Once-Friendly AU Board Splintered Into Factions

Attorneys Hired Over Ladner's Future

American University's trustees once worked well among themselves, and with school President Benjamin Ladner. Members were convivial, some close friends. Over the past 18 months, however, divisions on the board have grown into open conflict -- to the point that different factions have hired attorneys to battle over the president's future.

Students, faculty, alumni and trustees are asking questions about the 11,000-student school's fractured governing body and what it means for AU's future.

Ladner, who took over as president of the university in 1994, was suspended last month after the board began looking into his personal and travel expenses, an inquiry sparked by an anonymous letter sent to the board in March.

"What is their role, and how did this all happen if they were doing their jobs? What does 'trustee' mean?" asked Philip D. Taylor, an alumnus, emphasizing the word "trust."

With no-confidence votes passed by faculty at five of AU's six schools, and students planning an anti-Ladner protest for today, infighting among the trustees has spilled from the board room. Some trustees, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect their position, said they are pushing a plan to persuade Ladner to resign, and others want the board chairwoman to move up an Oct. 10 meeting to present a newly written contract for Ladner.

Underscoring the acrimony's intensity, trustees opposed to the board's leadership panel -- and to the lawyers they have hired -- have retained an attorney, former U.S. attorney Eric Holder. A subgroup has written the new contract for Ladner, which trustees say includes $800,000 in compensation and a salary of at least $80,000 for his wife, Nancy Ladner. Some trustees simply want Benjamin Ladner to go.

"If we [trustees] follow the lead of the deans who have shown no confidence in Ladner, and if Ben realizes that whatever he thinks about himself, other people differ, he should go gently into the good night," said trustee Paul M. Wolff, a lawyer.

Holder said the trustees he represents are concerned about the way the audit has been conducted and other governance issues.

Ladner did not return two phone calls, but he said in an interview last week: "If we come out of this and I'm still the president, I would assume that is a commitment by both sides to pick up the pieces of the acrimony and create a new community on the board. If I felt that was not there, I wouldn't really want to be president."

Once comprising about 45 members, the current trustee board is composed of 24 members plus Ladner, a combination of corporate leaders, lawyers, bankers and two representatives of the Methodist Church. AU was chartered by an act of Congress in 1893 and founded under the auspices of the United Methodist Church. Seven board members must be alumni.

For many years, the board effectively allowed the chairman to conduct business without much oversight, according to several trustees. When Ladner became president, he tried to mold the board into a more professional body, the trustees said, and brought some associates to the board and befriended a number of trustees already there.

In 1997, he signed a second contract with William I. Jacobs, then the chairman, that many trustees said they did not know about. That contract increased his compensation and included language that provided for "first-class" travel and is now a subject of contention.