ODU's acting president has the smarts for university's top job

John Broderick warned me that parking would be tricky.

Old Dominion University’s Koch Hall parking lot was engulfed in construction, he said. Look for the guest-of-the president spot and park there.

As I pulled in Tuesday, I spied the lone reserved space. I also saw Broderick headed my way.

“I wanted to make sure you found a place to park,” he said with a grin .

No one who knows John Broderick is surprised by this. So what if he’s the acting president of a major university? Broderick is still the affable college spokesman those of us in the press came to admire 15 years ago, when he was director of public information.

I decided to track down the 51-year-old Connecticut native on the first day of his temporary tenure in ODU’s top job. The spacious-but-spare presidential office had few of his personal touches other than a white hard hat with “Acting President Broderick” emblazoned on the front.

A parting gift from Roseann Runte, outgoing president.

Tie-less and sipping bottled water, Broderick was ready to talk about ODU and the school’s remarkable growth.

It’s hard to imagine he’ll be busier as president than he was as vice president for institutional advancement.

The list of Broderick’s former tasks is as long as Leviticus.

It included responsibility for governmental relations – a job that required him to know most of the members of the General Assembly and make sure they knew about ODU.

It will be Broderick who introduces the next president to the politicians who control the school’s purse strings.

So, I had to ask.

“Are you in the running for the job?”

“No, not me,” insisted Broderick, who’s on the search committee. “Absolutely not.”

Broderick, who is his youngest son’s soccer coach in Great Bridge, said he was honored to serve as interim president for however long he’s needed. After that, he plans to happily return to his old job.

Pity.

“I wouldn’t have looked any farther (than Broderick),” said Virginia Beach lawyer Sonny Stallings, an ODU alum and member of the Board of Visitors. “But when I asked him if he was interested, he said no, 'I don’t have the papers.’”

Papers?

“You know, a Ph.D.”

(Broderick’s undergraduate degree is in journalism. His master’s, from St. Bonaventure, is in education.)

College presidents are a lot like show dogs. It’s all about the pedigree.

But pedigrees can’t take the place of common sense. And Virginia has witnessed a couple of train wrecks by college presidents who looked great on paper.

Take William J. Frawley, who lasted less than a year at the University of Mary Washington.

No doubt his resume made the search committee swoon. He was a dean at George Washington University, held a doctorate from Northwestern University and was considered a “linguistic and cognitive scientist.”

Months after he took office, Frawley racked up two drunken driving arrests and was fired. (He had another DUI arrest this spring.)

So much for traditional academia.

If ODU wants an egghead as its next president, Broderick isn’t their guy.

But if the board is looking for someone smart, with strong communication skills and a love of the university, its search could end at Koch Hall. Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net