When Jehuda Reinharz took the helm of Brandeis University in 1994, it was, as one professor put it, a university with champagne ambitions operating on a beer budget. As president, Reinharz, whose charisma and personal story have charmed legions of donors, raised hundreds of millions of dollars and propelled the private Waltham school into one of the top colleges in the country

The future of the Rose
Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz talks about the Rose Art Museum's future.

But Reinharz now finds himself in the eye of the storm as he tries to steer Brandeis out of a financial crisis. His bungled announcement of a plan to close the Rose Art Museum - and subsequent backpedaling - have stirred anger among many faculty members and shaken their confidence in his leadership.

His critics say the museum debacle is just the latest in what they see as a pattern of rash decisions by Reinharz that have tarnished the university's reputation. There was the negative publicity two years ago over his handling of Jimmy Carter's visit to talk about Carter's book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," as well as the sudden dismantling in 2006 of a Palestinian art exhibit from the university library, among other embarrassing controversies.

His detractors accuse Reinharz of ruling with an iron fist, failing to seek faculty input on key decisions, and not learning from previous missteps. While some professors say Reinharz appears to be chastened by their outcry in recent weeks and the board of trustees continues its staunch support of the president, some faculty wonder whether it's time for Reinharz to go.

"We need new leadership, frankly," said Michael Rosbash, a biology professor. "There's a growing segment of the faculty who believes that. Fifteen years is a long time. Every year for the last three or four years there's been a crisis of some kind."

Reinharz said he values faculty opinions and has tried to be inclusive and accessible, personally answering every e-mail and holding office hours every two weeks. The second-longest-serving leader in Brandeis's history after its founding president, Reinharz said he has no intention of leaving. Just last spring, the board extended his contract for five years.

"If some people think I have outlived my usefulness, there's nothing I can do about it," Reinharz said in an interview last week. "But I think my record is clear. I've poured everything I have into this job."

He also said he has no qualms about doing what he thinks is best for Brandeis.

"In the final analysis, when something requires a decision, I make a decision," Reinharz said. "I can't consult on every decision I make. It simply would paralyze the university."

Reinharz's story in many ways parallels that of the young university he runs, both rising from the tragedy of the Holocaust. Brandeis, a nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored research university, was established in 1948, the same year Israel was founded, at a time when Jewish students faced quotas at elite universities.

Reinharz was born in the Israeli port city of Haifa in 1944. At 13, he and his struggling family moved to Essen, Germany, where his parents had lived before fleeing the Nazi occupation. There, the teenager learned to defend himself, repeatedly getting kicked out of school for fighting when schoolmates taunted him with anti-Semitic slurs.

He finished high school in New Jersey and studied Jewish history in college and graduate schools on full scholarships, eventually rising through the ranks at Brandeis, from professor to president. At first, when trustees offered him the presidency, Reinharz demurred. It was his wife, Shulamit Reinharz, a sociology professor at Brandeis and his high school sweetheart, who persuaded him to take the post, he said.

"She just said, 'Why don't we see whether you can actually run this place?' " Reinharz said.

His tenure has been marked by tension with faculty, some of whom accuse him of clamping down on free speech - particularly on matters involving Israel - to placate the college's Jewish donor base.

In 2002, on behalf of his board chairman, Reinharz pulled Brandeis ads from local public-radio stations in protest of NPR's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Four years later, Reinharz's decision to shut down the art exhibit by Palestinian refugees infuriated professors, and a faculty committee later condemned the action on free-speech grounds. Reinharz said he removed the artwork only after the student who put on the show refused to post a scholarly explanation alongside the exhibit.

The president further roiled faculty after Carter spoke on campus about his controversial book, which criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Reinharz, who did not attend the speech because he was meeting with a donor, chastised the faculty for inviting Carter because the visit would offend donors, said Seth Fraden, a physics professor. Reinharz said he never pressed faculty to rethink their invitation.

All of the very public crises "often relate to controversial decisions that were not properly explained or openly discussed," said Richard Gaskins, a professor of legal studies. "Faculty keep hoping for rational exchange but what we see is more often Kabuki performance - highly ritualized behavior with no verbal exchange," he said.

In the most recent furor, surrounding the Rose Art Museum, many faculty members said they felt betrayed by Reinharz's surprise announcement last month that Brandeis planned to turn the public museum into an academic center. They were angry that Reinharz had never hinted at the possibility of closing the museum, even though they had met with the president a week earlier and agreed to support him in making budget cuts.

Reinharz issued a public apology Feb. 5 for the way he handled the decision and said he would try harder to collaborate with faculty. But some are skeptical.

"I don't think someone 64 years old can go from being borderline imperious to being a good listener overnight, if at all," said Rosbash, a behavioral geneticist.

Some of Reinharz's supporters on the faculty, however, say that his continuous leadership has provided the much-needed stability essential in raising Brandeis's profile and that stability is needed now more than ever as the university faces a projected $80 million operating deficit over the next five years.

"Faculty will always have problems with administration being too authoritarian," said Gregory Petsko, who teaches biochemistry and chemistry. "But I also think it's easy to forget that someone in his position is caught between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the faculty and the hard place being the board."

Board members, too, are quick to defend Reinharz. Under his presidency, the endowment and cash gifts to the university have more than tripled - although both have plummeted during the current economic downturn. Student diversity has increased significantly, as has selectivity.

Aware that Reinharz is not always as democratic as most faculty would like, Jack Connors Jr., vice chairman of the board, said that professors are overreacting by suggesting a change in leadership. "The guy has done a lot of growing in the role," Connors said. "He alone has the responsibility to deliver a future for Brandeis. As far as I'm concerned, he's trying to do his job."

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.