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Vol. 38, No. 18 |
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9-27-2007 President Gee talks about his plans for the university
Returning to the place he called the university of the American dream, Gee already has immersed himself in numerous Ohio State activities. He’s visited with faculty and staff, helped students during move-in day and given the freshman class an inspirational address during convocation. And he’s already cheered on the football team at Ohio Stadium. For many people, it seems like he never left Ohio State. But he cautions everyone not expect the same president. He expects faculty and staff to hold him to a higher standard and says he will hold them to that same standard. During an interview with onCampus, he gave a brief glimpse of his expectations for the university. You have made several appearances at the university since you were named president. What is your reaction to what you have seen and heard? President Gee: My reaction has been one of amazement and awe. I feel like I’ve been bathed in warm milk. It is such a wonderful place and the enthusiasm and support for this institution are just palpable. And obviously the opportunity to reconnect with the students, faculty and staff has been something that I’ve really enjoyed. By and large, the reaction has been wonderfully affirming.
Are you surprised by the amount of interest and feedback you have received? President Gee: I think there’s a little bit of an urban legend about me from when I was here from ’90 to ’97. People ask me about a lot of these stories. “Did you really sleep overnight in the residence hall; did you really pop up in classes and meet with students?” And the answer is yes, I did all those things. I’ve done them for years and I will continue to do them. I think it’s important in a very large institution to personalize it as much as possible, and that personalization starts with me. I would love to have an opportunity to have a personal relationship with all 60,000 students and all 40,000 faculty and staff — impossible, but nonetheless it’s an opportunity to talk about the university with as many people as I can possibly corral and meet.
What kind of president do you think you will be at Ohio State? President Gee: I think I’m in a place in my life as university president where I want to do well and do right with an exclamation point on my life as a university president. I’ve learned a great deal over the last 28 years, and what I want to do is take what I have learned and use this magnificent platform called Ohio State to try to institutionalize some of those ideas. I think the ideas will move the institution forward in ways that will distinguish the university.
What kind of charge has the Board of Trustees given you? President Gee: I always joke that my own charge is the academic equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, which is “first do no harm.” In this instance, I think the charge they have given me is to make sure the momentum of the university continues and accelerates. This is an institution that is doing very well and has made appreciable gains over the last 10 years. It’s a much different university that I see now than it was when I left. It was a good university when I left; it’s a great university now. If it continues on these vectors as outlined and if we accelerate those, we will truly move into the front ranks of American universities.
Ohio State has increased its rankings and percentages over the past decade in a number of academic standards. What is next for Ohio State? Where do you see the university improving? President Gee: I don’t believe in rankings. I think they are benchmarks. They give you some sense about how the world is doing, but I do not really believe in them. I believe that each institution has its own set of issues. I believe our goal should be to become the very best Ohio State that we can be. If we set that as our standard, we will be better than most other institutions. I think if the institution sets its own standards and has very bold expectations of itself and very high aspirations, it will far and away exceed the expectations that exist in the rest of the world that is following these rankings profiles. By being the best Ohio State that we can possibly be, we will also be recognized as a premier university by the rest of the world.
What kind of policy changes should faculty and staff expect under your leadership? President Gee: I think it’s a little bit early for me to say that. I’m going to deliver an address to our faculty and I’m going to outline some of the issues, some of the very specific strategic goals that I have over the next five years and more. I expect people to agree, disagree, argue, for us to have a good debate about that but at the same time move the institution aggressively forward in ways that I think will be very important to its future.
In your first address to the trustees, you said you expect faculty and staff to hold you to a higher standard. Can you expound on that? President Gee: I was president of this university for seven years. If I come back and perform at the same level that I performed at then, they have made a mistake in appointing me and I’ve made a mistake in coming here. I think the expectations of the people here should be, “Gee, this guy left, he went to two of the most magnificent universities in the world — Brown and Vanderbilt — I hope he’s learned something and can bring that to the table. I hope he will be better than he was when he was here before.” I expect to be held to a very high standard. And I will hold other people to a very high standard. I am driven by one thing, and that is the quality of effort and opportunity we have at this institution at this time. It’s something we need to keep paramount in all discussions.
Is the Academic Plan still relevant today? Do you see it being a guiding force in the future? President Gee: I would say the Academic Plan is still relevant because it has laid out a strategy for the institution that we have basically followed. I think it needs to be reviewed and freshened; I think the world is different from the time in which it was developed. The Academic Plan as it was developed is really something that I had started developing when I was here, so I know it very well. But 10, 15 years presents a different set of circumstances. In terms of aspiration, it is very good, but now we are a different institution, and we need to look at ourselves anew and ask ourselves what we want to accomplish and how we can best make that happen given the expectations in this Academic Plan.
It’s no secret one of the reasons you were hired was to lead the university’s fundraising campaign. What would you say to faculty who feel the president should spend more time on academic issues? President Gee: I spend a great deal of time on academic issues. I’ve never been captured by one asset of the institution by being either an internal or external president. I think the roles need to be balanced. I will never give up my role as intellectual leader of this institution. At the same time, however, I have to make sure there is jet fuel to make all of that happen. The role of the university president, I think, is pretty clear in my view. One part is to set the values and direction of the institution, the second is to make sure you have the talent to make that happen, and the third is to make sure you have the money to make that happen. I am trying to look to all three of those roles.
What are some of the biggest challenges that lie ahead for Ohio State? President Gee: We need to make certain that we’ve got good execution going on here, that our plans, our strategies, our issues are being confronted and that we’re solving those. Second, I think we need to make certain that we are not complacent. I think a large institution can become complacent, and we need to get a real sense of urgency. I do not feel at this institution that we have the level of urgency we should have to be successful.
There has been a lot of talk about Ohio State becoming more global. What should be the university’s role on the international stage? President Gee: I think we cannot be a great university by any measure without having a strong commitment to the global endeavor. We need to have faculty and staff and students who come from all over the world and have a world view. We need to send our students and our ideas and our work all over the world; in other words we need to be global citizens. The greatness of this university will not be determined simply by Ohio; we serve the people of Ohio but Ohio itself needs to become much more globally established and inclined. So our partnership with the state and at the international/national level will be very important for our intellectual future.
What do you want your lasting mark to be at Ohio State and on higher education?President Gee: I have bold plans and I have expectations of my own performance and that of the institution. If I were to leave in 10 years and the institution were the same, a very fine institution and a world-class university, but we had not made great strides in certain areas, then I would be very disappointed. I see us identifying five or six strategic areas and executing those to a level in which we can be viewed as a place people come to in order to see how well it can be done. I think also establishing a new structure and function for the way the American university works would be something I would very much like to see happen. In other words, I do not believe the American university at this time, in this century, has the real leadership role that it should on the global stage. I think we have become a little staid. I think we have become embedded in academic conflict. I would love to see Ohio State strike out in new directions and create a new approach, as Johns Hopkins did in the early 1900s. It changed the way universities operated and set a standard of expectation that was highly unusual.
State government seems poised to reverse its neglect of higher education. Can you talk about how you will keep higher education on the policy stage? President Gee: I will be on every stage in every possible way in every county of this state, expounding on the virtues of a great public university and the role it can play in moving the state forward. I think that partnership is enormously important, I think that realization is here and I think the opportunity for us to create a long-standing positive relationship between the governor, the legislature and the people of this state is as good as I have ever seen it.
What are your plans for the athletics department in light of the dramatic changes you made for athletics at Vanderbilt? President Gee: I think our athletics department is doing very well. I think it’s very important for us to have a very strong, viable and enthusiastic program in athletics. I will also say, though, and I have said this to our athletics director, that I believe very strongly that athletics are not separate, segregated or isolated from the rest of the institution. We do not have a university just to entertain 105,000 people on a Saturday afternoon. That’s part of who we are, but it’s not why we exist. Therefore, our athletics department, just like our department of physics or our business school, has to become fully integrated with the life of this institution. I believe the most important thing I can say is that the future Ohio State will be one university, not a separated set of programs and activities connected only by the name Ohio State, and the athletics department will be very much a leader in that.
In past remarks, you have talked about not wanting a university of several departments attached by a power plant. Can you explain? President Gee: By that I mean, what we are right now is a confederation. We are not THE Ohio State University, we are AN Ohio university with a set of programs, a set of activities and a set of expectations, many of which are different from each other. In some ways we’re adversarial, we’re an internally conflicting organization. We have to think, “There’s one reason to do this, and that one reason is to create ideas and to educate students and to move this university and this state forward.” So therefore we have to think budgetarily, socially, culturally, academically, that we’ll operate and recognize our future as one institution. That means we’ll have to change some of the structures, that we’re going to have to change the way we function in some ways, that we need to be centrally driven, not centralized. We need to have a point of view that is THE Ohio State point of view.
What impressed you to bring you back to Ohio State? President Gee: I think the magnificence of the scope of the institution itself. It’s the largest and most complex university in the country; it’s like Noah’s ark! You have the unique opportunity in this kind of an environment to think creatively about the future of the American university, not just Ohio State. Second, as I said when I came, this is the largest academic platform in the country, and I think if we can do things well and do them right, we will have an opportunity to take a leadership role, to not simply be a great university but also be a great leadership institution, and those are very compelling issues to me. The third is the spirit of the place: I have never been part of an institution where there is a more spirited group of people. Its faculty, its staff, its students and its alumnae, there is a love affair between the people who are part of this university and the people of the state — 11 million Ohioans who love Ohio State!
To watch the video of President Gee being interviewed, click here. President Gee by the numbers
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