I wonder if Bernie and others who are relatively in the know would comment on the new President. Is she a good pick? Where do you think she will try to guide the University?
Here’s the link, FYI: http://executivesearch.emory.edu/president/.
@kaukana
She has always had potential as she has been very closely and deeply involved in academic affairs at Emory and seems very serious about it. I think she “may” have some good ideas and indeed envisions more radical change than someone like Wagner did (in terms of culture). However, her strength, familiarity and association with the university, is also a weakness. If you want to radically change the culture of an institution, it is much more difficult to do so when you already have so many relationships with other insiders (faculty and administrators) who would likely resist or would not go along with any higher than normal level of ambition that would call upon them to change their ways. This means she is also more likely to “hold back” as her allegiances can become weaknesses. An external candidate with a fresh pair of eyes and great qualifications may have been a better idea.
Also, the selection of an insider seems almost too convenient suggesting one or several of the following a) the selection and interview process was fake and they already had their minds made up, b) they feared an external candidate exposing or discovering some serious weaknesses and then acting to shake things up a lot, so played it safe, c) They simply did not get the amount or caliber of interest as they expected so selected a safe, strong, internal candidate.
I think she is qualified for the position, but am slightly uncomfortable with the implications and circumstances behind her selection. I truly hope that she acts with lots of purpose and intent to make Emory a truly better place. We need much more cohesion and unification to get more units of the university either on one accord or at least able to contribute to a unified mission. Wagner kind of failed to achieve this despite all the pretty buildings that went up during his tenure. I think in general, in an ideal situation (again don’t know if this is one), Sterk will focus on more substantive issues that could lead to growth of the institution. And her effort as provost kind of suggests that as well (she was quite aggressive, especially with respect to ECAS, more so than Lewis). There is evidence that she takes education (and its quality) very seriously (a friend of mines who I discussed this with says that she envisions Emory as being a more Chicagoesque type of place in terms of intellectualism and influence on its locale which I find appropriate…either it or JHU is very appropriate given Emory’s history and current academic and research strengths), but I don’t know how much influence she’ll retain over those affairs when she officially begins acting as president. Hopefully she replaces herself (the provost position) with someone who helped implement all of the initiatives that she encouraged (or started herself). I worry that, in terms of undergraduate entities, that it will be unveiled that she was much more powerful in her role as provost. I guess we will just have to see what her plans are and how the upcoming strategic plan ends up looking under her leadership.
Also, to be clear…I think while Emory has cooled off a little in terms things like admissions and can use a further academic boost in undergraduate divisions (though some exciting things are starting to happen again! Like they were before the recession…Emory is definitely trying harder than many near peers in terms of introducing new academic opps, depts, and courses at this point), Wagner was still very strong overall in terms of achievement, just too much of a politician type (though a fairly likeable one) for my liking. One may look at rankings and say Emory is on the slide, but the reality is, it was actually substantially less relevant (and received less applications) in the days where it had a higher ranking in USNews and World Report. People complain about its level of global and lay prestige today, but they honestly have no true grounds for such complaints if the university is put in context of how far it has come over a VERY short period of time. Among the so called “peer” institutions, it is definitely the youngest in terms of joining the AAU (Association of American Universities I believe), which is the big Hallmark of “we finally made it as a big research university”. The number of prestigious faculty is also substantially higher than it was in the days of when Emory ranked higher (so no surprise Emory is much more relevant globally than it was before) which suggests that the formula back then wasn’t really a reflection of the true caliber of the university. The current ranking system is likely more accurate but with some serious pitfalls (like Emory could be essentially the same caliber of a similar sized school and rank lower because of things like lower incoming student stats. As in, they have excellent scores that are lower than the excellent scores elsewhere. Using this metric leads to one splitting hairs over unimportant stuff) as it leads many (including current and prospective students) to under-evaluate Emory because they don’t know how to use sources other than a couple of ranking agencies to evaluate it sadly.
Thanks for the comments. It will be interesting to hear or read what she has to say about priorities for the University.
@kaukauna : I would take a look at this if you haven’t. This is where my friend got his info. from http://saportareport.com/emorys-next-president-claire-sterk-seeks-closer-ties-atlanta-region/
She’s already had quite impressive success when she was at the School of Public Health where she was able to raise lots of money (I mean, look at the stature of Rollins today…the school opened in 1990!) and I know she has her hand in things such as undergraduate enrollment management), the CoLa initiative (basically to re-envision and revitalize the role of the liberal arts in the curriculum). That Paris course where the students attended the climate conference there was a result of this initiative. I also thing the University Course concept came around once she was provost along with that QEP (the evidence thing), which has lots of potential once they work out the kinks. No one would come up with and ride that sort of quality enhancement plan unless they foresaw it as a tool meant to jumpstart some cultural changes among undergraduates (though admittedly, given the level of pre-professionalism at Emory, it is going to be kind of hard to make incoming freshmen care about or feel a duty to enhance such a culture…places like Chicago have been pushing a culture from the top down and out since their inception and the attitudes of the students they yield reflect it). . All of that is honestly much more visible changes than those yielded under Lewis. The woman can get things done. And it also helps that you have people like Dean Nair of campus life who are also really aggressive and make lots of visible and impactful changes in seemingly short periods of time (like 3-5 years or less of their tenure)…then there is Foreman. Relatively clueless but has impacted a few departments in good ways (though the department closures still upset) like the restructuring of the political science major and pushing chemistry to at least attempt changes (knowing them…they’ll be faking a lot it until they make it which is still at least an attempt.most STEM depts at any private school don’t really try to make large changes, even at the “fake it” level).
Thanks Bernie. Very helpful.
By the way, I think it’s a smart thing for Pres. Sterk to seek greater engagement with the city. Atlanta has its problems, like all cities, but these problems can also be an opportunity for a University. The metro Atlanta is also so diverse (I don’t mean just in the demographic sense) and dynamic there will be a myriad of ways to enhance academic departments within Emory while also helping the city with its challenges. Having the city of Atlanta surrounding is one way Emory arguably exceeds places like Duke, Johns Hopkins, and even Vanderbilt.
She is, conveniently, not the only leader at Emory who truly wants to engage and essentially leverage the strength of Atlanta much more. Dean Ericka James of the business school seems really serious about that.
I used to think Emory has strong tie with locals just as those private schools do in West Coast, USC, Stanford…I was wrong. Thought Emory should have what Atlanta needs, as well as should have those program fitting local industry. Surprised to see Mercer has the only pharm school in metro Atlanta, and Emory never think to re-open its historic dental school. Glad to see the nursing school is opening its CRNA program as the second one in the State of Georgia, considering that the whole metro has plenty of medical facilities can be offered to do clinical practice (AA is not a substitution of CRNA tho). Another thing is to hope to see Emory should found a school of media and journalism, consider that Atlanta has CNN and other big media and film companies.
@mgfammgfam : Mercer is still ultimately more connected to Macon however. I think schools like GSU have closer ties to Atlanta and Emory has programs that attempt to make the connect, but it is nothing at the level of say, a UChicago in terms of engaging the city (perhaps stems from its location in unincorporated Dekalb County, though it has been speculated that Emory is to actually be annexed by Atlanta).
Don’t know about other schools. Emory seems to be against founding of another school, and I can’t imagine it would create that one hosting a department it closed not to recently. Maybe Sterk could see the benefit, but I doubt she’d jump through the hoops to do so. In addition, Emory is starting to run into this dilemma of spaces to build new academic (or other) facilities and sustainability. Campus is quite dense compared to other comparable schools and they seem bent on preserving forested areas. I doubt, for example, they would allow buildings in Baker Woods…and non-health science buildings would be out of place in the Haygood Drive Area (where N. Druid High is). I am kind of of the opinion that, instead of increasing enrollment that led to Clairmont Campus for housing, it could have been an alternative for academic facilities or programs as well, but now that looks impossible. It appears Emory’s growth (while it is a beautiful campus and has different, and I think kind of interesting, architecture), much like Atlanta’s was basically unplanned (a bunch of things came about that seemed like a great idea, and they just threw facilities up) and now the lack of earlier planning and attempts to correct for it (sustainability initiatives such as the no net loss plan) impose some cumbersome limitations. They’ll pretty much have to work within the framework of the current facilities to establish any new institutions or programs they want to grow into large enrollment programs.
@bernie12 you are right. People probably will be surprised that a school with big campus like Emory is lacking space to build more facilities. Few blocks can be used to build on the Main which I would think are the grassland behind the new health science research building, Personally, I also want to reserve the Baker woods. Emory may need to think to relocate or build its some programs, research centers out of main. Briarcliff still has some spared spaces. The parking spaces and unused building at the northside of Linden Ave on EUHM campus could be re-built to a complex or two to house any Emory-Tech program, research centers.