The University welcomed a new president Wednesday when former University of Kansas provost Richard Lariviere took office.
Lariviere acknowledged that he will take the reins during a difficult time for both higher education as a whole and for the University, in light of meager budget allocations from the state legislature for public universities.
“No one in higher education has faced this tough a situation,” Lariviere said. “But we’ll get through this.” He later added: “The old models are clearly broken, so we need to come up with new solutions.”
Though Lariviere emphasized the need for a new direction, his first day was suffused with reminders of his predecessor, Dave Frohnmayer, who left office June 30. For instance, Lariviere was formally presented to the media in a Willamette Hall science lab where exchange students were researching remedies for Fanconi Anemia, a disease for whose sufferers Frohnmayer is an active advocate.
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