Students, faculty share hopes for qualities in next president

<p>Members of the Duke community noted that President Richard Brodhead's successor should understand the issues Duke currently faces and balance the University's competing priorities.&nbsp;</p>

Members of the Duke community noted that President Richard Brodhead's successor should understand the issues Duke currently faces and balance the University's competing priorities. 

As President Brodhead’s tenure draws to a close, the Duke community reflects on what it would like to see in the next president.

Students and faculty offered their views on the necessary qualities Duke’s next president should possess, the challenges lying ahead and upcoming opportunities he or she will have to further the Duke community and its goals.

Sophomore Ben Jackson explained that it is now more important for a university president to understand the problems of the student body, particularly considering current conversations on campus about gender and racial issues. 

Jackson also said that he would rather have someone who currently in the administration step into the role than someone who is a former higher-up at another academic institution.

Sophomore Tyler Nelson, on the other hand, wrote in an email that people seeking out the Duke presidency should have a wide breadth of university experiences under their belt and should be able to leverage those diverse experiences to construct a new model of Duke as a whole. 

“I think whoever wishes to hold this role should be in the mindset of thinking how to 'socially engineer' this campus that maximizes everyone's education and, more importantly, well-being at Duke, in Durham and beyond,” he wrote.

He noted that it will be important for the next president to amplify the narratives of Duke and Durham’s diverse constituents rather than simply advocating for a mantra of one, uniform Duke community.

Georg Vanberg, professor of political science, wrote in an email that it will be necessary for the next president to be able to listen, create a competent team and articulate a creative vision for the University.

He explained that there is now tremendous pressure on universities to be "practical" and career-oriented and to think about the value of education as measured chiefly by the job placement and salaries following graduation. The next president will have to address those attitudes, he noted. 

“To be sure, those things are important, but they do not define the value of higher education,” Vanberg wrote.

He added that universities are special institutions with a unique culture and that they are places in which autonomy of students and faculty encourages creativity and discovery.

“To be effective, a university president needs to have an appreciation for and understanding of that academic culture and to know how to engage faculty,” he wrote. “In that vein, I think it is important that whoever leads Duke has experience in the academic world.”

According to Scott Huettel, Jerry G. and Patricia Crawford Hubbard professor and chair of psychology and neuroscience, it is Duke’s mission to be world-class both in its research and in the experience it provides its undergraduates. The next president must ensure that those goals do not conflict but instead reinforce each other.

“We need someone who can recognize and appreciate Duke’s breadth, while always staying focused on excellence in our academic missions as the top priority,” Huettel wrote in an email.

Junior Julia Medine also said the next president’s success will depend on his or her ability to balance competing priorities, especially the needs of organizations that donate to Duke and the needs of the student body.

“One kind of balance that the new president has to strike is to be appealing to those organizations and to be appealing to the general student body," she said. “Because those two entities obviously don’t overlap.”

Faculty noted other challenges the next president will face, including addressing the commitments to Duke Kunshan University and remaining dedicated to the humanities at a time when they are affording fewer job opportunities.

Mike Munger, professor of political science, wrote in an email that although the president actually has very little power to execute sweeping change, he will bear most of the blame should any of these endeavors fail.

One of the challenges in leading a university like Duke is that it is already operating at such a high level, Munger wrote.

“If things go well, you don't get credit,” he noted. “But if things go badly, you get blamed for everything.”

He explained that the next president must adopt a sense of responsibility for efforts to improve the Duke community but must also have a limited need to control the execution of those efforts.

People who try to take too much control are called “ex-presidents,” Munger wrote.

Students and faculty also noted several qualities they observed in President Brodhead that they would like to see in his successor.

Mary Boatwright, professor of classical studies, wrote in an email that she appreciated how Brodhead thought hard about what he and the faculty could accomplish in a university setting.

Medine said that one of the first things she noticed about Brodhead was how cheerful he is.

“He came across as someone who would be able to have a meaningful conversation with anyone,” she said.

Vanberg wrote that at a time when the role of higher education is particularly under scrutiny in the face of student debt and rising college costs, Brodhead has been an exceptional advocate for the liberal arts on a national stage.

“He has been an important voice in the national conversation," Vanberg said. "I would like to see his successor continue in that tradition.”

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