Boston University Provost David Campbell said in an interview Tuesday his passion for science and research and an academic timeline he wasn’t ready to commit to guided his decision to step down.
“I am an academic,” Campbell said. “I’m a theoretical physicist by training.”
Although Campbell said that he “absolutely” enjoyed his five years as provost for BU, he wants to go back to research while it would still be possible.
“I’ve continued to do research in this job with increasing difficulty and I’m at a stage where if I don’t go back with a little more focus on that, I will probably not be able to continue it later,” he said.
Campbell said that he has been thinking about stepping down for a year, and has been talking about it with President Robert Brown for several months.
According to Campbell, his departure from the role of provost is largely due to the transition that BU is going through.
Over the past few years, BU has been working on a number of projects that the administration hope to start implementing soon, and the provost explained that if he remained in his current position, it would become a much longer commitment.
“The university is in the process of redoing strategic plans . . . we’re going forward to a new commitment for a multi-year strategic planning process,” Campbell said. “The need to have a multi-year commitment from the person in this position from now going forward was critical and in thinking about that, I felt that I could not make, in good faith, the multi-year commitment that would be needed to go forward and still be true to my desire to remain an active scientist.”
Campbell explained that the job of provost is very time-consuming and that he wanted to be able to put more time into science and teaching. According to the BU website, the provost is the “chief academic officer of the University, overseeing the University’s academic programs, research, personnel, resources and support services.”
“I have been keeping my science active, I just graduated my last Ph. D. student this year ,” he said. “My last post-doctorate left last year, and so I’m at a stage where I need to renew that effort and that takes more focus than I can afford to put in if I am interested in this position.”
Campbell also explained he wanted to be able to benefit from the fruits of his labors and that after a year-long sabbatical, he plans to return to teach at BU.
“I look forward to enjoying some of the structures we put in place,” he said.
Campbell said over this past year, he and the administration at BU managed to accomplish “a huge number of things,” such as the One BU and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Reports.
The University Honors College, another accomplishment that the provost discussed, will be starting next year with 50 to 70 students from the class of 2014.
Campbell said that when he returns from sabbatical, he looks forward to teaching in the UHC.
BU also announced the Redesigning the Undergraduate Learning Experience Grants, Campbell said, an initiative to reshape large introductory courses.
Through these measures, and others taken by the administration, Campbell said that he felt there was “a sense of building the university and moving it forward.”
“We got an awful lot done,” Campbell said. “We’ve made fundamental changes which are going to be lasting.”
Campbell said that he hoped he had helped to start a positive cycle that would help to raise the standards of the university.
“You attract excellent faculty by having good colleagues, and you attract students by programs led by good faculty and you build on this,” he said.
Campbell emphasized that he will have hired three-quarters of the deans and more than 300 faculty members by the time he leaves and that one thing he tried to work on over his five years was to help build a sense of community among the faculty and give them a good perception of the administration.
After the school picks a replacement for Campbell, which will be done through the use of an independent search firm in a process outlined on Brown’s website, Campbell plans to stay as long as needed to help ensure that the transition is smooth.
“There will be some period of overlap,” Campbell said.
Campbell said that he has agreed to stay until June 30, 2011, at the latest.
Look for more coverage on the search for a new provost in The Daily Free Press’ final issue tomorrow.
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