THEQuad
Vincent Price named Duke president
In 1948, Duke needed a new
president. Former Trinity student James Killian, vice president of MIT, drew up a job description.
Students use social media to track the introduction of the “personable” University of Pennsylvania provost. In an afternoon ceremony at Penn Pavilion on December 2, Vincent Price, provost of the University of Pennsylvania since 2009, was introduced to the Duke community as its tenth president. It was a loose, joyous event, the kind in which every joke lands. Price talked about now understanding the importance in distinguishing shades of blue, his appropriately hued tie accentuating the message. Trustee chair David Rubenstein ’70 noted that Duke—relative to, say, America—tends to have a smooth presidential transition. And current President Richard H. Brodhead, ever the intricate wordsmith, gushed to his successor about his hopes for having a “ludicrously unproblematic relationship with one another.” The Penn Pavilion event was one of many for Price during a whirlwind Friday. He bounced all over West Campus, meeting separately with editors of The Chronicle, student leaders, faculty leaders, and the health chancellor, among others. But between these official encounters, a few students, those handling social-media accounts and shadowing the president-elect throughout the day, found Price in a more natural mode. “He’s a really personable guy. He asked me where I’m from; he’s asked about my life in the few moments I’ve had to talk to him,” said Jackson Steger, a junior who handles the university’s Snapchat account (@dukestudents). The idea of being welcoming and out-andabout as president is one that Price touched upon in his various remarks, highlighting both his affinity for walks and his need for them. (He and his wife, Annette, have two dogs that they will be bringing to Durham.) “I really do believe him when he says that he wants to be approachable, and he wants to walk around and interact with students,” said Thamina Stoll, a senior who runs the corresponding Instagram account (@dukeuniversity). “Even though I only spent maybe five
minutes talking to him, he does seem like the kind of person who would do that.” As provost at Penn, Price oversees the university’s twelve schools and colleges, centers and institutes, student affairs, athletics, and the arts. He has advanced initiatives to diversify the faculty, develop new forms of teaching and learning, enhance arts and culture on campus, and promote interdisciplinary research and teaching. Price, like Brodhead, has been the catalyst for a global strategy. At Penn, he hired the university’s first vice provost for global initiatives and spearheaded the creation Chris Hildreth of the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing, which opened in 2015. Price also led Penn’s role as one of the first partners in Coursera, the online open-learning platform, and served as founding chair of Coursera’s University Advisory Board. He’s a trustee of the Wistar Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research institute, and is on the executive planning group for University of Pennsylvania Health System. Price received his Ph.D. and master’s degrees from Stanford University and did his undergraduate studies at Santa Clara University. In addition to being the chief academic officer at Penn, he is the Steven H. Chaffee Professor of communication in the Annenberg School for Communication and professor of political science in UPenn’s School of Arts and Sciences. He’s an expert on public opinion, social influence, and political communication; his book, Public Opinion, has been published in six languages and taught in courses around the world. It’s worth noting that he looks nothing like the mustachioed actor of the same name, which is perhaps fortunate for his social-media future. “I think he’s super-photogenic. All of the pictures I’ve seen so far, he looks really good. And again, those glasses—people have been referring to them as ‘Harry Potter glasses,’ ” said Stoll. n
• Administrative ability: A university contains an odd collection of “students, staff, trustees, and alumni” who need “a common enthusiasm,” and the president must treat faculty “as a company of scholars rather than managing them through a line organization.” • C omfort with public relations and the ability to express the university’s goals • T he capacity to become a symbol of the university’s ideals and standards • T he willingness to be “courageous in maintaining high standards” • A n understanding of the mutually supportive partnership between research and teaching • A willingness to render service to community, state, and nation, because that service was essential to the university • T he ability to manage financial affairs–keeping the resource pool growing was then, as now, fundamental to any enterprise • Strength and stamina. For Duke (and similar institutions), the report added four more characteristics. The president must: • U nderstand that private universities could, and therefore must, be leaders • U nderstand and take advantage of the university’s regional characteristics •M aintain connections with national professional and scholarly societies • R ecognize the importance of “combining an education designed to help one earn a living with an education to help one become a well-rounded person.”
DUKE MAGAZINE
WINTER 2016
9