Embattled Head of Chapman College Quits

The besieged president of Chapman College, who has tangled with faculty and students over his vision of transforming the small, liberal arts college into a university emphasizing professional programs, announced his resignation Tuesday.

President Allen E. Koenig cited “personal and family reasons” for ending his tumultuous, two-year reign at Chapman as of June 30, but he would not elaborate. No successor was named Tuesday, but the resignation was applauded by many students and faculty.

The surprise announcement followed an emergency meeting Tuesday of the college’s Board of Trustees in Costa Mesa. It also followed rumors that Koenig would be asked to step down over his handling of a controversial campus reorganization plan.

However, Board of Trustees Chairman George Argyros denied that Koenig was pushed out and said that he regretted the president’s decision to leave.

Koenig “resigned for family and personal reasons,” said the multimillionaire developer and former owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Chapman alumnus who is considered the leading force on the board. “I think Allen served the college well. He brought us a long way, and we are indebted to him.”

Through his wife, Koenig declined comment on his departure. Asked if her husband had accepted another job or whether the family was moving, Judy Koenig said, “We don’t know ourselves.”

Koenig, Chapman’s 11th president, left his previous post as president of Boston’s Emerson College under a cloud of faculty and community opposition over plans to move the school 30 miles north.

Chapman itself has been through nearly a decade of turbulence, battling neighbors and city officials in Orange over plans to expand even as it sought to redefine its educational niche. At the same time, costs have been rising and the college has been competing for declining numbers of college freshmen.

Koenig’s restructuring plan, released earlier this year, called for nearly a 20% cut in faculty by 1992-93 and shifted the college’s emphasis from liberal arts to professional programs. A more moderate faculty plan ultimately won out. It calls for a smaller reduction in faculty, to be achieved through retirement and attrition instead of layoffs. But Koenig’s earliest plan to change the college name to Chapman University, a title that can be achieved with a $20 application fee, was approved by trustees this spring.

Reaction was swift on the 2,200-student campus, where many of the faculty and students are on summer break. Among the faculty, word spread by telephone within minutes of the public announcement that was issued by facsimile machine at 5:14 p.m.

“I think it’s in the best interests of Chapman College,” said Thomas Beck, a history professor who is leaving Chapman to become a dean at a college in Oregon. “I just think he failed to provide the kind of leadership the college requires at this time. . . . Because he wasn’t sensitive to people’s feelings, he became ineffective as a leader.”

Word of Koenig’s resignation was greeted with surprise and excitement by many students, who had lined up against Koenig on a variety of controversial issues. In a spring referendum, 75% of students surveyed said they had no confidence in him.

“I am absolutely ecstatic. I’m going to throw a party,” said Robert Crane, who graduated this spring after chairing a student panel on the controversial strategic plan and writing a column in the student paper calling for Koenig’s resignation.

“Allen Koenig is a man who didn’t understand the college--he never even tried,” Crane said. “He never attempted to establish any sort of rapport with the students. He would make policy and then announce it without getting any student input.”

Crane said students were antagonized by Koenig’s handling of issues ranging from the cutting down of trees on campus to the decision to require all students under 21 to live on campus beginning next fall unless they are living with parents.

It was the dorm-living issue that turned sophomore Kristina Matthews, 19, against the president. Because she lives off campus in Placentia and had already signed an apartment lease, her family now may have to pay thousands of dollars, she said.

“He makes decisions without thinking of the students’ best interests at all. With this (dorm plan), he just dropped it on the students at the last minute, when students already had their (housing) plans.”

Campus officials have denied that, saying that they had been telling students about the policy in college literature and that it would take effect as soon as a new dormitory was completed.

Elise Bigelow, 21, the new president of the Associated Students governing body, said the resignation “comes as a surprise to me. It’s really kind of a shock. . . . Students will probably view this as a positive step.”

Beck said Koenig tried to move too swiftly to accomplish change at the coeducational college, which was founded in 1861 by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

“A president can come in and shift institutions slightly, but you can’t revolutionize them,” said Beck, who headed planning under former acting president James Doti and disagreed with Koenig’s direction for Chapman.

Other faculty members who had opposed many of Koenig’s plans preferred to emphasize a brighter future for Chapman rather than speak ill of the president.

“I certainly wish President Koenig the best,” said outgoing faculty chairman Arthur Blaser. “I think we’ve got a fine institution, and I hope we’ll really be able to pull together in the coming months.”

As for Koenig’s successor, Argyros said, “Stay tuned. You never know what’s going to happen.”

Times staff writer Kevin Johnson contributed to this story.