KEVIN KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat During an evening class attended by students and faculty members, President Peter Likins discusses the effects of parents treating young children on the basis of gender. In this class, students and faculty are treated equally and everyone is called by their first name, not by their professional title.

From a cappuccino Slim-Fast in the morning to a stack of paperwork at night, it's all just a day in the life of Peter Likins.

His alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. Two hours and a cappuccino Slim-Fast later, Peter Likins arrives at his office on this Monday in March.

Although the students in the class he team-teaches simply call him "Pete," the rest of the University of Arizona knows him as Dr. Peter Likins, president.

At 65 years old, Likins heads a university with nearly 50,000 students, faculty and staff. He works seven days a week - some days as long as 18 hours. On weekends, he might "sleep in" until 7:30 a.m. and treat himself to a bowl of cereal with his Slim-Fast.

At 8 a.m., 2 1/2 hours after his alarm rang, Likins goes to his first meeting of the day - preparation for the class he team-teaches once a week: Interpersonal Relationships in a Changing World.

By 8:30 a.m., just over an hour after arriving at work, he is in his second meeting, locked with his 13-member Cabinet in the Regents room near his seventh-floor office in the Administration building.

Eight Ansel Adams photographs decorate the walls in the Regents room, where Likins sits at the head of the table with his top advisers to discuss budgets, the Legislature and other topics calling for attention.

The budget has been a constant cause for concern for Likins this year, with the university facing what may be in excess of more than $90 million in cutbacks over two years.

Peter Likins UA President

"We've gone through a hellishly difficult year financially, knowing every step of the way that next year will be much worse, and trying to make decisions that would not damage the fabric of the university," Likins says.

Though he emphasizes that the budget crisis hasn't caused him stress, Likins says he does feel an increased sense of responsibility to the campus community.

"I'm hurting people," he says. "I'm making decisions that hurt people because of these financial pressures. That doesn't make me feel good; that's a heavy burden to carry."

In October, Likins made the decision to ask the Arizona Board of Regents to close the fledgling Arizona International College, prompting protest and dissent from dozens of students and AIC supporters who considered the college a vital educational resource for Arizona.

"I just feel like I have this load on my shoulders - all of these people I'm responsible for, and not just these people," he says. "My responsibility is not just to the people who are here now. It's to the people who will be here when I'm long gone."

Likins and his Cabinet emerge more than 2 1/2 hours after the meeting began, rendering Likins slightly late for his next meeting, which is followed by an 11:30 a.m. lunch appointment.

When he returns, the meetings continue - at 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Days filled with a barrage of meetings and appointments are nothing unusual for Likins.

An average day in the office may end between 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., says Likins' executive assistant, Linda Stapleton. But leaving the office doesn't always mean the end of the workday.

"Then he goes home, and he does all of his e-mail, and he reads the mail logs, and signs letters and does a lot of things at home," she says, explaining that Likins also often has dinners or events to attend in the evenings.

She scrolls through the president's schedule on her computer. Screen after screen is covered with small, colored squares blocking off time for meetings, appointments, conferences and other commitments.

She stops scrolling for a moment and pauses on yet another page filled with the colored squares.

"You know, you would never be able to tell," she says, "but this is a weekend."

"He has no down time," she adds. "I'll go through once in a while, and I'll schedule (free time) on a Saturday."

"Just the actual stamina it takes from the time he starts to the time he ends, and then to have to digest that information from the meetings, and then to also respond to all his own e-mails · I just can't believe it," says Carla Nunn, senior program coordinator for regents' affairs.

But Likins says the time commitment and busy schedule don't discourage him from remaining a university president.

"The kind of people who are drawn to these jobs are people who can't help it," he says. "I've always been this way, whether it's athletics or academics or my job. Whatever it is, I just work hard; that's just the way I'm put together."

"If I'm going to be working really hard at something - as is my nature and as is my need - then it's wonderful that I can devote my energies to something that has real value," he says.

This day is no exception, and around 5:40 p.m., he leaves his office to attend his 6 p.m. class.

The chairs in the room are arranged in a circle so that everyone faces one another. The students and teachers - who call themselves facilitators - wear nametags with first names only.

"I'm going to sit next to Pete," a female student says as she puts on a nametag and takes a seat next to Likins.

Patti Ota, UA vice president for executive operations and another course facilitator, begins by commenting on essays that the class - including its teachers - had written.

"A lot of you misused grammar - along with the president of this university," Ota says as she shoots a pointed look at Likins, who laughs.

"She's been hounding me on that for 20 years," he says.

Ota, one of Likins' top advisers, was his senior associate when he was president of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Though Likins may have some problems with his grammar, it is not the focus of the class.

"It's all about relationships across boundaries - gender, race, national origin, religion," he says.

Likins and his class once spent a day on a ropes course, working as a team to get through challenging physical tasks.

"I damn near killed myself trying to get over something like a 12- or 15-foot wall, but we all had to get over this wall," he says. "It's fun, but beyond that, it breaks down barriers, whether it's barriers between men and women, or blacks and whites, or faculty and students. It's all about breaking down these barriers."

And Likins is no stranger to breaking down barriers.

His desk is lined with six picture frames, none standing more than a few inches in height. Each frame holds a picture of one of Likins' six adopted children, five of whom are of an ethnicity different than his.

He displays the pictures of his children with pride and recounts the story of their adoptions.

"We were on a rescue mission, my wife and I," Likins says. "But it's my wife who has at every turn reached out to rescue someone - a child - who was in those days in greater peril than today because interracial adoptions were not done in the '60s. · It was a matter of national news."

Likins, who once again had to reach across racial boundaries in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, recalls feeling overwhelming pressure to keep the campus united.

"We were very, very concerned about students and other members of the community acting out of understandable anger, but in a misguided, misdirected way," he says. "That was, for me, an enormously challenging moment in my life - trying to hold this place together."

"I have a very strong sense of responsibility," he says. "I am responsible for this campus and for the people on this campus. And I felt just profoundly challenged - challenged to my depths by the need to somehow hold it all together."

However, he doesn't consider Sept. 11 to be a low point in his time as a university president.

"September 11 was in some ways a triumph, because I was very proud of the way this campus community handled that crisis," he says. "In many ways, it was a high (point) to see this campus come together under that kind of challenge."

But Likins says being a good university president involves facing challenges - which he enjoys.

"If all you do is dance around the potholes and avoid stepping into one, then that aimless dance doesn't make the university a better place - that just makes people admire your dance step," he says.

By 8:30 p.m. - 13 hours after arriving in his office - Likins' class has ended and so has his day on campus. But more work awaits him at home.

His work is separated into colored folders: red, blue, brown, black and green. Each folder contains more to do: material to read, papers to sign, invitations to answer, e-mails to return and matters to attend to within 24 hours.

By 11 p.m., he'll be in bed, with less than seven hours of sleep separating him from another 5:30 a.m. alarm.

In 20 years as a university president, Likins says this year has been the hardest. But despite the difficulties, he says he enjoys the challenge and doesn't suffer from stress.

"Stress is something you experience from frustration and failure; stress doesn't come from hard work," he says. "I have challenging tasks that I struggle to accomplish, and I don't always get my goals met · but I always have the feeling that I can find a way to get this done."