The Roles and Responsiblities

Well it turns out I've always been a recruiter. I had a particular philosophy which was really a counterpoint to Chicago [University of Chicago] which used to like to terrorise people. And my philosophy was that you ask good intellectual pointed questions, but you're nice, you're polite, and if you decide not to make an offer, people are going to be really sorry you didn't because we'd sure like to go there. And that really comes back and pays off long term in terms of, that kind of reputation, I think, really does good things for you.

I tried to apply the same thing in trying to talk to a young faculty about what the advantages might be in a place like SMU which was admittedly, we didn't have senior faculty and it's still a problem. It's going to be a problem for a long time because we're going to home-grow, we're home-growing now which is going to work. That works.