Sol Gittleman, the Alice and Nathan Gantcher University Professor, was named provost in 1981. When he stepped down in 2002 after 21 years of service, he held the distinction of being the longest-serving provost in the history of American education. Gittleman’s longevity is matched by his talents as a storyteller, as illustrated in his new book, An Entrepreneurial University: The Transformation of Tufts, 1976–2002. While his bookspans a host of issues that challenged and strengthened the university, he remains particularly fascinated with the life and times of former president Jean Mayer.

Was this an itch that you had to scratch?
Not at first. When I was cleaning out my office, I found a bunch of papers and I said, “You know, this looks like it might work.” And I realized that nobody remembers Jean Mayer. None of the students knew how Tufts got to be as good as it is. I think it’s important for a university to remember where it came from and how it got here. It builds a sense of drama in that it shows where we were going, which in the 1970s, was nowhere.

It seems hard to believe, as you report, that Tufts nearly had to close its doors.
Look at a 1973 report, “The Changing University in a Changing Time.” It says the next five years for Tufts are going to be bad, but the ten years after that are going to be worse. Richard Freeland, in his book on American higher education in Boston, Academia’s Golden Age, said Tufts was not viable. We had no eminence, no financial resources, and no hope of getting any. We did manage to get some good students.

Why call the book “The Entrepreneurial University”?
Because Mayer was the first entrepreneur. He was an optimist and he didn’t pay attention to anybody. He was a lone ranger—the only chain of command was his chain. He wouldn’t hurt you; he’d just lie a little and ignore you. He never fired anybody.

Did you admire him?
Yes, tremendously. He was a delicious combination of visionary and confidence man. He was made up of so many contradictions, but he was utterly charming. He knew how to get something done by going around people. He also brought just the right amount of vinegar and elbow. He said at the first faculty meeting, “Forgive me if I misspeak. I have never been at an institution where the people actually seem to like each other. I was educated at Harvard and Yale.” But, he also recognized that that kind of collegiality, friendliness, could breed mediocrity, and that’s what we had. We had a friendly, comfortable, mediocre place.

Did you learn something as you went through the writing process?
Yes, but not so much about others as about me. What made me work out? I just ran a second-banana language department for 15 years. Mayer picked me out of the German and Russian Department to be provost because he thought I’d stay out of his way. I think that in terms of being a scholar and a teacher, there is a certain competency required to do a good job. After that, it’s emotional intelligence. How do I get along with people? How do I get them to do what we need to have done?

What were your strengths as provost?
Personality. It’s all I had. [laughter] I did my job by keeping in touch with faculty, praising them. I was the ultimate stroker. I said it in notes to myself in May of 1981, “Look, the only thing I am going to be able to do is be the ultimate ombud and cheerleader for the institution.” So I was an entrepreneur in certain respects in that my toast also was not going to fall with its butter underneath. It was always going to land on top.

Did the new professional schools have an impact on the image of the university?
There’s no question that we became an infinitely more prominent university, but it didn’t all happen in Mayer’s time. When the U.S. News &World Report first came out with the college rankings edition in 1983, nobody read it, nobody cared. But it was in the 1990s, on John DiBiaggio’s watch, that all of a sudden Tufts was ranked among the top 25 universities. So, yes, we are harvesting what Mayer started. Which two schools recently got naming gifts? Nutrition and Vet. That’s Mayer’s legacy. He was a builder of half bridges. It fell to other people to complete them.