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Provost Kyle Harper discusses his relationship with the University of Oklahoma in his office in Evans Hall March 28. Harper attended the school as an undergraduate and continues to serve on the faculty.
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After quick ascent, provost shows no signs of stopping
yle Harper finally has a chance to breathe. O U ’s provost has just finished a book on climate, disease and the fall of the Roman Empire — his third book since 2011 — and his youngest child, Blaise, has just turned 8 months old. But even as he clears one big hurdle, he has his eyes focused on the next ones in line. “There’s always some project,” Harper said. “I just finished this book, so I’m a little bit coming up for air after that. And I’m trying to read a lot and figure out exactly what I want my next big project to be, but in the meantime I have a lot of commitments to contribute this or that article or chapter.” Harper, who finished his undergraduate work at OU in 2001, has climbed the administrative ladder — a rise one of his former professors and current colleague called “meteoric.” He has collected responsibilities, stacking more and more tasks onto his shoulders instead of shrugging them off as he goes. “He’s just able to take on a lot. ... He’s provost, he’s a professor, so he’s doing research and he’s teaching,” said Melanie Wright, director of Honors College curriculum. “I think he still has a hand in the constitutional center, father of three little bitty kids, does a lot publicly, and he seems to do it all. Concern, but he seems to do it.”
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“I do like to say I’m a child of the ‘70s. … I was there for three days.” — Harper When Harper, 37, returned to Norman as a faculty member after receiving his doctorate in histor y from Har vard University, he found familiar faces in former professors at meetings — and a few more in the student ranks. “When I first came back and joined the faculty in 2007, I was much closer in age to the students,” Harper said. “My cousins that I’m very close to were still in school, and a lot of my brother’s friends were still in school, so in the early days I was much closer in age to the students than I am now. But over the last decade, I certainly feel a lot older, and having kids will do that to you.” Now more than two years into his job as the full-time provost, Harper is straddling generations in age and appearance — his liberally gelled hair hints ever so slightly at gray, while his neatly tailored suits give way to scuffed cowboy boots. That is fitting, perhaps, for a man who took the ladder a few rungs at a time. He was still an associate professor when he ascended to senior vice provost in 2013, then he became interim vice president and provost a year later before taking the job
for good in 2015. He now answers directly to OU President David Boren, who is twice the provost’s age and became the OU president when Harper was just 14 years old.
“I think he still has a hand in the constitutional center, father of three little bitty kids, does a lot publicly, and he seems to do it all.” MELANIE WRIGHT, DIRECTOR OF HONORS COLLEGE CURRICULUM Harper had long impressed the university’s faculty as a student and a colleague. But his selection as provost still left some of them floored. “Ever ybody was astounded. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but, you know, in private industry, people are often successful at his age — either at a startup or they just work their way up the ladder,” said Alan Velie, an English professor who taught Harper when he was an undergraduate. “But in
academia, where the standards aren’t as rigorous, usually you have to have a long apprenticeship — chairman, dean, then you become provost. “I think it’s a tribute to David B o re n ’s v i s i o n t h a t h e s aw (Harper’s potential).” Even with nearly a decade under his belt at OU, he’s easily the youngest provost in the Big 12 — every other school’s chief academic officer was already a professional academic before Harper finished high school. “This is what makes him such a fascinating educational leader — that he can simultaneously relate to faculty as scholars because he’s a serious scholar, faculty as teachers because he’s a very popular and dedicated teacher, and as students because he’s not so far removed from being a student,” said Allen Hertzke, a political science professor who taught Harper when he was a student. “And OU students because he did his undergraduate here. S o that ’s quite an unusual combination.”
“I didn’t single him out or tempt him to start it. He joined in the general merriment.” – Velie When Harper moved from Edmond to Norman in 1998, he was ambitious but focused on a different field.
“When I came to OU, I probably wanted to go into law school and into politics,” said Harper, who at one point also considered pursuing a degree in physics. “But I changed my major five or six times, and it was always because I loved something new. It wasn’t because I necessarily didn’t like what I was doing. It was because I really wanted to do something that I just discovered.” While he bounced from one fascination to another, he maximized his OU experience in different ways. He ser ved in the student government, was a member of the College Republicans and served as chair of OU Speaker’s Bureau, allowing him to rub shoulders with politicians such as John McCain and — in another passion of his — a few headlining comedians. “Some of those things you really remember from college are picking up Jimmy Fallon and Tracy Morgan from the airport and hanging out with them for a day,” Harper said. He took advantage of every opportunity in the classroom, as well. He graduated with a letters degree in three years, participated in OU’s Honors at Oxford p ro g ra m — w h e re, h e sa i d , Velie taught him how to drink beer — and was a finalist for both the Rhodes and Marshall see HARPER page 2
OU withholds retirment incentive records Open Records Office refuses requests, cites concerns over privacy STAFF REPORTS
OU has refused three requests to release the names of employees who could receive thousands of dollars in public funds if they accept a new retirement incentive package, saying the requests constitute an invasion of privacy. The OU Open Records Office denied The Daily’s requests for the names of faculty and staff eligible for OU’s Special Incentivized Retirement program on the grounds that the ages of faculty are protected as a personnel record under the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
However, the same records were given to The Daily last year. Rebecca Brink, director of the OU Open Records Office, said in a March 31 email to Daily reporter Anna Bauman that the university “reevaluated the law when it became clear how personal the information ... is to employees who have served the institution for many years.” “The legal determination notwithstanding, the University does wish to balance those individual privacy rights against the public’s interest in knowing how the retirement incentive saves money,” Brink continued in the email. The Daily is seeking the names of the individuals eligible for the cost-saving, taxpayer-funded program so that it may report on which
of the individuals intend to retire and the consequences of their retirements. The names of these individuals are important for The Daily to determine how much money the program will save the university and which university departments may lose some of their most experienced employees amid a university-wide hiring freeze, and they are the only way The Daily may fully report on the program’s consequences. The Daily’s decision to publish the names of eligible employees in 2016 was met with criticism. Eugene “Joey” Albin, institutional research analyst at OU, wrote a letter to the editor in February 2016 after the names were published, saying The Daily’s decision was reckless and lacked journalistic value.
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The OU Daily newsroom during production Jan. 16. The OU Open Records Office has refused three requests concerning the Incenitivized Retirement program.
“The decision to participate in one such measure, the voluntary incentivized retirement program, is an extremely difficult and personal decision,” Albin wrote in the letter.
“But due to the publication of this list, what should be a personal and private decision for each person see RECORDS page 2