When President Lois DeFleur retires this July after a 20-year tenure, she will stand out from the four Binghamton University presidents that came before her with a legacy that is already beginning to take shape in the minds of the people who know her.

“What the president has done,” James Van Voorst, vice president for academic affairs, said, was to instill “a sense of cooperation, collaboration, among all the parts of the campus.”

Van Voorst, who has been at BU since 2000, said that DeFleur’s emphasis on cooperation among all facets of the University is “probably the most important aspect of her management style.” He predicted that the sentiment will continue long after her retirement.

Under DeFleur’s leadership, that cooperation has also extended into the surrounding community.

Vice President for Research Gerald Sonnenfeld is responsible for the economic development activities of the University. He and DeFleur have worked to develop research partnerships with local industries and businesses like Endicott Interconnect, an Endicott-based firm that produces microelectronics.

In recent years especially, the emphasis on technology and research has produced results that Sonnenfeld calls “dramatic.” The University is posting increasingly higher numbers of new patents and awards for research, all after increased financial support for research programs.

“There is no doubt that our goals are now meshed with the goals of the community, and that’s a tremendous legacy. We really want this community to prosper, and what we do is very much tied into what the community wants to do,” Sonnenfeld said.

Overall, Sonnenfeld said, the president has set a standard of excellence. “The excellence is a real legacy,” he said.

But that legacy of excellence extends beyond just research, Sonnenfeld said, as the foundations of that excellence are tied to foundations of another sort.

“She’s changed the face of the campus,” Sonnenfeld said, referring to new construction projects for research, residential and athletic purposes that have been completed during her time in office. “You have to have the facilities in order to have excellence.”

The University has also seen a transformation in athletics. Under her supervision, the University moved from NCAA Division III to Division I. It is an advancement that manifested itself most visibly in the men’s basketball first-ever ascension to the NCAA basketball tournament last year, but that has been proved in conference titles from men’s soccer, men’s cross-country, women’s volleyball, men’s baseball and men’s tennis.

Jim Norris, interim director of athletics and director of health and physical education, said DeFleur has always valued BU’s athletics. “She was always extremely supportive of our department, starting with our days in DIII through the present,” he said.

Norris, a 19-year employee of BU who has worked with DeFleur on athletic department projects and the Empire State Games, called her “intelligent, competitive, enthusiastic and an incredible leader.”

PRE-PRESIDENT YEARS

Even with all these milestones, DeFleur’s impact on the University began perhaps even before she became president.

Dr. Norman Spear, a distinguished professor of psychology, was the chair of the committee that nominated DeFleur for the presidency in 1990. He said she stood out as a candidate as much for her accomplishments as she did for her character.

“She had had an impressive record as a scholar … and as an administrator,” he said. DeFleur authored a sociology textbook, conducted field research in Argentina and was vice president and provost at the University of Missouri before BU. She was also a professor at Washington State University and Missouri State University.

“At the time I found her to be an unusually good listener, and I remember being particularly impressed by that,” Spear said. “In contacts with her since then, I have always been impressed by her energy and values.”

Spear said he thinks DeFleur will be remembered especially for the athletic department’s move to Division I, calling BU’s “excellence in sports comparable to the excellence in research and scholarship for which BU has been known.”

BEYOND THE OFFICE

Behind the legacy, however, there is Lois DeFleur the person, who is often subsumed by her public title.

After her father, a railroad executive, passed away, DeFleur found a collection of his old railroad papers, including old advertisements and informational documents.

“She knows that I have a great interest in trains and railroads,” Sonnenfeld said. She thought of him and gave him her father’s old documents.

“That was very thoughtful of her,” he said. “It was very kind of her to think of me at that moment.”

That thoughtfulness also found its way into her management style, said Van Voorst.

During the 2006 flooding of the area, the American Red Cross approached the University asking to use a facility, which requires approval from the president. The Red Cross needed a place for 1,600 people.

Without hesitation, DeFleur made the space available, Van Voorst said.

“That just shows her commitment to do the right thing … We’re part of the community.”

Van Voorst called himself a fan of the president. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

He said he was particularly impressed with her management style and her focus on quality. He said she accepts nothing but quality.

Mimicking her words, he said, “Don’t do it cheap, Jim, do it right.”