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Meet our New President

I am not surprised at Dr. Ayers leaving as soon as he did. Being president is a demanding, thankless job so often. We contribute to that (as is our right). Most people who get into education want to continue educating, and administration, for all the great illusions with which you may have when you enter such a role, can suck the life out of you!

It looks like we have made an excellent hire, and hopefully he can continue the momentum that Dr. Ayers has built. I like that he is an academic (as the trend appears to be getting away from academics in a lot of places), I like that he is a musician, and I like the experience that he and his family bring with HBCUs. I really love his experience in international education, too.

I feel like he is coming in with a very well-rounded perspective on higher education, and combined with his experiences in hand, I think we are in good shape with him. I especially enjoy hearing him discuss the transformative power of education -- this is a word that gets thrown around a lot (especially in international education), and it appears that he has the chops to actually implement this. Exciting times!
 
R&fab/Moliva, can you guys provide examples? This is not at all the impression I have from folks I know who work at UR but I am admittedly not personally in the know.

I really like ayers, I think he's been a tremendous president.
 
IMHO, Ed Ayers was the best President in my memory. (I graduated in 1969.)
 
I can't provide examples on this forum. Providing examples would do nothing to advance the cause of the folks that provided me the examples. I'm sorry.
 
Per keefusb---- "In my opinion, our best presidential candidate "on paper" would have been an Executive VP of Advancement from an institution like Stanford/Duke/Vanderbilt/Northwestern. Someone who understands leadership, fundraising, raising the academic profile of UR, and who understands the importance of our athletic programs, in that order."

Agree, wholeheartedly.As I had mentioned in previous posts.

This post was edited on 2/23 10:16 PM by 32counter
 
I like Ed Ayers as well. Think he was supportive of athletics and was well respected in the community. I can't say whether he micro-managed or not though.
 
To be clear, I believe Ayers is/was a micro manager but i don't think he was a terrible President. I think he did a decent job.

I just believe Ayers is the type of person that loves to accept praise when he doesn't necessarily deserve it and avoids criticism when he does deserves it. That said, the University could have been much worse off during the last 8 years.
 
MM....not a fair assessment of Ed Ayers. His legacy and achievements will always be highly regarded in UR history.
 
He's best the best of the 3 Presidents that the University's had since I've been associated with it. Is that better?

The President's primary role is the raise money. By most accounts, Ayers has done a pretty mediocre job of raising money, aside from digging into Queally's pocket a few times - offering him a lacrosse program in the process.
This post was edited on 2/23 9:55 PM by MolivaManiac
 
I generally don't react to specific things such as hires. But it seems to me that UR could have done much better than the retiring President of the lowest ranked Wheaton College. (Wheaton College in Illinois is much better known.). It is a pity.
 
Originally posted by Ulla1:
I generally don't react to specific things such as hires. But it seems to me that UR could have done much better than the retiring President of the lowest ranked Wheaton College. (Wheaton College in Illinois is much better known.). It is a pity.
Click to expand...
This was my initial reaction too but PhillySpider's posts on this thread were soothing.
 
Time will tell if this was a good hire or not. I felt Ayers was a good choice when he was hired, but unlike some on here I feel he was average at best.
 
Originally posted by MolivaManiac:
He's best the best of the 3 Presidents that the University's had since I've been associated with it. Is that better?

The President's primary role is the raise money. By most accounts, Ayers has done a pretty mediocre job of raising money, aside from digging into Queally's pocket a few times - offering him a lacrosse program in the process.
This post was edited on 2/23 9:55 PM by MolivaManiac
Click to expand...
He's also been the president through one of the tougher economic times in recent history. A lot of endowments have been in trouble over the past few years. I personally wish Queally hadn't been the huge donor involved, but this is not an easy thing to do...
 
Maybe he will be able to integrate the students and programs with more cross support between/among the students for their endeavors, whether it be sports, music, drama, history, quidditch, computers, et al.
 
our new man seems great on paper so am very happy though his age does seem odd and maybe raises some red flags. would love to see a list of our finalists to see how they stacked up. we all can look at our past presidents and find flaws or things we did not like about them but this should be about our new guy and we can go after our past presidents on another thread, maybe attack how they substituted or why they did not give their provost more minutes or why they did not try another way to raise money.......just kidding. think K described what a tough job being prez is and just hope this guy is drinking his ensure daily and is up to the task, just know that i really enjoy being on the beach and out by my pool every day and not fighting the battles of the daily grind but we are all made differently.
 
I truly wonder if as a retired University President and traveling member of a classical performing string trio at age 67 whether Mr Crutcher actually initiated the application process to become UR's Prez.The head hunters which UR used combined with certain members of the search committee could have prompted Crutchen to apply for the position when he may have initially had no inclination to do so nor expectations to be awarded the position.
 
For positions of this importance, and even 2-3 steps down, I would imagine that they are all found by headhunters, and certainly, if not found, screened by them. I have experienced this over the past year or two - once being approached and once approaching the head hunter. They are the gatekeepers.
 
Bruce Heilman was one of UR's greatest presidents, and a great supporter of intercollegiate athletics.

Of course, he also had the advantage of coming to UR directly from a Division I athletic powerhouse. Oh wait ...
 
I was at a conference a couple of years ago at Meredith College, and was surprised to see that they had an E. Bruce Heilmann center as well!
 
Ulla, I rarely agree with you, but you are correct. The new President should be from a peer school or higher. PS , I notice that I have been placed on ignore.

This post was edited on 2/24 5:49 PM by bb3831
 
to be honest, a lot of alums who are sports fans were not enamored with E. Bruce. Frank Jones, the head football coach who took UR to two bowl games and had the SPIDS ranked in the top 20 in the nation, not fcs, all D-1 football, he was walking on water but he got into a conflict with Dr. Heilman over who was in charge and quickly found out that it was not him. think that Dr. Heilman came to realize that athletics were extremely important (think the dance where we beat auburn/barkely where he said at a gathering before we took on indiana, we got more publicity with this than anything we have ever done) and that it helped the university. he was the consummate fund raiser and took the Robins gift and multiplied it exponentially. the key is he is still working for UR every day he meets someone, he was the best, is the best.
 
Alumni should be thankful the search committee for UR's next President did not come from the posters on this board.
 
Now wait LKN who knew they would choose someone in our age range? I could have nominated you.
 
Ayers was/is definitely a micro-manager. I have two friends who were very senior, in high-profile positions who left UR in the last 5 or 6 years in part because of his meddling in areas he should not have been meddling in.

I hope our next president is a more effective delegator/executive.
 
Good interview, good questions, good candor from Crutcher. He doesn't seem afraid to be honest and real, which is big in my book. Interesting to hear that he didn't originally have the perception of UR that I think we assume most in academia have. I think he'll bring some different insight to the mix.
 
Seems like a really good guy, down to earth. Sounded as if he were a man on a mission to put UR in the top ten of national liberal arts colleges.
 
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