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Issue: 1246 Date: 7/10/2014
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At SLU, New President Faces Many Challenges
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| Fred Pestello |
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The scaffolding surrounding DuBourg Hall on the Saint Louis University campus is as much symbolic as it is structural.
While the administration building gets a facelift, the president's office got a new occupant this week. Fred Pestello, SLU's first non-Jesuit president, took over on Tuesday after a six-year career as president of Le Moyne College, another Jesuit institution in Syracuse, N.Y.
Pestello, 61, succeeds the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, S.J., who was president at SLU for 26 years before resigning last year. His departure came after months of strife on campus, as faculty members and students voted no confidence in his leadership.
Appearing on St. Louis on the Air Thursday, Pestello was asked what role Biondi might play under the new administration. Pestello said he had met with Biondi after being selected for the presidency in March and had spoken with him a few times since. But he denied reports that the former president would be in charge of SLU's art museum and said no role for Biondi had been settled on as yet.
“I definitely will talk with Father Biondi about where he thinks he would like to make a contribution," Pestello said, "and then assess where Father Biondi can continue to contribute."
Adding that he is not ruling anything in or ruling anything out, he added:
"I think any decisions with respect to Father Biondi's future role on the campus are up to me. I have not agreed to anything with respect to what specifically Father Biondi will be doing at this time."
As far as the difficulty in following such a strong personality as Biondi with a long tenure, Pestello said:"You can't assume a presidency after someone has led an organization for a quarter century and not in some way be in the shadow of the person that you follow. We inevitably will be different, and that will be determined by the needs of the institution, my style, the people we have here today. But to follow somebody with that tenure, which is extraordinary in higher education – the average presidency is seven or eight years – clearly there's a legacy there."
Pestello discussed a wide range of topics -- the university's role in redeveloping Grand Center, his experience in being the first non-Jesuit to head a Jesuit university, the importance of the humanities, the need for fund-raising and financial aid and others. Here is a sampling of what he had to say.
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