As Brown's chief academic officer since 2002, Provost Robert Zimmer has worked to mold Brown, traditionally seen as a liberal arts-focused institution, into a stronger research university. When he becomes the president of the University of Chicago July 1, he will take the helm of an institution that has long been known for its emphasis on research and graduate schools.
Zimmer spent over two decades as a professor of mathematics and administrator at UChicago prior to becoming Brown's provost. While at UChicago, he served as chair of the mathematics department, deputy provost and vice president for research and the Argonne National Laboratory, which the university has operated for the U.S. Department of Energy since 1946.
Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Kathryn Spoehr, who previously served as Brown's provost and dean of the faculty, said Zimmer's positions at UChicago shaped his four years as Brown's provost.
"He is very clearly focused on research, almost to the exclusion of the undergraduate experience. This reflects his University of Chicago background. ... He focused on research here because he was in charge of research at Chicago," Spoehr said, explaining that administrators tend to be "acculturated to a certain view of what academics is really about."
During Zimmer's tenure as provost, the balance between the undergraduate College and graduate and biomedical initiatives has "swung way out of line," Spoehr said.
Zimmer acknowledged that UChicago is a "larger and more complex organization" than Brown and has a different culture. UChicago has a multitude of graduate and professional schools and a greater focus on research. Its undergraduate curriculum features a strict core curriculum, while Brown shuns a core curriculum and distribution requirements.
"If you look at any pair of universities, you're going to find some differences in culture and differences in the way they think about things," Zimmer said. "While there are always differences, the job of a university administrator and leader is to build on the strengths of the particular university and on the particular cultural climate that the institution has. I tried to do that at Brown, and I'll try to do it in a very different way at Chicago."
In his nearly four years at Brown, Zimmer has managed the implementation of many of the initiatives of the Plan for Academic Enrichment and significantly ratcheted up the University's focus on research.
In a March 9 campus-wide e-mail announcing Zimmer's departure, President Ruth Simmons cited his leadership in expanding the faculty and launching multidisciplinary programs such as the Environmental Change Initiative, the Initiative in Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, the Center for Computational Molecular Biology and the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
"The most important thing I really wanted to help achieve was to increase the level of ambition that Brown had about academic programs. ... I think that's been manifested in many ways. It's quite satisfying," Zimmer said.
Even after almost four years at Brown, Zimmer retains a deep connection to UChicago. "It's an institution I spent many years at, so I know it well and of course have a significant emotional attachment to it," he told The Herald.
'Stepping stone' to a presidencyZimmer's appointment as UChicago's next president was not surprising, said Stephen Nelson, an associate professor of educational leadership at Bridgewater State College and the author of a book titled "Leaders in the Crucible: The Moral Voice of College Presidents."
"Provostships at places like Brown usually end up being stepping stones to university presidencies or to bigger provostships which themselves are stepping stones to presidencies," Nelson said. "For Zimmer to go back to where he was before - or to anywhere else - as president is not surprising."
"Even though people would have loved to see him stay longer, everybody knows that when you get to that level, provosts often serve a very brief time because of their profile. There's no better preparation ground for a presidency than getting to a provostship," he said.
Deputy Provost Vincent Tompkins '84 said, "It was a surprise to me, but it wasn't a surprise in the sense of his accomplishments as a scholar, as a university administrator and given his deep familiarity with the University of Chicago."
Nelson said many presidential search committees consider provosts since they are typically the top day-to-day decision-makers at universities, implementing plans and achieving goals set by the president.
Suggesting that the relationship between president and provost could be considered akin to a "co-presidency," Nelson said presidents tend to be highly visible and focus on development and fundraising, while provosts work as "delegated decision-makers" to manage the academic functions of universities.
Tompkins said, "The president set the vision. The major things in the Plan for Academic Enrichment were things that the president developed, but the provost has been really crucial in implementing those."
Presidential search committees generally judge provosts based on the professors they have hired, programs they have implemented to attract and retain faculty, their management of the budget and their ability to attract financial support, Nelson said.
As the University's second-in-command during a period of dramatic change called for by Simmons and the Plan for Academic Enrichment, Zimmer was directly involved in the key areas Nelson said presidential search committees generally consider.
Nelson said Zimmer's career path - leaving an institution to gain experience elsewhere, only to return a few years later to take up a higher position - is not uncommon.
