Brand leaves behind string of legacies

In his eight years at IU, President Myles Brand has faced controversy, helped the campus through the Sept.11 tragedy and tackled a tough economic situation.\nIU board of trustees member Peter Obremskey said Brand successfully faced these challenges.\n"He's done an incredible job at IU: academically and financially," Obremskey said.\nObremskey said he thought Brand worked well through IU's financial woes.\n"We're losing a good man," he said. "I hate to see him leave; he's a real educator and a real leader."\nBrand was named IU's 16th president April 14, 1994.\nBrand, who holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Rochester, initiated the Strategic Directions Charter in 1995. The charter was developed to recognize the need to invest resources in new directions for the University without compromising the core mission of IU, as well as maintaining faculty governance over academic matters.\nFrederick Eichhorn, president of the IU board of trustees, said Brand's push for the initiative will be one of his legacies.\n"I think the Strategic Directions Charter was significant because it got people engaged in trying to move programs forward," Eichhorn said.\nIn November 1998, Brand announced a collaboration among Indiana colleges and universities to combat the problem of excessive drinking among students, according to a past IDS article. The collaboration of colleges looked at the problem of student alcohol abuse and how it effects not only schools, but surrounding communities. In January 1999, he distributed nationwide a report in an effort to curb underage drinking.\nBrand has continuously pushed for new technology at IU.\n"When it comes to information technology, IU students have rising expectations. We expect to meet them. Indeed, we plan to surpass them," Brand said in a University Information Technology Services news release.\nBrand helped introduce the School of Informatics to campus in 1999. The first School of Informatics class graduated in May 2002. He also implemented an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to provide IU with free access to the company's products. \nAfter five years on the job, the University administrators came under fire when Brand's five-year review was criticized by some IU faculty members. It was discovered that his review would be conducted by only one person, a consultant for a company whose president was a director of the IU Foundation. The trustees hired Atwell to conduct the review, rather than appointing a committee.\nIn May 2000, Brand established a commission to develop policies for appropriate behavior for all IU coaches, athletic department employees and student athletes. The decision came after the controversy involving IU men's basketball coach Bob Knight allegedly abusing his players. The committee was designed to construct a new code of conduct outlining sanctions for inappropriate behaviors, according to a past IDS article. On May 15, 2000, Brand put Knight under a "zero tolerance policy." Brand said Knight broke this policy and decided to fire him on Sept. 10, 2000. Knight had coached at Indiana for 29 seasons, and he won three national championships.\nIn the summer of 2000, the first-ever Indiana Genomics Initiative began after a $105 million gift was given to IU by the Lilly Endowment to start the program. The grant was the largest ever given by Lilly and was the largest ever received by IU.\nBrand has been an advocate for "academics over athletics," and gave a speech on the subject to the National Press Club on Jan. 23, 2001. In the speech, he called for the reforms of college athletics, citing overcommercialization, low graduation rates and questionable academic standards as problems.\nBrand's accomplishments paid off in 2001 when IU was named Time magazine's "College of the Year" among research universities, a recognition Eichhorn said he believes will be remembered.\nIn his annual State of the University address Sept. 24, 2002, Brand talked about the importance of research at IU, and named Michael McRobbie vice president for research.