Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2008

CSU Stanislaus president has a passion that shows

Shirvani is clear in his desire to put university, the valley in limelight

TURLOCK -- A few years ago, the Cal State Stanislaus men's basketball team was losing a close game.

School President Hamid Shirvani was courtside on the VIP Warrior Row. After a few calls went against the home team, Shirvani was in the referees' faces. He was so caught up in the moment, he had to be restrained by the coach.

The spectacle helped energize the team, which rallied to win by a point. In appreciation of his support, Shirvani was presented the game ball.

Basketball players still talk about the incident, and it is one of student body President Andrew Janz's favorite stories to tell about Shirvani. The anecdote illustrates Shirvani's passion, zeal and animation, Janz said.

But those qualities also lead to combative outbursts that have intimidated some administrators enough for them to leave, according to some of Shirvani's current and former employees and colleagues. They say they felt strong-armed by the strong-willed university president.

Architects are sometimes referred to as engineers with style. Shirvani wears that flair proudly, whether it's in the form of expensive suits, vibrant silk ties, monogrammed dress shirts, a swank president's house on Quincy Road in east Turlock, or the dozens of framed diplomas and awards on the wall in his third-story campus office.

Although Shirvani, 57, commands a room, he's also low-key at times. He can disarm most with a goofy smile and an accent that turns the word "other" into "udder."

Born in Iran, Shirvani attended a Catholic boarding school in England and spent his early adult years on the East Coast of the United States. Shirvani still speaks with a Middle Eastern accent. His personality has the directness and aggressiveness he says carried over from his time in New York as a teacher and administrator. When he gets worked up, Shirvani speaks loudly, sometimes yelling; his hand gestures get wild.

"When you're too passionate about things and show your passion, some people like it. Here, they don't appreciate it. You get a reputation for pushiness, aggressiveness, that you're arrogant," Shirvani said. "In New York, if you're not pushy, you get left behind."

Can see the changes needed

That mix of style and directness is what CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed and the board of trustees were looking for in 2005 when they hired Shirvani, then provost of Chapman University, a private college in Orange County.

Shirvani is Stanislaus State's ninth president since the school opened in 1960.

His so-called bluntness is needed for Shirvani's main objective -- increasing the visibility of Stanislaus State by enrolling more Central Valley students. Shirvani also is focused on turning the commuter school into a prestigious university of choice for nonvalley residents, drawing students for its quality reputation, not just its proximity to home.

Because of his background in architecture, Shirvani "has a good eye for seeing what changes need to be made" within the university's administrative structure and how the college is perceived from the outside, said Carol Chandler, a CSU trustee and farmer in Selma, south of Fresno.

Shirvani considers himself an architect, a teacher and an academic first and foremost, shunning the bureaucracy of administration -- evident through his attempts to hurry the slow-moving academic clock. Although the process frustrates Shirvani, his approach can leave people feeling excluded, professors and students said.

"I want to go faster than (the faculty) want to go," Shirvani said. "We're meeting in the middle. There's been minimal disagreement on what to do and where to go."