From https://www.aplu.org/document.doc?id=4030. Thanks to a retired UO administrator for the link.
New Provost’s session
Risa Palm
Georgia State University
July, 2012
My experience set is one of having moved to various parts of the country and having
to adjust to new situations: I was dean of large college twice (Oregon and Chapel
Hill) and provost three times (LSU, SUNY system and now GSU).
When you are new to an institution, you can always rely on the “three letters” story.
If you haven’t heard it before, talk to an experienced provost!
Some thoughts on your new position:
1. Congratulations – you have intense new responsibilities and an opportunity
to make a major impact on the academic achievements of your university
2. But you only have 5‐6 years to get this done! The sense of urgency is
important for your success.
3. You have a short honeymoon in which to make some major decisions:
a. Do you have the right leadership team in your office and in the deans
who report to you? Most common regret is that they did not replace
people sooner. You will need to delegate . . . so you need to trust the
people to whom you are delegating!
b. Does the administrative structure above you (at the university level)
give you the latitude you need ‐ ‐ ‐ be sure to negotiate this early. The
relationship with the CFO is particularly important.
4. First impressions (of you!) count – be visible, get out of the office to learn
about the institution (even if you come from within).
5. Establish a strong working relationship with your president/chancellor . . .
your major job is to ensure the success of the entire team.
6. Remember that you have no friends within the university – even if you were
hired from within. If you think that being a dean puts you on the “dark side”,
the position of provost is even more so. The difficulty of the provost position
is that you really have no base of support other than the president ‐ ‐ ‐ always
remember this.
7. Think about how you will use your time, and how you will use meeting time.
Remember that the least efficient type of staff meeting is 1‐2 hours, once a
week. I recommend the book “Death by Meetings”. As a result of my reading
the book, I have adopted “standing meetings” each morning for as little as 10
minutes with the team.
8. Need a balance of prompt decision‐making with thoughtful decision‐making:
and the metaphor of chess is a useful one
9. Your every word and expression is scrutinized: things you say take on an
undue amount of importance.
10. If you are on a path to the presidency, this is the last position where the
academic life (teaching and research) will be the dominant aspects of your
life and job. Enjoy them!
11. Give yourself a break to refresh and plan – both on your own and also with
your team. It is all too easy to get caught up in the daily emergencies and lose
track of where you really want to be going.
I wonder if U of O Matters meant this ironically, or just wasn’t at Oregon during the CAS reign of Risa Palm–without doubt the most despised administrator of the last thirty years. It was Risa that prompted faculty to ask why administrators were not reviewed, as policy required it. Everyone knew she could not survive an assessment of her performance. She bitterly opposed objective assessment, even having a public screaming fit with Mosely about it.
Finally, the U of O Senate passed a resolution demanding that she be reviewed. Two things have united U of O faculty, in my years here: opposition to Lariviere’s firing, and support for Risa Palm’s firing. The resolution demanding her review was passed unanimously on Wednesday, Risa resigned on Friday. When word got around that she’d found a job in North Carolina, there was a motion in the U of O Senate that we ask forgiveness for pawning her off on them.
I would suggest the new provost ignore anything Risa says, and rely on her own good sense.
yes Risa Palm did very much damage here by formally pitting
the various disciplines in CAS against one another. Her
career admin trajectory has always been amazing to me as I think
she is truly incompetent, yet keeps getting hired, again and
again.
I have trouble deciding who was ‘most despised’ administrator…so many names come to mind.
Admittedly most on that list were in Johnson Hall and not in Friendly Hall. But would I choose to save Barrabbas and let Palm be crucified? In think not.
Given what’s come to light in recent years, it’s curious that Palm is singled out for special criticisms. Her style was not exactly in keeping with the Oregon Way, but she was a dogged champion of academic excellence and was one of the first to challenge the JH culture that was emerging in the 90s. I remember her being quite critical of the way DF was doing business early in his presidency at a time when most everyone else on campus was taken in by his smooth talk. Yes, she rubbed quite a few people the wrong way because of her direct, no nonsense style, but many of the things she championed are things that posters to this blog have been demanding. And she wasn’t fired; she left to take the dean’s job at UNC (where she was reviewed and renewed as dean).
Two tiny words are missing in Palm’s advice to new provosts: “faculty” and “students.” My recollection of Risa Palm’s leadership is that it was the first blast of the trumpet (on this campus, anyway) of the new model of the university as a reified representative of corporate America. Undoubtedly she ruffled feathers; she could be abrasive and condescending, but so could Lariviere. But what made her so disliked is that she didn’t seem to have any academic values at all, just managerial ones. (She certainly didn’t think of the university as intellectually comprehensive.) And, sadly, she was the wave of the future.