On move-in day for the class of 2013, University President Morton O. Schapiro wandered around campus in a shirt and tie, introducing himself to surprised students and their parents as “Morty.”
The tie, Schapiro’s wife Mimi said, was to ensure that no one would ask him to move boxes.
This sense of humor is quintessential Schapiro, something that close to 3,000 students experienced each year during dinners at his house at Williams College, where he previously served as president.
Now it’s Northwestern’s turn to get to know Schapiro. Last week, the students in his Economics of Higher Education seminar shared a meal with the president at the provost’s home, where Schapiro, his wife and his 9-year-old daughter Rachel currently reside. Friends and colleagues were surprised when her husband said he wanted to teach a class his first quarter at NU, Mimi Schapiro said. But she added that Schapiro is “miserable if he isn’t teaching.”
“Mort didn’t go into academia to not be around students,” Mimi Schapiro said. “A lot of people go into administration to get out of the classroom, and a lot of people were shocked that he was teaching his first semester because there is so much he should be doing or they want him to be doing. But that’s just Mort.”
Last spring, in preparation for his transition, Schapiro told THE DAILY he was looking forward to making the undergraduate experience at NU the best it could be.
“The challenge for Northwestern is to be mindful and attentive to the many needs of the graduate programs while at the same time creating a model for the single strongest sense of community of any research university,” he said.
In person, Schapiro is an inviting presence. He leans back in his chair. He crosses his ankles and folds his hands behind his head, which he tilts forward to see through the glasses perched on the end of his nose.
He is colloquial but not clinched, chummy but not ingratiating. And he is ready to share anecdotes about growing up in New Jersey and his love of Bruce Springsteen, whom he used to go see play late nights at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park, N.J.
“He wore black, and he was a giant,” Schapiro said of Springsteen, one of his favorite musicians, adding wryly that most people look too tall beside him, given his short stature.In an interview with THE DAILY last week, Schapiro talked about a wide and sometimes unexpected range of subjects, including his experiences and expectations – “I would stay here all day, ” he said.
“His (communications) guy at Williams used to just give Mort this look when he was talking,” Mimi Schapiro said. “Mort doesn’t use notes, and you never know what he is going to say.”
In his first few weeks at NU as president, Schapiro has kept busy, showing up for dorm fireside chats, eating dinner at fraternity houses and spending time with town officials.
This week, his schedule is filled with inauguration activities, including a panel discussion he is moderating today on his area of expertise: “The Economics of Higher Education.”Schapiro said he hopes students will attend the weekend’s inauguration events and added he invited New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a long-time friend, to draw students to the festivities.
“I think he just wants to be involved with the student body,” said Ethan Geiling, one of Schapiro’s students this quarter. “He said he used to know every student at Williams … I feel like he wants to do that here.”
The Weinberg senior said last week was the first time he had been to dinner at a professor’s home, let alone the University president’s.
“He’s very articulate, personable and interesting during class,” Geiling said. “He actually wrote half the papers we read for class.”
Expertise aside, Geiling said Schapiro encourages discussion in the classroom. “He is very open to criticism and is the first one to point out the shortcomings in his papers,” he said.
Mimi Schapiro said this willingness, and even desire, to hear criticism is emblematic of Schapiro’s leadership style.
“He is inclusive,” she said. “He is not afraid to admit when he’s wrong. If he makes a mistake he is really the first one to say, ‘Okay, I screwed up.'”
