Vol. 38, No. 18

6-4-2008
By: Jeff McCallister

President Gee takes time out to look back

It would be easy to think the learning curve would be a short one for Gordon Gee in his role as president of Ohio State.

But the decade that passed between the end of his first term here and his return this past fall was a time of immense change and growth, both here at the university and in Gee himself.

“In some ways I think the biggest challenge I have had is the fact that I had to de-learn the institution,” Gee said. “It would have been a huge mistake to come back and continue to think of Ohio State as the institution it was when I left.

“In some ways that has been a very difficult transition because I remember so much about the place,” he said. “But this is a much different institution than I left in 1997, and I’m a much different person.”

As spring commencement approaches, Gee sat down with onCampus to chat about those changes as well as things that haven’t changed, to reflect on his first academic year back in Bricker Hall and offer his vision of what’s to come next.

When you first started your second term here, you described the welcome you’d received as making you feel you’d been bathed in warm milk. With this first academic year now almost complete, has that soured any?
Oh, no, absolutely not. If anything, I think I have felt more welcome than any human being ought to. The fact is that the university community both locally and worldwide has been very embracing. So because of that, it makes me feel even more compelled to try to do well and to try to do right by the opportunity.

With the familiarity you had, you couldn’t help but have had certain expectations about the university. With that in mind, what differences in the university have struck you during this academic year?
This is a much better institution than when I left, dramatically better. I can say this because I cannot take credit for it: This university has moved into world-class status. I think we have some very interesting challenges and I think right now that we are starting to grasp some unique opportunities. I describe it as moving from defense to offense. It’s a much better place to be. Whereas before we had to focus on blocking and tackling, now we can focus on finding ways to score. I feel very good about the university. I think we’re in a very good position to expand on our tremendous strengths.

Would you point to a few specific areas where we have those “opportunities to score?”
We have kind of a whirlwind of very big issues swirling around right now. One is the administrative reorganization of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences. Another is the reevaluation and review of our budget models, and the third is the graduate reviews — where do we go with those and how do we move swiftly to improve graduate education? So just take those three, and those are very unusual, big issues to be coming together at the same time. By successfully moving all those forward, this university will have a substantially different vector than it had only eight to 10 months ago.

You made a profound impression with your Six Strategic Goals to Make the Coming years Ohio State’s Time. Are there any of those that are progressing better or worse than you had hoped?
I think that in each and every one of the goals, we’re making progress. I’m very happy with the increased emphasis we’ve put on the student, even changing the name of the office from Student Affairs to Student Life to emphasize that area. And we're gearing up for an estimated $2.5 billion capital campaign. The one that is the least measurable but I hope we’re making considerable progress with is my sixth goal, which is omnipresent in my mind.

Out of the 550 things that I love about Ohio State and that I cherish about being here, the only major disappointment I have had is in terms of internal decisions and processes, because the environment we live in has become way too bureaucratic. I think we suffer from too many barnacles in terms of our processes, and I have an ongoing effort now to de-bureaucratize and make us a very agile institution. So in terms of my goals I see considerable progress but we’re still right in the middle of it and we’re trying to manage that progress.

With all the changes that have taken place and others that are taking place now, there have to be some things that haven’t changed. What about the university is the same as when you left?
I think the spirit of the place. There is an uncommon spirit. In fact, I describe it as an infection. It’s a virus, and once someone is infected with it, there is no inoculation, no antidote. The enthusiasm of the community both internally and externally for this university is something that few other institutions can brag about as part of their culture.

You have talked about the experience and insight you gained at Brown and Vanderbilt. What are some specific ways you changed in those 10 years?
Those private institutions have helped me to understand more clearly how to measure and develop excellence and move aggressively in pursuit of that — both in terms of the intellectual agenda of the university and the structural agenda of the institution.

And they also taught me that almost everything is possible. If you can do it at a small institution you can certainly do it at the nation’s largest institution. This is one area where our size gives us a tremendous advantage. We simply have a greater breadth and amount of human expertise to leverage. I hope this comes off in the right spirit, but I do believe that the Brown and the Vanderbilt opportunities made me much more able to be a better president of Ohio State than I was the first time.

You first became a university president in 1981. How have you stayed the same in that time?
I talk about the context of my life, which is a constant sense of journey. But I do think there are some things that have stayed the same. I really love people, I love the public fray, I do like to get into public discourse. I’m very much a public person. I have always taken great joy out of being engaged in the academic enterprise, there’s something very special about that. I would probably fail if I were an insurance salesman. But I take great joy in what I do because I believe there is nothing more important in terms of this nation and the continuing establishment and development of our culture than the American university.

You’ve always been one to interact with students, faculty and staff. What have been a few of your favorite activities this year?
Oh, so many. I have had a great number of interactions small and large that have been an opportunity to get a sense of who the people of this great university are and what they’re trying to do. Frankly I have been a much more internally oriented president in my first year than is usual for me. I just felt that I needed to get my arms around the place, and in order for it to understand me I needed to understand it. Now I’ll get back more into that balance between internal and external activities. It has been a joyous year with so many fun things I could tell you about that I have enjoyed.

Any that you have said, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I doing here?’
No, not really. You know I had those moments during my first time here, but no, I have not found anything where I said ‘oops, this is not the right thing at the moment’ so far this time. What I have found is that there are so many opportunities that I just cannot take advantage of and that gets me a little uptight because I really do want to be a participant in the life of the institution. This is a huge cafeteria with so many things going on, but it’s impossible to take advantage of everything. But I try to do as much as I can.

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