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by Joe Sullivan

When Wade Gilley became UT's president in 1999, one of his early moves was to eliminate, or rather assimilate, the post of chancellor of the university's flagship Knoxville campus. The move was made in the name of administrative streamlining, but the effect was to steamroller the self-sufficiency of the Knoxville campus within a UT system that consists of four campuses and three freestanding institutes.

In taking the reins of what was known as UT-Knoxville, Gilley also transferred to system-wide administrators most of the responsibilities which UTK vice chancellors had previously supported. These included budgeting, operations and research. The senior administrator on the Knoxville campus became the provost, and this academic role was filled for much of Gilley's tenure on only an interim basis.

Perhaps the best thing Gilley did for the university before his ignominious demise in 2001 was help recruit the man who arrived from Colorado State to assume the provost's post shortly after Gilley's departure. In a time of turmoil, Loren Crabtree soon became a stabilizing influence on the Knoxville campus while gaining the trust and respect of most deans and faculty members. So much so that by the time John Shumaker assumed the presidency in 2002 there was a groundswell of campus demand that Crabtree be named chancellor.

Soon after taking office, Shumaker pledged to do so, but it took him nine months to get around to it. And even when he did, he failed to restore the trappings of the post. System-wide administrators under Shumaker continued to direct budgeting, operations and research, leaving Crabtree with a lot less wherewithal than the Knoxville chancellors of the past. Only after Shumaker's own demise did that begin to change.

Coming out of retirement to reassume the presidency on an interim basis, Joe Johnson has seen fit to restore the chancellor's domain as it existed under prior administrations—not only Johnson's but also those of his predecessors Ed Boling and Andy Holt. Crabtree has recently named a full complement of vice chancellors to support him: Anne Mayhew for academic affairs; Clif Woods for research; Denise Barlow for finance; and Phil Scheurer, who had been a multi-faceted Shumaker operative, for operations. A system-level high command for research, over which Harry McDonald has been presiding on an interim basis, is being dismantled.

To laymen, all of this may sound like a lot of rearranging of administrative deck chairs. But to many academicians here, empowering the chancellor to run the Knoxville campus is vital to its well being. Indeed, sharpening the lines of separation between the campus and the administration of the UT system as a whole is so important to them that some advocate relocation of the president and his staff to Nashville.

The big question now is whether the recent strengthening of the chancellor's position will be perpetuated in the process of selecting a new president that's just getting underway. A 17-member Search Advisory Council and a seven member Search Committee are due to meet jointly on Dec. 12 to set the president's job description and set in motion the solicitation of applications for the post. The advisory council, comprised coequally of trustees, faculty, student and alumni representatives will evaluate all applicants and recommend a short list of four to six. The Search Committee, consisting of six trustees and one faculty member, will then interview these finalists and make its recommendation to the full Board of Trustees.

Under any iteration, the president's responsibilities are diverse. He or she must preside over a multi-campus system, setting priorities and coordinating the allocation of resources among them. Inevitably, this means some involvement in their academic processes. But I believe the president's role should be much more outward than inward looking. Fund raising, government relations and relating the university's mission to the public should be the president's primary emphases.

If this sounds like a reversion to the Holt-Boling-Johnson model of governance, perhaps it is to some extent. While Johnson was perceived in some quarters as a gladhander who lacked academic stature, he was totally dedicated to and very good at cultivating support for the university in Nashville, with alumni and other prospective donors. Gilley and Shumaker both had academic stature, but even before getting to the harm done by their personal misconduct, they let the university down by lack of professional attention to its critical need for funding.

Ideally, UT's next president can both command respect within its academic community and concentrate on outreach. But the presidential job description needs to make it clear that responsibility for presiding over each of the university's campuses resides with their respective chancellors.

As the president-elect of the Knoxville faculty senate, Candace White, put it at a recent forum held by the Search Advisory Council, "We don't have a clear definition of the difference between the University of Tennessee system and the flagship University of Tennessee.... It is not possible for one person to be impartial and equitable to all campuses and be the leader and primary advocate for one of those campuses."

The Knoxville faculty representative on that council, Peter Höeyng, shares White's sentiments but expresses himself more in terms of "establishing clearer and stronger lines of authority for the chancellor. Loren Crabtree understands the campus, and he knows what's needed to move it ahead.... The president shouldn't interfere with its operations."