Kim A. Wilcox

Last updated
Kim A. Wilcox
9thChancellor of the University of California, Riverside
Incumbent
Assumed office
August 2013 (2013-08)

Kim A. Wilcox (born May 5, 1954) is an American academic administrator who is the ninth chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. He was appointed on August 8, 2013 and began the position on August 19, 2013. He was previously at Michigan State University where he served for eight years as provost, executive vice president and professor of communicative sciences and disorders. [1]

Contents

At Michigan State University, Wilcox was responsible for a major institutional restructuring that added 100 new faculty positions and expanded the university's two medical colleges.

Wilcox served as the President and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents from 1999 to 2002, overseeing a major reorganization of education in the State of Kansas. [2]

Early life and education

Wilcox was born on May 5, 1954, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He attended Michigan State University graduating with high honors in 1976. He subsequently completed a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy in speech and hearing science from Purdue University under the direction of Macalyne Fristoe. [3] [4] [5]

Career

Kim A. Wilcox was appointed as UC Riverside's ninth chancellor in August 2013. Since then, he has spurred a new era of growth of the campus, embarking on the expansion of the faculty by 300, development of new facilities for research, teaching, and public service, and a new emphasis on institutional globalization. [6]

Under Chancellor Wilcox's leadership, UC Riverside became a charter member of the University Innovation Alliance, a collaboration of major public research universities in America seeking to improve student graduation rates and outcomes across all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. [7] Chancellor Wilcox participated in the 2014 White House College Opportunity Day of Action, at which President Barack Obama recognized the Riverside County Education Collaborative and the participation of UCR and regional school districts in improving the pipeline from K-12 to two- and four-year colleges. [8] Ted Mitchell, U.S. Under Secretary of Education, praised UC Riverside for its commitment to diversity and inclusion. [9]

During Chancellor Wilcox's tenure, UC Riverside has increased diversity among students, faculty, and administration, launched its first-ever $300 million fundraising campaign, [10] set new milestones for research funding, [11] and broke ground on a new Multidisciplinary Research Building. [12]

Wilcox served as a consultant with the Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization "Partnership to Cut Poverty and Hunger in Africa". [13]

Research

Wilcox's primary work has been in the acoustics of speech production. [14] Much of his early work focused on the effects of neurological impairments to the speech musculature. His later work increasingly focused on developmental speech and language issues including remediation of speech disorders in children. [15]

Criticism of college rankings

Wilcox has been a vocal critic of commercial college rankings such as those published by U.S. News & World Report . In a 2015 interview with the Washington Post, Wilcox argued that the U.S. News formula for ranking colleges was inconsistent with the mission of public higher education. [16] The reporter describes Wilcox as believing that “the U.S. News formula is mostly about wealth and perceptions. It rewards schools that raise and spend a lot of money . . . and provides little incentive for schools to become more efficient at serving students with disadvantages.” In 2016, Wilcox published an opinion piece in the San Diego Union Tribune arguing that prospective college students should focus on rankings based on graduation and retention rates as opposed to those based on reputation and acceptance rates. [17]

Leadership crisis

On November 29, 2016, the UC Riverside Faculty Senate held a town hall meeting to address widespread concerns about Chancellor Wilcox's leadership. Concerns raised at the meeting included "inadequate planning for campus growth, poorly maintained facilities..., low morale," and "a feeling of disconnect between Chancellor Kim Wilcox’s office and the university’s 852 faculty members." [18] In a December 5, 2016 letter to the Faculty Senate, Wilcox admitted the problems with his leadership, acknowledging that "“Clearly, we have significant work ahead of us to rectify this situation.” [19]

On December 16, 2016, Wilcox's hand-picked choice for UC Riverside Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Paul D'Anieri, resigned rather than face a vote of no confidence by the Faculty Senate. The faculty strongly objected to the "top-down" management style fostered by Wilcox and D'Anieri, to their incompetent handling of new faculty hires, and to the "climate of fear and mistrust" they had generated on campus. Despite claiming that "D’Anieri should not be blamed for decisions ... that were made collectively by senior administrators", Wilcox accepted his subordinate's resignation. [20]

A "cluster hiring" initiative spearheaded by Wilcox and D'Anieri had drawn sharp criticism from the Faculty Senate for its extremely poor planning and lack of transparency. [21] A survey of the faculty in early 2016 found widespread agreement that the initiative had been poorly conceived and mismanaged. One professor commented that “The faculty, as far as I can tell, overwhelmingly loathes and resents the cluster hiring plan.... It threatens to inflict damage to academic programs on this campus that may take literally decades to undo – if it can be undone.” [22] At the November 29 town hall meeting, faculty complained that new hires had been brought in without sufficient investment in infrastructure, leading to a serious shortage of office and laboratory space and a strain on existing facilities. [23] As a result of these criticisms, Wilcox was forced to declare an immediate moratorium on any major new initiatives at UC Riverside. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California</span> Public university system in California

The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, the system is composed of its ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic centers abroad. The system is the state's land-grant university.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Davis</span> Public university in Davis, California

The University of California, Davis is a public land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institution was first founded as an agricultural branch of the system in 1905, known as the University Farm, and became the sixth campus of the University of California in 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, San Diego</span> Public research university in San Diego, California

The University of California, San Diego is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, UC San Diego is the southernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California. It offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling 33,096 undergraduate and 9,872 graduate students, with the second largest student housing capacity in the nation. The university occupies 2,178 acres (881 ha) near the Pacific coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Irvine</span> Public university in Irvine, California

The University of California, Irvine is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2019. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and had $534.9 million in research and development expenditures in 2022. UCI became a member of the Association of American Universities in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Riverside</span> Public university in Riverside, California

The University of California, Riverside is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on 1,900 acres (769 ha) in a suburban district of Riverside with a branch campus of 20 acres (8 ha) in Palm Desert. In 1907, the predecessor to UCR was founded as the UC Citrus Experiment Station, Riverside which pioneered research in biological pest control and the use of growth regulators.

A provost is a senior academic administrator. At many institutions of higher education, the provost is the chief academic officer, a role that may be combined with being deputy to the chief executive officer. In some institutions, they may be the chief executive officer of a university, of a branch campus of a university, or of a college within a university.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lou Anna Simon</span> American former university administrator

Lou Anna Kimsey Simon is an American academic administrator who served as the 20th president of Michigan State University (MSU). Simon was appointed interim president of the university in 2003, then served as president from 2005 until her resignation in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol T. Christ</span> American academic (born 1944)

Carol Tecla Christ is an American former academic administrator. She served as the 11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, from 2017 to 2024.

The history of the University of California, Riverside, or UCR, started in 1907 when UCR was the University's Citrus Experiment Station. By the 1950s, the University had established a teaching-focused liberal arts curriculum at the site, in the spirit of a small liberal arts college, but California's rapidly growing population made it necessary for the Riverside campus to become a full-fledged general campus of the UC system, and it was so designated in 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midlands State University</span> University in Zimbabwe

Midlands State University is a government owned university in Zimbabwe. The university has 9 faculties offering a wide variety of courses and many specialist programmes. The university is accredited through the National Council for Higher Education, under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education of Zimbabwe.

Rosemary S. J. Schraer was the fifth chancellor of the University of California, Riverside from 1987 to 1992. Schraer was the first female chancellor in the history of the University of California system.

Robert D. Grey is a long-time academic administrator and researcher and educator in the field of cellular and molecular biology. He has spent the majority of his career in positions in the University of California system, including interim provost of the UC system, acting chancellor at UC Riverside and provost and executive vice chancellor at UC Davis. He was also a well-regarded and award-winning faculty member at UC Davis.

Paul J. D'Anieri is Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and former Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost of University of California, Riverside. Prior to his position at UCR, Dr. D'Anieri served as the dean of the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), from July 2008-June 2014 and the associate dean for humanities from 2004 to 2008 and associate dean for international programs from 1999 to 2003 at the University of Kansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Ono</span> Canadian-American immunologist and academic administrator

Santa Jeremy Ono is a Canadian-American immunologist and academic administrator who has been serving as the 15th president of the University of Michigan since October 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy P. White</span> Academic administrator and kinesiologist

Timothy Peter White is a retired academic administrator and kinesiologist. He served as the chancellor of the California State University system from December 2012 to December 2020. He was the chancellor of the Riverside campus of the University of California from 2008 to 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Occupy Cal</span> Protest group against economic inequality

Occupy Cal included a series of demonstrations that began on November 9, 2011, on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It was allied with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City, San Francisco Bay Area Occupy groups such as Occupy Oakland, Occupy Berkeley, and Occupy San Francisco, and other public California universities. "Cal" in the name "Occupy Cal" is the nickname of the Berkeley campus and generally refers specifically to UC Berkeley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Harris (public policy scholar)</span>

Michael Harris is an Israeli-American public policy scholar and university administrator. He is currently the Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Tennessee State University and a Professor of Public Administration and Policy.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) traces its roots back to the 19th century when it emerged from the Santa Barbara School District, which was formed in 1866 and celebrated its 145th anniversary in 2011. UCSB's earliest predecessor was the Anna S. C. Blake Manual Training School, named after Anna S. C. Blake, a sloyd-school which was established in 1891. From there, the school underwent several transformations, most notably its takeover by the University of California system in 1944.

Cynthia Larive is an American scientist and academic administrator serving as the chancellor of University of California, Santa Cruz. Larive's research focuses on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and mass spectrometry. She was previously a professor of chemistry and provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of California, Riverside. She is a fellow of AAAS, IUPAC and ACS, associate editor for the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry and editor of the Analytical Sciences Digital Library.

Elizabeth H. Simmons is an American theoretical physicist, and Executive Vice Chancellor at University of California San Diego. Formerly, she was a distinguished professor of physics at Michigan State University, the dean of Lyman Briggs College, and the associate provost for faculty and academic staff development. She has also held positions at Harvard University and Boston University. Simmons is married to fellow physicist, R. Sekhar Chivukula. Together they have two children.

References

  1. ↑ University of California, Riverside (26 August 2013). "Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox: Biography". Web page Archived 2013-10-01 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 2013-08-26.
  2. ↑ Wisconsin Chancellor search "Kim Wilcox CV" [ permanent dead link ]. Retrieved 2013-08-26
  3. ↑ Wilcox, Kim Arthur (1980). Identification and discrimination of normal and defective /s/ by /s/-misarticulating and normal children (Ph.D. thesis). Purdue University. OCLC   8165156 – via ProQuest.
  4. ↑ "President' Perspective". Michigan State University Alumni Association. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  5. ↑ "Michigan State Provost Kim Wilcox to step down in July". MLive Media Group. 27 December 2012. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  6. ↑ "Chancellor: About the Chancellor". chancellor.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  7. ↑ "University Innovation Alliance". University Innovation Alliance. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  8. ↑ "The White House College Opportunity Day of Action". whitehouse.gov . 2014-12-03. Retrieved 2017-01-14– via National Archives.
  9. ↑ WALL, STEPHEN. "Under Secretary of Education praises UC Riverside for grad rates". Press Enterprise. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  10. ↑ "UC Riverside Campaign Regents Endorsement" (PDF).
  11. ↑ "University of California, Riverside Campus Background" (PDF).
  12. ↑ MUCKENFUSS, MARK. "UC RIVERSIDE: Chancellor plans $150 million lab center". Press Enterprise. Retrieved 2017-01-14.
  13. ↑ The State News (1 July 2013). "Kim Wilcox officially steps down as MSU Provost". news story. Retrieved 2013-08-26.
  14. ↑ "Kim Wilcox recommended as MSU provost". MSU Today. Michigan State University. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  15. ↑ Rice, Mabel; Wilcox, Kim (January 1995). Building Language Focused Curriculum for the Preschool Classroom, Volume 1: A Foundation for Lifelong Communication. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company. ISBN   1557661774.
  16. ↑ Anderson, Nick. "UC-Riverside vs. U.S. News: A university leader scoffs at the rankings". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  17. ↑ Wilcox, Kim (11 November 2016). "Media rankings don't address crucial qualities of universities". The San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  18. ↑ UC Riverside faculty, chancellor promise more cooperation
  19. ↑ UC Riverside provost resigns amid leadership crisis
  20. ↑ "UC Riverside provost to resign amid widespread faculty concerns over his leadership style". Los Angeles Times . 2016-12-17. Archived from the original on 2023-04-04.
  21. ↑ Cluster-Hiring Cluster &%*#?
  22. ↑ UC RIVERSIDE: Changes seen as both painful, promising
  23. ↑ November 29, 2016 Town Hall meeting of the UC Riverside Faculty Senate
  24. ↑ UC Riverside faculty targets provost Paul D'Anieri with no-confidence vote
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.