The Emperor of U.T.

Frank C. Erwin Jr. is the biggest booster the University of Texas has. His Cadillac is orange and white--the school colors--and he dotes on the national-champion Longhorn football team. He is a tireless money raiser and wants nothing less than to make the U.T. system the best in the country. He has no patience with anyone or anything he considers damaging to his beloved alma mater--and since Erwin is chairman of the university's board of regents, his antagonists are automatically on red alert.

Erwin cannot, for instance, abide student dissent, even the relatively bland variety found in the American Southwest. He is convinced that the survival of public universities is at stake, a feeling that many other citizens share. In the past four months, he has engineered the abrupt departures of six administrators, including Chancellor Harry Ransom and President (Austin campus) Norman Hackerman--both of whom, it is thought, were too soft on student militancy to suit Erwin. The latest casualty: Dr. John R. Silber, 43, one of the country's leading philosophers, who was fired as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, though he still retains his professorship. Dean Silber was ousted primarily because he opposed the administration's plan to split his college into smaller schools. He was also a target because of his liberalism, aggressiveness and potential candidacy for the U.T. presidency. According to one professor, Erwin told Silber: "John, you are the most intelligent, articulate and persistent man around. You scare the hell out of the incompetents above you."

Regent Erwin, who was appointed to the board by Governor John Connally in 1963, is a rich, 50-year-old Austin lawyer, a longtime crony of Lyndon Johnson's, and a former Democratic National Committeeman. He is now emperor of the University of Texas. His idea of a great university is one where teachers teach, students study and regents govern at his direction. His strict construction of those views has kept him at constant odds with students and faculty.

Two years ago. Erwin threw a birthday party for Governor Connally in the U.T. gym. When anti-war students outside protested the presence of Lyndon Johnson, Erwin called them "a bunch of dirty nothin's." Last fall Erwin personally directed bulldozers in a confrontation with students over the uprooting of some stately oak and cypress trees to make way for expansion of the football stadium. He then pushed through a rule forbidding administrators to negotiate with disruptive students. Last January a straw poll of the 32,000 students at U.T.'s main campus in Austin showed 80% favoring Erwin's impeachment on the ground that he had "unwarrantedly interfered" with school operations. In the aftermath of Cambodia and Kent State, he refused to close down the Austin campus: "I'm unwilling to pay taxes to support an institution that just turns things over to these activist faculty members and students," says Erwin. "Students have no inherent rights to attend a college or university, just regardless of what they do." When some professors threatened to resign over Silber's dismissal, Erwin responded: "If any person employed by the university wishes to resign, all he need do is quit playing games in the newspapers and submit his resignation."

Gaudy Caddy. Erwin is hardly a knee-jerk reactionary. Like many a Texas Democrat, he is coldly conservative on some issues, warmly liberal on others. When it comes to education, he is all populist, believing that every Texas youngster deserves a shot at college. He is probably the best education lobbyist in the state's history: U.T. appropriations have risen 175% in the past four years. Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes keeps an aquarium in his office and calls its most aggressive angelfish "Frank." But many friends see danger in Erwin's hyperenergetic loyalty to U.T. Some, for instance, refuse to get into his gaudy Caddy until he starts the engine. "They think some of those damned militants might plant a bomb on me," he says. Then he adds, with characteristic candor: "I can't blame them for thinking that way."

In fact, there is apprehension that U.T. is headed for a crisis or a decline or both. Erwin has called for "administrators with more courage and backbone than has been demonstrated in the past two or three years." Interim president, Bryce Jordan, is a musicologist (specialty: the piccolo) and a hard-liner on campus disorder. His new chancellor is Dr. Charles LeMaistre, a medical doctor who treated Erwin's wife through a terminal bout with cancer. Many faculty members agree with Classics Professor William Arrowsmith, who feels that those who now control U.T. are "interested only in mediocrities and nonentities who can be counted on to carry out the wishes of Chairman Erwin."

That may be unfair. The chairman, who spends more than 40 hours per week toiling for U.T., obviously feels that his wishes coincide with the university's needs. Even so, he is smarting from widespread dissatisfaction with the Silber firing. Some critics pointed out that as one consequence of the Silber affair, U.T. bypassed a $200,000 Ford Foundation grant for experimentation in teaching techniques--a grant that was to be based in part on Silber's distinguished record. Key politicians have been silent about the firings--so far. It is too early to predict whether the American Association of University Professors will censure U.T. That happened in 1946, and few Texans welcome the prospect of reliving the bad old days.

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