I know I’m a bit late, but I’m curious to see different views/opinions on this. Do you think we’ll be seeing any drastic changes sometime soon?
Well, arguably there are quite a bit going on as it relates to initiatives stemming from the office of the provost and campus life.
As for presidential influence…depends on whether or not he is followed by an insider or outsider. If they choose an insider it is because they prefer the status quo, if an outsider, then they are willing to risk shaking things up some as no doubt, an outsider may view things a bit differently. Either way, Wagner honestly wasn’t that bad overall, he just didn’t do a good job in the last stretch overall. Certain things should have been considered more carefully. He clearly was ambitious as indicated by all of the building projects and development of new programs (but then there were also closures) during his tenure. But my guess is that his overall efforts to plunge the university forward too rapidly caught up with him and the school. It is likely what led to the pressure that some of the admissions folks felt that led them to misreport data, and the building projects likely put a strain on university resources and made it difficult to ensure the longterm financial health of say…the College which is/was hurting. When funds are being raised and allocated elesewhere, the undergraduate or liberal arts units are almost always last on that list. This shows very clearly in his administration. Overall though, Emory could fix things to be “much” better, but overall it is probably stronger in many aspects than when he started. The undergraduate academics though seemed to have taken somewhat of a beating when the recession hit though. Fortunately, it seems they are refocusing on that to either make it as good as before or better in several areas (again, unfortunately at the expense of some depts).
Overall though, I must say that when it comes to academics, undergraduates, whether it be those attending, or those applying, don’t seem to notice or anticipate changes at all. We tend to only notice changes in say…campus life and of course our USNWR rank (which hardly has nothing to do with the academics). Most undergraduates (at least at a place like Emory) merely stumble upon new academic offerings by luck. The question is: Do undergraduates really care what will happen next other than maybe finding someone who will “try hard to get us back into the top 20”?