More campus clout for Koonin

Faced with fulfilling Caltech’s ambitious fund-raising campaign goals in uncertain economic times while running the Institute’s academic and administrative arms, Caltech president David Baltimore recently delegated major budgetary and decision-making authority to Provost Steve Koonin.
Under this new arrangement, Koonin, a professor of theoretical physics, will retain his provost’s duties while assuming broad oversight of several administrative offices. In addition to the six division chairs, several of the vice presidents will now also report directly to him. Gary Dicovitsky, the vice president for development and alumni relations, and Charles Elachi, vice president and director of JPL, will continue to report to Baltimore.

“The major motivation for this change is to give me more time to focus on the campaign,” Baltimore said. “We also want to bring together the administrative activities of Caltech into a more unified whole under the provost.”

Koonin, who called the changes “a broadening of my responsibilities,” expressed confidence in his ability to perform his added duties and to continue to guide the Institute’s academic activities.

“There is a need to bring a continued sense of coherence and teamwork across the upper administration, and that requires real hands-on attention,” Koonin added. “The president is, and will necessarily be, increasingly consumed by the demands of the campaign, so it has fallen to me to take on that coordinating role.”

Within the new administrative structure, Al Horvath, vice president for business and finance, Margo Marshak, vice president for student affairs, Robert O’Rourke, vice president for public relations, and Harry Yohalem, the general counsel, will report directly to Koonin.

“None of these people or organizations is a stranger to me,” he said. “Before this change my principal role was academic administration. Of course I did meet with the vice presidents with some frequency, but I’ll have a greater coordinating, problem-solving role now than I did before, a more formal responsibility.

“The president is ultimately responsible for the running of the Institute and that has not changed. But this arrangement does delegate day-to-day operating authority to me. The president will be kept informed of the important events and issues as they develop.”

This sort of arrangement is new to Caltech, but this kind of division of authority on college campuses is a growing trend. Increasing amounts of administrative responsibility are being placed on the shoulders of provosts as presidents find they must devote more time to trying to trigger the philanthropic response in potential benefactors.

The tactic is also a necessary one. With Caltech’s five-year fund-raising campaign well into its sixth month, the Institute is making steady progress in the face of a lackluster national economy and elusive donations.

“The campaign is going well but somewhat more slowly than we had hoped,” Baltimore said. “We already have almost $850 million in pledges and receipts toward our $1.4 billion goal. The slumping economy has made fund-raising difficult, and we are concentrating on attracting new friends to Caltech.”

The capital raised during the campaign is crucial to supporting a list of programs and projects throughout the Caltech universe, including undergraduate financial aid and graduate fellowships, the construction of new buildings and the renovation of existing ones, and the funding of powerful new telescopes and microscopes.

As second in command in Caltech’s administrative structure, Provost Koonin has indicated that he is considering delegating some authority himself.

“It could be that one of the ways in which we will try to accommodate my own increased responsibilities is to have some or all of the division chairs play a broader role than they have previously,” he said. “I have a very good group of division chairs, they are all very good citizens of the Institute as a whole, and we may rely on their abilities more than we have in the past.”
Koonin will also chair and meet weekly with the new decision-making Administrative Management Council, which includes Baltimore and the vice presidents.

“I think they understood the reasons for the change,” Koonin said of the faculty’s reaction to the news of his broader powers. “I think they’re concerned as we all are that all aspects of this job get done effectively. And whether it’s too much remains to be seen.”

Over his eight-plus years as provost, Koonin said, his office has made positive and substantive changes in the way the provost interacts with the division chairs.

“I think we have engaged the division chairs more than they have been in a long time in the running of the Institute,” he said. “I think we have a much greater transparency and professionalism in parts of the administration than we’ve had in the past.”

As a Caltech alumnus (BS 1972), Koonin said he knows that students often view administrators as uncaring bureaucrats, a misperception he hopes to correct.

“One of the things I’d like to do is be a little more interactive with the students. Regular meetings with the student leadership might be a useful thing,” he said. “I think this will be a good change for the Institute, and I’m looking forward to building a team of staff that I have come to know well, and to helping coordinate them with the division chairs.” Perhaps befitting the provost of a leading educational institute, Koonin took an empirical view of his greatly expanded role.

“We think this is what will work now; whether it will or not we shall see in the next six months or a year. You know, we’re all scientists—we try something and hope it works. If it doesn’t work we’ll make modifications.”
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