Paul Olscamp

(News article) BOWLING GREEN - Paul J. Olscamp, hailed for boosting academic programs as president of Bowling Green State even as he endured faculty unease during his 13-year tenure, died Tuesday in a Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, hospice.

Mr. Olscamp, 77, a resident of Coeur d'Alene, had been in ill health recently, said Richard New-love, a former BGSU trustee who became a close friend.

Mr. Olscamp served as the eighth president of BGSU, retiring in June, 1995, a year before his contract expired. He made his intentions public in 1994, and that year BGSU trustees named a new classroom building in his honor.

In retirement, he was an interim president of the University of South Dakota and of Mayville State University in North Dakota. He also was an interim vice president for instruction at North Idaho College. He returned to BGSU in 2010 for its 100th anniversary celebration.

His academic specialty was philosophy. When he arrived at BGSU, he'd been president of the University of Western Washington and an administrator at three universities.

"He was an academic first and foremost," Mr. Newlove said. "Although he was interested in sports and music, the academic mission of the university was important to him. That's where he made some of his greatest contributions."

Mr. Olscamp was credited with leading the university through difficult financial times as he oversaw several construction projects, including a physical sciences building, Olscamp Hall, which was the first classroom structure on campus with a teleconferencing system, and a fine arts center.

"He did a lot of brick and mortar," said Clif Boutelle, retired BGSU director of public relations, adding: "He enhanced the national visibility of some of our outstanding academic programs. He provided a clear sense of direction. He allocated resources to support areas of excellence in the university. He also recognized the importance of recruiting undergraduate students."

One program he championed was the Center for Photochemical Sciences.

"He was a great internationalist and made the university much more aware of its global responsibilities," said Douglas Neckers, who was a McMaster distinguished research professor and chemistry department chairman. "He greatly assisted programs like ours in finding the best students in the world to study in our laboratories."

Mr. Olscamp pushed for state funding of "Ohio eminent scholars" in several disciplines. A native of Montreal, he oversaw development of a center for Canadian studies. And he taught one philosophy course a semester for years.

His rocky relationship with faculty, or they with him, stemmed in part from the choice of Mr. Olscamp in 1982 by BGSU trustees over Michael Ferrari, who was named interim president after the death of President Hollis Moore.

Mr. Ferrari, a longtime BGSU administrator, was the favored choice on campus and in the community, according to news accounts.

Years later there was an attempt in the faculty senate, never carried out - to hold a no-confidence vote on Mr. Olscamp. Instead, that body in the early 1990s issued at least two less-than-favorable faculty evaluations of the president's performance.

"My biggest problem at Bowling Green for 12 years has been the same problem all through those 12 years," Mr. Olscamp said on The Editors public affairs television program in 1994, after announcing his retirement. "I have not succeeded in establishing the friendly relationship with the faculty that I wanted to establish.

"I think I'm viewed as somewhat of a bureaucrat, preoccupied with questions about efficiency of management rather than questions of personal interchange and compassion. And I really regret that, because I think I am a compassionate man."

Mr. Neckers, who counted himself a friend, said: "He could be all the fun in the world. But he could be hard-nosed. Sometimes he could make you so mad. He had a hard job to do. And I had great respect for him."

In September, 1997, BGSU trustees approved a $95,000 settlement to three lawsuits filed by Bernadette Restivo Noe in which she charged that the university conspired to force her from her job and silence allegations of charges of sexual harassment. She resigned in February, 1995, as the university's director of major gifts, alleging that a then-BGSU vice president was sexually harassing her. In reaching the settlement, the university admitted no wrongdoing, trustees said then.

In February, 1997, a judge ruled that Mr. Olscamp and a BGSU administrator illegally withheld access to a document that outlined complaints about the vice president.

Mr. Olscamp was born Aug. 29, 1937. He had bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Western Ontario and a doctorate from the University of Rochester. He was a former associate dean of the college of humanities at Ohio State University, where he had been on the philosophy faculty. He was a former vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculties at Roosevelt University. He was a former executive assistant to the chancellor and president and a vice chancellor for student programs at Syracuse University.

Surviving are his wife, Ruth Pratt; son, Dr. Adam Olscamp; daughter, Rebecca Fry, and grandchildren.

Arrangements were not announced.

Contact Blade Staff Writer Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.