Hanson to leave IU for alma mater

Karen Hanson, IU-Bloomington’s provost and executive vice president, will leave IU on Feb. 1 for a position at the University of Minnesota.

Monday, U of M President Eric Kaler named Hanson as the university’s new senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. This appointment is subject to approval by U of M’s Board of Regents, which will meet later this week.

“We know she’ll be a loss for Indiana, but we’re just very happy she saw an opportunity to come to Minnesota and contribute on our journey to excellence,” said Tim Mulcahy, U of M’s vice president for research and the chairman of the provost search committee.
“We think the experience she got at Indiana and everything we’ve heard about her from the folks at Indiana just reaffirm in our minds that she’s a great choice for what we’re
looking for.”    

The search for U of M’s new provost began in the summer, after current Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Tom Sullivan announced his plan to retire at the end of the 2011 calendar year.

Since Hanson and many of her family members attended U of M, she said she found the opportunity to apply too interesting to overlook.

“It was the campus I grew up on,” she said. “It’s my home state, and it’s a great university with an enormous array of resources and a lot of interesting opportunities, so it was too interesting to pass by.”  

ter the search committee reviewed materials of and compared their information to the goals, traditions and aspirations of U of M, the group interviewed 16 individuals, Mulcahy said.

In September, the search for a new provost was narrowed to five candidates who were then invited to spend a day on campus. The committee received feedback from campus and turned it over to Kaler, who decided on Hanson.

“I think we had a pool of very strong candidates, Karen among them,” Mulcahy said. “We really believe that she is the total package, and she’s really going to help us take the next steps that we’ve laid out for ourselves for this institution.”

He also said Hanson will bring strong leadership skills, a depth of experience and a background of information from a public research university, all of which are important to U of M.

Hanson has served at IU for 35 years and has been the provost and executive vice president since 2007.

Hanson said the majority of her time at IU was spent as a faculty member.

“I think that’s important for a provost to understand what it is to be a faculty member, the many demands on faculty, productivity for research and to understand what it is to contribute meaningfully to the education for our students,” she said.

IU President Michael McRobbie released a statement concerning Hanson’s new position, expressing his gratitude for the time she spent in Bloomington.

“The University of Minnesota is an outstanding institution, and I understand the undeniable appeal of returning to one’s alma mater in a key leadership position,” McRobbie said in the release. “I have every confidence that Karen will make the same type of positive difference at the University of Minnesota that she has made at Indiana University.”

IU has not yet begun its search for Hanson’s successor, Associate Vice President for University Communications Mark Land said.

“It’s going to take a little while to move forward,” he said. “This wasn’t something that we necessarily expected to happen.”

Land said the focus should remain on Hanson’s accomplishment for now.
”We really kind of want today to be Karen’s day,” he said.