Life Scientists as College Presidents: Unique Training for a Unique Role

As the role of college and university president increasingly becomes that of chief fundraiser, the trend is to fill the post with an individual whose administrative experience outweighs his or her academic credentials. Politicians and business leaders--people with an eye on sources of money, from legislatures or bottom-line savings--also fit the fundraising requirements. David Baltimore Despite this trend, a small number of people trained in the biological sciences have become college presidents and are thriving. Of those The Scientist interviewed, only one who decided early on that she wanted to be an administrator--the University of Vermont's Judith Ramaley, an anatomist--was specifically trained for the career path. Most of the others enjoyed administration early in their careers and wanted university involvement. Only two of them still maintain active research laboratories: Arnold Levine, the current president of Rockefeller University, and David Baltimore, a past president of the same institution and current president of California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The others gave up research--some reluctantly--believing that they could not pursue their research and remain high up in administration. But no matter how they came to be administrators, they all see the influence of their life science training on their university roles. Paul Risser, president of Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis and a specialist in the ecology and management of natural resource systems, points out, "If you look at a large university like Oregon State, it is like an ecosystem." He explains, "Almost all problems are systems analysis problems: how the problem arises, who the people are, and how they all work together." Mathematician and systems analyst Louis Padulo, who is not a life scientist but whose work has skirted the edge of biological systems research, agrees with Risser. Padulo, who was president of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, from 1988 to 1990, and who served as dean of engineering at Boston University for 12 years, explains that many of the responsibilities of a college president require analysis, long-term views, "and some appreciation of systems thinking." Ramaley believes that her training in biology is a good basis for administrative duties. "Going from microscopic organization up to ecosystems is very good training for the mind," she notes, adding that she can see a parallel between "the initial research I did as a graduate student [and] how I function today." Her research then was on puberty in the female rat and the effect of stress on fertility; she was studying the way the organism functions in its environment. Despite the training, most have to give up the pleasures and the challenges of the laboratory for pure administration. "I don't tell anyone I'm a veterinarian," states William Jenkins, who took over the presidency of Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge on April 1. Immediately prior to this, Jenkins served as LSU's chancellor, and, before that, provost and vice chancellor. Jenkins adds that he certainly doesn't tell anyone he's a pharmacologist. He holds a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has not been involved in research since 1988, when he left Texas A&M University to become dean of LSU's School of Veterinary Medicine. Jenkins regrets giving up research, but "I still do some reading of a select number of journals in my own profession." He adds, "Most of my reading today is university administration and higher education trends in the United States." Cancer researcher Levine, president of Rockefeller since last fall, still maintains an active research laboratory. But Rockefeller, as an institution that Levine compares to "a large department of biology," is unique among the universities, which usually have more diverse departments and programs. Baltimore, too, continues his research by studying the molecular biology of signal transduction and cell differentiation. Franklin M. Loew, president of small Becker College in Worcester, Mass., gave up research years ago when he became dean of Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Loew, a veterinarian who also holds a Ph.D. in nutrition, has moved to a teaching institution that conducts no research. University presidents' roles are changing along with the roles of their institutions. No longer are universities impenetrable bastions, isolated from the communities in which they reside. Ramaley, for example, who now writes papers on the function of the university,1,2,3 sees universities as having "civic responsibilities." In a recent paper, she used the term "engagement" rather than the older "service" to explain the role of the university--especially the public university--in its community. Among the responsibilities are: "To create a well-educated and skilled workforce; to generate the foundation of knowledge and innovation that supports a high quality of life and economic development; to support good schools and healthy, sustainable communities; to generate the knowledge that will support effective natural resource management and sustain the quality of the environment; in rural areas this includes attention to the working landscape and sustainable agriculture; to partner with organizations and communities to ensure that every resident of the local and regional community has an opportunity to succeed."3 Karen R. Hitchcock Biologist Karen R. Hitchcock, president of the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), explains how important it is that the university be a partner with the community. The depth of that partnership was seen when the campus invited the community to visit the school's new research center--3,000 people visited. Also, "We reached out to the entire community ... to help get the [New York] Giants here to train on our campus," she says. Among those who became involved were New York Governor George Pataki and Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings. Having the Giants on campus enabled them to expand their outreach: "The first summer, 40,000 people came across our campus who never had seen it before. This gave us the opportunity to introduce them to the wonderful academic programs ... here," asserts Hitchcock. Hitchcock's curriculum vitae attests to her personal role in the community: honorary chair of the Mayor's Advisory Committee to the Albany Educationway, chair of the Capital Region American Heart Walk, cochair of the Albany Capital City Bicentenary Commission, and chair of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce. In his Sept. 16, 1997 University Day Address,4 Risser referred to students as "clients" and "customers." He stated: "We must work on and contribute to the most vexing political, economic, and social problems of the state, improving the living conditions of its citizens. We must continue to contribute to the economic strength of Oregon." Risser further discussed the OSU Alumni College, a lifelong learning institution to serve OSU's graduates. Rockefeller reaches out to the community by giving high school advanced-placement courses and public lectures, and allowing students from other institutions to work in its laboratories. Becker College is deeply involved in its community, which is dependent on the health care industry for jobs. Loew sees his role at a career-oriented school as one in which he can "make a difference at a college that serves that majority of Americans who don't have 1,200-1,400 SAT scores, but whose educational achievement and career selection will profoundly affect the next century's geriatric, medical, and environmental policies and practices." Baltimore also asked a rhetorical question in his inauguration address as Caltech's president: "Is Caltech making a sufficient contribution to the economic life of America and especially of Pasadena?"5 But couldn't anyone run an institution with a community role? Does it have to be a scientist? Jenkins, for example, points out that there is a lot of politicking involved in running a public institution. "We have to deal with local, state and federal regulations .... I go to Washington five or six times a year. I have no choice," he says. He adds that another responsibility is athletics. "Intercollegiate athletics is a time-consuming part of a university today," Jenkins states. But the athletic department budget at LSU will be $34 million per year, a figure not to be sneezed at. Nevertheless, "I think being a veterinarian has been very helpful. It's really a people profession," he says. "The fact is that being a scientist does help me. I can even speak to the astrophysicists," Jenkins explains. Although he may not understand astrophysics, he does understand about how to deal with granting agencies and how to write grant proposals, something all scientists have in common. Baltimore states, "Whatever field you are in as a president, you know that field best, and it becomes, in a way, the touchstone for thinking about the rest of academic life." His position as a biologist at Caltech, which is noted for its physicists and engineers, is to expose biological problems to scientists in other fields, while at the same time understanding that there are problems that still bear exploration in each of the disciplines. "I think life scientists tend to interact with a very wide range of most universities' faculties: agriculture, medicine, biology, etc.," says Loew. Hitchcock points out that early on in her research career, when she was studying control of surfactant-producing cells in the lungs, she "learned the power of collaboration .... There was no way I could have moved forward without the biochemists, physical chemists, cell biologists, geneticists ...." This desire to foster collaboration extends to her administration: "I look for ways to reduce administrative barriers so that people will be able to communicate with each other across disciplinary boundaries." SUNY-Albany is working with the community's business leadership to market the region as a location for semiconductor fabrication. The university also has established two business incubators for the semiconductor and biotech fields, to assist in the technology transfer and development of small businesses. Levine believes that the optimum person for the administration of science is a fellow scientist. "Science," he says, "is a different kind of flower," and a fellow scientist knows "how to fertilize it." Referring to his laboratory at Rockefeller as "the real world," Levine adds, "I have immediate understanding and sympathy with the needs of faculty members." Louis Padulo Ramaley believes that someone who is "good at shifting back and forth orders of magnitude and degrees of magnification" is well equipped for the job of college president. She points out that she thinks like a scientist does. She looks at problems in terms of "a culture of evidence." But she adds that she has picked up the language of other disciplines as well. Padulo explains that there are few resources available to a university president, while the issues are very complex. "The combination of thin resources and complexity of issues and interests floating around, is what makes it seem to me the most difficult, most demanding job in the world," he states. But, he believes, scientists are well suited for the job. "The scientist, from day one, has had to think about how to plan, and [this] usually involved a heavy dependence on the work of others. In that process [he or she has] been trained in planning, in money, and [in] resources, physical and human." He points out that many people with a background in the humanities do not think that way at all. Despite the background and the unique research relationship in his job, Levine says that at Rockefeller, "I have full responsibility for fundraising here, physical plant, [and] human resources." But the job of college president is also challenging. "I think [for] someone who enjoys doing it, administration becomes an exciting intellectual challenge. It's an opportunity for a university and a community to come together in new and productive ways. It keeps me fresh and keeps the campus fresh in different ways," says Hitchcock. Myrna Watanabe is a freelance writer based in Patterson, N.Y. J.A. Ramaley, "Large-scale institutional change to implement an urban university mission: Portland State University," Journal of Urban Affairs, 18:139-51, 1996. J.A. Ramaley, "Scared consequences: recent experiences with outreach and community-based learning," Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 2:19-25, 1997. J.A. Ramaley, "Public comprehensive universities and civic responsibility," in Civic Responsibility and Higher Education, Thomas Ehrlich, ed., Phoenix, Oryx Press, 1999, in press. P.G. Risser, "Oregon State University: pathway to the future," University Day Address, Sept. 16, 1997. David Baltimore, "Inaugural address," March 9, 1998. Available from http://www.caltech.edu/inauguration/address-frame.html. For further information about university presidents, visit the American Council on Education at www.acenet.edu.

Life Scientists as College Presidents: Unique Training for a Unique Role

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of