RST: Gordon, after what happened on the campus of The Ohio State University a couple of weeks ago, I am concerned about your safety. And maybe mine. While I may not always agree with you, I will defend to the death your right to say it. But I’m not prepared to put my body on the line to protect you. Can we agree that there will be no more knocking cameras out of hands or assault and battery?
EGG: I will try to abstain from having a fracas after a class I teach, but I cannot guarantee that some of my acolytes will not become a bit pugilistic!
RST: If we can’t have civil discourse with those who disagree, we are well and truly screwed.
EGG: Rachel, I feel sorry for the young faculty member.
RST: Sorry for him how?
EGG: Of course, he should not have shoved the guy. But this I know: They were trying to cause a ruckus, and that is not journalism.
RST: Well, I sure don’t feel sorry for him. There is no excuse for getting physical with strangers anywhere but in the gym or on the dance floor. The video of that event, which I watched nine times, is chilling. And, I have to say, the paparazzi “journalists” don’t come out looking so great, either. They gleefully chased you down the stairs to follow you to your car. Gordon, you are an octogenarian who, while you may have more fortitude than most academics, are not such a physical specimen that you will always end up on your feet after a postclass “fracas.” I’ve become fond of you and was seriously worried for your health.
EGG: Thanks, Rachel. And I appreciate that you called me and told me to stop being such a public pain. And you really were irritated that I was driving myself.
RST: Gordon! So irritated! We were on the phone for an hour while you were speeding down I-70! I heard your car beeping at you. So I beeped louder.
EGG: You are afraid I will keel over before we get this partnership in full bloom and can say all we want about the future of higher education. But, truthfully, I appreciate the concern. And it goes to the bigger point that university presidents are often like piñatas. The president of Ohio State asked me after that event whether or not I needed public safety to support me. The truth is that I know a number of presidents who find it necessary or who feel threatened.
RST: We were going to use this next column to talk about the resistance to change. We will get there. But before we address questions about policy or politics, you’ve just hit on a hidden truth about leadership on campus: It’s that the job itself might be dangerous. Not just for reputations, but for bodies, marriages and mental health. But because presidents are public figures, people often forget that they’re also people. We see plenty of that on social media.
EGG: I had a rule that I would never read social media. If I would have done so, I probably would never have gotten out of bed. My goal was always to keep the people who disliked me away from the people who hated me.
RST: While I never got the memo, I know it is somewhere in the Faculty Handbook that we must hate administrators. Why did people hate you?
EGG: In the past few years, I have had to face the reality that leadership is a combat sport. If you make decisions that are in fact in the best interest of the university, it often gores the oxes of embedded interest groups. When I decided to sell parking at Ohio State, it was viewed as “corporatization” of the university. Or, obviously, when I eliminated programs and faculty at West Virginia University, it was as if I had declared war on the academic order. In today’s world, if you are a president who can rise above individual interests and do what is right for the university and its long-term health, you need to understand that is very unpopular. The reality is in today’s world your friends come and go, but your enemies accumulate.
RST: It’s interesting, because I don’t know a single president who isn’t looking for other revenue streams or who isn’t thinking about making cuts in program and faculty. These are times when there are no easy solutions and decisions—even in the past year—are more painful than ever. Your granddaughters will sing to you that haters gonna hate. Especially when everyone is scared for their jobs.
But in a piece about Jonathan Holloway and Ana Mari Cauce, Len Gutkin in the Chron observed, “I was struck, shocked really, by the coincidence that both of the former college presidents interviewed last week by my colleague … had either been threatened with or had suffered physical harm while on the job.” Well, I was struck that this was a shock to someone who covers higher ed. As soon as I started having conversations with presidents, all I heard about was how scary the job can be.
EGG: Actually, I am glad that we are having this discussion. A university president in today’s world needs to be Janus-faced. To the people you serve in the public, you want to make it as positive as possible. But in your personal time, you find it very difficult because of all of the pressures and the physical strain. I do not want to make this into a pity party, because I lived in big houses, had great support, made good salaries—
RST: [cough]
EGG: —and had a very energizing life. But there is a personal cost.
RST: I’ve been hearing from presidents about death threats since I started working on The Sandbox, which launched only a few months after Oct. 7, 2023, when things really changed. I’ve seen copies of horrific emails and photos of things painted on the walls of campus buildings that make me shiver. I know a number of men who are much bigger than you and women who are even smaller than me who have had to have security details. A former president who went through hell told me it’s a “life-shortening job.” Clearly, a bunny like you has been able to take a licking and keep on ticking, but can you see why they may have said that? Are presidents just unwilling to talk about the personal toll because it comes across as whining about privilege?
EGG: People rarely see behind the curtain. You are pushing me to speak frankly now because the presidency, particularly at this moment, is so difficult. And you are correct that presidents do not want to be seen as whining or vulnerable. There is nothing worse than people sensing blood in the water.
RST: Have you gotten death threats?
EGG: Yes, I have received death threats and so much hate mail. I have consistently refused to have security. Not that I am brave, but I so value my time with people unencumbered. When I would go out to the bars and parties, I would take a couple of students with me. Unfortunately they were generally as small as me, so we were not very formidable. But what I disliked most was the chattering class, which exists in universities to an unhealthy degree. The nice shunning. It affects you in such ways that you start to hibernate and lose confidence. Universities can be among the most toxic institutions.
RST: You’ve been dining out on the same quippy stories for much of your career. I never want to hear again that your goal was to make as much money as the football coach. But I do want our readers to know about some of the stuff we talk about—and the things other presidents tell me in confidence and that they write about anonymously in The Sandbox. You said you were willing to get real. I mean, everyone goes through stuff in life. But you have always been hypervisible. You were appointed president at age 36. Ten years later, your wife died after a long illness.
EGG: Being in public life with your spouse undergoing cancer treatment, which included long stints in the hospital and hospice care, was very difficult. I lived on fumes for three or four years while Elizabeth was receiving treatment. I had to speak to an alumni group in Dayton the night before she died of cancer [in 1991]. I should have been home at her side, which is still something that haunts me and is unforgivable. After she died, I felt both sadness and relief. At the same time, I had a 15-year-old daughter, Rebekah, at home, who was undergoing serious personal challenges, and trying to bolster her was terribly draining and exhausting.
RST: I am so sorry, Gordon. I can only imagine what that must have been like.
EGG: The pain of loss was profound.
RST: How did you handle that and still manage to do your job?
EGG: Honestly I am not certain. But I always had Rebekah. We adopted her when she was four days old. Her mother and she were constant companions. After Elizabeth died, I made the decision that Rebekah would go and be with me everywhere. We became incredibly close.
RST: During your time at Vanderbilt, your second wife became a, um, media focus. You went through a public and horribly messy divorce. And then a year later, when you were back at Ohio State, there was an accident. Rebekah’s husband died and she sustained terrible injuries. That must have been a horrific time. Death, divorce and starting a new job are all huge stressors in life. You won the Triple Crown.
EGG: At the height of Elizabeth’s illness, I told her I thought I should resign. She was adamant that I not do so, because she felt very strongly that I would never forgive her for being the cause of my resignation. And so the thought of losing Rebekah was truly more pain than I could bear. She was and is my best friend. I spent six months with her in hospitals and rehabilitation. Not one morning would she wake up wherever she was without me being there to tell her how much I loved her. Friends within and outside the university rallied to our cause, and I was able to continue. I believe if I would have abandoned the presidency on any of those instances, I may have made a better life, for a moment, for Elizabeth and Rebekah, but not for me and ultimately for our family. But it is damn hard and really lonely.
RST: I always ask presidents, “Who do you really talk to?” (Do not go all grammar nerd on me, Gordon, and say it should be “whom.” I’m the English professor. I know what’s correct and I hate “whom.”) Many of them say their spouse, or no one.
EGG: There are few people in whom you can confide. Sometimes the loneliness is unbearable. I did get myself an executive coach who has been with me for 35 years, and I recommend every president find such a person. The question is, do you share these challenges publicly?
RST: The goal of The Sandbox is to make the hidden parts of the job visible and without fear of reprisal. Last week, after a current president wrote about his mental health struggles, I got a ton of email from others thanking me for giving him the space to be honest, though he said he could never admit to any of what he wrote with his name attached.
EGG: I think presidents need to be more public and let people see them as human. Easy to say at 82, but I think if I had not always been the public happy warrior, I may have been more effective.
RST: How so?
EGG: I have had so many people tell me that I made the presidency look easy.
RST: Well, it sure was a lot easier in the old days, like before COVID, before George Floyd, before Gaza and before the giant shit show that started in January 2025. Presidents who have been retired for more than a few years need to stop telling those still in the job what to do. And that includes you, buddy. I just warned you that when we Zoom with presidents from different institutions, you’re not allowed to hand out leadership bromides and vague advice (as you did the other day). And while we have this platform to bat ideas around, I’m deploying you in ways invisible to the public so that you can actually help those who are still presidenting. You say you want to be useful. I’m holding you to that.
EGG: Aye, aye, boss. I am serious about that and want to pay it forward.
RST: Fortunately, we have me to keep you honest. You also made the presidency look fun.
EGG: I made it look fun because I had a good time. I get so irritated with presidents who complain continuously about the difficulty of their work. If it is so damn hard and so debilitating, then quit! For me, fun was always part of the equation. So much so that I was often criticized, because many people thought it was unpresidential. I think in retrospect it would have been better to humanize my work. The unforgiving nature of the job is overwhelming. As I have left institutions, the sudden invectives are debilitating. People immediately stop waving at you with all their fingers and every problem at the university was because of you.
RST: I promise never to raise a middle finger at you. Unless you follow through on your threat to mail me stale bow-tie cookies.
EGG: In my work, you can measure the true friends that you have because they can fit in a telephone booth. As I have moved on I have often found that your best “friends” were the first to throw you under the bus. That is the reality of the human condition. That said, the friends I have in the telephone booth are truly special.
RST: I’m small enough to squeeze into that booth, I hope. Since you came to me and I have enough current presidents in my circle to do my job (getting them to write anonymously), I need nothing from you and am pleased to offer you a friendship of equals. As long as you do everything I say and respond to me immediately. It’s kind of like being an employee, Grasshopper. This is a chance for you to build a new skill set.
EGG: What is it about you that makes people trust you and in my instance publicly open my kimono? This was a cathartic discussion. Thank you, boss.
RST: Ugh. Could have done without that visual image. I know it’s hard to drop the optimistic pose but appreciate that you’re willing to get real. Proof that old dogs can learn new shit.
EGG: I prefer new tricks. Now on to resistance to change.