Sometime in the next few months, Joseph A. Steger will reveal whether he will seek another two-year term as president of the University of Cincinnati. Has he made a decision?

        “Depends on the day,” he says.

        On a good day, when a statewide report card shows that UC is doing pretty well, he wants to stay forever.

        “I love this job.

        “I'm not selling something that's going to wear out tomorrow.”

STEGER FILE

• Born: Philadelphia, Feb. 17, 1937.   • Educated: B.A., psychology, Gettysburg College; M.S., experimental psychology, Kansas State; and Ph.D, psychology/statistics, Kansas State.   • Academic career: UC president since 1984; UC senior vice president and provost/professor of psychology; director of organizational development and human resources, Colt Industries; dean and acting provost, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; dean and acting vice president for administration and budget, Rensselaer; dean of school of management, Rensselaer; professor, Rensselaer school of management; assistant and associate professor of psychology, State University of New York-Albany; senior research analyst, Prudential Insurance Co.   • Married: Carol Steger, director of stewardship at UC Foundation.   • Children: Tracy McLorry and Martin Steger.

        But on a day when California funds three new high-tech research institutes and he's arguing with lawmakers over how many hours each professor should teach, he dreams aloud about never wearing a tie again.

        Or, as he said in an earlier conversation, “It would be nice for someone else to come in.”

        Does that mean he's leaving?

        “I don't know the answer.”

        His second contract extension expires June 30, 2002. If he chooses to stay, and the board agrees, it probably would be for another two years.

        Last week, trustees chairman Ben Gettler said that he doesn't expect that conversation to begin “seriously” before spring quarter ends. “That would be the right timing.”

        If Dr. Steger, 63, chooses to retire, a search would begin by January 2002 to have his successor on campus by September.

        In interviews Dr. Steger suggested what awaits any successor.

        More than ever, today's president is a corporate chief executive officer who balances conflicting demands

        among powerful UC colleges and schmoozes the wealthy and powerful.

        “The president's job is fighting for resources and more so than ever,” he said. “The president's job is going to be much more outside. They've got to or they'll have no future.”

        In his 16 years, Dr. Steger has honed the modern presidency, building on what scholar-administrator Henry Winkler created after innovator Warren Bennis led UC from virtually bankrupt municipal university into the state system.

        That management style pushed fund raising to new heights but it also brought him into conflict with his unionized faculty and staff: one no-confidence vote and three strikes. The faculty contract expires next year and a claim of pay inequity by female professors is in arbitration.

        A potentially bigger problem has been wrought by changes in the Ohio General Assembly.

        As of January, the House speaker will be new to the job, almost 50 percent of the legislators will be freshmen and Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale, will begin his last term.

        That's on top of the loss of “Stan” and “Vern” and Dr. Steger's freedom to call them any time to make his case in Columbus.

        Cincinnati Republican Stanley Aronoff no longer presides over the Senate and Vern Riffe, Democrat from Scioto County and longtime speaker of the House, is dead.

        “All of the old faces — whether you liked them or not — are on a short leash of time,” Mr. Aronoff said. “There has to be a sense of anxiety on the part of any college president.”

        A related problem is what Dr. Steger called Ohio's shift from a mixture of industrial and agricul tural communities to “city states” that haven't done a very good job of articulating the higher education agenda.

        Too often, local “politics set a lot of the tone” reflected in a lack of “visionary questions” when he appears before the General Assembly, Dr. Steger said. Instead, those queries reflect “some form of attack on higher education.”

        For instance, legislators frequently equate the hours full-time faculty teach with their workweek.

        “They don't want to hear the rest of it,” he said, ignoring research and writing; department, college and university committee work; community involvement; advising graduate and undergraduates; and class preparation and grading.

        Mr. Aronoff agreed that higher education should have had a “more prominent part of the budget” but it also competes with mandated funding of P-12 education, mental health and mental retardation and development disabilities.

        That conflict is tragic, Dr. Steger said, because “universities underpin the culture in this state.”

        Complaining doesn't help, Dr. Steger said. “I haven't seen the victim theme work yet. We have to tell them what we are going to do for them.”

        UC has done well during the Steger years raising outside grants equal to state support but “mega-gifts” of $50 million and up have proved elusive.

        “This is not a low-price game we are playing,” Dr. Steger said. “If you don't think big, don't do it.”

        If UC wants to be top tier, Dr. Steger said, it must raise even more money for research and teaching in its professional schools because “we're good at applied developmental work. That's what this place is built on.”

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