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USF Provost Post Goes To Experienced Name

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By ADAM EMERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 8, 2007

TAMPA - Ralph Wilcox, the University of South Florida vice provost who for years has been the bridge between USF and the state's higher education establishment, was named the university's provost Wednesday.

Ralph Wilcox

For the next 2 1/2 years, Wilcox will run the day-to-day academic affairs of the USF system, which enrolls 45,000 students on four campuses.

USF President Judy Genshaft announced the move two days after her second-in-command, Renu Khator, officially took the job as president and chancellor of the University of Houston system.

Wilcox said the appointment is not "interim," a designation signifying a brief tenure in the job before a permanent replacement is found, but is instead a "term" appointment, which some faculty members found unexpected.

Wilcox starts the job in January and will serve as the university's No. 2 executive through the 2009-10 academic year. Faculty members will form a committee this spring to search nationally for his replacement.

USF spokesman Ken Gullette said that Genshaft wanted stability at the top of the university as it embarks on an ambitious and expensive plan to position itself alongside the nation's best schools.

USF wants to join the Association of American Universities, an invitation-only group of schools, and plans to hire hundreds more faculty members and attract better and brighter students to help get there.

The plan demands a $1.2 billion investment, however, and Florida's public universities face the prospect of deeper budget cuts this year because the state is predicting further drops in tax revenue. USF has lost about $12 million in state aid this year.

For the past several months, Wilcox often has been the voice of USF, and typically spoke bluntly about the potential effect of budget cuts: larger class sizes, cuts in student services and possible layoffs.

In a statement, Genshaft said she talked with faculty, deans, students and state leaders about Wilcox and received "enthusiastic endorsements of support."

Some faculty members interviewed Wednesday said that although Wilcox was an obvious choice, they were concerned about the length of an appointment they still viewed as interim.

"On the other hand, it's probably not a tremendously attractive job right now because of the budget cuts," said Sidney "Skip" Pierce, a biology professor at USF.

While the president is the face of a university, whose job involves politicking and fundraising, the provost runs the academic operation. Khator often said her job is to make the university as good as its president says it is.

In an interview Wednesday, Wilcox said, "There's a lot of work to be done, and we don't have a beat to miss here.

"I don't anticipate any radical departure from the strategic path that we're on," he added. "We have a bold plan. We know where we're going. The challenge now is ensuring that we secure the appropriate resources."

Wilcox has been on the faculties and administration of the University of Houston, the University of Memphis in Tennessee and Hofstra University in Long Island, N.Y. He holds degrees from the University of Alberta in Canada, Washington State University and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

He had an auspicious, if uneasy, start as an administrator at USF in 2002. Genshaft picked him to temporarily lead the university's St. Petersburg campus after she forced out its popular chief executive, Bill Heller.

Wilcox had spent the year before shadowing Genshaft as a fellow in the American Council on Education's leadership training program. He was Genshaft's immediate, and only, choice to replace Heller, whose ouster had angered St. Petersburg faculty distrustful of the administration's decisions.

Wilcox, however, had charmed the faculty within days. A native of England, he assured the campus that he would support its move toward increased independence within the USF system during his interim appointment.

He served in that job for about a year and was named professor and vice provost at USF in 2003.

Wilcox is married, and he and his wife, Barbara, have three adult children.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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