New Provost

[CWS]

Announced today:

www.georgetown.edu/news/new-provost.html

I was on the search committee for this. He's a great guy, a surpremely good listener, and I think will be great for the university overall. Don't be fooled by his bio (i.e., gov't bureaucrat, statistician). There's a lot more going on than that. Was keenly interested in the Jesuit spiritual tradition.

Didn't ask him about basketball....

[CTHoya08]

So what happens to the old provost?

[CWS]

Apr 10, 2012 22:38:47 GMT -5 CTHoya08 said:

So what happens to the old provost?

Jim O'Donnell announced he was stepping down at the beginning of the academic year. He's a tenured faculty, so will presumably return to the ranks for the faculty (after a sabbatical).

[CAHoya07]

What's a provost?

[Admin]

Apr 11, 2012 14:20:26 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

What's a provost?

"Though the name of the position has changed over the years, the duties have remained fairly consistent. The Provost today serves as the chief academic and administrative officer for Georgetown's main campus."

provost.georgetown.edu/history/

[reformation]

Apr 10, 2012 20:30:24 GMT -5 CWS said:

Announced today:

www.georgetown.edu/news/new-provost.html

I was on the search committee for this. He's a great guy, a surpremely good listener, and I think will be great for the university overall. Don't be fooled by his bio (i.e., gov't bureaucrat, statistician). There's a lot more going on than that. Was keenly interested in the Jesuit spiritual tradition.

Didn't ask him about basketball....

CWS, any thoughts re: his priorities/vision/likely areas of impact?

[Nevada Hoya]

Apr 10, 2012 20:30:24 GMT -5 CWS said:

Announced today:

www.georgetown.edu/news/new-provost.html

I was on the search committee for this. He's a great guy, a surpremely good listener, and I think will be great for the university overall. Don't be fooled by his bio (i.e., gov't bureaucrat, statistician). There's a lot more going on than that. Was keenly interested in the Jesuit spiritual tradition.

Didn't ask him about basketball....

What's wrong with gov't bureaucrat, statistician (or gov't bureaucrat, research chemist for that matter)?

[CWS]

Apr 11, 2012 20:49:42 GMT -5 reformation said:

CWS, any thoughts re: his priorities/vision/likely areas of impact?

Fair question, though I imagine he'd want to resist identifying one set of priorities or another as THE set this early in the ballgame. That said, I think one of the more difficult challenges he'll be facing (and will want to face) is how to increase the research profile and do so in a way that helps with the expansion of the sciences on the main campus and with the bottom line of the med center.

A person in this type of position has to have the ability and the enthusiasm for dealing with a lot of different issues. One of his interests that I particularly valued is that of producing graduates who are capable of addressing complex problems and ethical concerns.

[Nevada Hoya]

Dean Gillis said that they would be doubling the size of the chemistry department and powering up computer sciences at Georgetown. He said that a previous dean said that the only thing wrong with the CAS was its arts and its science. Now with the Arts fixed up, science was the next step. The new science building helps realize this effort. Computational techniques in all the sciences are the wave of the future, so they will be concentrating on this too.

I am sure that the new Provost will first want to count the number of students before he does anything else.

[RusskyHoya]

Here's the Post's article on the hire: www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/georgetown-picks-census-director-as-next-provost/2012/04/10/gIQAJCba8S_story.html

By all accounts, this is someone who is a very skilled administrator, having ostensibly rescued a floundering census effort. This is really heartening, for administrative and management skills is something the position is in desperate need of (JJO is scary smart and is unquestionably devoted to the University, but management and oversight issues involving the Provost's Office have been a source of some strain).

Apr 13, 2012 17:38:50 GMT -5 Nevada Hoya said:

Dean Gillis said that they would be doubling the size of the chemistry department and powering up computer sciences at Georgetown. He said that a previous dean said that the only thing wrong with the CAS was its arts and its science. Now with the Arts fixed up, science was the next step. The new science building helps realize this effort. Computational techniques in all the sciences are the wave of the future, so they will be concentrating on this too.

I am sure that the new Provost will first want to count the number of students before he does anything else.

I'm not sure that the Arts are really fixed up - the fine arts, anyway (theater excepted). Facilities are not exactly the finest, pardon the pun, and there is no "pure" music major or any graduate programs. It's understood, though, that these are relatively small programs (and job prospects are not exactly great even in good economic times, although DC is better off than most cities), so improvements will have to be gradual. Unless well-known Fine Arts major Patrick Ewing Sr. would like to make a generous contribution, that is

You joke about counting the number of students, but that's actually a very big deal right now, as those of us who work in graduate programs are having to deal with the rapid implementation of a graduate enrollment cap for the first time in the University's history. It's been...interesting. And getting an accurate count has indeed been one of the stumbling blocks.

[DFW HOYA]

One of the near-term challenges for the provost is this tension between growing some programs (e.g. sciences) within an enrollment cap. Assuming the College can't absorb extra admissions slots from the SFS, MSB, or NHS (all of whom are just as competitive), he will have to balance competing interests among the faculty which could affect enrollment (and ultimately faculty size and support) in other departments.

In one sense, O'Donnell and his predecessors didn't feel a capacity constraint on sciences because pre-med numbers were roughly fixed and the demand curve for the research sciences among undergraduates was traditionally low. A new science building, new faculty commitments, and new priorities now put strains on other College departments. It's no easy task to tell a department chair (or chairs) to cut back its staff and classes for the benefit of another branch of the college.

[hoyawatcher]

I was shocked when I heard how small the numbers of biochem majors were. (Think fingers and maybe toes for each class). Now that Georgetown has invested in that new science building I have to expect a commitment to raise the enrollment in that major. If the total numbers are capped then that is going to be a pretty brutal administrative battle.

As someone who only recently came to being sort of involved with Georgetown I am continually amazed at the limitations they have for such a good school.

[Nevada Hoya]

Yes, Dean Gillis meant the theater, when he talked about the arts becoming upgraded.

I can see how doubling the chemistry faculty would impact the university, but it is needed if the university is to compete for the brightest students, many of whom want to go into the sciences. Georgetown, except for the pre-med program (and you could even be a history major and still pre-med), always lagged in the sciences.

[kchoya]

Apr 13, 2012 16:40:28 GMT -5 CWS said:

One of his interests that I particularly valued is that of producing graduates who are capable of addressing complex problems and ethical concerns.

Not to be overly critical, but that's a pretty vague and generic value. Shouldn't every college grad be able to do that?

[reformation]

You are right that the statement above is pretty much a platitude, though I guess the addressing complex problems part is kind of new for gtwn(though not for pretty much any other top univ). On the other hand the emphasis on ethical considerations is pretty much a gtwn thing vs its peers.

I think it would be great if the new provost could actually make some tough resource allocation decisions--gtwn sees incapable of doing that in academics or athletics. I hope he also makes an effort to develop additional signature programs.

He seems like an interesting choice for the job--the kind that either works spectacularly well or is a pretty poor fit. Let's hope its the former.

[DFW HOYA]

Apr 15, 2012 21:56:54 GMT -5 reformation said:

I think it would be great if the new provost could actually make some tough resource allocation decisions--gtwn sees incapable of doing that in academics or athletics.

Well, I would argue it has, in that Georgetown does not want to gut its programs to the NCAA minimum simply to prop up basketball or to make athletics even less relevant to the student body. When a diverse share of the undergraduate student body participates on teams, there are tangible and intangible benefits to be gained.

Similarly, with academics. Georgetown would be a different place if the College had eight majors instead of 30, but at what price? The challenge to the the provost is not to drop Portuguese or Art History or Classics, but to make them work within the logistical framework of the College.

[reformation]

DFW, portraying extreme alternatives to the current situation does not justify avoiding rational resource allocation decisions--i.e., doing nothing and maintaining the status quo forever.

[CWS]

Apr 15, 2012 15:45:11 GMT -5 kchoya said:

Apr 13, 2012 16:40:28 GMT -5 CWS said:

One of his interests that I particularly valued is that of producing graduates who are capable of addressing complex problems and ethical concerns.

Not to be overly critical, but that's a pretty vague and generic value. Shouldn't every college grad be able to do that?

Yes, it does sound generic. He was more specific and creative about how he would try to accomplish this, but it wouldn't be fair to him to repeat what he said in an interview context. I guess what I wanted to flag is that it was an issue that he approached with some passion and sophistication.

You're right that most schools would want to check off the "complex problems" and "ethics" boxes. However, they often have different views about what that means and how to achieve those goals. What made Groves stand out is that I thought he had a good insight into what it takes to graduate students adepts at addressing ethics and complex problems, and that his answers that fit with an institution having a specific religious identity committed to the liberal arts/humanist educational tradition.

Achieving these praiseworthy goals is complicated for school administrators (who are sometimes more attuned to the big-picture, practical issues of the needs of graduates) by the fact that most schools are faculty-governed to some degree, and thus just because the president and board want "x" to happen, it doesn't mean the faculty, individually or collectively, are going to go along with "x". A successful provost has to have credibility with the faculty to lead them in needed directions. The fact that Groves is a member of the Academy of Science is probably not too important to your average alum, but it is important for faculty.

[CWS]

Broadly related to provost discussion (contrast between DC high school education and expectations for independent thinking at Gtown). Proud he's a Gtown student.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-went-to-one-of-dcs-best-high-schools-i-was-still-unprepared-for-college/2012/04/13/gIQAqQQAFT_story.html?hpid=z3

[tgo]

Apr 16, 2012 10:04:29 GMT -5 CWS said:

Broadly related to provost discussion (contrast between DC high school education and expectations for independent thinking at Gtown). Proud he's a Gtown student.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-went-to-one-of-dcs-best-high-schools-i-was-still-unprepared-for-college/2012/04/13/gIQAqQQAFT_story.html?hpid=z3

i was at a reception in LA yesterday for accepted students and their families and we had Darryl's teacher from campus in attendence, she briefly talked about how this article started as an assignment in her class to reflect on your academic background (or something along those lines), when she read Darryl's she passed it along to a friend at the Post who then got it published.