Welcome to Knight Talks, the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications talk show, produced by students for student I'm Shawn Humphrey, a senior studying journalism, sp and media.

And our guest today is Kent Fuch the former provost of Cornell University and the University of Florida's 12th President.

At the end of 2022, he'll step down as president, but he will continue as faculty with the universitys Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.

Good morning, President Fuchs.

Thank you for joining us.

It's good to see you again, Shaw Good to see.

You have your Bachelor of Engineering from Duke Univers and you're Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois.

What career path did you envision for yourself?

It wasn't to be a university president someday.

That was not my original vision.

I decided that I wanted to be a teacher as I was thinking of it, at a university or a college.

So to do that, I knew I would ha to go to graduate school in an a that I knew a little bit about as an undergrad, and that was engineering, although I had a different goal at one point, which we may want to talk about.

But when I decided I'm wanted to be a college teacher, I went back to engineering and focused on that.

And then through a set of interesting and unique circumstances, kind of worked my self into different university leader positions, which ended up, I'm very fortunate to say, as presid here at the University of Florid So in teaching, how was it kind of getting adjusted to now being face to face with kids interacting with them and kind of trying to supply their needs early on?

For me, it was a struggle because when you're in graduate school, you're often serving as a teaching assistant.

But for me, I wasn't giving big lectures and my very first c was in this auditorium that seated 600 students.

This is in the mid eighties, so a long time ago.

It was computer engineering, 600 students out th And I was not very good.

It took me a year or two to even get to be an average teacher, but I worked at it and after a while was okay.

I was pretty good, actually.

Was it difficult with early computers and early software or much of the same?

You know, I'm getting to go back and teach computer engineering and I've not taught since the mid-nineties full time in a classroom.

They tell me computers have changed a lot.

When I was teaching, they were b PCs had not even started.

Can you imagine that?

We did not even have PCs in offi when I was teaching.

And so the world has just truly changed.

And I look forward to that.

I look forward to being actually a student before I'm a teacher and trying to learn ahead of the students while I'll be teaching them.

Yeah, that sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun.

Very interesting challenge.

I'm a little scared, but it'll be fun.

It'll be fun.

You also holds your Master of Divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

What drew you to this study?

And was it serendipitous to have Linda Fuchs there?

Well, that yeah, that's probably the best part.

I did meet my wife and she was in the divinity scho When I was an undergraduate studying engineering, I thought, well, what I really want to do is to work in a more people focused profession.

It turns out engineering is actually pretty people focuse but I didn't know that at the ti So, I was very much influenced by a church that I started attending in North Carolina.

And I decided, along with my roommate, that we would become ministers or pastors of churches.

So after my undergrad in enginee went off to Divinity school and at that point decided, you know, what I really wanted t was to go back and be a college teacher.

And actually what happened was I didn't do well in my preaching class.

I didn't do well my preaching classes.

And my professors said in the seminary, they said, you know, we think you'd be a better teacher than preacher.

And indeed, that's what I did.

What I was bad at in seminary was reaching people's hearts and emotions.

When I was public speaking, giving these sermons.

I was great at communicating information.

People were learning in my sermons, but they really weren't inspired And now what do I do full time?

I try to reach people's emotions and not just their minds, but their hearts and inspire the about the University of Florida.

So how's that helped you, being the social media face of the university?

Well, you know, being in divinity scho first off, it made me realize I had this inability to reach people's hearts and min So I started focusing on it.

So my whole rest of my life, since the mid 1970s, when I was in divinity school, I've said, here's a weakness.

I need to not just communicate information, teach people things but I've got to be able to inspire them.

And that weakness over time has grown to be a strength.

And I share that with students.

Just because you have something you're not necessarily good at, if you realize it's important and you want to work in that are or you want to do that, work on You'll probably get pretty good at it.

So you taught at the University of Illinois from 1985 to 1996, followed by Purdue University from 1996 to 2002.

At Purdue, you were also the department chair of Electrical Engineering and computer engineering.

What did you enjoy about teaching that subject matter?

Well, you know, being a departme chair at Purdue, that was probably the hardest jo I've ever had.

And it's true for all department chairs.

You're responsible for everythin the facilities your department i in, hiring faculty, the curricul for the students, personnel.

And you typically haven't had any experience in managing a group or a large, large entity like a department.

So I remember those six years I was at Purdue.

It was challenging.

I was still teaching a little bi at that time, but it was really clear to me, since it was the largest departm at Purdue, that I needed to really focus on being a department chair.

And I did that.

And it turned out that I decided to continue and become an engineering dean at at Cornell.

So how do things change, especially with students at different universities in different places?

You've got different climate, geography, different accents, ev Yeah, exactly.

Well, one thing I love about here at Florida is that the best weather is during the academic y So, you know, right about this time, the fall through through the spring.

When you're up north in New York or Indiana or Illinois, where I the best weather was in the summ when most students aren't there.

Some are there, but not most of them.

So I love the fact that right no during the height of the academi year, in the fall and the spring, you can go out, you can walk in Turlington Plaza and meet students tabling.

I can go to Plaza of the America seeing them eating lunch and talk to them.

If I was up north, I'd be like rushing from one building to another with my big winter coat on and my snow boots on and trying to get out of the col I love that.

I love that.

On the other hand, there's a lot of commonality bet universities where I've worked.

They've all been the land grant university of their state, even Cornell which is private has agriculture and is the land grant university for the state of New York.

And I've loved that about our university and as well as the other three where I work, that they were cre all in the 1800s to serve the population of the state, to help the economy, and educate students that will m a difference in the state.

What kind of creativity do you see from students at these different places?

Because these are all big time universities, a bunch of smart students, and you have to work hard to get to these places.

Yeah, the student bodies have all been a little different You know, Purdue was very engineering focu Here at the University of Florid one of the things I love the mos is how intensely comprehensive we are.

This is the first university I've worked at that had a major college of journalis like we have.

Where I was previously, we wouldn't have studios like th and programs like this.

I love t We have a College of the Arts, School of Music, School of Dance Theate We have more departments, more majors than almost any university in the entire nation.

And then you overlay that with the state of Florida, which is this real diverse, dyna growing geographically interesting state You overlay that with the major athletics programs and all the fun that brings.

It' pretty cool place to be.

Oh, for sure.

I'm a sports guy, so, you know, I had to be here.

Were the everything school for a reas Yeah.

So in 2002, you became dean of the Cornell University College of Engineerin What did that role entail?

And did it inform your path furt into university leadership?

Yeah, I share sometimes with students a little of my own career trajectory and how someti failures have led to opportuniti And the example I gave is that when I was at Purdue, I was actually the candidate to become their engineering dean I was the head of a school and they asked me to be a candid the internal candidate.

And there were some external candidates.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted the job.

I did pretty bad in my interview I wasn't selected.

And so but then just that process of interviewing made me realize, Well, I really would enjoy and I want to be a dean of a college of engineering.

So then fortunately, Cornell came to town, met with me, and and I seriously pursued that opportunity, which worked o Being Dean is very similar actua to being a university president because you have a large entity that you're overseeing much larg than, say, being a department ch And you do a lot of fundraising, which a president does as well as a de And you're responsible for budge You have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of initiati you may take.

So it was great preparation as a dean to actually be a presi eventually even though in betwee I served as a provost.

Did you ever have to dodge fish at the Harvard hockey game?

You know about that?

You know about that.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know at Cornell, theyre a division one football school as the Ivy Leagu but it's a little different.

You know, a big crowd of 500.

Okay?

And it's a little different when you're sitting outside and snowing and all of that, as was the case But the big sport the big sport is hockey.

And the big rivalry, at least from Cornell's side, was Harvard And indeed, the students have a tradition of throwing fish out on the ice, even though we in the administration did everything we could to stop In 2008, you became the 15th pro of Cornell University.

What were some of your achieveme there and what kind of challenges did you face?

So the provost, for those that don't know, is the chief academic officer.

And at Cornell, you have a second role.

You're also called the chief operating officer, which is different than some pla And that means that at Cornell, the provost also is responsible for the whole budget.

So as provost, you decide, you know, how much each of the d get in terms of resources and you decide how much even the vice presidents get in resources So it was great a role for me to understan a university from all respects, not just the academic side, which had been my focus before t And I started right as the Great Recession was starting in 2009, we had a structural deficit of $200 million that we had to take right size the budget for.

And that's a lot of money at the university, $200 million every year that you have to redu I would say one of our achieveme as a university is during that time, the univers actually grew stronger rather than weaker, even though we had to cut out $200 million.

And probably the most visible th that we did was we created a brand new campus in downtown New York City, in Manhattan, on Roosevelt Island called Cornell Tech.

In 2015, you took office in Gainesville.

What was it about the University of Florida that excited you and what opportunities did you s Yeah, I finally decided that ind I would pursue being a university president, and it wasn't until it was about 2013-2014 that my wife and I said, well, maybe this is a time to pursue another opportunity and look at what might be availa Up to that time, I wasn't intere in being a president.

But then the University of Flori position was one that was, they were searching for a president in 201 The chair of the search committe actually flew to Ithaca.

I met with him to talk to him about the opportunity.

And what most attracted me was the fact that it was a great university, which I knew about, but also it had aspirations all across the university, students, faculty, staff, alumni elected officials, citizens in the state, for the university to even become more excellent.

To increase what I call its stat its reputation.

And that really attracted me, th this is a place that has fire in belly to not just rest on its accomplishments, but even be stronger.

And I wanted to be a part of tha And I knew the state of Florida was a dynamic state.

If the state was interested in investing in higher ed, it could do that.

It had the resources to do that.

So I said, if they're interested in me, I'm interested in them.

What's it been like for you to see those numbers just get higher and higher?

Seven, six, five.

It really has been quite special in terms of what we've been able to demonstr which is the return on investmen We promised our elected official we promised donors that if you would invest in the University of Florida, you would see measurable impact in that investment, whether it w graduation rate of students or growing the size of the facul investing in buildings and infrastructure.

And we've worked hard to make su we did demonstrate that return on the investment.

And that's even been reflected i almost every metric you can meas growing in it and being enhanced including rankings such as from the US News, which is the overal ranking of the university.

And the university had for many years had this aspiration that was broadly known and endorsed by elected official and by alumni and others that we would be one of the top ten universities.

And to achieve that and breakthrough that goal, it was actually, frankly, emotio for all of us to see that has now occurred and that milestone for the university has been achieved.

And then to begin to say, well, now what's next?

What we're going to do next?

So that's been a lot of fun.

What are the various roles of a university president and how do you and your team man such a massive institution?

Yeah, you know, different presid decide how they're going to use their time in different w And part of that kind of depends on the institution.

Part of it depends on the contex I focused on two things.

One is on working to bring resou to the university, and that's from donors.

That's from, you know, federal sources, that's from foundations, that's from the state.

And so about half my time is dedicated to bring resources to the university.

I actually don't get involved in how those resources are allocate People are surprised at that, they think I'm going to be the person that decides, you kno how the budget is allocated.

I don't do that.

I leave that to the provost.

I leave that to others to make those decisions.

You know, it's similar to what I experienced when I was at Corn that I oversaw the budget, oversaw the academics.

And I told the president, you kn you go get the money, I want to spend it.

Okay?

So I've taken that role now and then the other half of my ti I work on communicating on behalf of the university.

Sometimes it's one on one meetin maybe even with a student.

Other times it's a big speech that I give.

Other times it's a message, a vi I may make to the campus or social media.

Those are the two things that the President can't delegate to someone else.

And so that how I allocate my time.

Now, it is obviously important becaus we're we're incredibly complex.

We're an $8 billion enterprise.

If we were a company, a regular company, we'd be on the Fortune 500 in terms of companies.

And so that means were a pretty big enterprise.

And so that also means there had to be really good peop that are overseeing the hospital overseeing athletics, overseeing the colleges, just th different parts of the universit And so, obviously, I work hard to make sure there are good peop in those different positions.

So UF has seen a ton of success under your leadership, over 1 billion in research, building an AI university.

As president, how have you been to shape these achievements?

Well, you know, there are a lot people leading specific initiati My role has been, in some cases, to set goals and then secondly, to support the individuals and t that are working to achieve those goals.

And I must say that one of my strengths is the fact that sometimes, even when I'm skeptic of someone else's goal, I'm willing to let them pursue i And a great example of that is the A.I.

Initiative.

When our provost, Joe Glover, proposed that, I'm a computer engineer and I was skeptical of why would the University of Flor want to be known as the A.I.

university for the whole nation?

Because I knew that MIT for 50 y has been pursuing A.I.

They have a head start.

Said to the provost, you know, if you're determined and you really had this vision, go pursue it, but don't fail.

Okay?

And it's been probably one of the best things that's occurred while I've been president is this initiative that's spread across the univers focusing on all aspects of data science and artificial intellige not just in engineering my home college, which is where I was originally thinking of it, but in business, in journalism, in medicine, in m and the arts.

Were the only university curren that has said every student that graduates is going to have opportunity to take courses in A and how it applies to their disciplines.

So, it really is, I believe.

I'm a convert, I'm a believer, and it really is, I believe, important for all colleges and universities to begin to embrace how A.I.

can affect us both positive and negative and understand that And also then make sure that our students are graduating with some knowledge of what that means and data and analytics and all the things associated with that.

So you've attended quite a few convocations and commencements that you have.

How special are those ceremonies for graduates and their families Well, I do believe our December commencement ceremonies this year will be my last.

I will have presided over, when we finished our four commencements in Decemb a 117 commencement ceremonies, 1 I think it's the current record of any president, of any college or university in the nation.

And the reason for that is we have the opportunity for every student to be individually recognized, walk across that stage and have their name called and to see them if they're in the O Connell Cen Their image up on the Jumbotron.

So it's a lot of ceremonies.

But some of the most joyous times are those graduation ceremonies as we're celebrating the achievements of these amazing students that are getting their UF degree But one of the neat traditions we've started is we now have as our platform party recessional, we sing the alma mater at the en after everyone's recognized and after my commencement speech And then as we're singing the al mater, we're swaying back and fo And then the house lights dim and the O'Connell Center and Tom Petty comes on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

Singing I Won't Back Down.

And then we have our platform pa recessional with Tom Petty.

Pretty cool.

So every president has his own s and you always provide a sense of joy when communicatin and engaging with students.

What role does media and social media play on the top five campu Oh, boy.

I believe I'm the first presiden at UF to have the opportunity to use social media.

You know, it didn't really exist ten years ago.

It's kind of surprising because it's a part of our lives And I indeed remember my first semester meeting with actually it was the editors of The Alliga the student newspaper, and I asked them if they'd show me how to tweet, never tweeted before, and they brought it up on my pho We downloaded the app and we did my first ever tweet.

Okay.

So, it really does allow you to connect with an audience using video, using social media.

I worked hard to lean into that.

And I do believe that a university president, just because of how visible you and the position you have an opportunity to communicate an atmosphere, to communicate sort of an environment that you want.

And I've worked hard at trying to do that and to be a mo hoping that maybe other faculty would would say, well, if the president can do that with students, maybe I can do th In my role as communicator, work to do that with students because they're very responsive, but in other ways also with, you know, employees, staff of the universi and faculty and alumni as well.

With so much access to so many people and so many people having access are there times where you have to pull back?

Absolutely, it can be pretty brutal on social media, as we all know, when somebody doesn't agree with you.

I worked to convey an image of being accessi because I believe it makes the university more personable and accessible.

We're a large place.

We're complicated.

But we also want it to be a plac where students feel at home and feel like they they know the president.

Because that changes the way they think about the univers I have an open door policy where people can come see me in my office if I'm around.

And that's all intentional to make students feel like they're comfortable.

They may disagree with something but at least they know we're part of the same community So I'm sure you have many, but can you share some of your favorite memories as presid There have been a lot of fun thi we've done.

I think of the time that I put on my commencement ro my orange and blue commencement robe, and rode out on the t shir cannon in the middle, at half time of a basketball gam And shot that t shirt cannon.

I want that job.

You know, it's a big Gatling gun t shirt cannon.

Whatever that job is, I want that job.

That was just a lot of fun.

We have a tradition of April Foo pranks.

And, you know, one year we announced, I brought the Florida state president in on this one, and we announced together we were going to merge the two universities and create a super preeminent university.

I got lots of hate mail on that but there was just a lot of fun.

What we've called purposeful fun, often making fun of ourselv Those are just some of the highlights, apart from just the achievements of everyone.

I saw you dyed your hair.

I believe it was orange before.

Yeah.

Or orange and blue.

Orange and blue?

Yeah.

Half orange.

Half blue.

Kept it on for about 24 hours un it ruined my pillow in my bed.

B it was good.

You slept with the orange and bl I slept with it.

I was going to wear it a week, but one day was enough.

So you stepped down as UF Presid at the beginning of 2023, beyond joining the faculty of the Herbe Wertheim College of Engineering, what's next?

I am looking forward to teaching I'm going to miss my job.

I really will.

Ill just say that up front.

Eight years has been a long time and it's now just the right time for me personally and for our family.

Just have a little easier schedu You know, we have four grandchil now, which we didn't have before when I started.

And we have 4 grandchild, we'll spend some time with them.

They're scattered around the country.

It was eight years ago this month that I was selected to be UF president.

I took a sailboat that I had up upstate New York on the Finger L and put it in the barn of this f that we have on Lake Skinny Atla It is not come out of that barn since I've been here since 2014.

So this next summer I'm going to take it out.

Ill go sailing a little bit, if I still remember how.

What motivates you to stay on at as a faculty member?

I do know that at some point I will fully retire.

I'm getting close to age 70.

I believe it is important for us you know, provide space and opportunities for new faculty to come.

And so I won't stay on the faculty forever, but I'd like to teach for two or three or four years because that's how I started tha That's why I went to the univers I didn't go to a university to be a university administrator I wanted to teach.

So I want that challenge.

Everything has changed so much.

It'll be hard.

It'll be kind of scary, but it's a new challenge for me, and I look forward to that for a few years, maybe two, three, four or five years.

So what advice do you have for students as they embark on their careers?

my goodness.

I guess I am at that point where I can give advice since I'm nearly retirement on people's careers.

Students and their families ofte do take some solace or comfort in the fact that I never really knew what I would be doin ten years in advance.

And I was open to different possibilities, and it led me in interesting way The number one, I would just say be open to possibilities.

That may not be what your original goal is, but open to exploring some of those possibilities.

Secondly, I wouldn't worry about what you'll be doing 20, 30 years from now.

That journey and getting there will be different than you expec But it will be fun.

You're getting a great education here.

You'll be well prepared.

And then lastly, I would just say enjoy the journ UF students are going to work ha their whole careers.

I don't need to tell them that, but enjoy it as you work hard.

Yeah, it's a rat race.

But what is it if you don't enjoy it?

Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, thank you for joining President Fuchs.

And thank you for your insight.

It was great to have you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Oh, yeah.

So that just about does it for us here at Knight ta Thank you to our viewers for joining us.

Until next time, good night and Go Gators.