Reply to Uva president Scott Beardsley’s sketchy “doctorate”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Academic here: the best college administrators are not always the best scholars. Managerial skills and brilliant scholarship are not one and the same; often they don't co-exist. I can be as snobby about degrees as the next person, but for me the key to a great university president is not what they've published but how they handle students, faculty, parents, fundraising, community-building, etc[/quote]

True, which is why not every Nobel prize winner should pursue admin…in fact, they should prob just stick to research. (Some of them prob shouldn’t teach)

That said, in the t25 and esp the Ivies, they want the whole pkg. The respected scholar who also has good admin experience as a provost or a dean usually. That’s part of why Jennifer Mnookin’s appt is lauded at Columbia, she has sig admin experience (dean at ucla law before wisconsin prez) AND she’s a top notch scholar. Ditto Drew Gilpin Faust at Harvard previously, esp.

Once in awhile you do have someone with an sig record of public service who wasn’t an academic, like Janet Napolitano at the UCs and John King who heads the SUNYs. (Interestingly, both systemwide vs institutional presidents)…so there’s an exception of you were a former cabinet secretary, which is kinda a big deal. Same as the prez at William and Mary, cabinet secretary, though he has a legit PhD from Yale. Recently you have the new president of USC, who is not an academic (former general counsel) but of course has a Harvard undergrad, Harvard JD. He also has the public service record, though not cabinet secretary level. But USC is kinda Hollywood (vs UVA “public ivy”/wants to be compared to the Ivies).

The article’s point seems to be that Beardsley presents his advanced degree as a “doctorate,” which it technically is, but any real academic wouldn’t call a two year executive program a real doctorate.

[/quote]
Janet Napolitano is the president of UC, but each individual UC has a chancellor who functions like a university president.[/quote]

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