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Charles Lindsey
Jesse Fox Mayshark interviews the superintendent of Knox County Schools

  School Work

Both Knox County Schools and the University of Tennessee are facing big obstacles on the path to excellence. How will their respective new heads deal with these problems? We asked them.

by Joe Sullivan

J. Wade Gilley, University of Tennessee president

It's only his second day on the job, but UT's new president, J. Wade Gilley, is already sporting a TENNESSEE monogram on his white dress shirt. But wait, the monogram is BLUE.

"Blue is Chattanooga's color and also Martin's," he explains to an initially puzzled interviewer. And suddenly it's clear that Gilley has already embraced the System—the multi-campus, multi-institute complex that makes its institutional headquarters on the top floor of Andy Holt Tower in Knoxville. More than that, he's already put a branding iron on it.

"One thing that makes UT one university is the brand name, 'the University of Tennessee'...I think it's important that the president work to preserve and enhance that brand name and all the parts including the Institute of Agriculture," Gilley says.

Is this an academic administrator talking or a corporate executive—or have the two become

synonymous? When it comes to UT's new president, the latter would seem to be the case. Unlike any of his recent predecessors at the UT helm, Gilley came up through the academic ranks—from professor of environmental engineering to executive vice president at George Mason University in Virginia, and then in 1991 to the presidency of Marshall University in West Virginia. Yet along with academic values, he can also espouse the value of restructuring and streamlining a university's operations and of harnessing information technology to make delivery systems more efficient.

So what can be expected of this 60-year-old man whose nearly full head of light brown hair belies his age and whose big hands contribute to making a point forcefully when he uses them to gesticulate? Can he champion the cause of higher education in Tennessee forcefully enough to bring additional state funding to an institution that has been in a budgetary bind for the past seven years? Can he build esprit de corps on the Knoxville campus that's become demoralized not only by faculty erosion and laggard compensation but also by a belief that system administrators haven't had any sense of academic mission? Beyond enhancing its brand name, what is his vision for UT and what new directions does he envision for its entry into the 21st Century?

We'll let our readers draw their own conclusions from the questions and answers that follow, with the caveat that a person who's only been on the job for two days can hardly be expected to have all the answers.

MP: How would you characterize you role and your agenda as president of UT?

Gilley: Well, I think I would characterize it as an advocate for the university in terms of resources and in terms of strategy for the 21st Century, in terms of articulating the university's sense of accountability to its students, the tax payers, its alumni, donors...

I think that we have a situation where there is a general understanding of how important higher education is, but there is a reluctance to write a blank check. I think what higher education has to do is articulate a vision of where it wants to go and what it would cost so that the public, the legislators, donors, students who pay their fees, parents, grandparents that are doing prepaid tuition plans will have the confidence that money they are going to invest in the university is going to achieve this goal that they want.

MP: How do you see your role vis a vis the Knoxville campus and its chancellor in particular?

Gilley: Well, I think that there are concerns regarding, you know, who does what and the role of the president vis a vis the chancellor. In fact, I wrote a book in 1984 in which we profiled 20 universities. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville was one of them. Jack Reese was the chancellor and Homer Fisher was the vice chancellor for finance. And even back then, as I recall, there was this ambiguity between the president and the chancellor. I wouldn't say there are any magical answers to erase that ambiguity. But I do think it's something worth examining, and that's what I hope to do over the next several months. Actually, as I've gone around to each campus, I've found that there are a set campus-specific issues that relate to the whole university, and while we're here in Knoxville today, in Martin there are also a set of issues which are different but are unique to them. Basically, I have asked the chancellors to gather up those issues on each of the campuses, and we'll all get together and share those and hopefully through this examination process we're going to undertake over the next several months we will clarify some of those issues, and hopefully we will be able to make some changes where necessary. But at this point, my second day on the job, I certainly wouldn't pretend to know all the intricacies of the relationship between the president and the chancellor's office.

I think what we have to do, though, is not worry so much about them. What's more important are our ambitions, our aspirations, our goals, objectives, our integrity as a university. I think once you get focused on those, a lot of times these other things become less important, and once they become less important they are easier to resolve.

MP: How do you plan to go about convincing the public and the politicians that the state needs to make a bigger investment in higher education?

Gilley: I have the feeling that there is a growing consensus on that subject, but I also have a perception that there's not a consensus on how to get the resources. I think the first step is to get that consensus. That has to be done. But you know, when I was here for the board meeting in June, I was really amazed at the students being willing to pay more, and the faculty was willing to see part of that money go to computers and connections rather than salaries...When I visited the governor and the legislative leadership in Nashville, I heard everybody say, "We understand we need to do something for higher education." It's a lot more encouraging than if you had a real negative feeling towards higher education.

MP: What is the value of a top-flight research university to a state?

Gilley: Well, the value really can't be measured because in the new economy the states, the regions the countries that have the best ideas, the best educated people are going to be the ones that are successful. I think that university research by definition is a central institution of the knowledge-based economy, and I think that political leaders and others recognize that. They sense it, but they really haven't dealt with it yet. It can be a powerful and positive force for better funding for higher education.

MP: Your biography emphasizes that you dealt with a fiscal crisis at Marshall by diminishing 24 administrative positions and 19 academic programs. How did you go about making these reductions?

Gilley: In the federal reporting scheme, administration is defined as institutional support. We lowered the percentage of our budget spent on institutional support. We were the lowest in West Virginia, and we were the lowest amount all of our peers in the region. We took a lot of pride in that. The way we did it was that we used information technology. We streamlined payroll and personnel. We probably had a 25 percent reduction in personnel off the human resources, payroll, the office, and the registrar.

As for program reductions, first, the state has a process of program evaluation. You have a low number of graduates, your program becomes a watch or probation. Basically what we did when I first came, we put all of those programs before two committees, graduate programs in one and undergraduate in the other, and asked them for a rigorous evaluation. And the pressure was on because we had a deficit. Each payday I had to go down and borrow some money to make the payroll. It wasn't a theoretical thing that we were short of money. It was a real thing... But at the same time, in the period immediately following, we added 17 new programs.

MP: Your biography also places great deal of emphasis on concepts like the interactive university and the distributed university. Could you amplify on what you mean by these and their import for UT?

Gilley: Both of them address major trends or issues that we are facing or are going to be facing in the next quarter of a century. The interactive university was something that I started using when I first went to George Mason about '84. The idea is that the university ought not to be an ivory tower. It ought to join with its communities, its constituency however defined... Typically in higher education, the ivory tower concept, we do lots of studies. Millions of studies are done on economic development, on poverty, environment, you name it. In almost all cases, higher education will do the studies and say hey state, hey city, hey community, here's the problem, you go do something about it. But with the interactive university you take that two steps further. You partner in helping find the solutions and then in carrying them out. What we need to do is apply resources of the university to solving the problems of poverty, the environment, homelessness, children without parents, the economy.

The distributed university is something else. Right now there are probably 15 million people in this country enrolled in credit courses at colleges and universities. Of the 15 million, half are in community colleges. Of the half that are in four-year colleges and universities, half of those are part time. So out of the 15 million, three or four million are full time traditional students going to college like college was when I went to college. So higher education is changing. But the demand for people to continue working and learning is burgeoning. People work and learn, learn and work throughout their lives in this knowledge economy. Twenty years from now, instead of 15 million, there will be 30 million or 40 million people enrolled. They'll be enrolled in non-traditional universities. The Southern Regional Educational Board has the southern regional electronic campus which is now offering 800 to 900 courses every semester. It's a collaborative. I think West Virginia has 30 courses, Georgia has 100, Virginia has 100. UT does not have one course on that.

At the same time, University of Nebraska for example has seven masters degrees that can be earned on the Internet. So I think that to meet this exploding demand—and the demand isn't going to be for 18- to 24-year-olds in residence on campus, it's going to be in the general population—it's a question of who and how are these students going to be served... The University of Georgia's pretty well along on this web-based course business. I think they're second in the nation. Stanford is number one in the use of Web-based CT [for course tools] where you put all your courses in a Web format and students can go on and read class notes and see old tests, and Stanford offers a masters degree in electrical engineering by the Internet...

MP: Do you foresee UT moving in the Stanford/Georgia/Nebraska direction?

Gilley: Yes, I think so. We either have to do it or yield the territory to someone else, maybe Nebraska. They can do it in Nebraska. We can do it in Tennessee, too. You're going to yield that either to proprietary institutions or to major universities. Virginia Commonwealth University has a Ph.D. program they're putting on-line, Health Sciences Administration. That's probably one of those courses where you meet one weekend a month that you do a lot of your work. That's the way the world is going. My preference would be for the University of Tennessee to be a player in that and be the dominant player in Tennessee and a major player in the southeast and the nation.

MP: Given their respective ages, it seems highly probable that on your watch you'll be selecting a new chancellor for the Knoxville campus and a new athletic director. What attributes will you be looking for in a new chancellor?

Gilley: I really haven't thought about that. What I'd like to do is go through a self-examination of the university itself in total and each campus during this year that would provide a context for answering your question.

MP: What about the athletic director?

Gilley: Doug Dickey's done a remarkable job as athletic director. I've known him for quite a while. I think he's led the way. I think we're going to see the evolution of a new generation of athletic directors that are very good at marketing. Products are always helpful in your marketing. Tennessee has a great set of athletic products, football championship, women's basketball, men's basketball is good and coming back, other sports, the tradition, the name brand. It's all there. I think that more and more, financial management and good marketing skills are very important for athletics because it's moving into another level. I'm not sure I can define this new level, but it's spurred on by information technology. It is helping transform intercollegiate athletics.