Why Should Delaware Care?
The president of the University of Delaware is typically the state’s best paid public official, but also leads an enormous higher education operation with more than 20,000 students statewide that also has significant impacts on workforce and economic development.
The University of Delaware’s board named Laura Carlson as its next president Tuesday, removing the interim tag that she had for nearly six months and tasking her with steering the state’s flagship university through a period of disruption in higher education.
Carlson, who previously served as provost – or the top academic role at the university, becomes the second woman to lead UD. Nancy Targett previously served as acting president for a year in 2015, before the board hired former President Dennis Assanis.
In selecting Carlson, the university’s board of trustees also broke more than 50 years of precedent by promoting within its own ranks for its top leader. Recent leaders like Assanis, Patrick Harker, David Roselle, and Arthur Trabant were all outside hires.
In a media interview Wednesday, Board Chair Terri Kelly said that outside hires also come with risk.
“There’s the uncertainty of the culture fit, of their knowledge of the institution and continuity. So all of those things kind of were in the backdrop,” she said. “I think part of this is setting an example that there’s great talent here if we put the energy to develop and support them.”
Carlson’s predecessor Assanis resigned a year before his contract was set to expire in a surprise announcement this spring. He had been increasingly under fire from faculty, who criticized his focus on capital development projects, like the research-and-development STAR Campus and football stadium, and the growth of executive staff while academic support waned.
Through the COVID pandemic, the university also saw dramatic declines in undergraduate tuition and fees revenue that led to budget deficits in each of the last two fiscal years.
So far, faculty leaders have responded positively to the selection of Carlson, who served as their liaison to the Assanis administration. During her interim spell, she undertook a months-long listening tour to assess the university community and walked away understanding that “there’s work to do around building trust, around transparency, and around accountability.”
“I think a really important first conversation to have is to think about reconfirming what our mission is, collectively, around research, teaching and impact,” she told reporters Wednesday.
Who is Carlson?
Carlson came to UD three years ago to take over the role that oversees the operations of the university’s 10 colleges and schools, manages enrollment strategy and ensures student achievement and quality experiences.
In her tenure, she created a multi-year strategy that integrates financial, enrollment and hiring plans and led cross-disciplinary teams to help expand pathways to a degree. Carlson also developed a close relationship with the 10 deans and pushed for an environment that encourages faculty and staff to incubate ideas for the wider university.
Before coming to UD, Carlson served for more than 20 years at the University of Notre Dame, starting as an assistant professor of psychology in 1994 and ending as vice president, associate provost and dean of its Graduate School.
A cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College with a special major in psychology of language, she received a Master of Arts degree at Michigan State University and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
A trying time to lead
Carlson’s task will be to not only repair relationships with faculty and help grow enrollment and revenue, but also navigate an increasingly fraught environment for higher education under the Trump administration.
So far, UD has lost $11 million in federal research funding as the Trump administration has either paused or canceled grants, officials reported this week. Carlson said that she is concerned about how reliant the university is on federal funding for research work by professors, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and therefore UD is exploring more partnerships with foundations or private industry to help fund the work too.
The Trump administration’s more hard-line position on immigration has also affected the number of international students through delayed visa processing, travel restrictions and recruitment pressures. UD had ranked within the Top 40 universities nationwide for its percentage of graduate students coming from overseas, but officials reported this week that those numbers are falling.
International students, who primarily come from India or China in UD’s case, are major revenue drivers because they pay out-of-state rates and can attract research funding. The university is pivoting to pitch more regionally to those seeking advanced degrees.
Although other universities have lessened commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts after pressure from the Trump administration, Carlson and Kelly said that they remain committed to a “welcoming campus community.”
That has meant a de-emphasis on the DEI terminology, including its use as a name for an ad hoc committee for the board of trustees, but not a commitment to the values it represented, Kelly said.
“It actually may have been a threat, but it created an opportunity for us,” she said, explaining that they’ve broadened the charge of the committee to include talent development, campus culture and more.
Readjusting the building plan
UD has several major buildings in a project pipeline, including Biden Hall, Seigfried Hall and upgrades to Delaware Stadium.
They come after a decade of significant capital investment in UD’s Newark campus – one that the Assanis administration argued was necessary to attract new students and retain quality faculty – but both Carlson and Kelly signaled that focus is likely to be adjusted.
Carlson said that she would consider both capital and operating spending against the university’s mission.
“We want to be clear that when we make decisions about allocating resources somewhere, that we’re doing that with the whole picture in mind,” she said.
Kelly added that she wanted to “get all that we can at the facilities we have,” while maximizing the value that the university could derive from program offerings. She noted faculty have been increasing the number of associate degree pathways to the university.
When asked whether UD may pursue the state’s first medical school – an objective of Gov. Matt Meyer – Kelly said that the university was prepared to help, but she didn’t commit to lobbying to be the home of such a project.
It’s still unclear whether the creation of a medical school would include the building of a facility or more simply be an extension of academic programs on an existing campus. UD has long hosted a well-regarded nursing program but has resisted a move to a full medical school.
“I think the approach we’re taking is, ‘Where can the university help support medical education and the unmet needs in the state?’” she said.
