NW Arkansas Focus : White will give up UA chancellor post
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE — The chancellor of the state’s largest university quoted Ecclesiastes 3: 1 to explain his forthcoming retirement.
John A. White, whose decade-long tenure at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has been marked by the largest fundraising campaign in the school’s history, announced his plans Wednesday to retire June 30.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,” he read from a worn, leather-bound Bible he held in one hand while standing in his fourth-floor office.
“It feels like that particular verse was written just for me,” said White, 68.
White, who’s been the university’s chancellor since returning to his alma mater in 1997, turned in his resignation Tuesday to B. Alan Sugg, president of the UA System. Sugg said he expects to have a new chancellor in place by July 1.
G. David Gearhart, vice chancellor for university advancement, said White leaves a “strong legacy” at UA.
In particular, the Campaign for the 21 st Century raised $ 1. 046 billion for the university between July 1998 and June 2005.
“He has just changed the university for the better,” Gearhart said. “We are not the same institution we were 11 years ago.”
White’s salary and benefits equaled $ 287, 732 a year. His $ 277, 000 salary included $ 57, 111 from the University of Arkansas Foundation. He was also provided a car and housing.
White graduated from UA in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. He earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and a doctorate from Ohio State University in Columbus.
Before returning to UA, he was dean of engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, where he had been a faculty member for 22 years. He was assistant director for engineering at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D. C., from 1988 to 1991.
He and his wife, Mary Lib, have been married 44 years.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS Higher education officials from around the state also lauded White for improving academic standards at the university, raising retention and graduation rates, and making UA a destination for top students and faculty. During White’s tenure the average ACT score of incoming freshmen has risen from 23. 5 to 26. 5, enrollment has grown from 14, 740 to 18, 648 and new research awards have increased from $ 41. 2 million to $ 57. 6 million. But his tenure has not been without controversy. White drew criticism in his first few years when he tried to close the University of Arkansas Press and lay off 32 employees from the UA Physical Plant. Neither move was completed.
He also drew criticism for several decisions involving the UA athletic department, including an investigation into a harshly worded e-mail from a booster to one of the football team’s quarterbacks. During his tenure, Arkansas also fired two basketball coaches and replaced its athletic director and football coach.
UA Trustee John Tyson, chairman of Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc., said the end results were positive.
“The discussions have always been healthy,” Tyson said. “I think in the end the right decisions were made for the future of the Fayetteville campus.”
Gov. Mike Beebe said White has done a “yeoman’s job of raising private capital” for the state’s largest university. As for controversy surrounding some of White’s decisions, Beebe said it’s natural for highranking people to face some criticism. “There were folks upset recently over athletic-related stuff,” Beebe said. “You are always going to get that when you make decisions. And whoever makes decisions is going to get criticism.”
MORE FAMILY TIME White, a distinguished professor of industrial engineering, said he plans to continue teaching at UA for at least another four or five years. “It just seemed to me that this was the time,” White said. “A lot of things got accomplished, and now it’s time to step aside and let someone else take the reins. “ I’d rather leave too soon than too late. I’d rather step off the stage while the applause is still going.”
White said retiring as chancellor is a decision that he’s been considering for several months.
The job demands a great deal of time and responsibility, and he is looking forward to spending more time with his family.
“It literally has been a 24-7 job,” White said. “It’s a very, very tiring job. There’s a heavy, heavy burden of responsibility to bear.”
He first discussed the possibility with Sugg last summer. The decision about when to leave hit home while he and his wife visited their two children and four grandchildren in Atlanta over Christmas.
“I looked at my grandchildren, and they have grown up so much,” White said. “This is not how I planned to be a grandparent. I need to spend more than six days a year being with my grandchildren.”
The Whites live in Rogers and care for his parents, ages 91 and 95, who also live in Rogers.
Dan Ferritor, vice president for academic affairs with the UA System and 1986-97 UA chancellor, said he was surprised by White’s plans but understands the need to spend more time with family.
“It’s really a job that I think takes your time and takes your spirit,” he said. “You have to give your heart and your soul if you’re going to do a good job.
“ After a while you realize that you’ve accomplished a lot, but there’s always more to do and maybe it’s time to step aside and let someone else take over,” said Ferritor, White’s predecessor. White said he made the decision to retire on his own without any outside influence other than his family. “There’s been absolutely no pressure whatsoever,” White said.
LEGACY Rob Walton, chairman of Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, said White’s has been a “mission of transformation” for UA. “He spent countless hours traveling the state to articulate his vision and create support for it, then rolled his sleeves up and got the job done,” Walton said.
“Under his leadership the university has become one of the nation’s top student-centered research universities.”
The Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation gave UA its largest gift, $ 300 million, in April 2002.
Jim Walton, Rob Walton’s brother and chairman of Arvest Bank Group Inc., said the state and the university are both stronger as a result.
“Our family’s investments in the university during the past several years are a direct result of our confidence in Dr. White’s vision and leadership,” Jim Walton said.
Stanley Reed, chairman of the UA board of trustees, said White has been a “visionary” for UA and for the state. Reed said his efforts to improve academic standards at UA and offer more scholarship opportunities have benefited colleges and universities statewide.
“I think Chancellor White has brought greater awareness to keep the smartest students in the state,” Reed said.
Reed said he learned of White’s decision earlier this week.
“We knew somewhat that he was talking about retirement, but this was a decision he made on his own,” Reed said.
Rodney Slater, a former secretary of the U. S. Department of Transportation who is a UA School of Law graduate, said he heard about White’s retirement Wednesday afternoon and phoned the chancellor to thank him.
He said White’s legacy is improved university facilities, better scholarship opportunities for students and the historic fundraising campaign.
“I congratulated him,” Slater said. “I think a lot of times, it’s at this point in time that you really realize the impact a person has had.”
Sugg said he hates to see White leave.
“He’s done a fabulous job and the University of Arkansas is a better place,” Sugg said. “Everything that’s happened over the last 10 years has been positive. I think the university really has tremendous momentum.”
Sugg said growing UA’s endowment will be “one of his greatest legacies.” “ Those funds will be coming into the university for years and years, ” Sugg said.
ASSESSMENT Dick Trammel, chairman of the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board, said he was saddened to hear the news. White has been an “impetus” for academic excellence in the state, he said. With the changes he’s brought, people look to UA for its high academic standards and highachieving students and faculty. “It hasn’t always been that way,” Trammel said. White said the first few years were the toughest as he came in and pushed to raise academic standards at UA. “The first two or three years were extraordinarily challenging,” White said.
He said the highlights have been the Campaign for the 21 st Century and “the transformation that occurred in respect to people.”
State Sen. Dave Bisbee, R-Rogers, said he hasn’t always agreed with White but still views him as “one of my heroes.”
Bisbee said he was doubtful when White presented plans for a $ 1 billion fundraising campaign.
“I thought he was plumb crazy. That is a lot of money,” Bisbee said. “But he never wavered, and then all the sudden, it started happening.”
Bisbee said early into White’s tenure, he read in the paper that White wanted to raise the gradepoint average for admission to the university. Bisbee didn’t like that approach, though the general idea of raising standards seemed good. He thought the threshold would lead public schools to inflate grades more than they might already. It was 6: 15 a. m. on a Sunday, and Bisbee got so riled up that he called White, whom he’d never met. Bisbee said White had been in the shower. “He stood there dripping wet, talking to a legislator. We probably talked 30 or 45 minutes about academic standards. Now that’s a pretty good chancellor,” Bisbee said.
To contact this reporter: cpark@arkansasonline. com —————— • ——————Information for this article was contributed by Seth Blomeley, Mark Minton and Laura Kellams of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
