The University of Tennessee’s Board of Trustees narrowly voted this morning to elect Joseph A. DiPietro as president of the three-campus university system, which also includes a health-sciences center. Dr. DiPietro, currently chancellor of the university’s Institute of Agriculture, was elected on an 11-to-10 vote over the other finalist for the position, Brian Noland, chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. Dr. DiPietro, selected after an open search process that followed a series of failed presidencies, will succeed Jan F. Simek, the interim president since 2009. The new president has a background in veterinary medicine and held administrative posts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned three academic degrees, before moving to Knoxville, Tenn.
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4 Responses to U. of Tennessee Board Picks Internal Candidate as President
22221757 - October 22, 2010 at 9:25 pm
They definitely picked the right guy. The guy from wv is a complete pretender…
fm114fm - October 22, 2010 at 11:48 pm
You will continue to see turnover problems as long as institutions limit their selection to converted academicians and education management experts. What qualifies someone to be president without true business experience such as P&L, marketing, operations, etc. This is exemplified with our political leaders. Most presidents are hired because of their institutional tenure and not their business know-how. Do you really think a $100 million private company with shareholders concerns would hire someone with limited entrepreneurial experience? The deficiencies of this practice will come to light as federal and philanthropic funding begins to wane.
22221757 - October 25, 2010 at 8:38 am
Last post is exactly on point but the higher education “establishment”, along with the large majority of faculty who are scared to death of accountability brought by a true business approach, want nothing to do with non-traditional presidents and chancellors…
archman - October 25, 2010 at 9:04 am
I think posters #2 and #3 are a decade or two late to the party. Current trends in university presidents *are* actually to hire the “corporate guy” from outside academia. The internal and/or academic hire is becoming the endangered species.
There have been recent CHE articles summarizing this growing trend, and the problems that higher education institutions are facing when they bring in people with “real world experience”, but little/no background in academia.