Editor’s Note: Several important Syracuse University officials are leaving their positions at the end of the academic year. Take a look at their stories in this four-part series.

When James Steinberg steps down as dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, he said he hopes he will leave behind a legacy currently encapsulated on the wall outside of Maxwell Auditorium.

On that wall reads an excerpt from the Athenian Oath that concludes with this: “We will transmit this city not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

“It’s the idea of leaving the city more beautiful than you found it and the idea of making a difference to others,” said Steinberg, who, before coming to Maxwell, served as the deputy secretary of state under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Steinberg has served as the dean of Maxwell since 2011, but his tenure will come to a close at the end of this semester, at which point he’ll remain at Maxwell as a University Professor. In making the case that he’s improved the school, he points to accomplishments such as hiring a number of faculty members and creating what he says is a strengthened focus within Maxwell on citizenship and civic engagement.

But some faculty members have expressed dissatisfaction with Steinberg’s time as dean, particularly with his level of willingness to interact directly with and listen to faculty members.

Since becoming dean, Steinberg has hired between 35 and 40 faculty members, said Mike Wasylenko, the senior associate dean for Maxwell. Those hires include senior faculty members such as Merril Silverstein, the Marjorie Cantor professor of aging studies, and a number of junior faculty members, Steinberg said.

But faculty members in Maxwell indicated that Steinberg has done little over the years to listen to and interact with them. Several Maxwell professors declined via email to be interviewed for this story because they said they hadn’t had much contact with Steinberg. Others declined to be interviewed but referred to Steinberg as things such as a “lousy dean” and commented on his “failings” and “arrogance.”

One professor who did agree to be interviewed but asked to remain unnamed so she could speak openly said that Steinberg “is never here.” For the first four years of his tenure, he came into his office only one day a week, the professor said. The professor added that Steinberg missed several department meetings over the years and, for at least his first four years, didn’t attend Promotion and Tenure Committee meetings.

“In other words, he wasn’t there to fight for his own colleagues,” the professor said. “It’s not OK. I mean, it’s just not OK.”

But away from the workplace and behind the scenes, Steinberg is often different than the serious person he presents himself as, Wasylenko said. Steinberg has a strong sense of humor and a number of hobbies, including fishing, gardening and cooking.

Courtesy of Stephen Sartori

Those are things that people who haven’t worked closely with him wouldn’t know, Wasylenko said, and most faculty members fall into that category, the professor who requested to remain unnamed said.

“He’s the only dean I know of who has — to my knowledge, nobody has socialized with him,” the professor said. “… He’s a cold fish, frankly. I don’t think he’s interested in people.”

Wasylenko said “it’s hard to say” whether Steinberg has done a good job over the years listening to faculty and said that Maxwell is full of diverse faculty with diverse goals, desires and requests. That creates tensions, Wasylenko said.

“But I think most of the tensions are probably warranted,” he said. “If everyone is just sort of ignoring everything and moving along, that means nobody cares. I think there’s some spirit here, and these people care. That’s a good thing.”

Wasylenko also highlighted Steinberg’s accomplishments as dean, including his launching in 2014 of the Tenth Decade Project — something Steinberg said he is especially proud of. The initiative in its first year raised nearly $1 million to support faculty teaching and research focused on citizenship, according to the fall news release announcing he would be stepping down.

So far, the initiative has funded five faculty-driven citizenship projects, according to Maxwell’s website.

“It really symbolizes our focus on interdisciplinary work on citizenship and civic engagement, and bridging the gap between the world of learning and scholarship and the world of practice,” Steinberg said of the initiative.

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Additionally, Wasylenko pointed out the different speakers that have come to Maxwell during Steinberg’s time as dean. Those speakers include former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton, as well as Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Steinberg’s ability to bring in those speakers lies in his ambition and persistence, Wasylenko said.

“He just has a very strong sense of what he wants to do, and that has played out,” Wasylenko said. “When he goes after a speaker, he goes after them. If they say, ‘Well, I don’t know if I can come,’ he says, ‘OK, how about another day?’ He keeps at it, and I think that’s an important thing.”

Soon, Steinberg will shift his focus to teaching, research and writing. In the fall, he said he’ll be teaching a core course for Maxwell’s international relations graduate program and added that he’ll continue to teach undergraduate courses on U.S. foreign policy and East Asia.

He also plans to write something on the subject of preparing students better and making them more effective, both as academics and policymakers. Steinberg said he plans to share the insights he’s gained “both from the academic world and the practice world.”

It all ties back to the excerpt on the wall outside Maxwell Auditorium, which highlights his desire to make “the community and world a better place.”

“That kind of contribution to the public wheel has been an inspiration to me, and it’s kind of what attracted me to Maxwell, that this should be the motto of what this enterprise is all about,” Steinberg said.

Published on May 1, 2016 at 11:36 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu