Wiewel, PSU 'great match'
Top job - The urban specialist now must learn how the school works and raise its profile quickly
Friday, May 02, 2008
BILL GRAVES
The Oregonian
Wim Wiewel, a university provost and nationally known urban scholar, will be named president of Portland State University today.
The University of Baltimore's second-highest administrator, an Amsterdam native whose name is pronounced "Vim Veevell," was on a plane bound for Portland on Thursday evening. He will be at a Portland State news conference this morning after the State Board of Higher Education officially appoints him president.
"I'm very excited about the opportunity that the presidency of Portland State represents," Wiewel, 57, said in a telephone interview from the Washington, D.C., airport.
Several leaders in Baltimore confirmed that Wiewel had told them he was taking the Portland job. Baltimore administrators and leaders, faculty and students in Portland described Wiewel as confident, energetic, outgoing, engaging, humorous and bright.
Wiewel has devoted most of his academic life to studies on connecting urban universities to their communities, making him "a great match for Portland State," University of Baltimore President Robert Bogomolny said in a prepared statement, "and I know he will have great success there."
John von Schlegell, a member of the state board and co-founder of a Portland investment firm, said Wiewel has a "friendly and adaptable style" suited to a university at the "crossroads of what it really wants to be when it grows up."
Wiewel "was very optimistic and not willing to accept limitations on where Portland State could go," von Schlegell said. "That is something I wanted to see."
Wiewel impressed members of student government with his background in urban studies, his capacity to listen and his grasp of issues on diversity, internationalism and research, said Rudy Soto, PSU's student body president. "Before talking about himself, he wanted to know about the students."
Professors liked his energy and academic background, said Richard Clucas, presiding officer of the Faculty Senate. "He's not just trying to go find a place to retire, but find someplace where he would like to make a mark."
The risk in hiring Wiewel is that he has never run a university, von Schlegell said.
As provost, he was mainly in charge of overseeing the school's academic mission and carrying out the president's vision. As president, he will be expected to help create a plan for PSU and sell it to the community.
He will face the difficult task of having to quickly master the university's internal workings while at the same time raising the profile of the university with business and community leaders, von Schlegell said.
Though the University of Baltimore is similar in character to Portland State -- serving mostly older, nontraditional students who have jobs -- its enrollment is just 5,400 students, compared with PSU's 25,000.
Wiewel will be taking the helm of a university troubled by a faculty labor dispute, a low graduation rate, large class sizes and a relatively low $346 million budget. Oregon ranks 45th in the nation for spending per student on higher education.
Jim Francesconi, a state board member who headed the search committee, said the president needs to raise expectations "throughout the community and the state as to what Portland State can really be." If the board selects him, Wiewel can do that, Francesconi said.
"Wiewel is a leader that Portland really needs," he said. "He has the vision, the experience and the integrity to help us meet those expectations. He understands how important a modern research university is for our state, our country and, in fact, internationally."
Wiewel was one of three finalists. The other two -- Kathie Olsen, 55, deputy director and chief operating officer of the National Science Foundation, and Jon Whitmore, 63, president of Texas Tech University -- visited the campus but dropped out of the running before the state board could make a decision.
Many university leaders, professors and students said Wiewel was the favorite all along.
In scholarship and as an administrator, he has made his mark engaging the university in the community as an agent of change and economic growth.
One of his key accomplishments during 25 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago was helping create and direct the university's Great Cities Institute, which carries out hundreds of research, service and teaching programs in Chicago.
During his four years at the University of Baltimore, Wiewel played a prominent role in creating the Central Baltimore Partnership, an unusual coalition of three universities and numerous city and community organizations focused on revitalizing a low-income and art district.
The coalition has expanded housing, sparked commercial development and improved safety. Wiewel also has involved University of Baltimore students and faculty in improving the public schools.
Timothy Armbruster, president and chief executive officer for the Goldseker Foundation, a private community development organization, called Wiewel a friend and ally in improving central Baltimore.
"I hate this," he said of Wiewel's move to Portland. "You are very lucky. . . . He's very smart and very articulate, and you've got a good man."
Bill Graves: 503-221-8549 ;
billgraves@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/...300.xml&coll=7
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