New President Announced

JBStillFlying
Thu, 04 Mar 2021 07:10:43 +0000

grreat:

I wonder if we can see his vision for UChicago as he starts out. The press release said that they liked his vision for the university – I wonder if each individual they interviewed had a unique vision which was different, or if that’s just a generic thing they say about liking his vision and no one can really have a separate vision (after all, how much variation can there be – the task of a university president seems to be quite specific)

Not sure I want the new pres. to get too funky too soon, although Bio Sciences can probably use some shoring up. Right now, his public comments suggest that he holds consistent ideals with what they were looking for and presumably was able to articulate them well enough to snag the position. His credentials as both an academic leader and a money raiser are outstanding - and of course Zimmer will also be handling that latter aspect as he is able to for the time being. Over the past year there has been increasing public comment on the university’s desire to improving the lives of those in the surrounding south side community; I see this as perhaps getting a higher weight under the new pres. going forward than what’s been done in the past. It’s not that Zimmer didn’t have this goal as well, but I’m guessing the new guy will be giving the issue increased focus - as would Zimmer, by the way, had he not felt it was time to step down.