The unexpected news on Saturday that Saint Louis University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., announced he will retire was awesome, but not in the popular sense of the word expressed by the determined SLU undergraduates who, in tandem with faculty leaders, opposed Biondi relentlessly in recent years. It was awesome in the sense that Jesuits describe the divine: it struck awe in the heart.
Biondi’s announced intention to resign was almost unthinkable even a month ago. According to the executive chatter coming from SLU, as Biondi came under pressure from students and faculty leaders, the conventional wisdom remained status quo: that whenever Father Biondi is confronted, someone’s blood (so to speak) will end up on the ground and it’s not going to be his. But suddenly Biondi had backed down, in essence conceded defeat. The pictures and reports from SLU’s campus were akin to a democratic movement in Latin America celebrating the ouster of a tyrant.
It would be exciting to imagine that liberation theology is newly empowered on St. Louis’ Jesuit campus, but it remains to be seen how far away Biondi is going and exactly when. There will be no abrupt disappearance like Bob Archibald decamping for northern Michigan the instant that the Post-Dispatch and two disgruntled Zoo-Museum District trustees finally ran him away from the Missouri History Museum. The beautiful, transformed, richly endowed Saint Louis University that Biondi is leaving is one largely of his making, and it’s difficult to imagine that he will let anyone forget that.
SLU announced that its Board of Trustees will launch a search for Biondi’s successor in the fall. Its new board chair, J. Joe Adorjan, has served two previous terms as board chair during Biondi’s 25 years of leadership at SLU. “I am committed to working with Father Biondi and all university stakeholders,” Adorjan said in the same release that announced Biondi’s pending resignation, so Biondi’s central role in finding his successor is as official as his resignation. The faculty and students celebrating the end of a divisive period on campus may find their celebration to be premature.
Part of what is awesome here – in the sense of inspiring awe – is that a campus would celebrate the departure of a leader who has objectively done so much to improve the institution, as well as its surrounding neighborhoods. Biondi not only achieved some lofty goals that put SLU on the map of major universities, he also completely remade the map of St. Louis. As he raised the university’s stature, he also made SLU a much more prominent institution in St. Louis that has improved its immediate surroundings in Midtown immeasurably. Among other things, Biondi’s achievements helped to facilitate Dr. Henry Givens Jr.’s also impressive remaking of neighboring Harris-Stowe State University.
But as the intelligent, focused faculty and students dedicated to SLU (thanks to Biondi’s transformative improvements of the institution) made plain for all to see, something went wrong with his leadership. A strong leader does not have to descend into being an autocratic bully, and when commanding strength gives way to autocratic bullying, resentful enemies are created. Bob Archibald’s detractors claim he suffered from the same fault, though we would disagree. We have often claimed that the Slay administration displays very similar autocratic and bullying tendencies that hamper St. Louis and create counter-productive animosity and distrust among ourselves. For this reason, St. Louis has much to learn from Father Biondi and his fall.
However, it would be ungenerous if we did not remind St. Louis, and Saint Louis University, that we have many reasons to commend and thank Father Biondi for his leadership that has made such a transformative difference to SLU and the community.
