Vol. 38, No. 18

1-2-2007
By: Richard Gillette

Provost leaving university

Barbara Snyder, executive vice president and provost, will return to where her law teaching career began and become Case Western Reserve University’s next president.

Leaving Ohio State is bittersweet for Snyder, who announced Dec. 15 she will leave the university at the same time President Karen Holbrook retires and will join the Cleveland university in July.

“I have put my heart and soul into this place for a number of years and I have really enjoyed it here. I have wonderful friends and colleagues across the university. It will be hard to leave them, but I am very excited about the opportunity to return to Case Western Reserve,” Snyder said.

Snyder was an assistant law professor from 1983-1988 at CWRU before she returned to teach at Ohio State, where she earned her undergraduate degree. She was appointed executive vice president and provost in 2003.

Holbrook said Snyder’s leadership and vision will help Case Western Reserve in its plans for the future.

“While this is a tremendous loss for Ohio State, it is a great opportunity for Barbara and an extraordinarily fortunate and strategic hire for Case,” Holbrook said. “I know her colleagues join me in congratulating her and wishing her much success and happiness in her new position.”

Snyder will be CWRU’s first female president, an honor she is proud of but not something she will dwell on.

“I hope I was selected because the trustees and the search committee believed that I am the right choice at the right time. I don’t think it’s about being the first woman. I think it’s about bringing the right leadership skills for this time in the university’s history,” she said.

Her academic and leadership skills at Ohio State played a large role in her hire at CWRU.

“Ms. Snyder is an accomplished academician and an outstanding administrator who has served Ohio State with distinguished leadership, enthusiasm and creativity,” Chairman of the Case Western Reserve Board of Trustees Frank Linsalata said in a release.

Snyder has set goals for her office and plans to be fully engaged in her job before she leaves the university in late spring.

Her top priorities are seeing through the reforms of the General Education Curriculum and creating a new funding model for graduate education. One of the undergraduate education reforms calls for a reduction in the number of credit hours needed for a basic BA from 191 to 181. The College of Science and Arts and Faculty Senate voted to support the reduction in December.

The reduction will allow more students to graduate in four years and make Ohio State more competitive with other universities, Snyder said.

“We honestly believe that the quality of instruction here is as good as any of our peers. There’s no reason we can’t have a four-year degree,” she said

The GEC is one of many initiatives Snyder can be credited with during her tenure as provost. She has played a part in the creation of paid parental leave, research faculty track, improved benefits for graduate assistants, and strengthening the Honors and Scholars Program.

She’s most proud of the Targeted Investment in Excellence program started in 2006 as a strategy to promote and sustain Ohio State’s international prominence in research.

Snyder said the best compliment a person can receive is that she “left the university a better place than when she started.”

Martha Garland, vice provost and dean for Undergraduate Studies, speaks for those colleagues who believe Snyder has done this.

“Barbara has advanced the ideas for a number of important issues here. The issues like TIE, undergraduate curriculum reform and economic access will have long-term consequences for the university,” she said.

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