When the class of 2008 graduates, Tony Marx will finish his fifth year as president of Amherst College. Some would say this warrants celebration, while other civic-minded folks with nothing better to read would demand a progress report. Having nothing better to write, let this be the latter.
If I make an assessment of the Marx presidency, however, it doesn’t pretend to be comprehensive. For one, it conspicuously lacks significant staff input, both in inspiration and in interview; for another, it conspicuously lacks significant criticism, either of school or president. A March 10, 2005 Indicator article by Claire Rann and Patrick Harrison suggests the two may be correlated. The two-part investigation into living wage at Amherst College portrayed a less-than-rosy state of affairs among college staff, many of whom hold multiple jobs. It is surprising to some that progressive Amherst can’t afford a living wage for some of its earliest-rising employees, and one can only imagine that these individuals would make cutting criticism of the school.
I will focus on other manifestations of Marx’s presidency, however. I will occasionally interchange Amherst College with President Marx, because the line is necessarily blurred. As its most visible spokesperson, the good president—that is to say, the president who successfully embodies and advances the mission and character of his institution—is to an extent interchangeable with his institution. That Marx is by most measurements a “good” president is not altogether surprising. What is surprising is the apparent breadth and depth of his successes. He has his detractors, but, as Professor Barry O’Connell notes, “strong leaders…always have their critics—especially with academics.”
To begin, then, Marx tends to be defined by a laundry list of events and catchphrases—a catalog of interest-piquing tags embedded in the popular imagination: To the socially aware he is the bringer of diversity; to the liberal he is the bringer of Scalia; to the celebrity-watcher he is the guest star (see below); and, of course, to the smoker he is the anti-Christ.
Because no piece about Marx can justifiably ignore his first and longest-lasting legacy, a brief note about the Smoking Ban: It was a unilateral decision to remove smokers 25 feet from buildings, inspired (instigated, perhaps) by a parent’s surprised question, and announced by an all-students email in November of his first year. It was early and he didn’t understand “the system.” The Ban, he will tell you, was the right thing to do; but, he will admit, it was the wrong way to do it. Suffice it to say that Williams had instituted a similar policy years earlier.
Poorly advised proclamations aside, Marx has made significant accomplishments. His initiatives have included increasing diversity, lowering the bar for financial aid eligibility, eliminating student loans for everyone except me (and my classmates), actively encouraging social responsibility, improving stale relations with the town and otherwise breaking through the stagnancy that for so long characterized Amherst College.
Today, says Professor Tekla Harms, the school is “a leadership college.” To be sure, it is mentioned in nearly every article about progressive college-policy in the New York Times, constantly being paired with the standard-setting Ivy League leaders. Credit for this elevated reputation must be distributed fairly: There is a progressive board of trustees, an unusually invested faculty and a highly dedicated staff to thank. But the catalyst is a personality capable of building constructive relationships between demanding and uncooperative parties. The following is more closely an evaluation of those relationships than of their products.
Relations with the Town

Professor Barry O’Connell wrote in an email that Marx “has for the first time in perhaps a century established superb relations with the town.” The importance of this relationship cannot be understated. To appreciate it, a brief history of college and town:
The 1896 History of the Town of Amherst, Mass. notes that “Amherst, even in its earlier years, was the home of learned men.” Dissatisfied with district schools staffed by poorly educated teachers and limited in duration by the availability of firewood, these learned men founded Amherst Academy. The academy was built on donated land in 1814 with $5,000 from a local subscription (including contributions from several Dickinsons and a Hastings). The subscription was an indicator of the community’s high esteem for the value of education: “Not one of the Amherst subscribers…was accounted a rich man…. [T]hey gave not of their abundance, but of their poverty; not because they could spare the money, but because the interests of education demanded it.” The college is a product of this community, linked by geography and tied by provenance.
It may not be immediately obvious to the transient Amherst College student, but the town has seen more prosperous times. According to Carol Johnson, executive director of Amherst Cinema, the Hadley development of a “big box” strip sapped business from downtown Amherst, causing a period of economic strain and derelict buildings.
That period is ending, however, as the downtown undergoes something of a renaissance, thanks in large part to an improved town-school relationship. A recent $75,000 donation to Amherst Cinema was crucially important, according to Johnson, because it demonstrated to other donating agencies that the project was well-supported, inspiring increased confidence and generosity. The cinema currently attracts several thousand viewers per week, and shops cite its presence as a major factor in their choice of location. The donation was made at Marx’s discretion, and Johnson credits the cinema’s role in town revitalization in large part to him.
Town Manager Larry Shaffer has only been in office since 2006, but he has met often with President Marx and says he is well-satisfied with college investment in the community. The Mead, Dickinson and Natural History museums, all College-owned, contribute significantly to Amherst’s “cultural economy,” attracting thousands of visitors per year. In addition to these, an eagerly anticipated renovation to the centrally located, 82-year-old Lord Jeffery Inn (also College-owned) will include a conference center and draw people directly to downtown Amherst. Having worked as an administrator in a number of college towns—including the homes of Keene State College and the University of New Hampshire—Shaffer says he has never enjoyed such a strong town-gown relationship.
In view of its origins, it is only appropriate that the College should give back to the community, and President Marx is doing this in fine style. A list of donors in the cinema lobby ranks Amherst College as an “Angel” benefactor—the designation for donors of $50,000 or more. Religious beneficence might be overstating things, but Johnson warned me in an email that she would have “nothing but good things to say about Tony Marx.” Shaffer’s characterization was similarly positive. When I asked him to think of one criticism, all he could say was that the president is “too tall.”

Relationship with Students

Everyone I spoke with acknowledged Marx’s charisma, but none are so susceptible to the influence of optimistic energy as impressionable young students. The Indicator itself has an unapologetic Marx obsession that borders on fetishism. Some might call this unrepresentative—the liberal snobs cozying up to their liberal champion. See, then, the 71-member Facebook group, “Tony Marx Is Guest Starring In My Life.” Hardly esoteric, it celebrates even the BusinessWeek photograph of infamously questionable taste: Anthony the Beneficent, gazing out across the land, ready to tackle injustice in all its forms.
Perhaps I’m being too informal, but the group description explains at least a small part of his popularity: He can be found “chompin’ that scrod at Valentine,” working out in the gym and otherwise going “the extra mile” to make himself approachable (this after President Tom Gerety, who lived in Hartford). Adam Bookman ’08 noted his consistent attendance at athletic events, from swim meets to basketball games, saying he appreciates involvement in student affairs.
Years ago, when Marx was my freshman seminar professor and I was irritated with a number of sub-par papers, I asked if we could talk about where I was missing the point. He happened to be leaving for New York City, so he called me from the car and we had our meeting over the phone. For someone who should be very busy, he goes out of his way to make time for the least powerful of his constituents.
Despite this sort of playful fawning, however, students are also Marx’s most vocal critics. This may be an honesty derived from immunity to his sanction, but more than anyone else I spoke with, students tended to question his genuineness. Josh Stein ’08 mentions a “general sense of incredulity among the student body.” He says it’s hard to know what is affectation and what is genuine.
The vague assertion that Marx is “too political” is another criticism often levied by students. It does not seem to be shared by anyone—student or adult—who has actually worked with Marx, however. Dean of Admissions Tom Parker says that Marx is above all else “absolutely genuine…. He puts his money where his mouth is,” with funding and administrative support of all manner of admissions initiatives, such as diversity weekends.
Zachary Mason ’08 and Destry Sibley ’09, who worked with Marx on a successful Sudan divestment campaign, agree that Marx’s support for student advocacy and commitment to social change “make it easier to be a campus activist”; Mason ventures to suggest that Marx, having done his activism during Apartheid, now prefers to let students take the lead and meet them halfway. Whatever his intent, students who have worked closely with Marx seem to suspend their disbelief.

Relationship with Faculty, Administrators and Board of Trustees

A simple suspension of disbelief is not so convenient among the faculty, which naturally shares a more enduring and layered relationship with President Marx than do the students. The 1999 New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc (NEASC) accreditation report, evaluating College governing structure, recognized an “exceptional reliance on faculty committees.” At Amherst, it wrote, the faculty “expects its committees to be involved in virtually every administrative decision that affects the College.”
It is this “robust and active faculty government,” as Marx refers to it, that prevents any truly unilateral presidential decisions affecting the college more than superficially. NEASC recognized, however, that progress of any sort is often an unfortunate casualty of strong committees. “Because committees tend to work by consensus, important issues on which there is divided opinion…get discussed endlessly without leading to action.” Amherst’s reputation as a bastion of tradition fiercely averse to change derives largely from committee standstills. It is not that individuals resist forward motion (although some do), but that they cannot agree how to move as one.
Marx broke the deadlocks, according to Professor Ronald Rosbottom, but not without stumbling. As a novice administrator coming to tradition-bound, faculty-dominated Amherst, he had to climb a particularly steep learning curve. “He didn’t realize he had to have the faculty 100 percent behind him,” says Rosbottom, who doesn’t mind admitting reticence to be pulled along too fast. “You can’t push the faculty,” but it took him time to learn this. “He gets ahead…and he has to stop, back up and bring us along. It was frustrating for him.”
Professor Harms paralleled this sentiment. “[Marx has] moved with dizzying speed. It’s absolutely inspirational…. But he’s not done a single thing we didn’t tell him to do. We’re just not used to fast action. We’re used to taking a long time to get things done.”
Rosbottom credits Marx’s political savvy with facilitating progress. Associate Dean of Faculty Rick Griffiths supports this notion, calling Marx an exceptional listener who met extensively with upwards of 60 faculty members when he first arrived. He also co-chaired the Committee on Academic Priorities with Professor John Servos. In this capacity he was peer and listener, not superior and dictator. Asked if Marx is too demanding, Griffiths replied that he is very demanding of himself and “not allergic to detail” in others. He does not bully, however, and Griffiths and Rosbottom said independently of each other that Marx makes nothing personal. He expects the “robust” faculty governance to do its job by pushing back against him when he applies pressure.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I was lucky enough to be among a number of students invited to the president’s house for dinner with Marx and other guests from the Bacevich-Clark colloquium. At the table I sat next to Marx’s wife, Karen Barkey, a professor and director of undergraduate studies at Columbia University. She told me that he gets on well with the trustees, who in large part share his vision for the school. Indeed, according to that controversial BusinessWeek article, the trustees hired him for that vision and Dean Parker confirms it, saying that the president and the Board are perfectly in sync.
As best I can tell, after five years Marx is liked or disliked according to personal preference, but appreciated and admired by all. There are rumors of discontent about this policy and that hire, but I could make nothing more of them than hearsay (alas), so I can only pass them on as such. And what group of alpha individuals has ever agreed on everything anyway? This is not to excuse bad behavior, but each member of the faculty to whom I spoke is happy about the direction the school is moving and the role it is filling.

That Vaunted Vision

It is not my intention to discuss the many manifestations of Marx’s mission. No attentive member of the Amherst College community can have failed to notice the Center for Community Engagement, the step-by-step reconstruction of nearly the entire campus (Marx’s office currently contains the scale model of a glassy library—not, he assures me, one he has plans for), the elimination of student loans or the push for diversity. Military recruiters have controversially been invited back to campus, but their presence has generated excellent discussion about the military’s role at Amherst and Amherst’s role in the military.
We have all educated ourselves silly about these initiatives and the importance of our socially responsible role. But Professor Harms puts things in more immediate perspective: “Look around you. The place is in great shape. It’s financially sound…. In particular in terms of financial aid and diversity, it’s setting a standard for the other colleges. Harvard is beginning to try to catch up.” Harms is careful not to credit everything to Marx, mentioning also the “fabulous” trustees, “dedicated” alumni and “preceding presidents who laid the groundwork.” The College, in other words, is functioning smoothly and doing well for itself, for its community and for others.
A few have never forgiven Marx for the Smoking Ban, but the number of these individuals dwindles as the last ’06s and ’07s advance on graduation. Those who are left behind at school and in town are happy with where the College is going and impressed with Marx’s role in that progress. Perhaps the next five years will convince even the smokers that Tony Marx affected Amherst in a positive way.