The Complicated and Controversial Legacy of Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson’s 23 year tenure as President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will come to an end when she retires on July 1, 2022 as President of RPI. Upon her retirement, she will, according to the Albany Times Union, become an advisor to the United States government on matters of national security and will become a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

Through her long life and career, Dr. Jackson has had to jump massive hurdles to get where she is today and as a result of her endurance she gained many awards. Born in Washington D.C. on August 5, 1946, she grew up during the era of Jim Crow and had to deal with racism and segregation. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1964 as the class valedictorian. In the fall of 1964, she entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and there she had to deal with racism from classmates. For example, when she was trying to solve physics problems she noticed female classmates working on them together, she asked if she could join them. One of the female classmates told her to “go away”. She told them that she had done half of the physics problems and that she knew how to do the other ones. Another female replied to her “Didn’t you hear her? go away!” This is just one example of the kind of racism that she had to deal with. She preserved, and by 1968 she had obtained a Bachelor of Science. In 1973, she obtained her doctorate in theoretical physics. She also became the first African American woman to earn a PhD in any field from MIT. After she graduated from MIT, her first job was at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where she spent two years in postdoctoral work as well as a year in Geneva, Switzerland working for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). From 1976 to 1991 she conducted research in physics at the AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. From 1991 to 1995, she was a professor of physics at Rutgers University. In 1995, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She held this position from 1995 to 1999. She was the first female and African American to hold that position. In 1999, she became the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, becoming the first woman and first African-American President in the history of the college. Dr. Jackson has also been the recipient of many awards, including the National Medal of Science in 2014, an international membership in the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Engineering granted in 2012, and induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998. She has over 55 honorary doctoral degrees.

Despite the challenges she has overcome, her accomplishments, and her many awards, Dr. Jackson’s tenure at RPI has been marred with controversy.

One of the major controversies surrounding Dr. Jackson’s tenure at RPI is the disbanding of the Faculty Senate.. According to the organization Renew Rensselaer, the college has seen a transition to a top-down corporate governance model from the shared governance model of a typical university. In 2006, the RPI Faculty Senate held a vote of no confidence against Doctor Jackson which nearly passed. As a result, the Head of the Board of Trustees sent a letter to the RPI community, which as summarized by Renew Rensselaer,”effectively [told] faculty to support the president and her plans or make alternate career plans.” Shortly after this letter was issued, the Faculty Senate was disbanded. It was only reinstated five years later, with new rules and stipulations, which excluded non-tenure track faculty from membership as required by the Board of Trustees.

The takeover of the Student Union by Dr. Jackson’s administration is another major controversy of her tenure at RPI. For nearly 127 years, RPI’s Student Union was run and managed by RPI students. Students often had to pay a fee to join the Student Union which often came with membership privileges which had been in place since 1912. Over 36% of the Union’s budget was used for athletics, but by 2016 Dr. Jackson’s administration had stripped the Union of that responsibility. In March of 2016, nearly 1000 members of the RPI community staged a protest against the new position that the administration created which would give administrative appointees major oversight of the Union. Dr. Jackson’s administration responded by abandoning these plans, but in September of 2017 the head of the Board of Trustees issued a memo that stated the powers of the President superseded the Union Constitution, the governing document of the Student Union since 1970. This caused another massive protest. and nearly 5500 alumni signed a petition asking the Board of Trustees to change their mind. The current Student Union president is hopeful that some Union responsibilities may shift back to students with Dr. Jackson’s departure.

The actions in Dr. Jackson’s administration’s attempts to restructure the Student Union have also contributed to a “culture of fear” on campus as well as the stifling of free speech. Student leaders have recounted incidences of being threatened and intimidated by multiple administrators simply for doing their jobs and acting as a voice of the students, according to Renew Rensselaer. Students as well as RPI Alumni have also become concerned “… over being cyberstalked by RPI administrators and staff on social media and professional accounts.” There have also been reports that “…Posted signs critical of the administration and/or in support of a student-run Rensselaer Union have repeatedly been targeted by the administration and selectively-removed from campus, especially when prospective students and alumni are visiting, despite full adherence with the Institute’s Sign Policy.” The situation has gotten so bad that two major groups “… which routinely defend civil liberties, including the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the New York Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), have criticized RPI’s administration for its treatment of students, specifically with regard to infringing on students’ rights to free speech.”

The salary and compensation of Dr.Jackson, as well as the perks involved with her position as President of RPI, have also been marked with controversy. The Times Union reported that in the 2009–2010 school year, Dr. Jackson received over 2.3 million dollars in salary and compensation In 2012 , Dr. Jackson was the highest paid college president of a private institution in the nation earning $7,143,312, according to the New York Times which cited the database of the Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2017, she received $5.8 million according to the Times Union. This also does not include the 3.5 million dollar mansion that was built for her in 2011 with money from private donors who belong to the Board of Trustees, according to the Times Union. Dr. Jackson also apparently has been given other perks including a luxury car that would chauffeur her around the campus, according to Huffpost. It should also be mentioned that, in 2012, she was also on the corporate board of several major companies including IBM, Marathon Oil, and FedEx which supplemented her income by $1.4 million, according to the Times Union. She was also on another board of directors for a company titled PSEG which she retired from on April 19, 2022, according to CISION.

Building projects that were undertaken by Dr. Jackson’s administration have been another source of controversy. The Experimental Media Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) opened on October 3, 2008. This project was stated by Dr. Jackson to be “…a major center for collaborative inquiry — a center for artists, scientists, and engineers to come together to pursue discovery at the nexus of the real and virtual worlds. It is a platform for seamless, ‘minds-on’ engagement to respond to complex research questions in areas as diverse as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and acoustics. EMPAC introduces a new model for educating the next generation of leaders, who will be better prepared to solve the complex problems facing our world.”. The EMPAC project, according to Renew Rensselaer, originally “… was expected to cost $50 million.” But according to Renew Rensselaer the “… figures published by RPI indicate the final cost, including equipment, well exceeded $221 million.” The reason for the skyrocketing price tag, according to Renew Rensselaer, was apparently the “… selection of the building site (a steep clay slope), coupled with an inadequately-planned foundation, one that was not suited for the soil conditions and slope. When the initial concrete foundation was fully poured, it began to slide down the steep hillside.” As a result of this, “construction was halted and holes were drilled in the up-slope wall of the foundation to allow for tunneling to bedrock, in which anchors were sunk to tether the foundation with steel cables.” This caused construction to be delayed several times, according to Renew Rensselaer, which said “… the largest costs were likely incurred due to the resulting delays with the remainder of the building’s construction.” In order to pay for this building project RPI “… announced that they would be issuing bonds to help finance EMPAC, Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Virginia Gregg reported that the planned amount to be issued would be $160 million through 2007.” As a result, Moody’s, which is a credit rating agency, “… dropped RPI’s bond rating from A1 to A2.” The most recent rating that Moody’s gave was “A3” which means they have a “… ‘“strongly positive” operating performance.’ Finally, there are concerns about such a huge expenditure on a performing arts venue in a school with a specific focus on engineering and related fields.

RPI’s financial standing is another major controversy that has plagued Dr. Jackson’s tenure as President. Under her tenure RPI’s “… total liabilities have risen from $203.7 million in 2000 to $1.08 billion in 2020, a 428% increase.” In contrast, their assets “… have only risen from $1.15 billion to $1.60 billion, an increase of about 40%.” The debt of RPI has also “… risen from $115.5 million in 2000 to $732.3 million in 2020 (this includes bonds, bank borrowings, notes payable, and money owed under capital leases, but excludes borrowings under federal student loan programs which are offset by student obligations).” These numbers suggest that the financial situation of the school is substantially worse than it was when Dr. Jackson took office and championed major, expensive and debatable building projects.

Doctor Jackson has made remarkable achievements and accomplishments in her career as a physicist and public servant. Her influence led more women and people of color into fields of science. She was able to succeed in many of the endeavors she accomplished. Her tenure at RPI, however, has left a legacy of controversy, mistrust and financial concerns, .Consider the following comments from students on Reddit about her legacy. The first one stated “… Never has someone received so much to produce so little. We’re talking about the Ryan Leaf of college presidents. (Assuming that Leaf had also spent 20 years digging his team into a debt hole, instead of just quietly leaving the league after three seasons.)” The second one replied “…Dr. Jackson achieved more failure than success in her tenure as the president of RPI. I find it appalling that she was allowed to take such a prestigious institution and run it to the ground financially and culturally.” The third stated “… For me it’s a bummer because she is a very accomplished individual in real communities but she was unable to run this institution with an iron fist and it shows in our finances. My time at RPI was directly impacted by her decisions and role appointments. There are some awful admins at this school (they know who they are) who were favorites of Dr.J that would not remain employed here had she not protected them. Overall I think Dr.J had a vision for RPI that was more for her legacy than for the betterment of the institution and student body.”

As a new President takes over leadership of RPI, it will be interesting to see if there are changes in the relationship between students, faculty and the administration, and if the school can address financial issues that face it, especially if the economy should go into recession. It seems safe to say, however, that at least for the foreseeable future the legacy of Dr. Jackson will be memories of the controversies generated during her tenure.