With more than half an hour before OU President David Boren is scheduled to take the stage and make a not-so-secret surprise announcement, Holmberg Hall is buzzing.
In a way, it looks like a big lecture hall: Students inside are chattering about their theories on who might succeed Boren as president; some of them are on laptops, scrolling through Facebook. They’re in T-shirts and shorts, joined by administrators and faculty members in suits and dresses.
High in the balcony section, a pair of students looks down at the burgeoning crowd below, one gripping the balcony’s crimson rail.
Under a dome-shaped, intricately decorated ceiling — perhaps not unlike the ceilings at the U.S. or Oklahoma capitol buildings Boren would stride below earlier in his career — the room is packed, filled with a sense of anticipation.
At 2 p.m. on the dot, President Boren walks out to an immediate standing ovation.
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“I love and appreciate each and every one of you,” he says, thanking students, the OU community, his wife and the state of Oklahoma.
Right away, it feels like a goodbye.
Boren recounts some of the dreams he had for the university when he first arrived in 1994 — creating an honors college, bolstering the school’s study abroad program and making diversity its strength. Many of those dreams, he says, have become realities.
He says he’s thought long and hard about when it would be time for him to step down, to allow the university to transition to its next president.
“I believe that the right time has come,” he says, and the room is silent. It’s the message most everyone had expected to hear, but after 23 years of one university president, it feels surreal to imagine anyone else.
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He explains the logistics of the transition to a crowd anxious to know what — and who — is next: He’ll remain the university's president until June 30, 2018.
Moments later, Boren crescendos to the end: “Because of you, as the chant says, our university will live on stronger than ever.”
He’s met with another ovation, louder than when he first stepped on stage.
Reporters and photographers swarm the stage, and soon, Boren disappears, swallowed by them. One photographer takes a chair set on the stage, turns it around and stands on it. Around the room, people line up to hug Molly Shi Boren, and a student audibly wonders, “Where’s Bob Stoops? I want a picture with Bob Stoops.”
Students linger, waiting to say goodbye or thank you.
“It hasn’t set in yet,” says Student Government Association President J.D. Baker. This morning, when he saw the announcement that this would happen in Holmberg Hall, he knew what was coming. All of Boren’s biggest announcements have been in Holmberg, he says. The last time Boren made an announcement of this magnitude, it was in 2015 — in the same auditorium — when he denounced a racist chant from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
Zoology professor Doug Gaffin stands alone looking at the crowd, a messenger bag slung over his shoulders. Bob and Carol Stoops walk over to Molly Shi. She tells them that she and David thought seriously about Boren stepping down after they saw Bob retire over the summer.
Taylor Putman, a political science freshman, and Jordan Fraser, a master’s student in public administration, are among the last students waiting in the auditorium for Boren. Putman skipped a class for this, and he has questions for Boren: Is someone from OU going to succeed him?
“It’s a pretty big moment,” Putman says. “How many students can say they were there for the changing of a president?”
Fraser heard rumors Tuesday night, he says, and when he saw the announcement Wednesday morning, he knew. He notices someone holding a copy of Boren’s book and regrets not bringing a book for Boren to sign, too. He says he wants something personal to remember him by — maybe a selfie, but that would be too awkward.
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After the media crowd disperses, Boren leaves the auditorium through a side door, and outside, a group of students is waiting for him. They thank him for his service and pose for a photo with him — they’re all in the Pride, they tell him.
“I was in the band, too,” he says, and they already know — they’ve seen a photo of him playing the alto saxophone in an old newspaper clipping.
“Thank you for the National Merit Scholarship, too!” biology sophomore Brenna O'Hara chimes in. Boren laughs and makes sure to shake each of their hands. He leaves them with a last reflection on his job.
“It’s been the best part of my life.”
