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Chancellor-elect to spend transition ‘listening’ and ‘assessing’
by Elizabeth P. Latt
Vanderbilt Chancellor-elect E. Gordon Gee says he plans to spend the months before he assumes his new post getting to know people and listening to them about what their expectations are.In a telephone interview last week from his Providence, R.I., home just three days after Board of Trust officials announced that he would succeed Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt on Aug. 1, Gee said it was too early to lay out specific plans for the University.
“I will assess the strengths and identify weaknesses,” he said. The University’s major strength, he said, is “the balance of the place. It’s really quite remarkable, the balance between the graduate and undergraduate, between the arts and sciences, the humanities and the social sciences, and the professional programs.” This balance, he said, “allows an unusual vibrancy.”
Gee will have some additional time to prepare for his chancellorship. Brown University, where he had served as president since 1997, announced last week that a faculty member had been named interim president, effective immediately.
“I’m thrilled about that,” Gee said. “In fact, that was one of the things I urged when I came back.” Once he made his decision to come to Vanderbilt, he said, he became a “lame duck” — “and that does not serve Brown or our faculty, staff or students well.”
Not having to focus on presidential responsibilities at Brown means “I can really take some time to reflect about issues that are of concern to higher education in general, about opportunities for universities and where I can see Vanderbilt and its future.”
Gee, who will be on sabbatical from Brown until April 15, said he expects that he will travel back and forth between Providence, R.I., and Nashville often over the next couple of months, and “that will pick up, particularly after April 15.”
“Reflection does not mean that I am going to go to a hermitage somewhere. I am going to use my time to come down and look and listen and see and reflect.”
He said he has a “heavy agenda” for the transition period. Included on that agenda are an intense review of the academic plans of the various colleges, departments and programs; “getting to know people”; examining the University”s administrative structure; assessing the University”s strengths and weaknesses; and setting priorities for addressing the issues that he and others identify as important.
The Chancellor-elect said he has great aspirations for Vanderbilt. “My aspirations really go toward identifying the real strengths of the institution, the real opportunities for strength in the institution, the real leadership role that Vanderbilt can play in the nation and the world and in Nashville, and really driving our academic programs toward that.”
Realizing that “one cannot be all things to all people,” he said, “The opportunity for us to select who we are, and make those priorities our lead priorities ... will be what I will try to identify early on.”
He said the current review of academic plans in various departments, instigated by Provost Thomas G. Burish, will go a long way in determining what those priorities will be.
Gee said Chancellor Wyatt “has just been wonderful about reaching out.” He said they are in agreement that rather than just a transition, “we’re going to make this a celebration of Vanderbilt,” with a focus on the excellence of the academic programs, teaching, patient care and public service aspects of the University.
Professor of Law David F. Partlett, chief of staff of the search committee, will serve as transition coordinator.