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U of M names Bruininks its new president
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
November 7, 2002

Interim University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks will become the permanent successor to Mark Yudof. The Board of Regents named Bruininks Thursday as the lone finalist for job, and takes final action Friday. The announcement follows a nationwide search that culminated this week with several closed-door interviews with other candidates.

St. Paul, Minn. — Robert Bruininks has spent 35 years at the University of Minnesota, serving as a professor, dean and provost. The Board of Regents named him interim president five months ago following the resignation of Mark Yudof, who left to become chancellor of the University of Texas system.

Board Chair Maureen Reed says Bruininks was drafted as the lone finalist this week, after the completion of interviews with several candidates.

"As we evaluated the skills of those candidates and their aptitudes, our board came to the belief that the person with the best skills and qualifications was right here at the university," she says.

Reed says the presidential search committee presented five to seven names for consideration. She would not say how many were secretly interviewed this week. Regents voted in emergency session Monday to set aside the state's open meetings law and interview semifinalists behind closed doors. They said the move was necessary to prevent some candidates from withdrawing their names.

Regent David Metzen predicts Bruininks will continue the momentum established during Yudof's five years as president.

"We all recognize there are difficult times ahead of us. But we have a leader that understands this institution, understands the state of Minnesota, connects with people, and just drips with integrity and ethics," Metzen says.

Bruininks, 60, started his career in Minnesota in 1968 as an assistant professor. He served six years as dean of the College of Education and Human Development. Five years ago, Mark Yudof picked Bruininks as his second in command, appointing him as executive vice president and provost. In that position he was responsible for advancing the academic mission of the university.

Earlier this year, Bruininks said he was not interested in becoming a candidate for permanent president. He now says he was always willing to listen -- if the board thought he was the right candidate.

"I'm a first-generation graduate of higher education. I have a deep feeling and appreciation for how it has transformed my life, and how it transforms every day the lives of so many people in this world," Bruininks says. "So to have the opportunity to serve an institution that I deeply love was absolutely overwhelming."

Bruininks says his top priority is preparing the budget request for the 2003 Legislature. His predecessor took advantage of a good economy and healthy state finances to push an ambitious agenda.

Bruininks will face a Legislature battling a huge budget shortfall. He'll propose the university's smallest requested budget increase in the past decade, at $96 million.

Bruininks says his long term vision for the U of M is to become the most outstanding public research institution in the nation. He says he'll protect the university's traditionally strong programs, build programs for the future and remain true to the educational mission.

"Providing the highest quality education for our students at all educational levels -- undergraduate, graduate, professional and post-doctoral -- is the highest ideal that I would say, and the most important aspect of our vision for the future," says Bruininks. "If you get that right, and I believe we've had it right and increasingly are even getting it better, then I think the rest of the things take care of themselves."

It's unclear whether Bruininks' vision matches what Minnesota's next governor has in mind for the university. Gov.-elect Tim Pawlenty says it might be time to re-evaluate the scope of the university.

"We ask it to do a lot, and some of its mission overlaps with our state college and universities system," Pawlenty says. "And so we might be asking for a review ... are there some functions that the state college and universities system could do, and the university could shift to them? Also the reverse of that, which is state colleges shifting some things to the U."

Pawlenty says he doesn't know Bruininks well but trusts the Board of Regents made a wise decision. He says regents did not consult him about the selection, and as an autonomous body, were under no obligation to do so.

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