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by Joe Sullivan

When John Petersen takes office as UT’s new president on July 1, he’ll be a man beset by challenges. He’ll be coming (from Connecticut) to a state that hasn’t shown as much regard for the importance of higher education as many others. He’ll be coming to an institution whose resources have been diminished by a succession of state funding cuts. He’ll be assuming a position that’s been tarnished by scandals that brought about the downfalls of predecessors Wade Gilley and John Shumaker. And the very role of president of the UT system is being challenged by the faculty on the flagship Knoxville campus, which wants more autonomy.

With challenges come opportunities: for building the stature of and support for the university; for strengthening it academically; and especially for furthering its research mission that can, in turn, contribute mightily to economic development within the state and also make a global mark. To realize those potentials, though, he must surmount the many obstacles that confront him. A closer look at some of them will help define the daunting work that John Petersen has cut out for him.

Connecting With Tennesseans

At a meeting of the Search Advisory Council that narrowed the field from 47 to six, its chairman, Jim Murphy, noted that “one thing I heard at the forums we conducted is that people want someone from Tennessee.” When only two of the finalists turned out to have strong ties to Tennessee, even someone as eminent as the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Randy McNally, declared the other four unqualified.

The closest Petersen has gotten to Tennessee in his 30-year academic career was a 13-year stint at Clemson (1980-93) as a chemistry professor and then department chairman. His subsequent posts as dean of the College of Science at Wayne State University in Detroit (1994-2000) and provost and executive vice president at the University of Connecticut (2000-04) moved him even farther afield than the only two UT presidents who’ve come from out-of-state in nearly a century, the tainted Gilley and Shumaker.

The diversity of the advisory council and the openness with which Murphy, who is a UT trustee from Nashville, conducted its proceedings did a lot to lay a foundation for acceptance of another “outsider,” and Murphy asserted that all of the finalists had “Tennessee values.” Still, Petersen has a lot of proving to do. The incoming president lacks the folksiness with which former and now interim president Joe Johnson has related to alumni, legislators and other constituencies. But Johnson voices confidence that Petersen has “the passion” to be an effective emissary. Moreover, in his interviews, Petersen exuded sincerity and a sense of purpose.

Strengthening UT’s Academics

Despite the budget constraints that have shackled UT over the past decade, many trustees still aspire to make it one of the nation’s top-tier research universities. Oft mentioned during their interviews of presidential candidates was achieving membership in the Association of American Universities, an elite group of 62 schools, half public and half private. But that will take recruitment of many more faculty members who have the stature of belonging to the National Academies of Science and Engineering (UT has only two at present). And it will take research programs capable of garnering a lot more federal grants.

The word Petersen used most often in his interview was excellence. “When I went to Connecticut, we weren’t focusing our resources on trying to build excellence. We were spreading them out flatly through the university,” he said. Petersen claims considerable success, working with deans, in reallocating resources to selected areas in which the university could excel. Similar reallocation efforts have been attempted at UT, but with very limited results.

Fund Raising

Tennessee’s fiscal outlook looks brighter now than at any time in several years, but there are many competing claimants for more funding. So topping the list of challenges, in Johnson’s view, is “working with the elected leadership of the state to seek to raise the priority ranking for higher education when more funds become available.” For starters, he cites fulfillment of an unmet state pledge of $15 million to support several research centers of excellence. Their creation was a hallmark of the Gilley administration, but they are now being stunted for lack of promised funding.

A $1 billion private fundraising campaign has been held in abeyance for three years for lack of a president who stayed in office long enough to lead it. Petersen’s enthusiasm for that undertaking ties to his emphasis on excellence.

Defining Campus Governance

Defining the relationship between the UT system, over which the president presides, and its four campuses, especially Knoxville, has been a recurrent source of turmoil. Gilley abolished the position of Knoxville chancellor by absorbing it himself, to the consternation of many deans and faculty members. Shumaker bestowed the title on Loren Crabtree, but didn’t restore many of the traditional responsibilities of the post.

Now, especially, with the revered Crabtree in the running for the presidency of the University of Utah, the fear in many quarters is that Petersen will assimilate the position once again. That fear is reinforced by the fact that Petersen’s role at Connecticut was very similar to Crabtree’s here. But the incoming president professes to believe in “shared governance” which is the watchword of the faculty senate. “The more you have the people who are going to carry things out involved in the process of their formulation, the better,” he said in his interview. And if Crabtree should depart, Petersen’s affinity for flagship campus governance could prove to be a blessing in the short run.

Student-friendliness, community relations, diversity, supporting K-12 education and fostering technology transfer are among the other challenges facing UT’s new president. But covering the full array of them will take at least another column.

April 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 18 © 2004 Metro Pulse