A surprised Robert Glidden accepts an honorary doctorate of higher education administration from President Sidney Ribeau at the College of Musical Arts convocation Sept. 10.The president emeritus of Ohio University gave the convocation address following the presentation of his degree.

Robert Glidden receives honorary degree from University

In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Moore Musical Arts Center, the College of Musical Arts welcomed back Robert Glidden, who was closely associated with the center’s creation. Glidden, the former dean of the college, is now president emeritus of Ohio University.

When Glidden returned to give the convocation address on Sept. 10, the University surprised him with an honorary doctorate of higher education administration.

The former dean told the assembled music students and faculty that this is an appropriate time for him to be “returning to his roots,” as he has just retired after serving the last 13 years as a provost and president.

“The College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green was my first appointment as a dean, exactly 29 years ago, and my wife, René, and I made many good friends and learned much here,” he said in his address. “This was an excellent college of music then, in 1975, and it is even better today. Bowling Green State University, under the leadership of President Ribeau, also continues to grow in stature with each passing year, so all in all, I am filled with pride just to be among you.”

Glidden retired in June as president of Ohio University after a 30-year career in higher education administration. After leaving Bowling Green in 1979, he went on to Florida State University, where he served 12 years as a professor and dean of the School of Music and then three years as provost and vice president for academic affairs. He became president of OU in 1994.

Glidden is known for the breadth of his involvement in higher education issues throughout his career, both nationally and in Ohio. On the national level, he has served as chairman of the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation and is founding chair and a member of the Council on Higher Education Accreditation, which coordinates accreditation across all fields in the United States. As a member of the American Council on Education, he has been chair of the Commission on Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness and now is on the Advisory Committee for the Center on Policy Analysis.

In Ohio, he has served on the Governor’s Science and Technology Council and as chair of the Ohio Aerospace Institute and the Inter-University Council. He has been a member of the Ohio Higher Education Funding Commission since its inception in 1996 and is a director of the Ohio Campus Compact. He has also been chair of the Mid-American Conference.

All his degrees are in music, and from the University of Iowa.

At OU, he promoted campus use of technology, made a priority of creating a personal atmosphere for students and led a fund-raising team that raised $202.3 million during a campus bicentennial campaign that culminated this year.

“He’s very student-focused,” said current College of Musical Arts Dean Richard Kennell. “He’s always worked for the betterment of students under his charge.”

When he came to BGSU in 1975, the College of Musical Arts had recently been formed from the School of Music, under the deanship of James Paul Kennedy, and lacked a proper facility. While some funding for a musical arts center was in place, Glidden worked closely with then-President Hollis Moore in both raising the rest of the funds for the new building and in convincing the Ohio Board of Regents that the facility needed an appropriate performance hall.

They obtained permission but had to raise private dollars to build the hall as a component of the music building, he said. Thanks to the generosity of Hollis and Marian Moore, the Kobacker family of Toledo and Ashel and Dorothy Bryan of Bowling Green, Kobacker Hall was built.

Glidden had fond words for his former boss. “President Moore was very special to me because he was both a mentor and a friend. He was committed to this building as the campus’s greatest facilities need in 1975, and he worked tirelessly to obtain the appropriate state approvals and to raise the money to make it happen. It is most appropriate that this building carry the name of the Moores into perpetuity.”

Kennell described Glidden as “the right person in the right place at the right time.” His administrative talents, combined with the administration of President Moore and the new College of Musical Arts, “converged to produce something truly special. At this interval of 25 years after the opening of the building, we can see what a gift this facility has turned out to be.”

Those who knew Glidden at that time often refer to the presence he projected. “When he walked into a room, people paid attention to him,” Kennell said.

Joy Kantner, Glidden’s former administrative assistant, described Glidden as confident, knowledgeable and personable. “He is very hardworking and expects the best from those around him,” said Kantner, who is now administrative assistant to Douglas Smith, vice president for University advancement. “I learned a lot from him about how to get the best results.”

He was also a thoughtful administrator who carefully studied and evaluated situations before making changes, she added.

Kennell pointed out that, before coming to BGSU, Glidden had served for three years as the executive director of the National Association of Schools of Music and executive secretary of the National Association of Schools of Art, “so he had seen a lot of schools and probably knew what to look for.”

He was even influential in the design of Kobacker. Glidden related how, as a graduate student at the University of Iowa, he had played in the Tri-City Symphony Orchestra, and had rehearsed at the John Deere Company’s new international headquarters in Moline, Ill., in an auditorium designed by the great Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. The intimacy of the auditorium and the feel from the stage most impressed Glidden.

Much later, when planning was under way for BGSU’s new concert hall, he remembered the lovely Saarinen space and visited the John Deere people to ask if they might be willing to share Saarinen’s plans with BGSU. “To my great surprise and even greater pleasure, they gave me a full set of drawings for the auditorium, and hence the design of Kobacker Hall as you see it today,” he said.

Glidden concluded his talk with some words of advice to music students, telling them to be proud of their discipline but also never to shirk their responsibility to be broadly educated.