<p>Robert J. Zimmer nominated to serve as President of the University of Chicago</p>
<p>The Presidential Search Committee is recommending to the Board of Trustees that Robert J. Zimmer, currently Provost of Brown University, be elected the 13th President of the University of Chicago.</p>
<p>Upon approval of the nomination expected at a special meeting of the Board on Friday, March 10, Zimmer will assume office on July 1, 2006. He will succeed Don Michael Randel, who has served as President of the University since 2000. Randel will become President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation this summer.</p>
<p>Zimmer is a mathematician who was a faculty member at the University of Chicago for more than two decades before leaving in 2002 to become Browns Provost. While at Chicago, Zimmer served in a number of administrative roles, including Deputy Provost and, beginning in 2001, as Vice President for Research and for Argonne National Laboratory. While Vice President, Zimmer helped usher in an era of greater collaboration between scientists at the University and Argonne National Laboratory, which the University has operated for the U.S. Department of Energy since the laboratorys inception in 1946.</p>
<p>I am actually enthused by the pick, I had someone else in mind, but Zimmer looks good. First and foremost he is a well respected scholar, this is very important to the U of C culture. Having spent many years at Chicago he will understand the faculty and the love the students have for the Core. I have heard that there was some grumbling during his Brown tenure, that he was trying take a look at their curriculum and grading policies and trying to move them to some form of standards. I understand one proposal was to allow grades of - and + (A-, B+ ...etc), as is done at Chicago and revise the P/F policy. From what I understand this caused some student complaints. We will have to wait and see how he does on the fund raising front, which can make or break a college president.</p>
<p>Yeah, it just seems like Chicago and Brown are opposites in some ways. So if he rubbed Brown wrong, and understands Chicago's culture, it should be a good match. And fundraising, yes, Chicago needs to work on it, at least according to the USNWR rankings I read last year.</p>
<p>But the point is, some do better than others and Chicago seems to fall short in this area in relation to it's peers (if rankings are to be believed).</p>
<p>Okay, just a guess here on the fundraising aspect. One, there are no big time athletics to help keep alums connected to the university over the rest of their lives. Two, the kinds of students who choose Chicago are very intellectual, and might not value "emotional" attachment to a school once they've moved on. They might not feel the degree of loyalty that causes one to write a check every year. Or perhaps they feel more connected to their grad schools. These are generalizations and just hunches on my part, mostly based on the fact that I thought my S would fit so well there.</p>
<p>Chicago also produces a disproportionate share, as compared to peers, of those employed by colleges where the income is not as great as elsewhere and many of the eastern schools have students of far greater initial wealth as well. Having said all that, U of C fundraising this year was quite good, see my recent post on another thread on this forum. </p>
<p>I know many U of C alums, we are all supporters of the University and we all love it. The regional meetings and distinguished speaker series are typically well attended and quite fun. Historically, Chicago did little to keep alumni engaged. this has changed over the last several years and great strides have been made. Check out the letters section of the University of Chicago Magazine to see some alumni passion.</p>
<p>as someone who knows bob zimmer well, i'd just like to say the u of chicago is extremely fortunate to have him at the healm--he's a brilliant mathematician, a shrewd administrator, and a deeply thoughtful person. those of us at brown are sad to see him go.</p>
<p>personally, i wish him and chicago all the best</p>
<p>momof2inca, some schools with no athletics and a highly "intellectual" student body do very well in fundraising (e.g., Caltech). I haven't seen any study of how much either of these factors affects fundraising in general or among alumni in particular (I think alumni giving is a small part of overall fundraising at many universities in any case).</p>
<p>As a fan of Chicago's (with no personal connections, though),</p>
<p>1) What do you folks think is Zimmer's vision for Chicago, going forward? What personal stamp will he leave behind as his legacy?</p>
<p>2) There IS a general impression that Chicago has fallen behind the other top schools in fund-raising, but is that true? Can anyone share some hard numbers showing where Chicago stood in endowments relative to, say, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and Yale say, 20 and 40 years ago? How about relative to Northwestern, whose endowment is now in the same general neighborhood as Chicago's, but which, say, 40 years ago was nowhere close to Chicago in reputation?</p>
<p>The comments about the endowment seem out of synch with reality. UChicago has a smaller undergrad student population than many other schools, i.e. Brown. Let's use Brown as an example to contrast some of the earlier comments:</p>
<p>1) Brown does not have a "major" sports program (if you define major sports as Football, Basketball that produce more money than they cost).
2) Brown has a larger undergraduate student body, 5700 to UofC 4500.
3) Brown has a smaller endowment, $1.8B to $4.1B for UofC.</p>
<p>Yes, Northwestern has a slightly higher endowment, $4.2B but they have a significantly larger undergraduate student body, ~8,000.</p>
<p>UChicago also has several substantially sized professional and graduate schools...the point about fund raising is a challenge that all schools face but it is a fair one</p>
<p>one thing Zimmer is likely to carry from Brown is the priority on financial aid--something that requires substantial endowment to support in perpetuity</p>