March 17, 2008
The Rev. Robert Spitzer, S.J., plans to step down from the presidency of Gonzaga University in Spokane, which has prospered from the classroom to the basketball court during his decade at the helm.
Spitzer, 55, will return to study, teaching and writing in the ethics field. He is a prominent scholar-critic of the movement to legalize assisted suicide, and a leading Catholic spokesman on the right to life.
Spitzer, who is legally blind, has overseen a turnaround on the Spokane campus since taking over Gonzaga’s presidency in 1998. Enrollments at the Jesuit university have risen from 4,500 to 6,900, and a higher volume of applications has allowed Gonzaga wider leeway in who it accepts.
Gonzaga has also enjoyed a run of top-25 basketball teams and NCAA tournament bids. The program’s success allowed for construction of a new basketball arena — aka. The Kennel — with wealthy patrons expected to make annual five-figure donations for “silver” and “gold” seats.
Spitzer has also presided over his share of campus controversies.
The priest-president refused to allow a Planned Parenthood representative to speak on campus, and vetoes hosting a performance of “The Vagina Monologues.” A conference of Catholic bishops was recently moved off the University of Notre Dame campus after the nation’s best-known Catholic university allowed “The Vagina Monologues” to be performed, albeit without official sponsorship.
Spitzer was recently embroiled in controversy with some faculty over his plans to expand enrollment by 800 students over the next four years. A series of meetings resulted in a revised plan that cut in half the planned expansion.
Nonetheless, Spitzer will go down with the Rev. William Sullivan, S.J., retired president of Seattle University, for having taken a troubled, declining university and restoring it to robust health.
Sullivan has stayed on as chancellor of Seattle U., and as a backstage wise man in city leadership.
The board of trustees at Gozaga reportedly wanted Spitzer to spend a few more years as president, but his Jesuit superiors favored a 10-year tenure. As it is, Spitzer will remain on the job another 16 months, hoping to have a new president in place by July of 2009.
Spitzer was asked whether he will stay in Spokane. He wasn’t sure, but the Spokesman-Review quoted Spitzer as saying: “I love it here in Spokane.”