May 19, 2005
Third provost candidate stresses university connections
In both her formal remarks and her response to questions, the third provost candidate to visit the campus stressed the importance of the modern university’s relationship to the outside world, both locally and globally.
“We can’t be an ivory tower just training the minds of young people,” Phyllis Wise said during a public forum last week. “We have to make the case about what we do for the world in the broadest sense.”
Furthermore, Wise — who is currently professor of neurobiology and dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis — believes that making this case is the job of everyone in the university.
“It’s usually thought of as the role of the president, provost and other administrators,” she said. “But I think everyone needs to be involved. When I was a new professor, I thought my job was to teach, do research and perform public service. I didn’t think I should have to explain my work to my neighbor. These days I think we all need to be ready to talk about our work to our neighbors and to everyone else.”
Doing so, Wise said, would help with fund raising, which she sees as critical after spending her career at public institutions (she was previously at the University of Maryland and the University of Kentucky). “We can either bemoan declining state support or we can find alternatives,” she said.
In addition to discussing connections with the immediate outside world, Wise talked at length about connecting with the world beyond the United States. Noting that fewer students and faculty are coming here from other countries, she said that American universities should facilitate “meaningful trips with real learning experiences” outside the U.S. She said that her own institution is a member of the Pacific Rim Universities and is working on creating two- to three-quarter international experiences for students.
Like her predecessors, Wise talked about the importance of interdisciplinary work, saying that universities must find ways to rethink their reward structures to make such work more appealing. But at the same time she emphasized that each discipline must be strong. “Strong disciplines make strong teams,” she said.
Likewise, she stressed the importance of supporting disciplines that do not have significant outside sources of income, even if that means that some portions of the university are “subsidizing” others. All members of the university community want to take pride in a preeminent institution, Wise explained, and to have that you have to have “excellence across the board.”
She said she believes that students benefit from being in a large research university. “I did my undergraduate work at Swarthmore, where teaching is emphasized,” she said, “but I’ve always been in research institutions since then. I think students have a richer experience when they are amongst faculty who are on the leading edge of discovery. They bring the latest information into the classroom.”
Wise was asked two more personal questions than her predecessors had received, and answered both frankly. One questioner, taking a cue from the presidential campaign, asked if she had ever made mistakes as an administrator. Wise described a situation in which she was the “lead dean” in charge of a new building and had made a decision about the building’s location too quickly, then later reversed herself.
“I am a goal-oriented person and I’m sometimes impatient,” she said. “I’m learning to take more time and bring in more voices before making a decision.”
Another questioner asked Wise her thoughts about Harvard President Lawrence Summers’ comments on women in science and engineering.
“In the first four years of my career, I would have argued that I am the same as males and demand to be treated the same,” she said. “Now I would say that women scientists and engineers are as good as men but we might use different tactics. I believe you can’t make judgments based solely on sex.”
Wise was equally frank about her interest in the provost’s job, telling the audience she hadn’t been looking for a job, but when the search committee came knocking, she decided to respond because “this is a fabulous university.”
She went on to say that she was “attracted to the scope of the activities” that the UW provost would be involved in, together with the fact that there are resources to make things happen.
“I’m also excited that you have a new president with a great record of achievement,” Wise said. “If hired I would plan to stay here as long as I was welcome.”
Wise was the last of the provost candidates scheduled to visit the campus, although the search committee had held out the possibility that there might be more. The committee hopes to have a new provost in place by fall quarter.
For stories about the earlier provost candidates, see:
and
http://admin.urel.washington.edu/uweek/archives/issue/uweek_story_small.asp?id=2740
