McRobbie impresses during first months of presidency

Michael McRobbie has only been IU president for about six weeks, but he has quickly reshaped the University’s administrative infrastructure. \nUniversity Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said McRobbie has made several strong appointments to some of the top positions at IU and has already begun to share his vision of the University’s future. \n“His remarks to trustees indicated a vigorous agenda and a good agenda,” Gros Louis said. “He has sent a strong statement to state and IU faculty on all campuses that this is going to be a train ride and not a buggy ride.”\nMcRobbie’s first action as president was to make several new appointments to his cabinet, including appointing a new campus leader, Karen Hanson, as provost.\n“Within the constraints of what could be done during a down time, Michael’s really achieved a lot,” Gros Louis said. “He has made very fine appointments across the board that will make a strong and vigorous administration.”\nMcRobbie appointed eight new vice presidents, including Hanson, by July 30, said IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre.\n“(McRobbie is) moving very quickly on a number of fronts,” MacIntyre said. “As far as his long term goals for the University, he will lay those out in great detail at his inaugural speech in October.”\nMcRobbie named Ora Pescovitz to the position of vice president for research administration on July 24. Pescovitz is setting up a University-wide program to oversee the research grant administration process, which is important to keeping IU competitive in receiving research grants, MacIntyre said.\n“One of the most important things IU had to do quickly was to make sure it had the administrative infrastructure in place to compete for research grants,” MacIntyre said.\nMcRobbie created a new vice president position when he named Patrick O’Meara as vice president for international affairs July 20. MacIntyre said McRobbie places great importance on increasing opportunities to study abroad and he wanted O’Meara to oversea that mission on all the campuses.\n McRobbie replaced vice president for student development and diversity Charlie Nelms with Ed Marshall and renamed the position vice president of diversity, equity and multicultural affairs July 18.\nExecutive Associate Dean of College of Arts and Sciences Robert Becker said he is happy with McRobbie’s reorganization of key offices.\n“So far so good,” Becker said. “He’s doing exactly what he was brought in to do.”