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Coaching changes. Secret newsletters. Key administrative vacancies. Contention between the faculty and the university governing board over the search for a new president.
As interim president, Ed Davis faced more challenges during his one-year tenure than many of his permanent counterparts.
Even his presidential computer password reflected the stress of the past 12 months: cdcgone08. It's a reference to the university's struggles with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigation into its suspended research with select agents and toxins.
"The job as president can be fun, not too complex, you get to do a lot of ceremonial stuff, eat a lot of rubber chicken -- until the crisis occurs," Davis said. "You make it through, you don't even have pop quizzes, and then you get a great big one, and created by someone down in the guts of the organization simply not doing their job.
"And then it got more complicated because we had to go through this calibration of who is responsible for dealing with it."
Davis was tapped by the Texas A&M System Board of Regents to serve at the helm of its flagship university following the departure of President Robert Gates. A former CIA director, Gates abruptly left the president's post at the end of 2006 to become U.S. secretary of defense.
After interviewing a few candidates, the regents asked Davis if he would serve as president until a permanent replacement could be found.
Davis, an agricultural journalism graduate, had worked with Texas A&M and the Texas A&M System for the better part of three decades. He was serving as the president of the Texas A&M Foundation -- A&M's major fundraising arm -- when the regents came calling.
Davis took a yearlong leave of absence from his foundation post and signed on for the new job, which he expected to last nine to 12 months.
He promised regents he would not make any major administrative changes, knowing that a permanent replacement likely would do the same thing upon arrival, he said. They promised him that he had full authority otherwise.
"I thought, well, duty calls. I know Bob [Gates] felt the same way," Davis said last week, relaxing at a small table in his second-floor foundation office. "I'm not sure he would have jumped in front of the Department of Defense train had he had a lot of options. But I think when you have been so devoted to a place as I have this one, that it made sense."
Out of the gate
Soon after settling into his new office, Davis met with his administrators. He asked them to provide one-page briefings about any topic they considered nuclear -- something that could blow up before he had a chance to study it, he explained.
He received several "one-pagers" and a number of three-ring binders full of information, he said, grinning as he raised his hand to show the thickness of the documentation. He spent the winter holiday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day ice storm catching up on the reading.
His earliest objective was to keep his alma mater from losing the momentum it has gathered during Gates' tenure.
"I came into the job with a very clear mental view of what the outcome would be: that I would be back at the foundation. I never wavered from that," Davis said. "You get sort of emotional heart tugs saying this is something you're so committed to, you want to continue to do it, but I think I knew intellectually where I needed to be."
He said he immediately began to prepare for the upcoming legislative session, which was set to begin in just 30 days. He set three objectives for the session: increase A&M's appropriations, maintain momentum on the faculty reinvestment plan and influence policymakers regarding the financing of higher education.
All three were accomplished. The university saw the largest increase in state funding in more than a decade, lawmakers awarded A&M money to finish out the faculty reinvestment plan and the competitive knowledge fund was created.
The fund allowed legislators for the first time to dole out $1 million in incentive funds for every $40 million of funded research at a university. Davis said it would be key to ensure lawmakers put the one-time fund in place permanently.
The interim leader was quick to tick off a lengthy list of additional successes during his tenure: the celebration of a capital campaign that raised $1.5 billion, implementation of the university studies degree and a slow but continued increase in diversity.
Davis created the Council on Climate and Diversity and tasked the group with finding ways to better draw minority students to Texas A&M. He also established the Development Strategy Council and a council to represent staff members.
He also oversaw the creation of the Women's Former Student Network, a task force on campus emergencies launched in the wake the of Virginia Tech tragedy, the grand opening of the engineering facility on Texas A&M's Qatar campus and progress in A&M's marketing and branding arena.
An exhaustive investigation
During his tenure, A&M's top administration was filled with five interim leaders -- including Davis -- in key posts. A&M faced an exhaustive investigation by the CDC. Two coaches -- one famed for his success and the other infamous for the opposite -- had to be replaced. And the relationship between the faculty and the Board of Regents grew increasingly contentious as the long and at-times controversial search for a new president wore on.
But Davis said it was A&M's struggles with the CDC and the coaching changes that he found the most trying, he said.
A&M came under fire after watchdog organizations discovered university officials had failed to report an Aggie researcher had been infected with brucella in spring 2006. Further investigation would reveal that three more researchers had been exposed to Q fever in another incident, though none got sick.
The issue, Davis said, grew out of a failure on the part of a staff member. The employee responsible for reporting the incident, whom he didn't name, previously had his duties shifted. Davis said he still doesn't know if the person simply lapsed or was disgruntled and intentionally failed.
The struggle was made more difficult by what Davis described as ongoing "calibrations" of responsibility between A&M's two top dogs -- himself and A&M System Chancellor Mike McKinney. He and McKinney had to come to agreement pretty quickly about who should be responsible for the incident and serve as the spokesman.
While he welcomed advice from McKinney, Davis said he determined the troubles were a university problem and should be dealt with by the university -- more particularly, himself.
Davis testified before Congress as a result of the investigation and recalled being prepped by regulatory lawyers prior to his trip to Washington. After listening to their legalese, he stopped them and instead told them what he planned to say.
His Aggie instinct and training told him he needed to admit the mistake, commit to correcting it and doing whatever it took to get back in full compliance with the CDC and pledge to build a model program from here on out.
"It was like I had just hit them with a big baseball bat between the eyes. They never heard anybody just come out and say that," Davis said, smiling as he recalled the look on the lawyers' faces. "Frankly, our relationship and interaction with the CDC and regulators all improved after that. I think there is still some value in simply being honest and forthcoming and appropriately contrite when you make a mistake. Maybe it was easier for me because I didn't make it."
Painful moments
Coaching changes also ranked among Davis' most challenging moments. Though men's basketball coach Billy Gillispie and football coach Dennis Franchione left for different reasons, Davis described both experiences as "painful."
Sitting in his second-floor office reflecting on the past year, Davis expressed displeasure with the way the beloved basketball coach left A&M for his dream job in Kentucky.
"He brought us back from the deathbed in basketball, but his departure was less than convivial," Davis said, flashing a trademark wry grin. "On Coach Fran, I hated it very much because I am such an admirer of the things he did positively."
Unlike other teams, there weren't many negative incidents with A&M players. Players' academics improved and their conduct generally was an excellent reflection on A&M.
Davis said he was stunned by some of the vitriolic feedback that he saw in the form of e-mails and Internet message boards. When A&M started getting an influx of correspondence bashing the football coach, Davis promised athletic director Bill Byrne that he would respond to any comment that he felt was reasonably thoughtful or rational.
He received hundreds of e-mails; he responded to two.
"I'm just sorry those that make the decisions didn't view enough progress being made for him to stay," Davis said. "That was a hard one for me."
Words of wisdom
Ultimately, Davis said, any success or failure he experienced was shared by the A&M community and possible only with the help of the university's devoted employees and students.
Though he only got to spend about 10 to 15 percent of his time with students, that was his favorite aspect of the job, Davis said.
Sometimes, Davis said, he would walk into a dining hall and sit at a table of students and have lunch with them. Meeting with them and the various student leaders across campus helped Davis gain a better understanding and appreciation for them, he said.
When Davis learned Elsa Murano, vice chancellor and dean of the college of Agriculture and Life Sciences, would be taking the helm of Texas A&M, he thought about what advice he might offer her. Clearly, he said, she will carry the mantle of being the first woman and first Hispanic president at Texas A&M, though that story line eventually will fade.
Davis said he boiled it down to what he called his Letterman's list -- the top 10 most "intransigent and vexing" problems with which she would have to contend.
Those items, he said, are for Murano's view only. But he did offer some parting words of wisdom.
"Above all else, keep the welfare of the institution in your heart and mind. There will come a time when you have to make a decision about whether it's in your or the institution's best interest. You have got to always tilt toward the institution," Davis said, pausing thoughtfully. "Presidents come and go, Texas A&M stays around. That's what you have to remember."
• Holly Huffman's e-mail address is holly.huffman@theeagle.com.
