Outgoing UK President Lee Todd made impact on national level, not just at UK

 

When Lee Todd announced that he was retiring as president of the University of Kentucky, reactions flowed in from outside the state.

 

Todd’s influence as the leader of the state’s flagship university has been felt across the commonwealth and beyond its borders. He has invested much of his 10 years at UK’s helm impacting education policy at the national level, especially in math and science, through his work with high-profile organizations and committees.

 

“It’s a real loss,” said William “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland and a UK alumnus. “It was a feeling that it was too soon. He was doing such good things, and he was having such good impact.”

 

Much of Todd’s work outside Kentucky has focused on passions he developed as UK’s president — like spreading the gospel of UK’s Top 20 Business Plan, his plan to make UK a top 20 public research university by 2020 — and other causes that he started before coming to UK as president, like his efforts to improve math and science education.

 

These initiatives led to work with organizations such as the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the National Academies, the National Science Foundation, the Business-Higher Education Forum and the American Council on Education, along with the NCAA and Southeastern Conference.

 

“He’s a rock star, but he doesn’t act like a rock star,” considering his humility and modesty, said Cora Marrett, deputy director of the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency. “And when I give you these views about Lee Todd, these don’t just reflect my own thoughts. I’ve heard these from others as well.”

 

Todd, 65, hopes that the exposure will pay off for UK.

 

“These are people who are in a position to one day say, ‘Let’s check out Kentucky and see what they’re doing down there because I’ve heard a few things,’” he said. “It’s marketing, in a way, for the university.”

 

And it seems that in terms of the nation, he’s made great strides — success that many research and higher education leaders hope he will continue after he leaves the UK presidency Thursday.

 

“Part of me is excited because a president’s job is a 24/7 job that leaves you a small amount of time to do innovation,” said Maury Cotter, a founder of the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education. “I can imagine that if he has more time for innovation he could be doing some pretty exciting things.”

 

Business background

 

What could have cost him the UK presidency was a boon to Todd on the national scene: His background in business and lack of higher education administrative experience.

 

Todd, a native of Earlington, Ky., had come to UK after 18 years in private industry, founding two technology companies and eventually becoming senior vice president of Lotus Development Corp., an IBM subsidiary. He worked as an engineering professor at UK from 1974 to 1983.

 

Todd was described as an “out of the box” choice for the presidency, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader archives, for his lack of education experience.

 

“There is considerable concern among faculty that he’s never been a department chair, a dean or a provost,” said Joan Callahan, former director of the UK Women Studies program, in a 2001 Herald-Leader story. “People feel astonished we’d be trying to become a Top 20 university and not seek someone with more academic experience.”

 

But that mix of science and entrepreneurialism made Todd desirable to several organizations, which helped him sell UK to the nation, a goal he discussed when he was still trying to get UK’s top job.

 

People with Kentucky ties took note of him and helped Todd break into a scene he hadn’t worked in much before.

 

Kirwan and Paul Chellgren, the former Ashland CEO and UK trustee, helped Todd become involved in the Business-Higher Education Forum, which brings together Fortune 500 CEOs, college and university presidents and other leaders to discuss education and workforce challenges.

 

“Really quickly people said he’s a player and a serious person whose input we really value,” Chellgren said. “When Lee puts his shoulder to something, he makes an impact.”

 

Todd has been “one of the best ambassadors across the divide” of business and education, said Brian Fitzgerald, CEO of the Business-Higher Education Forum.

 

“He’s been on all sides of the equation, as it were, in trying to develop the innovation equation,” Fitzgerald said. “He impressed me as a leader who has lived in both camps.”

 

Kirwan, the son of former UK President A.D. Kirwan, also helped Todd become involved with the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the nation’s oldest higher education association.

 

“He had the credibility of being a very distinguished faculty member. On the other hand, he had been a success in the business world,” Kirwan said. “His breadth and depth of experience … gave him I think an unusual platform, and I think he utilized that platform extremely well.”

 

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities would become one of the main organizations Todd worked with, eventually becoming chairman of its executive committee. The only other UK president to lead the organization was James K. Patterson, who was UK president from 1869 to 1910, Todd said.

 

“I really think he’s been one of the outstanding presidents of this generation,” said M. Peter McPherson, president of the association and former president of Michigan State University. “I value his quiet wisdom, his thoughtfulness and the whole academic community does as well.”

 

UK efforts

 

Todd also discussed several initiatives that started at UK with decision makers outside Kentucky.

 

UK’s Top 20 status — which many have said may be the keystone of Todd’s legacy as president — was at the top of his mind when Todd took over as president in 2001, he said.

 

The Kentucky General Assembly mandated four years before that UK become “a major comprehensive research institution ranked nationally in the top 20 public institutions” by 2020.

 

“The first part was to try to change the way people were thinking about it, if they were thinking about it at all,” Todd said. “And I think we’ve at least overcome the threshold of believability.”

 

Todd directed a committee in 2004 to develop a business plan that established measurements used to determine Top 20 status and, for the first time, the cost of attaining this distinction.

 

“I’ve certainly heard him speak a great deal about the Top 20 plan,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the Division of Government and Public Affairs for the American Council of Education, a trade organization that represents university presidents and chancellors. “What he has to say is of interest to all university presidents. He speaks with great authority.”

 

Among many stops, Todd spoke to former Utah Gov. Olene Walker and other leaders in that state in 2004 about the Top 20 plan and using education to bolster economic growth.

 

“Higher education and research are the engine that drives the economy,” Todd told the crowd, according to the The Salt Lake Tribune. “Before there was a Silicon Valley, there were the University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles.”

 

His speech was positively received by the legislators, said Utah State University President Stan Albrecht.

 

“Certainly he’s widely respected well beyond the boundaries of higher education in the state,” Albrecht told KyForward. “We all benefit from his expertise.”

 

Todd remains encouraged that UK will reach the Top 20, despite a drop in funding from the state due to the recession. While UK was ranked 35th overall in 2005, when the business plan was released, the university now ranks 37th among the 91 research universities referenced in the plan.

 

That hasn’t seemed to diminish Todd’s fervor when speaking about it. The nonprofit National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education “has found numerous opportunities to leverage and share his insights and talent,” Cotter said.

 

“His keynote speech to a national audience on UK’s business plan provided many higher education leaders with an innovative alternative for advancing their institutions,” she said.

 

Todd has also spoken out about how to leverage athletics to help academics.

 

“It is an important part of this university, and it’s a band that keeps our people connected. When you leave here as a student and you go start your first job … you always turn on TV to watch the Wildcats,” Todd said. “And if it weren’t for that, I think we’d lose a lot of people.”

 

He has used that tie to spotlight academics, showcasing students, faculty and staff and their accomplishments during timeouts at football and basketball games, along with using prime advertising time during game broadcasts for commercials about UK’s academic success.

 

In 2002-2003, UK Athletics began contributing $1 million each year for 10 years for non-athletic scholarships. UK’s athletic brand is also part of the “See Blue” marketing campaign, which attempts to put academics on equal footing with athletics.

 

Todd has made no secret of his thoughts on where athletics should rank on campus. “I think our nation is out of whack when it comes to sports,” he said.

 

This, though, didn’t hurt him when it came to working with the NCAA and SEC. He represented the SEC on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors.

 

He also served as president of the SEC for two years, and during that time, the SEC entered into historic, 15-year deals with ESPN for $2.25 billion and CBS for $825 million.

 

“He does understand the importance of collegiate athletics to the university and to the people of the commonwealth, but he also understands it’s critical that athletics are a part of the mission of the institution, a part of higher education,” said Mike Slive, SEC commissioner. “We are very, very sad to see them (Todd and his wife, Patsy) leave but are also excited about the fact that Dr. Todd has an interest in continuing to improve higher education.”

 

Personal passions

 

Even before becoming UK president, Todd worked on initiatives to improve math and science education — subject areas that “changed my life,” Todd said.

 

He credits a math and science teacher from Hopkins County with originally piquing his interest, which he then explored as an electrical engineering student at Murray State, UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

“It all kind of started with an interest in math and science,” he said. “We’ve got to make this much more interesting than reading this stuff in a book. How do we motivate people?”

 

He co-founded the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. in 1987, a not-for-profit organization focused on increasing university research capacity, developing science and technology education programs and encouraging an entrepreneurial economy in Kentucky.

 

And then after coming back to UK as president, he sought to take those efforts to a national audience.

 

After working with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, he was asked to chair its Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative, which aims to transform middle and high school science, technology, engineering and math education by preparing a new generation of science and math teachers.

 

Members of the group feel the United States faces a critical deficit in well-qualified science and math teachers, not to mention lagging student test scores in these subjects.

 

Todd also focused on this area with the Business-Higher Education Forum’s Securing America’s Leadership in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Initiative.

 

This initiative seeks to double the number of students who graduate with science and math degrees by 2015 through strengthening the teaching workforce and pursuing strategies to strengthen the education pipeline that leads to math and science careers.

 

“He brought that passion” to the initiative, Fitzgerald said. “There are very direct ways in which Lee not only played a leadership role for us but took the recommendations that we made and began to implement them in his other roles.”

 

This included taking the work done with the Business-Higher Education Forum to the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, to see if the member universities could implement the forum’s discoveries, Fitzgerald said.

 

Fitzgerald also credited Todd’s focus on this area as a reason why enrollment has increased in UK’s College of Engineering, from 2,423 students in 2001-2002 to 2,751 in 2010-2011.

 

“I think it (UK) has gotten significant visibility, and I think it has benefited in very tangible ways in what Lee is bringing back to the university,” he said.

 

Todd also serves as chair of the advisory board for the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Education and Human Resources Committee, which seeks excellence in science and math education.

 

The National Science Foundation is one of UK’s biggest funders of research. While Todd’s role with the foundation hasn’t necessarily helped UK get more funding — awards are given through a competitive process — it likely has helped UK better understand what it needs to do to stand out, Marrett said.

 

“What he’s done is build the University of Kentucky into a very competitive, meritorious institution,” she said, “the kind of institution that the foundation ends up giving funding to.”

 

Todd has met with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to discuss math and science education.

 

“By being associated with those people in some of those leadership commissions, you get to sit in on the high level meetings with people who are going to affect research policy for the entire country,” Todd said.

 

His focus on math and science education has also complemented efforts to increase investments in research, which he feels can bring about economic development.

 

Todd is a member of the National Academies’ Study on Research Universities, which will release a report in November that identifies the top 10 actions the federal and state governments and universities can do to maintain research that helps the United States compete and prosper in the 21st century.

 

He serves on the ad hoc committee with officials from Stanford, MIT and Harvard and the chairman of Bank of America and former CEO of Eli Lilly and Co., among others.

 

“That’s the most prestigious thing I’m on right now,” Todd said. “It gives me a chance to talk about … the importance of research universities in the South and Midwest because a lot of people (on the committee) are from the Northeast and West.”

 

Future in public life

 

Todd does not plan to retire from these efforts after he steps down.

 

And regardless, many education leaders said they wouldn’t let him.

 

“He’ll be in demand,” Kirwan said.

 

Todd still plans to work with the Business-Higher Education Forum, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the National Academies, he said.

 

“I can spend some time in Washington just on my own and see where I can be of use,” Todd said.

 

A political career is not in Todd’s future, though. “Education and economic development should be apolitical,” he said. “By trying to stay out of politics you have a chance to sway a larger number of people.”

 

Still, Todd has not shied from dealings with political people. The highest profile official he met was President Obama when he handed him a letter in 2010 on behalf of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities signed by 79 university leaders pledging to address the national shortage of science and math teachers.

 

Todd’s reflection on this experience perhaps encapsulates why he has been able to find success despite what some saw as a lack of experience in higher education and through his passions in and out of office.

 

The thought that Todd, who grew up in a small Western Kentucky town, was walking through the Oval Office, did strike him as fantastic, he said.

 

“But what you do is you see other people walking there,” he said. “And you think, ‘Why shouldn’t I be here too?”

 

Photos from UK PR.