Outgoing COAS dean holds no grudges against IU

In his first interview since being turned down for IU-Bloomington chancellor in November, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Kumble Subbaswamy said he doesn't hold a grudge against the administration that chose not to hire him.\nThe subject of a hot debate among Bloomington professors, Subbaswamy was hailed as an ideal chancellor. After IU President Adam Herbert announced that the chancellor search would continue, outraged IU professors gathered in a mass meeting and passed resolutions asking for a special review of Herbert's skills as president.\n"What was both odd and uncomfortable about the search process was that the administration continued to pretend that none of the candidates were known and everybody else knew that I was a candidate," Subbaswamy said. "That really made it very awkward, and I think it would have been better to have an open phase where everybody knew (who the candidates were). Then I think that there would at least have been a basis for people to understand the decision, and there might have been less discomfort and less lack of faith in the system for all concerned."\nHerbert said the stalled chancellor search actually ended up having a positive effect on IU because administrators recognized the need for a restructuring of the University that involved eliminating the chancellor position altogether.\n"The irony is that by not filling the chancellor position, we then had the opportunity to reassess the best structure for governing the flagship campus of Indiana University," Herbert said.\nHe added that, despite the fact that Subbaswamy was not selected as chancellor, the COAS dean has made significant contributions to IU's academic prestige, and in particular, the College of Arts and Sciences.\n"I have a great deal of respect for him, and I think that he is going to serve the University of Kentucky very well and (IU) will definitely miss his leadership," the president said. "I appreciate all that he has done to help us elevate the level of the College."\nSubbaswamy was named provost at the University of Kentucky Jan. 6. Many administrators not hired for high-level positions feel forced to move to other institutions, but Subbaswamy said he didn't feel the need to leave at all.\n"If anything I had second thoughts about leaving given the outpouring of support and friendship I got from the faculty," he said. "I didn't feel like I had to leave, but I was ready to do something else, and in that context the best opportunity that I had at hand was to serve at Kentucky."\nWhen professors voiced their anger that Subbaswamy was not chosen for chancellor, they held the first mass faculty meeting at IU since the 1980s. Subbaswamy said he was surprised by the support he got from the faculty.\n"Anyone has got to feel enormously gratified and humbled by that," he said. "It's an enormous talent pool, and they're all independent souls, you can't orchestrate something like that."\nSubbaswamy was the only one of three final candidates for IUB chancellor whose name was leaked to the Indiana Daily Student. He said he wasn't angry that his name was leaked but said that search processes across IU should be more open.\nAfter six years at the helm of IU's largest division, Subbaswamy said he was ready to move on from COAS.\n"I've been a dean of an arts and sciences organization for nine years all together, and at some level, you start grappling with issues that are larger than just your own unit," he said. "The next level position, the provost of an institution that has a multitude of colleges and schools, allows certain opportunities that you don't have working with just one unit. I think I'm ready to tackle (a new job)."\nSubbaswamy said he intentionally looked at more than one position because he knew neither job was a lock.\n"I knew that if I became a candidate for the position here that I would also look other places, because there's always the possibility that you will not get the position that you apply for," he said. "Kentucky was a natural one for me as well, just like Indiana."\nSubbaswamy spent almost 20 years as a professor and administrator at UK before moving to the University of Miami, Fla. and then IU.\nAt Kentucky, Subbaswamy hopes to be involved in higher education policy on a national level as well as at the university level.\nSubbaswamy thinks IU will soon run into funding problems because tuition is increasing more slowly than the cost of providing an education.\n"Universities like ours have 75 percent or so of their budget coming from tuition," he said. "The cost of doing business keeps going up. Offering cutting-edge research and cutting-edge education is expensive. The tuition increases have to be pretty hefty if you have to maintain the quality. There are problems with raising tuition in double digits, but it seems to me that the posture that Indiana has taken of really severely limiting tuition increases -- while not pumping money from public resources -- leads to a situation where you can't maintain quality in the long run, and so something has to give."\nLooking back on his time at IU, Subbaswamy said he thought he made significant progress in restoring pride and morale to COAS.\n"Over the last six years there has been a true turnaround in the college," he said. "When I came here, through a combination of reasons including some enrollment drop issues, the morale in the College was quite low and the image of the College within the university was not particularly shiny. But, over the last few years, through a series of initiatives and getting lucky in many ways, I think it's fair to say that we've turned around the morale and the College is seen as a leader on campus"