Editor Slade Sohmer sat down with NU President Henry Bienen for a no-holds-barred interview, tackling a number of pressing student body concerns. Here's the actual transcript of their shared moment:

S.S.: Where did you grow up?
H.B.: I grew up in New York City, went to Cornell undergraduate school, and went straight to the University of Chicago for graduate school. I went off to Africa for a couple of years, came back to finish off my PHD dissertation and taught at Chicago for one year. Then I went to Princeton and literally stayed at Princeton for the rest of my career until I came here, with the exception that we lived abroad, again, mostly in Africa for about three or four years.

Henry Bienen (image taken from NU's official site)

What were you doing in Africa?
I was always both teaching and doing research, first on my dissertation and then later on, various research projects...in Kenya and Nigeria, again, half-time teaching and half-time research...Our middle daughter was born in Uganda in '64 - I came back to Princeton in the early 70s, my wife really didn't want to go abroad anymore. The kids were getting to be school age and she had gone to law school and interrupted it, so we never went back to Africa as a family. I went back a lot...One of my responsibilities at Princeton was to really be in charge of these big projects worldwide, so I was abroad a lot...Princeton was my home base.

I heard the President position is opening up at Princeton. Do you have any interest in that?
No.

When did you come here?
I was appointed President here in June 1994, when theboard made the announcement, but I didn't arrive here until January 1995...so Icommuted from '94 to '95.

How do you like Northwestern?
I like it. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be here.

What do you think about the Wildcats going to The Rose Bowl?
My father used tosay to me, 'Don't say 'hup,' until you're over the fence,' so I think it'spremature. It would be great, it was great fun when we did it in my first fullyear, but there are a lot of teams between us and the Rose Bowl.

I want to get some favorites from you.

Favorite sports team: Northwestern Wildcats. I really don't follow professional teams any more. Number one I'mbusy, and two, I try to see a lot of NU athletics. I go, not only to all the homefootball games, but just about all the away games. I also try to get to all themen's home basketball games, some of the women's basketball games, and I even getto some of the away games, so that's a lot of athletics for me and a lot of time.

Favorite movie: Recently or forever? Of all time: Gee, that's a hard one...I'venever really thought about it that way. I make a distinction between big, popularmovies like Bridge on the River Kwai, which I liked, Lawrence of Arabia; big,extravagant, scenic movies and smaller films like Bergman's Wild Strawberries.

Favorite television show. Do you watch television? Almost never. I watch sportingevents when I can't make a game...If I'm really tired at night, which isn'toften, I'll just flick from movie to movie on the tube. But I never watch talkingheads; that's not how I get my news. I don't watch any weekly program, so Ibasically watch athletics or late night movies.

Favorite Disney character: Iwouldn't have one. Wouldn't care about Disney.

Fair enough. Favorite recordingartist: I'm probably really dull. I noticed that, and this is gonna date meterribly, Bob Dylan is coming to town. The first time I saw Bob Dylan was when Iwas a graduate student. He played up at the Medina Temple or somewhere in town.I've always liked Bob Dylan and I sort of like The Beatles, and that dates me alot, aside from classical music. I don't go, and I've sort of missed a couple ofgenerations; if you gave me the names of 10 major groups today, I wouldn't haveheard any of them...When we have spare time, we go to the theater a lot. My wifeand I like the theater and there's great theater in Chicago, at the Goodman,Steppenwolf, and right here on campus...I've probably missed the last 30 years ofAmerican pop culture, I'm just not there, so it's just not my thing.

I'd like to some word association with you, just real quickly here.
I didn't know this was a Rorshach test.
Yeah, I said to myself, maybe I'll throw some thingsout at him. So here we go...

Dog: My own. I've had plenty of them. We had aterrier when I was very little, I had a boxer, then I had a huge Hungarian sheepdog when I was at Princeton that was very fierce. A big, huge white dog bred forkilling wolves, not for hurting. And this dog was so fierce that eventually wecouldn't keep him because he threatened to eat all our friends and our children'sfriends. Even though he was aggressive, would you still consider him your bestfriend? Best friend, I wouldn't, but I liked him a lot; he was a pretty toughcustomer.

Barnett: Goodbye.

ASG: Good folks.

Bienen: Big family. I like that.

Who do you like in the Presidential race?
You know, I'm not gonna really commenton that, because it's not such a good thing for me to do that. A lot of peopleknow that I was a Bill Bradley advisor, going way back... and I supported Billwhen he ran this time around. I have preferences, but I'm just gonna keep them tomyself.

If you could win an Olympic medal, what sport would it be in?
Tennis. Since they don't have squash.

They could add squash. They just added trampolining this year, have you heardabout that? What do you think about that, real sport or joke medal?
It's notsomething that I've ever done, so when you say real sport, there are things likesynchronized swimming and trampolining that people make fun of, but they probablyrequire some real athletic skills, grace, and coordination. So who am I to saythat they're not real sports? I agree with you completely, I love bouncing up anddown.

Switching topics, what's the deal with the new transportation center. What dothey do there?
Well, the new one [on Foster and Sheridan] is just a new house, or anew physical facility; it didn't programmatically change very much. They do anumber of different things. One, the director of it, Aaron Gellman, who's nowretiring from that position, has really been a major person in public policydecisions and advising on everything from deregulation of the airlines to newairport suggestions to a new generation of planes, freight. So there's a publicpolicy wing. Then there are people both in engineering and social sciences,especially in economics, who work in that center, who are engaged in everythingfrom microeconomics to deregulation, industrial organization to how many bridgesyou should build. Why did you pick that question?

I don't know, every time I passit I wonder what's going on in there, and I haven't found a single person thatcan answer it either.
I don't think it has engaged undergraduates very much. Iwant a lot of the centers to be more engaged with undergraduates and some ofthem really are, like the Center for International Comparative Studies, theInstitute for Policy Research...this one probably has not done so and maybe itshould. Certainly nothing very secret goes on inside, I can assure you. Can you?

Oklahoma University had a big victory over Texas on Saturday, Oct. 7 and theycancelled class for the Monday after the weekend. What is it gonna take for a dayof classes to be cancelled?
I think that's really foolish. We work on the quartersystem and we have a very condensed, congested schedule; we start late, we endlate. I think it's a bad signal to do that. It just puts athletics in a placewhere, it's great to win and to have great spirit and to get excited about that,but it's in the wrong order of magnitude that we should be canceling classes for.Moreover, even when a lot of students wanted us to cancel classes for MartinLuther King's birthday, we didn't want to do that. In part, because we thought ifyou want to honor MLK, if you want to think about his life and work, you are muchbetter off doing it through panels and discussions then having everybody head offfor a long weekend.

What do you think of the winter: Are we expecting a freezing winter, predictions?
Hey I'm not the groundhog. You're not? I always thought that the Chicago winterswere a tad bit exaggerated, but all the old-fashions say, 'back in the old days.'When I first lived in Chicago in 1960-63 as a grad student, I really remembercold winters. My recollection is of long, hard, cold winters, but I don't havethat feeling any more. But of course, I get driven around a lot, and I go from myheated garage to an underground garage here. I hope for everybody's sake,including mine, we have a mild winter.

Back to the Rorshach, kind of personality quiz. Here are a couple offill-in-the-blanks to tackle.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming... Secretaryof State. I don't know if I dreamed about it or whether my mother dreamed of it.My mother's the same way. It might still happen, but I wouldn't bet the farm onit.

My happy place is... With my family. I'm a very family-oriented person. I'mvery close to our three daughters and we have three grandchildren. How old arethey? Our oldest daughter has a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, and our middledaughter has a 3-year-old.

I get upset when... People do stupid things. Of which I find they do it quite often.

Knock three times on theceiling... And the ceiling will probably fall down. [ed. note: we were looking for "if you want me."]

What is the average temperature in your house when you walk in?
I don't like hot weather inside, so I try to keep it - in fact, I'm constantly fussing andfooling with blankets and with the thermostat. So I would like to keep it atabout 68 degrees or so.

One last question for you, and then I'll let you get back to your e-mails. Whatwould you like people to know about you that they either do not know or shouldknow?
I see myself as a fair person. That matters to me a lot, whether peoplethink I am fair. I do get annoyed sometimes when students come yelling andwhining and think they haven't been treated fairly, because I think this placereally tries to give people a fair shake. People make mistakes, it's a bigcomplex organization, but I'd like personally to have people see that I try to befair and open-minded with what happens here.

Well, that's all I have. Thank you very much.
So you'll be the Salon or Slate of the Northwestern world.
I sure hope so.