Annual Report of the Provost, 2005–2006
13 November 2006
Dear Colleagues,
This past summer witnessed the end of Don Randel’s term and the arrival of our new President, Robert Zimmer. We welcome him back to Chicago, along with the arriving faculty. I am also very pleased at the announcement of my successor, Thomas Rosenbaum. Tom and I have worked together closely in the past on many projects, and I know that he will serve the whole University exceedingly well in the coming years. Alongside the changes there is much continuity in University leadership, as Deans Levmore, Snyder, and Shannon start new terms in 2006.
Since the quality of the faculty determines the excellence of the University, the Provost’s Office has undertaken a series of interviews with arriving and departing faculty, and last spring carried out a survey of faculty satisfaction in some of the Divisions and Schools. Before describing what we have discovered, I would like to welcome the new faculty, including the twenty-six arriving tenured faculty listed below. It is unfortunate that we also lost eleven tenured faculty, but that number is well below the long-term average, suggesting that the University is an attractive place for talented faculty to do their best work.
New Tenured Appointments in 2006
Habibul Ahsan (Health Studies), from Columbia, a genetic epidemiologist whose elucidation of the environmental and genetic factors influencing the health effects of exposure to arsenic are leading to effective public health interventions
Clifford Ando (Classics), from USC, scholar of Roman history and literature whose highly original writings on government and religion weave together the methods of the philologist, cultural historian, and intellectual historian
Francisco Bezanilla (Pediatrics), from UCLA, a world leader in the area of potassium and sodium ion channels, whose discoveries are at the very core of our understanding of the electrical basis for nerve and muscle function
Kerwin Charles (Harris School), from Michigan, whose studies of the “economics of disadvantage” range from the impact of disability on earnings to the black-white gap in home ownership
Peter Crane (Geophysics), from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a renowned evolutionary botanist whose pioneering studies on the plant invasion of land and the origin of flowers have fundamentally altered our understanding of these events
Jane Dailey (History), from Johns Hopkins, a prominent scholar in the new Southern political history, her current research emphasizes the critical role of fear of miscegenation in white resistance to civil rights
Andrew Davis (Geophysics), from University of Chicago, a cosmochemist whose research on presolar grains in meteorites is elucidating the origin and early evolution of the solar system
Christopher Gomez (Neurology), from University of Minnesota, a leading investigator in both genetically determined cerebellar diseases and diseases of the neuromuscular junction; he joins us as chair of the department
Robert Gooding-Williams (Political Science), from Northwestern, a philosopher, currently completing a book on African American political thought as presented in the works of W.E.B. DuBois and Frederick Douglass
Neil Guterman (SSA), from Columbia, a major contributor to the development of both a conceptual framework and clinical interventions addressing child abuse and victimization in family and community
William Howell (Harris School), from Harvard, a political scientist whose current research on the presidency considers the significant influence of Congress on the President’s decisions to use military force
Samuel Kortum (Economics), from University of Minnesota, whose breakthrough model of international trade shifts the focus from factor endowments as the source of comparative advantage to differences in factor productivity
Ratnesh Lal (Medicine), from Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, who, working at the interface of physical and biological sciences, has developed nanotechniques and devices to examine gap junctional hemichannels
Gregory Lawler (Mathematics), from Cornell, a leading probabilist, who has made critical contributions to the study of random walks and their relationships with statistical physics
Christian Leuz (GSB), from University of Pennsylvania, who has effectively brought to bear data from international firms in his investigation of the causes and consequences of corporate financial disclosures
Anup Malani (Law), from University of Virginia, who has applied empirical economic analysis to legal topics ranging from bankruptcy property exemptions to placebo effects in clinical trials
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (Visual Arts), from UIC, an artist of international stature whose work in sculpture, film, sound, and photography increasingly draws on the sciences to fashion an art at once socially engaged and poetically meditative
David Nirenberg (Social Thought), from Johns Hopkins, an eminent historian, whose subtle analysis of religious persecution in medieval Spain challenges regnant conceptions of violence
Christopher Rhodes (Medicine), from Pacific Northwest Research Institute, a leader in the search for a cure for diabetes, his most recent work has refocused his field on the importance of beta cell mass in the prevention of type-2 diabetes
Benoit Roux (Pediatrics), from Cornell, using computational approaches to study macromolecular dynamics, his ground-breaking work elucidates the mechanisms underlying the operation of ion channels
Mario Small (Sociology), from Princeton, whose research on urban poverty focuses on important variations in the agency of poor neighborhoods, exposing the normative tendency to study poor neighborhoods in terms of their failure
Matthew Stephens (Statistics), from University of Washington, a top researcher in statistical genetics, he has devised state-of-the-art programs for haplotype estimation and made major breakthroughs in modeling and analyzing linkage disequilibrium data
Mauricio Tenorio (History), from University of Texas at Austin, his studies of modern Mexican cultural and intellectual history gain in persuasive force through his deft juxtaposition of international cultural histories
Kevin White (Human Genetics), from Yale, a pioneer in the development of high-throughput genomic studies of embryological development and evolution in the multi-cellular Drosophila
Steven Wilkinson (Political Science), from Duke, a comparativist, his recent book, Votes and Violence, argues that the structure of electoral competition is a key determinant of the incidence and severity of ethnic riots in India
Ming Xu (Anesthesia), from University of Cincinnati, a biochemist, his seminal research on dopamine is clarifying the mechanisms of brain dopaminergic function and drug addiction.
Faculty Honors
Each year we celebrate the honors and awards that add luster to our faculty and the University. There are many more than I can list; here are a few. Robert Clayton was recognized with the National Medal of Science. Lars Hansen won the Nemmers Prize, and James Heckman the Ulysses Medal. Melvin Shochet was elected to the National Academy of Science. Stephen Stigler was elected to the American Philosophical Society. The newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences are Michael Dawson, Reid Hastie, and Michael Murrin.
Initiatives
The faculty climate survey will help the University’s leadership think about how to improve the attractiveness of the campus. We have not yet had a full discussion of the analysis, but several points are obvious. More than 80% of the faculty who completed surveys have had a broadly positive experience at the University. The strongest attractions of the University are its reputation and the quality of its students. The survey also identified areas of dissatisfaction that we need to address. One of the most interesting results is the polarized sentiments about “geographical location”—it is both the single most common source of dissatisfaction for a minority of the faculty and a cause of satisfaction for many others. It need hardly be said that the administration is constrained in how much it can change geographical location, though we certainly can work to improve the neighborhood in partnership with community leaders. The survey also identified childcare and employment for partners as sources of dissatisfaction. The administration has sought to address these challenges. This year selected neighborhood child care providers will begin to offer infant and toddler care with University support. Next year the University will bring up an online network of job listings in collaboration with scores of universities, colleges, and other cultural institutions in the Chicago area. Associate Provost Mary Harvey deserves thanks for this initiative, earlier versions of which have produced positive results for universities in the Bay Area and Boston. In the near future the Provost’s Office will post the results of the faculty climate survey and will announce additional initiatives with a view to improvements. I thank those of you who took the time to fill out the survey.
The past year brought some important institutional changes and successes. The relationship between the University and the Hospitals was revised in order to provide more coordinated management. The University of Chicago Hospitals will continue to be separately incorporated, but a new University of Chicago Medical Center has been organized with James Madara, the Dean of the Biological Sciences Division and Vice President of Medical Affairs, as the Chief Executive Officer. The President of the Hospitals, just appointed David Hefner, will report to the new CEO, who in turn will be overseen by an Executive Committee including the President of the University, the Chair of the University Board, the Chair of the Hospitals Board, and several other Trustees. This reorganization is an important advance toward the realization of the BSD-Hospitals’ mission of research, teaching, and patient care in an era in which the provision of services and finances of the Division and the Hospitals are inextricably linked.
As many of you know, the US Department of Energy required the University to compete for the renewal of the contract to manage Argonne National Laboratory. Through the extraordinary work of Tom Rosenbaum, Beth Harris, Hank Webber, and many others, the University won the renewal over the summer. The new contract calls for the University to collaborate with the University of Illinois and Northwestern University in joint scientific initiatives with a goal of making the Chicago region a more visible locus of scientific and technical innovation. The University has also taken the lead in a new consortium to manage Fermilab.
Facilities
Two years ago the University completed an extension of its Master Plan with the aim of providing better facilities for research and teaching. Over the past year we dedicated the Gordon Center for Integrative Science (formerly, the IRB) and have made progress on the new projects in the Master Plan. The design for the addition to Regenstein Library by Helmut Jahn is nearing completion. When construction is completed, we will have storage space underground for an additional 3.5 million volumes and an above-ground, oval, glass reading room that will be a beacon of light at the corner of 57th and Ellis Avenue. Design for the complete renovation of laboratory space for the Physical Sciences is well underway. As a first step toward design of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts, the University will stage a competition to choose a world-class architect.
Construction on the Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery continues with the aim of providing 21st-century laboratories for clinical research. And the caissons for the new undergraduate dormitory at 61st and Ellis have been poured. Other, smaller projects include the renovation of Harper and Cobb Halls to provide new classrooms for College teaching, the renovation of 5710 Woodlawn as a Diversity Center, and the remodeling of the basement of Rockefeller Chapel to provide space for diverse religious groups on campus. Finally, Don Randel was honored with a fund to provide for the overhaul of the great organ in the Chapel.
Teaching
Last January we inaugurated Provost’s Teaching Week as an opportunity to honor some of our best teachers (Rachel Fulton, Bruce Lincoln, Douglas MacAyeal, Ann McGill, Paul Sally, and Geoffrey Stone) and to showcase their classes to provoke a discussion about effective teaching. I found their classes fascinating, both in subject matter and in teaching techniques. The second Teaching Week will be held this month, and you are cordially invited to attend.
The infrastructure for teaching, both physical space and digital support, has been extended. Beyond the additional classrooms mentioned above, more existing classrooms have been outfitted with audio-visual equipment, faculty use of Chalk has expanded, and the Registrar’s Office has made great strides in the systems for classroom assignments and student records.
Financial Health of the University
2005–06 was an excellent year, both in fundraising and in the investment return on the University’s endowment. The value of the endowment now stands at $4.9 billion, following a 19% investment return from July 2005 through June 2006. The full impact of the 35% gain in the endowment over the past two years on the University’s budget will not be felt until 2009, due to the averaging formula that determines the payout. Last year was record-setting in Development as the University raised $284 million toward the goal of $2 billion.
I wish all of you well in 2006–07. For my part, the past five years have been an extraordinary learning experience for me. The range and quality of research and teaching on this campus are breathtaking, and it has been a privilege to be associated with them. I end with an observation about the magnitude of the enterprise, drawn from my own background as a Roman historian. The University’s annual budget of $1.5 billion, if converted into weight in silver or wheat, is about four to eight times greater than the Roman emperor’s entire budget for the whole of the empire at its height. We are truly engaged in an effort of historic proportions.
With best wishes,
Richard P. Saller
Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service
Professor of History and Classics, and Provost of the University