Linda P. Brady, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University, will take office July 1 as the University’s senior vice president and provost. She will replace John Moseley, who is retiring June 30.
As vice president and provost, Brady will work closely with University President Dave Frohnmayer. Her job responsibilities will include speaking for University academic programs to the larger University system, and oversight of budgets, academic priorities, student affairs and diversity issues.The Emerald sat down for a one-on-one conversation with Brady on Wednesday.
ODE: “So why Oregon, how did you end up here?”
Brady: “I think there are several things that have attracted me to the University of Oregon. The first is simply the character of the University. It is a comprehensive university that is anchored by a large college of arts and sciences surrounded by professional schools. It is very diverse in terms of the nature of the programs and the disciplines.
“The second thing that I think is really unique about the University of Oregon is the size. To be a major research university, and a member of the
Association of the American Universities, with only 20,000 is an amazing accomplishment. I understand that the University of Oregon is actually the smallest of AAU public institutions.
“What that means is you have the tremendous advantage of being a major nationally recognized research university with a relatively small population, which I think will enable the university to invest in initiatives, particularly in terms of the undergraduate experience, that would be more difficult at a much larger university. At (North Carolina State University), for example, we have 31,000 students, and that makes it very difficult to for us to pay the kind of attention to undergraduate education that I think we personally think we really should be focusing on.
“I think certainly the quality of the faculty here, the quality of the academic programs, the high rankings of many of the academic programs is also something that really attracts me.”
ODE: “Talk a little bit about your background.”
Brady: “I’ve been at N.C. State for the last five years. Prior to that, I spent about 12 years at Georgia Tech, where I led the Sam Nun School of International affairs.
“Before that I worked with President Carter at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and before that I spent about seven years working in Washington, part of that time working in the State Department, and part of that working in the Pentagon. In both places I was doing arms control work, and (I also) spent some time in Vienna and Geneva.”
ODE: “Can you tell me a little bit about what you did in the Carter administration, specifically?”
Brady: “In the Carter administration I was primarily involved in arms control work. During that period of time, that was between 1978 and 1981, the U.S. and then the Soviet Union were involved in negotiations in Vienna, Austria. The goal was to try to reduce the level of conventional forces in Europe. At that point the Berlin wall still existed, Europe was divided between east and west and there were large numbers of military forces on both sides – on the NATO side and the WARSAW Pact side.
“Both sides were very concerned that war might occur by accident, simply by the presence of so many military forces. The U.S. and the Soviet Union really took the lead, but involved our respective allies in negotiations designed to dramatically reduce the level of military forces.” The negotiations were not successfully concluded while I was working on it, but an agreement was signed in 1985 that has dramatically reduced the forces. Some people would argue that the success of that negotiation and another negotiation that I was involved in at the Pentagon helped lay the ground work for the end of the Cold War.”
ODE: “Recently, there has been some controversy regarding the (University’s) relations with the Department of Defense.”
Brady: “I was actually not aware until I came to campus for my interviews, and the issue was raised in a variety of forums while I was here. My perspective on that issue is that it is important to realize that the defense department has supported a wide range of research. Much of the excellent academic work that has been done and the policy work in arms control and conflict resolution really would not have been accomplished if those funds had not been made available to faculty.”
ODE: “How do you see yourself fitting in, overall, at the University?”
Brady: “Well, I feel very comfortable here. I’ve been walking around the campus a good bit, as I’ve been having various meetings, and spending some time in the (Erb Memorial Union) and in the bookstore. I’m trying to get a feel for the place.
“One of the things that I’m really interested in exploring is how to best get the pulse of students. One of the things that I have done at N.C. State is several times every semester I sit in on a class, and I’ve talked with faculty and made myself available. Sitting in on a class is a very good way, for me, to get a sense of what’s going on in the classroom, what’s the student experience like, and that’s enabled me as an administrator to kind of keep that in mind as we’re dealing with a variety of issues.
“I’m hoping that I will fit very well. I feel very comfortable here, and I’ve felt very welcomed here. There is a tremendous congeniality here, a real sense of ‘we need to identify problems, we need to work together, we need to participate together’ in efforts to solve problems, and that’s the way I’ve always approached my job.”
ODE: “What kinds of things have you done to get where you are today?”
Brady: “Number one, a curiosity and desire to learn. I think we all learn in many different ways. We certainly learn in the classroom, I always did as a student and in my graduate education. I think we learn when we teach. I’ve always learned a great deal from my students. I think part of what has been important in my career is simply a willingness to learn, and to look at problems from very different perspectives.
“The other thing that I think has been really important for me is being willing to take some risks. For most faculty, moving into an academic position and then getting tenure is the goal.
“What I actually did when I went to Washington was leave a tenure position at a university to move into the Carter administration. My boss could have come in at any moment and have said, ‘Sorry we don’t need your services anymore.’ That was a risk for me, as an academic, to simply leave the security of that academic position and to go into a political position and not really know how long I’d be there. I think the willingness to assume some risks, and to give up a little security to try to have a very different kind of experience, opened my eyes to things that I never would have been able to see.
“So I think the … most important things are the curiosity and a willingness to learn, to learn about issues from different perspectives and a willingness to take some risks.”
ODE: “What are your goals as the provost and vice president, are there specific things you hope to accomplish here?”
Brady: “The University of Oregon has an excellent national reputation, but as someone coming from a very different kind of university, at N.C. State, I need some help from the Oregon community in understanding where you’re going and what your challenges are.
“I think the most important focus for any university is academic excellence, and I think the provost is the senior chief academic officer in the university and the fundamental mission of our universities relate to education and research. We need to focus on how to sustain academic excellence. That means everything from how can we recruit and keep the very best faculty to how do we provide students with the kind of educational experience that they need and that they want.
“For me the challenge will be to work the ca
mpus community to find what we collectively mean by “academic excellence,” and then to figure out how to sustain that, and how to enhance the quality of the institution while dealing with all of the challenges that public universities face in terms of budget cuts and so forth. I think everything else will flow from that.”
ODE: “Tell me a bit about your current research.”
Brady: “My current project is looking at the impact of negotiation in war termination. That is a lot of big words, but in my field, of war and peace studies, if you will, most of the research focuses on trying to explain why wars begin, in an effort to try to put in place mechanisms to enable parties to resolve their differences without having to resort to war. The reality of the international situation, however, is that wars occur.
“What I’m looking at now is the way in which we can use negotiation more proactively to try to bring wars to a successful conclusion. … I’m hoping to draw some lessons that may be of use to policymakers now, as we think about issues, such as bringing the Iraqi situation to closure more quickly.”
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Driven by a ‘desire to learn’
Daily Emerald
January 29, 2006
Linda P. Brady will replace John Moseley as vice president and provost. Before taking the position at the University, Brady served as the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University.
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