took about five minutes — the decision — not five hours, not five days, not five months,” Boren said. “I had the immediate feeling of we have to deal with this right away because this is wrong and this is not who we are. We are an inclusive society, we are a family, we respect each other, we cannot put up with this.”

The student body reacted quickly, too.

“There were thousands of our students marching on the campus the next morning while it was still dark saying, ‘Not on our campus. Not here. We’re not going to put up with racism here.

This is not who we are. This is not what we believe,’” Boren said.

Kandro Brown, a 2018 industrial and systems engineering graduate from Norman, was a

sophomore when the SAE videos went viral. He was angry “it happened at my school,” so he got up early to march across campus and to hear Boren speak to the student body.

“I love President Boren’s fire, how he got all mad,” Brown said.

“He didn’t just give a speech and leave. He walked with the students. He talked to the students.”

Cameron Burleson, a 2018 political science graduate who will attend OU Law School, credits Boren for “really wanting to hear the voices of the students and really genuinely caring about getting to know the students.”

“The No. 1 thing that I think has brought about change here on this campus is our administration’s desire to listen. Because you can’t change anything if you’re not listening,” Burleson said.

the incident behind them and start life afresh.

“There are consequences for doing the wrong thing. But you also want to leave the door open for learning from those mistakes and going on and living the right kind of life — a full life. That’s the purpose of an educational institution, too,” Boren said.

He spoke to one of the young men and told him, “I hope if there’s ever any intolerance where you’re present or there are any remarks made that have a racial overtone, I hope you’ll be the person who speaks up against it. I hope you’ll be the person who takes on the responsibility of not putting up with it.”

In all, two dozen fraternity members were disciplined, including performing community service and attending mandatory sensitivity training.

“After the incident, of course Lasting impact we wondered what would hapBoren said his hope for the ex- pen to our enrollment, minorpelled students is that they put ity enrollment especially,” Boren

said.

OU reports minority student enrollment has increased by 15 percent since fall 2014. New students — both minority students and those who aren’t — have told him they chose OU because of its stand on racism, Boren said.

“OU sent a message,” he said.

Boren said the immediate aftermath was exhausting. He sat in a studio for more than 12 hours “and I did over 40 interviews with every network, every cable show that you can imagine.”

“I had to get the word out that this isn’t who we were, these were not representative of our values,” he said.

“Near the end of it — I was already beginning to have a few health problems with diabetes and other things — I thought this is going to kill me. I’m not sure I can do this. It was so stressful. There was so much pressure.”

Later it occurred to him that as a U.S. senator his press secretary worked constantly trying to get him on a Sunday news show.

“Here I was 50, 60 talk shows wanted me on,” Boren said.

“You’re only given an opportunity a few times in your life to talk about something really important.

“To be able to have that opportunity to send that message out across the country was such a privilege ... no message was as important as that message to the country that we have to learn how to treat each other right, we’ve got to rebuild that sense of mutual respect and trust.”

“So when I look back on it, in a way, it was the most satisfying moment, that I had a chance to say those things, really, to the broadest possible audience in the country.” kmcnutt@oklahoman.com

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Career unique for state Editor’s note: This article originally published on April 28, 1994, gives insight into David Boren’s pivot from the U.S. Senate to president of the University of Oklahoma.

By Allan Cromley The Oklahoman

The question, of course, is why?

Why is Sen. David Boren giving up a legislative career that could have gone on for another three decades?

Why is he walking away from his growing prestige in the national spotlight as a leader of the conservative Senate coalition?

Why is a Yale graduate and Rhodes scholar leaving to become not president of a nation but of a state-run university in the middle of the country?

While mulling his decision over the last few weeks, Boren discussed a number of considerations that were on his mind.

One was his dissatisfaction with many of his colleagues. He referred to himself as a “maverick” and told The Oklahoman he was fed up with the “mediocrity and rigid partisanship” of the Senate.

But possibly more telling was his long-held feeling that teaching is a nobler and more rewarding profession than politics.

“Someone once asked me who had the greatest impact on the state of Oklahoma, and two names that came to mind were Henry Bennett (former president of Oklahoma State University) and George Cross, former OU president,” Boren said.

“And only then did I start thinking about (former Sen. Robert S.) Bob Kerr.

Interesting that I thought about educators before politicians. “ Boren said that about three years ago he could have had the presidency of Yale — where he graduated with honors in 1963, “but Molly and I felt that we would be in exile in New Haven.”

His wife, Molly, a lawyer and former state judge, did not try to influence his decision about taking the presidency at the University of Oklahoma, he said, although she is well-rooted in Oklahoma and the university, and “like a black jack tree, does not transplant very well.”

“She refused to give me her opinion and would play devil’s advocate on both sides ... wanting to make sure I was thinking it through.”

Boren was heavily influenced by the practically unanimous advice he got from Senate colleagues.

North Carolinian Terry Sanford, a former governor, former senator and former president of Duke University, told him, “You should go down there (to Norman) and beg for the job.” Sanford noted that the inscription on Thomas Jefferson’s tomb omits his presidency of the United States but includes his founding of the University of Virginia.

In Boren’s files is a letter of remarkable prescience, dated Oct. 10, 1970, from the late Alfred P. Murrah of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Addressed to the Board of Regents, he suggested 29-year-old David Boren for the presidency of the University of Oklahoma, as one who could “bridge the generation gap without leading us to destruction.”

Popular Democrat David Boren retired from the U.S. Senate in 1994 to become president of the University of O klahoma. STEVE SISNEY/The Oklahoman file

“I guess he’s telling me something from rise above extreme partisanship on most the grave,” quipped Boren. matters.

The divisions and “fragmentation” are “much worse than when I came here. ...

Education at forefront I’ve almost come to believe in term limBoren taught at Oklahoma Baptist its,” possibly 18 years for a senator, he University in Shawnee before becoming said.

“I don’t believe that either party is governor in 1974. However, education in Oklahoma was a priority while he was a right all the time.” He has a deep distrust governor and continued to be during his of the Clinton administration and finds it difficult to be candid in what he says Senate career here.

He started the Oklahoma Foundation about the White House.

Asked to grade Clinton thus far in his for Excellence in 1985 and has been starting small-town foundations all over the administration, Boren said, “I’d really prefer not to.” Laughing loudly, he added, state.

Though his salary will be somewhat “I think I’d rather keep my grade to myhigher at OU than in the Senate, Boren self.” He will vacate two important committees on which he is the third-ranking was not motivated by money.

He reportedly was offered “$700,000 Democrat: Finance, where he is chaira year plus fringes” from a professional man of the Subcommittee on Taxation, trade association in Washington whose and Agriculture, where he heads domesmembers control 60 percent of the na- tic and foreign marketing.

For the remainder of this year, until he tion’s assets.

Chuckling, he recalled that “when I leaves, he will be engaged in an all-out turned them down, they said, ‘Well, we effort to cap his career with two major could negotiate upward.’” He declined to accomplishments: campaign finance reform and reform of the congressional identify the association.

In discussing his options, he expressed bureaucracy. deep disenchantment with the Senate, whose members are becoming more and A life in politics more “conspiratorial” and “polarized” and who are “personalizing their arguFor the first time in his 53 years, he ments.” He could name only five Democrats and six Republicans who, he said, »» See Cromley, page S19

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Cromley: Boren is the most popular U.S. senator in state history »» From page S17

moves out of an arena where participants live and breathe politics and ceaselessly seek public approval before their next election.

His exposure to public life began early. His father was the late Rep. Lyle H. Boren, from Seminole, and in David’s early boyhood the family lived in Washington, D.C., where Speaker Sam Rayburn was an occasional guest in their home.

He describes remarkable scenes in which the seemingly austere and formidable “Mr. Speaker” would “get down on the floor with me and we would use quilts to make tents and we would get inside and talk.” So now, after 28 years in public office — eight as state representative, four as governor and 16 as senator — Boren can reflect on what was and what might have been.

What was is history, and what might have been is murky. But there’s a consensus among observers and politicians that his ambition for the presidency or a top cabinet post such as secretary of state, had he stayed in the Senate, would not have been fulfilled.

However, he does not slam the door shut on national office or cabinet status some day.

It is reliably reported that Senate colleagues told him that the Senate is not a good launching platform. And he is known to have said that the only way to be sought for higher office “is if they were looking for a maverick: being a professional politician is not the route.”

Although there has been some sentiment in Oklahoma that Boren should continue to exercise his growing senate seniority in behalf of the state, he said that “the pressure has not been as much as maybe I had expected.” Even some leaders in agriculture and oil — industries he is well-positioned to serve in

the Senate — have told him they don’t oppose or resent his departure, he said.

For other members of the delegation, Boren’s departure will have good and bad sides.

Boren is the dominant member of the delegation and the rest have had to operate in his shadow. However, he has often provided them political cover on some votes for issues that were perceived as politically unpopular back home — his support for the Brady bill, for instance, has taken some pressure off Rep. Mike Synar, D-Muskogee.

There is no telling how much influence Boren had on the delegation during his fight against Clinton’s budget package last year, though it is possible that, had he supported it, Reps. Bill Brewster, D-Marietta, and Dave McCurdy, D-Norman, might have also. Boren leaves an almost universal observation by other members that he was one who would rather conciliate than fight a losing battle, who got things done from the center without ruffling too many feathers on the far left or far right.

“When I came here, Howard Baker (a Tennesseean and former Senate Republican leader) said the people who play between the 40-yard lines are the ones who make a difference,” he said.

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute and recognized authority on Congress, said Boren “occupies the broad center, where not just votes, but sensible policies tend to be.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security director in the Bush administration, described Boren as “very thoughtful, deliberate, and not given to jumping off to quick decisions.”

Boren could also be the burr under some big saddles. He once held up confirmation of Ed Meese as Ronald Reagan’s attorney gen-

Accomplishments When Boren’s Senate accomplishments are listed, these will be mentioned: •Congressional • campaign finance reform.

•Reform • of the bureaucracy of Congress.

•Registration • of lobbyists and an end to the “revolving door” through which lawmakers leave office for jobs posing conflicts of interest with their former status.

•Welfare • reform.

•Estate • tax reform, ending the taxing of bequests between spouses.

•Repeal • of the windfall profits tax on oil producers.

•An • act allowing the United States to subsidize exports in competition with foreign-subsidized exports.

•Foreign • affairs errands, in which he was sometimes consulted by Presidents Reagan and Bush (but not Clinton).

eral to bring the administration’s attention to the “farm credit crisis.” In 1993 his opposition to President Bill Clinton’s budget plan “was a pointed reminder that one member could potentially upend the whole effort in the Senate,” said the Congressional Quarterly, a weekly magazine and research organization.

Boren was an 11-year-old page for Oklahoma’s famous Sen. Robert S. Kerr when Kerr made a run for the nomination in the 1952 Democratic National Convention, but Boren was not much like Kerr when he himself became a senator.

Kerr, dubbed the “Uncrowned King of the Senate,” could humble other members with devastating satire in rough and tumble debate, but that was not Boren’s style.

Seldom did he depart from his role as an earnest advocate of his point of view, looking for an area of agreement with the other side.

His Arkansas colleague, Democrat David Pryor, once played a practical joke on Boren that illustrates the Sooner senator’s people-pleasing instincts.

On a commercial flight from Washington, Pryor, riding coach class, spied Boren in the first-class cabin. Pryor scribbled a note that said, “Dear Senator Boren. We are a retired couple from Pryor, Okla., returning from our first visit to Washington ...

“We were in the Senate gallery yesterday and heard your speech that even old people on Social Security need to sacrifice for the common good and have their benefits frozen. Now we see you riding in first class at taxpayers expense. We will never vote for such a hypocrite again.”

Pryor gave the note to a flight attendant, and Boren awoke to find it on his arm rest. He was apoplectic, sending back a scribbled explanation that he had actually bought a coach ticket but was being allowed to ride first class. He included his plane ticket as proof.

Coached by Pryor, the flight attendant reported back that the “couple” said that he was lying and probably got the ticket from someone else.

When the plane landed in Memphis, Boren raced into the terminal to search for his two “constituents. “ Pryor walked up to make conversation but Boren said he was busy: “I can’t talk to you now. “ Pryor took pity and told Boren what he had done.

“I could have killed him,” Boren recalls. “For an hour of the flight I was beside myself worrying about it ... .”

Popular in Oklahoma First elected to the Senate in 1978, Boren was not an immediate star, as are few members from small states.

But as Oklahoma governor the previous four years, he

had bounced back and forth to Washington, getting on the national scene in 1975 by inducing governors from both producing and consumer states to agree on an energy plan that included decontrol of natural gas prices.

In January, 1976, Boren had been the first governor to endorse Jimmy Carter for president. In April 1977 Boren showed that he could shed his turn-theother-cheek image when he declared that Carter had “lied to me” by reneging on campaign promises to the oil and gas industry.

But that did not deter him in 1979 from endorsing Carter for re-election.

Boren is the most popular U.S. senator in Oklahoma history.

Four times, including a governor’s race, he went before the voters asking them to put him in high office, and four times they elected him by overwhelming numbers.

In successive Senate elections, beginning in 1978, he won 65 percent, 76 percent, and 83 percent of the vote, the last two being Oklahoma records.

In 1990 he carried 2,352 of 2,354 precincts.

That may explain Boren’s ability to compile a voting record that was too conservative for “yellow dog” Democrats without risking retaliation on election day.

In September 1980 his Senate voting record received the highest rating of any Democrat from four major conservative organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, and second-place votes from the American Conservative Union and Christian Voice.

Boren’s Sooner Republican colleague, Henry Bellmon, who was about to retire from the Senate, ranked to the left of Boren on nearly all scorecards.

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R etiring President David Boren speaks during the University of O klahoma commencement at Gaylord Family-O klahoma Memorial Stadium in N orman on May 11. Steve Sisney/The Oklahoman

l ast c ommencement speech Editor’s note: This is OU president David Boren’s address to the graduating class of 2018 during the school’s 126th commencement May 11 at The Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Members of the Graduating Class: Many things fill me with pride today: to see you and to reflect on your accomplishments, the greatness of this university

which you have helped to build, and to know that as I transition to a new season in my life, I will travel that road with you. I am thrilled that I, too, am a member of the great class of 2018.

I am very glad that I have the chance to thank each one of you for giving to me and to Mrs. Boren the most rewarding years of our lives. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your lives during this important time.

It seems like only yesterday that I was welcoming you to convocation and to your first days on this campus. Think back to how you were then and how you felt then. You were different people — excited to be charting

your own way in life, to start defining yourselves but apprehensive too and more than a little anxious to be in this new place in a new role. Think about how much you have changed and grown as a person!

Recently, I visited with a group of our freshmen as they approached the end of their first year in college. They told me that they had changed more than at any other times in their lives. I asked them how they had

changed. They replied that the faculty had forced them to think truly for themselves – to decide where they stood on the great issues of our time and to be able to defend their positions. In addition, they told me that they had grown from getting to know people unlike themselves, those from different cultures and races, religions and economic backgrounds – those with different »» See Speech, page S21

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Speech: He asked students not to change as they go out into world »» From page S20

life experiences.

In short, our freshmen described the crucial role of the university and why it will never be out of date. It produces more intellectual energy and creativity than any other institution in our society. Our freshmen described why we must all become stewards of the university, to make sure that it has the strength to survive and flourish to be there for the next generation as it has been for you. As graduates, the university belongs in large part to you. If you do not love it, support it and cherish it, no one else will make sure that it endures.

I have often spoken about how we rub off on each other through our friendships and relationships in life. Thank you for rubbing off on my life. Thank you for giving me the gift of optimism about our future. I am constantly inspired and uplifted by your idealism, by your energy and by your courage.

It is the common wisdom that students at the university learn from their teachers. In my case, I have learned more from you than I have been able to teach.

At freshman convocation, I said that if I could give you one gift, it would be to find causes greater than yourselves in which to invest your lives. I said that if your goals only included what you wanted to do for yourself that you would fail to find a rewarding life. If your goal is to be financially successful, there will never be enough to make you feel secure. If it is to achieve celebrity status, you will always worry that it will fade. If it is to achieve high office with all of its titles, you will always fear losing it in the next election.

Lasting satisfaction comes not from what you do for yourself but from what you do for others.

As you have grown as individuals, you are already investing yourselves in serving others. You

“T his brings me to the last wish that I have for you: Please don’t change.

Do not let the passing of time or changing circumstances change the person you are now,” said retiring O U President David L. Boren as he spoke during the commencement at Gaylord Family-O klahoma Memorial Stadium in N orman on May 11.

Photo by Steve Sisney/ The Oklahoman

spend thousands of hours in service to the community. You have together raised over $1 million for our Children’s Hospital in one year. You tutor and mentor countless young people who desperately need your love and encouragement. I will never forget the words of one young 12-yearold about his OU Big Brother who had died. He said that until he had met his OU Big Brother “I never thought I could be anybody, but after meeting him, he made me believe that I could be somebody.” That, to me, sums up the impact of OU students on others.

I salute your values and the difference you are making in the lives of others.

I also thank you for always having the courage to speak up for our values. I will never forget when the university’s sense of family and community was challenged when a racist video surfaced in the national media. It was very hurtful to many of our students because it made them feel excluded from our family.

I grappled with what deci-

sions I should make and with what message I should attempt to send as the nation watched how we would respond. As morning broke, I found that I had no reason to be apprehensive. Thousands of students were gathered in the North Oval chanting together, “Not on our campus! We will not be divided by race or anything else. At OU we are one family.” Only you, our students, could have sent that message. A university president cannot do it alone — nor can the faculty or the staff. Our students spoke loudly and clearly about our values and our determination to live by them. I will never be able to express my deep admiration for that message from our students.

Thank you also for taking to heart something else we spoke about on that first day you joined our university family. We spoke about never forgetting the power of kindness. The ultimate wellbeing and strengths of our society is not measured by our military or economic strengths but by the way we treat each other.

Thank you for creating an atmosphere of kindness on our campus. It is the real “Sooner Magic.” The way we treat each other and feel about each other on our campus is truly unique, and you are the reason for it.

People often talk about how friendships formed in college are truly special. They last a lifetime. I believe that the perception is true. But the way you form friendships here goes far beyond the norm. You have had the personal courage to become unconditional friends, to open yourselves up to possible pain or disappointment by totally trusting others.

You have as much joy in the success of your friends and classmates as you have in your own. This is a university where each member of the OU family is invested in the success of every other member. Just think what it would mean to our entire country if we could spread that attitude!

So tonight, as I think back on the time that you have been students, I have so many reasons to

thank you. There are so many reasons to celebrate. But the world never stands still. We now stand at the beginning of a new period for you. In many ways, it is the most crucial of all.

I vividly remember the words that Dr. Ruth Simmons, the former president of Brown University, spoke at one of our commencements. She saluted the remarkable record of our students — the high academic standards that have been met, the sense of family that has been created, the values that have been courageously defended, and then she said pointedly, “but to some degree, all of this has occurred in a protected environment, where free speech and free inquiry are valued and intolerance is shunned — but now,” she said, “comes the real test. Will you continue to stand for the same values for the rest of your lives? Out in the world beyond the boundaries of the university?”

This brings me to the last wish that I have for you: Please don’t change. Do not let the passing of time or changing circumstances change the person you are now.

Don’t stop being an idealist; keep inspiring others with your ideals and your calls to action.

Even when it is socially more convenient to remain silent in the face of intolerance or the demeaning of others, continue to speak up against it.

Only then can we make racism and intolerance socially unacceptable. Do not compromise your personal integrity for false ideas of success. Wherever you live, keep on creating a true sense of community; continue to have the courage to build real friendships. As you leave here, go with your moral courage intact and with the determination to make a difference for others.

We believe in you! We love you! Our encouragement goes with you wherever life may take you. Live on, University!

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