Getting to know President Holbrook

Although new herself, Holbrook welcomes incoming freshmen at the President's Picnic and Buckeye Bash, held on the Oval on Sept. 23.

The new president shares her excitement and vision for Ohio State

onCampus: What are you most looking forward to during your first days at Ohio State?

Dr. Holbrook: I am really looking forward to dealing with one institution as opposed to two. And I am looking forward to getting to know my new institution. It takes time to know an institution. I have not had the time to do all the preparation and reading that I would really have loved to have done. You know how it is when you're leaving somewhere, there are so many last things that must be done. So I've been pretty engaged with that. I feel strongly about finishing my job as provost before starting another, as much as I would have liked to have had more transition time.

onCampus: You have said that you want to spend the first part of your tenure as Ohio State's president listening to people at the University -- that it is your top priority. How do you plan to accomplish this?

Dr. Holbrook: I am really anxious to go about campus. I can't be any good externally if I don't know what is going on inside the University. It's not going to help that I know what happens in Georgia, Florida or Washington, I have to know what goes on at Ohio State to be of value in an external world. I want to spend as much time as possible getting to know people, programs, and what is happening on campus, and learning who to talk to, where to get information, and just being a part of the campus. I don't want to be seen as somebody who is aloof or set aside from what goes on. I very much want to be a part of the Ohio State campus. I like the campus. I like the faculty. I came up through the faculty ranks, and universities have been my life. I'm going to enjoy putting as much effort as I can in the beginning into really getting to know Ohio State's people and programs. Then I can help get the University's messages out more broadly.

onCampus: You have made several trips to Ohio State since your appointment. Would you tell us about these visits?

Dr. Holbrook: These trips have been very interesting for me. I flew up one morning just to attend summer commencement. I had just done the commencement at the University of Georgia, so that was very fresh in my mind, and then seeing how Ohio State does it was really a good contrast and a good comparison. I think there are things that are better at both institutions. There are some ideas that I would like to bring with me to Ohio State, and there are a lot of things at Ohio State that I think are done better than what is done in Georgia.

onCampus: You have with you a copy of Ohio State's Academic Plan with some highlighted items. What is your assessment of the Plan?

Dr. Holbrook: I think this is the right plan for Ohio State. I think it is a very good plan. I think it is very logical. It makes sense. It's contemporary. What I like most about it is that it's candid, it is not hype. Many universities that are not terribly good hype what it is that they are about. Universities that are really good provide a lot of candor about themselves. They look at themselves with a much more critical eye toward getting better. That is one of the things I like about Ohio State's Academic Plan. It really is a very candid document in which people have been extremely realistic about where we are, and yet it is not a bragging document. It is just a good, strong sensible plan.

Holbrook pauses for a moment of reflection during her final week in her University of Georgia office.     Courtesy of the University of Georgia

onCampus: Now that you've had an opportunity to become more fully acquainted with the Academic Plan, what initiatives do you think we should advance given the current economic environment?

Dr. Holbrook: Ohio State has been quite strategic in how it has made its investments. I like the idea of investing in programs in multi-interdisciplinary areas that are pre-eminent and capitalize on Ohio State's excellence. I like the idea that we invest in our own faculty. And I particularly like the idea of differential investments among colleges. Ohio State's budget restructuring was a very major transition that has allowed people the incentives to get better, reward faculty accordingly and actually reap the benefits of doing more for themselves. I think Ohio State has done some things very wisely with the funding it has. Georgia and other institutions can learn some lessons from Ohio State.

There are many other good ideas in the Plan and my thought, in going through it, is that behind every one of these strategies and initiatives is probably an entirely new subset of much more that we can do. So, for instance, in terms of enhancing and better serving the student body, there are some examples of things we can do. Ohio State has great honors and scholars programs and residential learning programs, but one of the things I don't see is a premier undergraduate program. There are elite kinds of programs -- not elitist -- but they are really unique opportunities that attract some of the best and brightest students from across the nation.

Another thought is continuing to enhance pre-collegiate programs that connect students with Ohio State before they come to the campus, programs that get them thinking about if this is where they want to be and why they want be here. I'm very keen on continuing to build partnerships with other state universities where they make sense. I am very interested in the outcomes of research and in the role of the University in economic development. I'm excited about undergraduate students getting involved in research. And I am really interested in knowing about the faculty. I'd like to know what the faculty see for themselves because they are the heart and soul of any university. The faculty are what really make things happen.

onCampus: Are there additional initiatives you would like to see added to the Academic Plan?

Dr. Holbrook: I recently co-taught a class, a freshman seminar called "Biology and Human Affairs." I would love to see Ohio State institute a freshman seminar series. It is a wonderful program that engages senior faculty with freshmen. Faculty design whatever course they are most excited about. If I felt that I knew anything about glass, I could teach a course on glass. But anything that I felt I was an expert on, even if it wasn't my area, I could put together a course.

Freshmen seminars are capped at 20 students and faculty volunteer to teach the seminars. Mostly they do it because they love doing it. I think that Ohio State could put that in place very easily. The nice thing is that the seminars provide a one-on-one relationship with a faculty member. When you sit around a table with 10 to 20 students for a semester and talk, I think you can really make an impact on students' lives. I think that is important.

onCampus: Do you anticipate teaching at Ohio State?

Dr. Holbrook: I would love to. Certainly not this fall. But I would love to do that, maybe after I feel a little bit more grounded. I've already told my new colleagues in dermatology to please call on me to give some lectures in dermatology on fetal skin development or other topics where I have some expertise to residents or medical students.

onCampus: How do you feel about the Plan's emphasis of recruiting "star" faculty?

Dr. Holbrook: Every institution where I have been, recruiting star faculty has been one of the components to excellence. One of the things that the state of Georgia, for example, did to make universities the key to real growth and excellence was to invest money in three ways: First, to bring in eminent scholars by raiding the best and the brightest people from around the nation; second, to invest in equipment and infrastructure; and third, to invest in research in areas that benefit the state specifically. That is the strategy.

Eminent scholars are recruited with very high price tags. When you bring in one of these faculty stars, 99 of his or her colleagues come along. Buying huge programs like that is often necessary to nucleate an area where the university wants to build its strength. It does a lot for an institution instantaneously. Such faculty attract new research money, other faculty, and you attract first-rate graduate students. So there are terrific benefits to bringing in a few of those programs.

But I think such recruitments should not be something that Ohio State faculty look at competitively, rather as a way to jump-start a program where the University wants to gain excellence very quickly. I am sure that within the institution there are the same number of stars and rising stars -- people who are excellent already and can put together programs that garner the same kind of institutional support. I don't think it's an either/or situation; the University should do both. Both are very important strategies. The Academic Plan talks about both recruiting and building via faculty development.

onCampus: What role do you think a president should play in development and fund-raising?

Dr. Holbrook: I am very much looking forward to working with Jerry May in development activities. I like connecting with people who love the University, and I love talking about a university that I love. It's similar to grantsmanship in that you sell what it is that you really have a passion for. If you have a passion for your institution, selling it to other people who are already pretty much committed to it is a fun thing to do. I'm looking forward to that aspect of the job. I've not done it in the same way that I will be doing it now, although I do many things now that have a fund-raising element.

onCampus: What plans do you have to improve state funding for the University?

Dr. Holbrook: Budget cuts are not new to me. Georgia faced three rounds of cuts already this year that totaled more than 8 percent. Ohio State seems to have done very well in developing and garnering other resources. State funding to Ohio State is at 19 percent, whereas the University of Georgia's state funding is at 40 percent, so there is a much heavier reliance on the state there. Ohio State has a much stronger history and culture of private giving, and it has a huge alumni base. Of course, that certainly doesn't mean that the state shouldn't be a responsible contributor, because the state gains terrific benefit from its flagship university and from other state colleges universities. But budget cuts are a fact of life for state-funded schools. They come in cycles and you have to survive them.

onCampus: What are your thoughts on the role and impact of the University and its research as a way to help address possible future budget cuts?

Dr. Holbrook: Part of my responsibility at Ohio State, along with the other presidents of Ohio's public colleges and universities, is to show legislators and citizens the accountability that we have for the funding we get, and the economic impact of university funding for the state of Ohio. We need to be able to show that each state dollar earned 'x' number of dollars or turned into 'x' number of jobs at 'x' new company. That's part of the whole broad impact of state higher education funding and how the research that is being done here can be put to work for the state. Just look at Ohio State's campus, at the diversity of its programs, its research outcomes and the connections that its people have with the private sector to get even a small sense of the enormous economic impact of the University on the state.

Look at Ohio State's programs in research, extension and public service and in outreach and engagement to see some of Ohio State's enormous value. What in the world would the state do without that driver? And really, Ohio State's biggest product is its students. Our goal is to get more of them in, keep them through graduation, and then keep them in the state. That's another economic driver. The revenue brought into the state and the tax generated by someone with a college education, compared with someone who doesn't have a degree, has an enormous impact in an economic sense -- along with its societal impact.

onCampus: Please tell us about your background as faculty and as a researcher.

Dr. Holbrook: After two degrees at Wisconsin, I taught at a small liberal arts college for three years in Ripon, Wisconsin. I absolutely loved it; I did nothing but teach, no research. I liked the experience because you do everything yourself in a small school and you really get to know your students. I think that when you know your students, you work harder for them and they work harder for you. But after three years, I decided I was either going to do that forever or get a Ph.D., so I went to the University of Washington School of Medicine and earned a Ph.D. in biological structure -- which was better known as the anatomy department at the time. And I stayed on at Washington and kept moving up through the ranks. I got an appointment in medicine, and did all of my research in skin biology and dermatology, primarily in developmental biology of the skin of humans. And then I got very much involved in genetic skin disease and did a lot of prenatal diagnosis of genetic skin disease. Somehow from there I ended up moving into administration.

onCampus: How did the transition to higher education administration come about?

Dr. Holbrook: I started out as associate chairman of my department and I really liked that. I like helping other people accomplish what they want to do. At the same time, I had my own very large lab. Then the opportunity arose for me to become associate dean for scientific affairs. I would sit in my office in the morning and think "Gee, I wish I could stay here all day." And then I would go to my lab in the afternoon and think, "Gee, I wish I could stay here all day."

When I had the opportunity to go to Florida to become vice president for research and dean of the graduate school, I decided that those were two of the things I enjoyed the most, graduate education and research. So I turned back a grant to the National Institutes of Health, a merit award, and turned over a program project grant to a colleague and went. I stopped doing research cold. I kept writing some things, but I never looked back. I left Florida because I wanted to be broader than research and graduate education, get more into the undergraduate side and know the whole campus, which I was able to do as provost at the University of Georgia.

When I decided to begin considering opportunities away from that institution, I had one objective: to find the right fit for the final goal of my academic career -- to serve as a university president. I feel so fortunate to have come to this university. Ohio State is a perfect fit for me. I hope I am for Ohio State.