UA finalists all faced tests of leadership

Supporters praise skill of 3 in dealing with contention

University of Arkansas chancellor finalists (from left to right) are April Mason, Joseph E. Steinmetz and Jeffrey S. Vitter.
University of Arkansas chancellor finalists (from left to right) are April Mason, Joseph E. Steinmetz and Jeffrey S. Vitter.

FAYETTEVILLE -- The three finalists for the top leadership position at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville share a few characteristics. Each is a provost, often referred to as the top academic officer or second-in-command at a university. And each makes more in salary than what was earned by former Chancellor G. David Gearhart.

The three candidates also have faced scrutiny over decisions they've made as administrators but have backers who praise their leadership skills. As their visits to Fayetteville unfold over the next week and a half, each has decades of experience in academia to draw upon when explaining a vision for UA's future.

The finalists are:

• April Mason, 59, provost and senior vice president, Kansas State University.

• Joseph Steinmetz, 60, executive vice president and provost, Ohio State University.

• Jeffrey Vitter, 59, provost and executive vice chancellor, University of Kansas.

Mason is giving a public talk at 10:30 a.m. today on campus at the Faulkner Performing Arts Center. Steinmetz and Vitter are expected to visit the campus next week.

UA System trustees were to travel today to Lawrence, Kan., home of the University of Kansas, and Columbus, site of Ohio State University to interview Vitter and Steinmetz. The interviews are expected to take place during the board's executive session, which is not open to the public. Don Bobbitt, president of the UA System, also is attending the meetings.

The board will reconvene Thursday in Little Rock.

Mason earns a yearly salary of $367,532, which includes a $1,200 cellphone benefit. Vitter earns $404,000, which includes a car allowance. Steinmetz earns $470,261.04, with deferred compensation in the amount of 20 percent of his annual salary.

As chancellor, Gearhart earned $339,010, plus $225,000 in yearly deferred compensation.

Mason

The goal at Kansas State University will sound familiar to anyone who's listened to UA leaders in recent years. Like UA, Kansas State has set a goal of becoming a top 50 public research university.

Mason wrote about the effort for a chapter in a book, Academic Leadership in Higher Education: From the Top Down and the Bottom Up, published this year.

Putting together what's known as the K-State 2025 Strategic Plan was a success, Mason wrote -- until "the air came right out of the optimistic balloon" after a 4 percent cut to the Kansas State budget for fiscal 2014.

"The new era of higher education is not one of building whole scale, but of specific program investment and strategic decision making. These decisions are difficult to make and unpopular," wrote Mason, an expert in nutrition.

As one way of moving forward with its goal, an additional column is now placed in budget spreadsheets to align revenue with specific themes from the plan, Mason wrote. In U.S. News & World Report rankings, Kansas State is tied for 77th among public research universities.

As a decision maker at Kansas State, Mason also has faced down a rare occurrence: the firing of a research scientist, a decision that's still drawing scrutiny over how Mason and Kansas State handled the case.

Joseph Craine had contacted an academic journal to allege that some Kansas State researchers had misrepresented work relating to ecological studies of prairie grasslands.

He was fired, with Mason as provost making the decision based on a recommendation from other administrators, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal, as the university cited a breach in its official policy for the resolution of academic disputes. Craine has sought but not been granted whistleblower status.

Mason studied in Italy before earning degrees from Mount Union College and Purdue University. At Purdue, graduate student Heather Eicher-Miller sought out Mason as a mentor.

"I think of April as just a wonderful role model," said Eicher-Miller, now an assistant professor in nutrition science at Purdue.

She remembered Mason as being deeply engaged in research while also handling an administrative role as an associate dean.

"I just felt as if she was always bringing her best work to whatever problem was presented, so that really inspired me," said Eicher-Miller.

Mason became a dean at Colorado State University in 2004, where she took on multiple responsibilities, according to Rick Miranda, now provost for Colorado State.

"She is a superb administrator with lots of experience both in faculty and departmental roles, as well as central administration, fundraising, and external relationships," Miranda wrote in an email.

In 2009 she left Colorado State for Kansas State University, recommended by a search committee headed by John English, now dean of UA's engineering college.

Steinmetz

To hear a former colleague describe it, a presentation a few years ago at an academic conference might explain why Steinmetz was a finalist for the University of Iowa's top job this year and before that -- according to the Austin American-Statesman -- a finalist for the University of Texas at Austin presidency.

"He gave a 30,000-foot view of academia," said William Hetrick, chairman of the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University. Along with enrollment trends, "he was able to speak to complexities with regards to the legislatures that universities have relationships with," Hetrick recalled.

At Ohio State University, Steinmetz remains a contentious figure for some alumni and students upset at the firing of former band director Jonathan Waters.

According to a lawsuit in which Steinmetz is named as a defendant, Waters was told by Steinmetz to resign or be fired after a report concluded that the Ohio State University band had an out-of-control, "sexualized culture."

"That scandal did rock our campus," said Celia Wright, a former student body president at Ohio State in 2014-15.

From her point of view, the university had little choice in making the change. The lawsuit is still in the courts, however.

In her dealings with Steinmetz, Wright described him as having a good sense of humor and willing to meet with students.

"He's very open, and the kind of person I know I could really make any comment to, and he wouldn't be offended," said Wright, describing him as having "the kind of personality that makes anyone comfortable."

Meetings scheduled for a half hour with student government leaders often stretched to a full hour, Wright said, adding that Steinmetz met with several others involved in student government, not just top leaders.

Steinmetz earned degrees from Central Michigan University and Ohio University. In 1987 he joined the faculty at Indiana University, eventually becoming chairman of the school's psychology department now led by Hetrick.

"When people reflected on his leadership, he was viewed as an extraordinary leader," said Hetrick, who also collaborated with Steinmetz on research projects.

Steinmetz supported an interdisciplinary approach that has served the department well, Hetrick said, describing him as "an extraordinary scientist."

In 2006, Steinmetz left to become a dean at the University of Kansas. He joined Ohio State in 2009 and was appointed provost in 2013.

Vitter

In a 2008 interview, Vitter described how he came to earn a master's in business administration while on the computer-science faculty at Duke University as he helped build a "new department culture."

"In the process, I got very interested in academic administration, which I think is really computer science on a grander scale," Vitter said. "It is problem solving, or to put it more positively, it is finding solutions."

Told of Vitter's comment, Tom Beisecker, president of the faculty senate at the University of Kansas, said, "I think that's a very good description of this style."

Vitter has "a very direct leadership style," Beisecker said. "He is a person who will essentially say what he wants to have done, get done and then will follow through on it. He has very definite opinions on what he thinks ought to be done and will carry those out."

Vitter, whose brother David is a U.S. senator from Louisiana, earned degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Stanford University, as well as Duke. His first faculty position was at Brown University in 1980.

"He was the clear top choice," recalled Doug Palmer, a professor and former dean with the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. Palmer led the search committee that interviewed Vitter.

"The search committee was very impressed with his academic credentials," Palmer said.

On the job, "I would characterize Jeff as being very high energy, having, I would say, a real passion for excellence," Palmer said.

But a divide soon became evident between the university's regents and the president at the time, Elsa Murano, who eventually resigned.

"It was a very stressful period, being brought in under one president and then having that president leave," Palmer said. The Bryan-College Station Eagle reported that Vitter was asked to resign. Palmer said he was surprised to hear of Vitter's resignation.

In 2010, Vitter joined the University of Kansas, overseeing a dramatic change to curriculum by instituting universitywide core requirements for graduation.

Beisecker, a University of Kansas faculty member since 1967, said the changes have been "wrenching" in some circumstances.

As provost, Vitter also was involved in deciding to temporarily pull a journalism professor, David Guth, from the classroom over a tweet about gun violence and the National Rifle Association.

"Personally, I think they handled it as well as they could have handled it," Beisecker said, noting that there were physical threats against the campus after the tweet.

Metro on 10/07/2015

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