The mercury topped 80 degrees, but the July humidity made it feel closer to 90-degree temperatures. Even after an hour-long tour of the Case Western Reserve University campus, Barbara Snyder was poised and smiling as she crossed Juniper Drive.
Although the university’s new president (the first female president in its 181-year history) wore a black business suit and black shoes with short-spiked heels, Snyder seemed unfazed by the heat or traversing across a gravel sidewalk on a construction site near the new Alumni House on the northern end of campus. After all, she says, bulldozers mean progress.
“People say, ‘Oh, it must be such a hassle with all this construction,” Snyder says. “I disagree. If you’re not building, you’re not growing.”
Such is the confidence the 52-year-old Snyder brings to the financially struggling university, which is scheduled to post a deficit of $10.5 million out of its $830 million operating budget. Although she has never before held the top post of a university, she brings nearly 25 years of experience, primarily from The Ohio State University, a school six times the size of Case in terms of enrollment, with nearly five times the budget.
As executive vice president and provost at Ohio State, she implemented strict financial guidelines for research projects and championed academic performance, which also happen to be her early goals for Case.
Facing Snyder is an emboldened faculty, who helped usher out former-President Edward Hundert who resigned last March after a no-confidence vote by the School of Arts and Sciences. She must also raise funds by reconnecting with alumni, many of whom were encouraged the school restored “Western Reserve” back into its official logo and publications. (Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University merged in 1967.)
It doesn’t hurt that Snyder is a native Ohioan and taught for five years in the mid-1980s at Case’s School of Law. Although she shies away from comparing Ohio State to Case, university supporters are hoping her achievements in Columbus can transfer up north.
“Barbara has a terrific combination of energy, decisiveness and charm,” says Tom Waltermire, CEO of economic development group Team NEO, who had met Snyder while at Ohio State. “She is willing to take on tough issues and build support for change. She will be a real leader for Case Western Reserve and the region.”
Born in Columbus and raised in the affluent suburb of Upper Arlington, Snyder pursued law as a college student, but always knew she would teach. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago and practiced in the commercial litigation department of Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin, one of the largest in the country.
“I loved practicing law,” she says. “I had great colleagues, but I was truly drawn to teaching students and I have never regretted that decision. I got my start with our students at Case Western Reserve who helped teach me how to teach.”
Since January, Snyder had visited Case, even setting up a second home at the university’s new North Residential Village dorms. While visiting, Snyder met with vice presidents, deans, faculty and community leaders to learn about the changes at the university in the 19 years since she had been an associate professor in the School of Law. 
From those discussions emerged Snyder’s two priorities for her first year: financial stability and improving Case’s academic reputation. The university, although academically rigorous and highly selective, has never faired as well as its contemporaries (Carnegie Mellon, Washington University in St. Louis and Johns Hopkins) in college rankings. In the most recent “America’s Best College’s” ranking by U.S. News and World Report, Case placed No. 38 among national universities, which is down one from last year and down three spots since 2004.
“It already is a great university. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think so, but I don’t think it has reached its full potential yet,” Snyder says. “We will be engaged in a process of talking to faculty, staff and students in the schools across campus. Everybody needs to pull together and what we need to do is come up with a plan that has all the elements that allow for successful execution.”
Academics is Snyder’s forte. As executive vice president and provost at Ohio State since 2003, Snyder was responsible for all academic programs at the university. She also spent two years as vice provost for academic policy. Her plan will include “realistic, but ambitious goals,” a timeline and accountability for specific faculty and staff managing the plan, she says.
“[Improving academic reputation] is not something that I think can be done top-down, although a good leader can help bring it forward,” Snyder says. “People have to buy into it, people have to have a voice in the process.”
With improved rankings and reputation, raising money becomes much easier. As with most universities, much of Case’s revenue comes from sources besides tuition such as grants, donations and gifts from alumni and the business community.
Not surprisingly, Snyder is no stranger to fundraising. She secured her first donations in the mid-1990s while she was at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State. She was a director of the Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies Center, a small research office that targeted alumni donors and corporate foundations.
“[Fundraising] is a challenge for every university,” she says. “As costs go up we have to continue to make sure that we raise funds to help students who couldn’t afford to come here otherwise and to support the kind of research, especially at the early stages, where funding is not available.”
Those early-stage projects — which can evolve into multimillion-dollar technologies — need nurturing and Case has always generously funded its research. Approximately 45 percent of Case’s $780 million in operating expenses was spent on research and sponsored programs in the 2005-2006 school year, according to its annual report.
But with a budget deficit, Case can’t afford to hand a blank check to every research project looking for funding. Snyder ran across this same situation at Ohio State as provost and implemented a “Targeted Investments in Excellence” program to control costs. The initiative earmarked $10 million of central funding over five years for research, but only for the projects each college leader believed best represented the priorities of their school.
“We said, ‘Don’t put forth any proposal that you are not willing to fund yourselves even if you don’t get a dollar of central funding,’” Snyder says. “That was a way of making sure that they really prioritized. We asked them not for a request for money, but for a budget that showed what they would stop doing in order to come up with money to pay for these projects.”
Snyder received 46 proposals. Although only 10 received central investment, the remaining projects are still moving forward with funding coming from each college’s own budget, as well as grants and other outside investment.
“The purpose of the central investment was not to allow only those 10 projects to go forward, but to allow those projects that would have the greatest impact on the university’s reputation to go forward faster and on a bigger scale,” Snyder says. During her tenure as a senior administrator, Ohio State improved its ranking among public universities, and its annual research expenses climbed from $496 million to $652 million.
Apart from internal improvements, Snyder must connect with the city of Cleveland and the University Circle community. At times, the relationship was strained under Hundert’s tenure. Although he was active in the community, Hundert was viewed as secretive and more concerned with his next position in academia, rather than Case’s or the city’s future.
“You get the feeling that she’s here for the long term,” says one business leader who had met Snyder. “I see the town-and-gown tradition relaxing. She’s a breath of fresh air.”
Snyder endorses the numerous improvements to the campus area connecting it to the larger University Circle neighborhood, which began before her arrival. For example, the Uptown District, a $150 million arts and retail development on the north and south sides of Euclid Avenue will include 80,000 square feet of retail space, a two-level, 22,000-square-foot Barnes and Noble book store, 300 residential units and the new 35,000-square-foot home for the Museum of Contemporary Art. Construction is expected to begin late next year.
“After our conversations, I feel Barbara will emerge as a real community leader,” says Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. “I think she will support the research function of the university, the physical development function that the university can help bring forth and also the outreach to the region. In short, she gets it.”
| 
