REX E. LEE: BYU'S LEADER OF 6 1/2 YEARS REFLECTS ON CHALLENGES OF LEADERSHIP AND HEALTH AS HE KEEPS HIS MOMENTUM AND PREPARES TO JUMP BACK INTO HIS LAW CAREER. Rex E. Lee has a commanding view of the Wasatch Mountains from the spacious office he has occupied for 6 1/2 years as president of Brigham Young University.
The campus seems to blend into the landscape of the majestic, snowcapped mountains as the last of the autumn leaves fall. The seasons are in their full swing of transformation. season's transformation is in full swing.But the time of year season isn't the only thing changing.
Lee, who turns 61 in February, will be leaving his post Dec. 31. after announcing this past He announced last summer the indolent form of cancer he suffers from is sapping too much of his energy for him to effectively lead the university.
"Circumstances no longer mesh with the inflexible and unpredictable demands of the office of BYU president," he told an emotion-filled room of students, faculty and friends June 18.
Presiding Bishop Merrill J. Bateman of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will assume presidential duties at the beginning of Jan. 1, 1996. His selection as BYU's new president was announced Nov. 2.
But Lee, who during a recent interview stood up and looked out the window of his office, needing the moment to stretch his tall, weathered frame, was anything but nostalgic.
"This has not been a series of 7-month farewell parties," he said. "I guess the most prominent example of that is this: We've been involved for a little over a year in the most comprehensive self-study that has ever been undertaken at BYU.
"There have been literally tens of thousands of hours expended, not just by faculty members, but by literally everyone on campus," he said. "Do we wait for a new president to continue? No. We have so much momentum, we can't afford to lose that. I sense that things are moving right ahead."
In identifying and tackling strategic issues that will affect the LDS Church-owned school well into the 21st century, the long-range planning project has revealed some "interesting" things, Lee said.
"The extensive survey of our alumni has given us extraordinary response, it's very encouraging. We also surveyed church members generally, and both groups are proud of BYU," Lee said. "It also told us things we weren't aware of.
"We don't pay adequate attention, at least in the view of our alumni, to the advising function," he said. "They think we should do more in counseling students as they go along. We might have thought that they would have regarded what we did in that respect was too burdensome."
There were revealing responses from students as well.
"We also received from among our students some surprisingly negative reactions toward our graduation initiative," he added. "A surprising number of them regarded it as an attempt to just get them through regardless of the cost.
"We have got to do a better job of educating and showing them that you could stay in college forever, but for whatever you need to do, it can be accomplished in most fields in four years. What we're trying to do is to improve the quality (of education) and not diminish it."
Lee also stressed the importance of continuing the university's capital campaign, a major fund-raising effort in its second year.
Beginning fast, finishing strong
On May 12, 1989, President Gordon B. Hinckley, then First Counselor in the LDS Church's First Presidency, announced that Lee was to succeed Jeffrey R. Holland as the 10th president of the nation's largest church-owned school.
Lee had returned to Provo in 1985 after serving four years in Washington, D.C., as U.S. solicitor general under the Reagan administration. The solicitor general represents the Justice Department before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lee, who holds five honorary doctor of law degrees, has argued 59 cases before the Supreme Court, mostly as solicitor general from 1981 to 1985 - a feat few attorneys can claim.
At the time he was selected president of BYU, Lee was the J. Reuben Clark Law School's George Sutherland Professor of Law. He was also a partner in the D.C. law firm of Sidley & Austin.
Not a stranger to BYU, Lee was student body president and received his bachelor's degree in 1960. Twelve years later he was founding dean of BYU's law school.
High praise came at Lee's appointment as the first dean of the law school in November 1971.
"Rex Lee is an extraordinarily talented young man," Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court said. "I am delighted he has assumed this important task at Brigham Young."
Nearly 25 years later, the praise continues.
"President Lee and his wife, Janet, have given their hearts to the university, and the university family has given its love in return," Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve said. "I have seen that mutual affection when he has been at the podium speaking to large audiences and when visiting with individual faculty and students. Partly he draws their warm response with his unfailing good humor and his complete commitment to Brigham Young University and anybody associated with it.
"But even more I think it stems from his capacity to see the best in anyone he meets," said Elder Eyring, who is also commissioner of Church Education.
Lee set out in the first years of his presidency several ambitious goals, including timely graduation and fund raising.
The opening of the Museum of Art at BYU, increased building on campus, more housing for married students, the issue of academic freedom and an emphasis that BYU is an undergraduate institution were also focal points of his administration.
"I think he's done a pretty good job, all things considered," said Jamie Jensen, a 1994 elementary education graduate. "He's been challenged on almost every side with every major issue, as he should be, and I think he's done OK, in spite of the criticism."
But some of the challenges Lee faced had nothing to do with academic bureaucracy, student apathy or issues unique to religiously based schools.
Lee was diagnosed about six years ago with a cancer called T-cell immunoblastic lymphoma, which cannot be cured but can be controlled. And for several years he has had what is called peripheral neuropathy, a damage to the nerves in his arms and legs.
While the neuropathy has been both progressive and irritating, neither it nor the cancer has had any discernible impact on his ability to perform as president of BYU.
But being hospitalized, experiencing serious infections and undergoing surgery left Lee weak and lacking in energy and ultimately led to him asking BYU's board of trustees that he be released from the presidency.
Lee said that request was one of the most difficult things he has ever done and referred to the presidential years as "glorious" for him, his wife, Janet, and their family.
During an interview, Lee paused for few moments to get a drink of water, walking gingerly around the huge, organized desk in search of a pitcher and a glass. His thirst quenched, and more important, his body rehydrated, the conversation resumed.
Moments later, Lee reached down with both hands toward his ankle, picked up his left leg and propped it up on the desk.
"The body's going, but I've still got my mind and my speech," he said.
Lee, a former marathon runner, then said: "In the race, those last six miles are really the tough ones, that's where you have to reach down and finish strong."
Have the final six months been that challenging? "No, it's not that tough!" he laughed.
Serving together
Lee has not been alone in the sweat and tears, the highs and lows, the good days and the bad days.
"The cancer had been in remission for a year when he was put in as president," Janet Griffin Lee said. "Life was pretty tentative there for a while, but I knew he still had something to contribute, and I wanted to be there with him.
"We still were thinking, `What more is there that he's got to do?' That's when he was asked to be president," she said.
"It really gave us a new lease on life. It affected the entire family, and has given me the opportunity of being with him, and to be a part of the university community. We've absolutely loved serving with the students."
At home, the Lees tried to focus as much attention on their seven children as they possibly could.
Not an easy thing for a family that's traveled around the nation as their father and husband worked as a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk, a successful attorney, founding dean of BYU's law school, an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Division, the U.S. solicitor general and then president of BYU.
But Lee made time to spend with the family, Diana, 32; Tom, 30; Wendy, 28; Michael, 24; Stephanie, 22; Melissa, 19; and Christie, 16. The family now numbers 25, with spouses and grandchildren.
"We've always enjoyed going to Lake Powell, running together as a family, hiking, and when we were in Washington we did all the things back there," Janet Lee said. "We also love sports and try to organize a family Thanksgiving football game every year.
"Homework was a big thing," she said. "We'd often clear the table of dinner and the homework would replace it. This even continued when the students were in college."
"World's greatest boss'
On a professional level, those who associate with Lee on a day-by-day basis said he's just an ordinary person who happens to have an impressive vita.
"Rex Lee's name is known all over the nation, he comes with so much stature," said Janet Calder, Lee's secretary at BYU for more than six years. "But he doesn't act that way. He just makes you feel comfortable. He's the world's greatest boss.
Calder, who with Jan Nelson was secretary to former BYU presidents Dallin Oaks and Holland, said Lee considers his work as a kind of therapy.
"He enjoys every day, he's so enthusiastic," she said. "That enjoyment of life has taught us so much."
Jim Bell, editor of Brigham Young Magazine (formerly BYU Today), is collaborating with the Lees on a book about the BYU president and his family on living with cancer.
Bell recalled one experience he had in May 1989.
"When I was writing about President Lee, I thought it would be neat to interview (Supreme Court) Justices Byron White or Sandra Day O'Connor."
Bell said he didn't really expect to hear back from either of the top judges, but after putting in his request, Justice White called him right back.
"I was really surprised," Bell said. "Here I was on the phone talking about the two of them, talking about Lee, White's old law clerk.
"So I figured, `I'm on a roll here,' and I called O'Connor's office. Same result," he said.
"Lee's name carries a lot of weight in legal and political circles. That's the kind of response you got when taking about Rex Lee."
The criticism
Perhaps the most criticism Lee has had to face as president of BYU has been over the question of academic freedom and the stance the church-owned school has taken. During his tenure that policy was drafted and formalized to define how the religious mission of the university would co-exist with academia.
Lee said he considers adoption of the academic freedom statement, which was favored by the majority of faculty, one of the most significant things that happened during his time in office.
"The academic freedom statement reaffirms the importance of academic freedom both on the institutional level and the individual level, but what it ends up saying most importantly is the fairly simple and very common-sense proposition that you can speak and write and act as you choose, except when what you do adversely affects the interest of the church that pays your salary."
With BYU being supported so heavily by the LDS Church, "it simply is not unreasonable for the church to say we do not want these resources being used in a way that will hurt the church itself. . . . For the majority of people who come here, they have no particular interest in criticizing the church anyway."
Lee said many faculty "have an interest in exploring the interrelationships between their discipline and their faith. And that becomes particularly dicey in such areas as any of the social sciences, the humanities, my own field of law."
And it's illegal at public universities, he said.
"It's a violation of separation of church and state. At private universities it's frowned on, because it will probably impede your academic progress," Lee said. "Here, it's not only permitted, it's actually encouraged. So starting from the premise that there are more people who would rather explore the intersections between their faith and their disciplines than there are who would rather criticize the church, there is much more academic freedom here at BYU."
Time to relax
Lee will be taking a year sabbatical, then by next fall he'll be teaching at the law school where he was founding dean. He'll also continue to work with Sidley & Austin in Los Angeles off and on, flying to California on occasion, Janet Lee said.
"Work is his relaxation," she said. "When he has a free day, he's working. Yes, there will be life after the presidency, and I hope he'll be able to take it a little easier.
"But I wouldn't call him a workaholic, he just has a love of his work," she said. "He really enjoys preparing briefs for the courts. He's really been able to find a marvelous mix of being able to find the right balance in life."
Reflecting on what could have been, Janet Lee said, "Someone once asked me about the money we may have lost with him being president and not working full-time as an attorney, and you know it hit me cold. I had never thought about that.
"But what more could you leave your children, what better way could we offer our family than the things we've done?" she added. "We've had (LDS) general authorities visit us, state senators, other church and state leaders. We even had President Reagan come over for dinner and the family was with him for an evening pretty much free from other distractions. . . .
"What better legacy to leave your children than this? There hasn't been one minute of reservation, not one regret with all the challenges we've had to face. Because challenges come with the territory."
No doubt, Lee will probably be preparing cases and writing briefs as he watches football games with his family.