Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: features

Versus Magazine Online [Image based format]

Some students may be surprised to find a man donning glasses and a bow tie greeting students and faculty at various locales on campus during any given week. He can be found in Rand Dining Hall, Sarratt Student Center, and even on occasion at weekend fraternity parties. This is no ordinary man, however. His home is in the chancellor's office at Kirkland Hall.

Chancellor E. Gordon Gee is familiar to most at Vanderbilt. His frequent appearances outside his office are a result of his policy to consistently engage students and faculty. For many he embodies the academic excellence and vivacity of the student body at Vanderbilt, and for others he represents a bureaucratic nightmare. One thing is for sure though: his arrival in 2000 heralded a wave of change at Vanderbilt that continues to this day. This rapid change is why his tenure has been analogized to a five year plan.

Five year plans were the Soviet Union's main vehicle for economic development beginning in 1928. They were characterized by the forced, rapid modernization of the Soviet command economy, and were often heavily influenced by the Soviet leader of the day.

Gee's arrival and weighty influence on the University's direction has in many ways mirrored the rapid development achieved in historical five year plans. His hand guides nearly all aspects of Vanderbilt's current development and his goals have become the University's goals. In the five years since his arrival, rapid change has been the order of the day.

>The Arrival: Presenting Gordon Gee

Chancellor Gordon Gee arrived five years ago from Brown University, following a successful 18 year tenure by former Chancellor Joe Wyatt. After arriving on campus, he set up shop for three months in 2000 on the second floor of Sarratt Student Center, getting to know students and obtaining a feel for the school. Soon after, he implemented sweeping changes unique to Vanderbilt that targeted one goal: to elevate Vanderbilt to the "forefront of intellectual life in this country."

Central to Gee's aims were plans to increase the quantity and quality of research at Vanderbilt, to improve graduate education, and to continue to improve undergraduate education. Gee specified these aims in his "five challenges to the faculty" during his first address of the Faculty Assembly in February of 2000. These challenges were to:

Continued...

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