(05-26-2021 04:16 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-26-2021 04:07 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(05-26-2021 03:38 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-26-2021 11:15 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  I hope we look for someone who has worked at a high caliber school with major college sports. Focusing solely on academics with athletics being an afterthought or 'hobby' is not who we are as a university and doesn't reflect Houston or Texas. It is arguably harder to be 'academically elite' at a larger state institution than it is at a small boutique University.

You do realize your prerequisite would limit the candidate pool to a very small number of academically elite universities that also support strong sports programs, and all of them (save for, perhaps, Tulane) are in P5 conferences: Stanford, Cal, Vandy, Northwestern, Notre Dame, UVA and UNC.

The guy I'd love to consider is Antonio Merlo, who left Rice a couple years ago to be Dean of NYU. Head of Penn's nationally ranked economics department, he came to Rice as Dean of the School of Social Sciences (and coached the men's and women's water polo club squads). He's an avid sports fan, albeit soccer is his true love (given he a native Italian). Unbelievably charismatic and a vision guy, who single-handedly built the Rice economics department into national prominence in just 4 short years, and secured Board approval of Kraft Hall.

I don’t even think it has to be a P5 employed replacement. For example, there are a number of academically very-good-but-maybe-not-elite universities that excel in Olympic sports (and hoops) for whom the Rice presidency would be an upgrade. Schools like Davidson, Lehigh, etc.

Rice is never going to hire a President from a non-elite academic institution. Not going to happen and shouldn't. In my post I inadvertently left out several including Georgia Tech, Duke, Michigan and Wisconsin, though I don't think someone from a large state school is an appropriate fit at Rice.

I'm just not sure why we wouldn't consider someone like the president of Davidson who is a UChicago undergrad alum, a Princeton PhD recipient, A FORMER RICE PROFESSOR, and a steward of a university that has an admissions profile that is pretty darn elite (similar to NYU).

I would prefer that to a dean or provost from Michigan or Wisconsin who has no experience being "the guy/gal."

But perhaps I'm missing something.