Straddling the OT fence: Teresa Sullivan
Can someone tell me what there is to know about U-M's provost (or ex-provost - as of about five minutes ago she is UVA's incoming president) Teresa Sullivan?
As mentioned, Dr. Sullivan was just named UVA's next president, and she'll take over on August 1. I have never heard of her. Perhaps there are those much more closely connected with the academic side of things at Michigan who have some insight.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:45 PM ^
That's just great. She's my uber-boss, and I learned it from MGoBlog. Great.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:53 PM ^
+1 for your sorrows.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:31 PM ^
If I remember correctly, Feat of Clay is a woman.
I wish somebody would inform me my boss has taken another job.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:48 PM ^
As I was typing "man" I had a feeling it was wrong. But then I told myself to shut up, which in turn got me all riled up and lef to me sitting under my desk for a while.
Sometime later I hit "reply."
January 11th, 2010 at 4:16 PM ^
Don't beat yourself up, I answer to almost anything. No offense taken.
My bigger concern was, did that guy know I was female because I posted about a husband, or did he suspect I was female because I talk about football like a girl?
Because sadly, I'm guilty of the latter.
January 11th, 2010 at 4:20 PM ^
I simply remember you revealing your gender in an earlier comment. It was mentally noteworthy since there are seemingly so few women that use this forum. That's all.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:45 PM ^
Second Google result for her name:
http://www.provost.umich.edu/about/senior_staff/t_sullivan.html
January 11th, 2010 at 2:51 PM ^
Yeah, I read the bio and CV. I mean, it tells you that she's a sociology wizard and all. Big list of her publications. No surprise for a future university president that she's well-published. Obviously I didn't take a ton of time to parse it out, not sure I'd even be able to draw much of a useful conclusion if I did.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:06 PM ^
I don't think it's a bad move at all--I think she's got the traits to make a good president (although Casteen's shoes would be daunting for anyone to fill).
She's down to earth and practical and from what I can see, cares about students--that ought to be a given but it isn't, always, with administrators.
She supposedly said when she left Texas that she wanted to be a president. UVa is an excellent place to land. Congrats to you, and good luck to her.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:50 PM ^
A congrats from someone who works for her is definitely something along the lines of what I was hoping to hear. Certainly better than "congrats to her and good luck to you."
P.S. Sorry to be the unexpected bearer of news ;)
January 11th, 2010 at 3:41 PM ^
....She's very personable and KNOWS HER STUFF. Faculty seems to like and MSC has had her doing most of the hands on work. Had to talk to her about a variety of issues and she just helped successfully conclude a search for the Dean of the school I graduated from and I've liked her in every encounter. Its unusual for a school with the prestige of Virginia to grab a provost or second-in-charge from another school rather than chasing another school's president (the way we did snagging MSC from Iowa). That should let you know how well she's regarded. Reminds me a of Donna Shalala at Miami. You could definitely do worse.
January 11th, 2010 at 4:29 PM ^
Donna Shalala?
Did her parents hate her?
January 11th, 2010 at 2:50 PM ^
She actually has been really responsive and useful in my undergrad time here. I have emailed her on a couple of occasions regarding class capacities and gym hours and she was quite effective in addressing my concerns.
Beyond that I can't say much.
January 11th, 2010 at 2:55 PM ^
The only reason I recognize her name is because she was a proponent of sending frequent mass emails to LS&A students. These emails seemed largely unnecessary to all but 5% of recipients.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:15 PM ^
Ahem. I have a spam rule running to auto delete emails from her, Mary Sue and anything with the words "Michigan Student Assembly" in it.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
The hilarious thing is that when I am trying to round up some students to get their input on something, the unwritten policy is to see if we can send the request from someone like MSC or Provost Sullivan so the request has some weight. You know, someone important should be in the "from" field.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:39 PM ^
You'd get a lot more traction with key phrases like "Student discount hockey tickets", "Free Beer" or "Free Pizza". I saw MSC once in my entire time at the U, for all I know she's some animatronic robot you guys trot out for special events.
I work for the Cancer Center now and do all my victim, errr subject, recruiting with pizza. Works well. My most recent federal grant will allow me to hand out Red Wings as compensation if the stupid IRB will let it pass.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:42 PM ^
Great, now that you've outed the robot fact, I'm going to have to hunt you and all the readers of this thread down, and erase your memories of that post with that special contraption the College of Engineering developed.
Hey, for $5 I'll also use it to erase the last two seasons of MI football.
Red Wings, or Red Wings tickets? Because that must be some federal grant you've got.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:45 PM ^
You'd be amazed what a slightly used McCarty or Hull will retail for. Shockingly affordable.
Just the tickets, although the IRB and various evil entites are Wolverine Towers are giving flack on this. They want us just to hand out those preloaded Visa cards, as they're easier to track and deal with.
How much to push the "Destroy all Spartans" on MSC-Bot and point her in the direction of East Lansing?
January 11th, 2010 at 4:00 PM ^
Oh honey, I too have enjoyed the IRB/FinOps headaches over research incentives and everything else. I could drain a couple beers with you griping about that one. Perhaps a third beer to talk about the times when we've had to bring in the General Counsel's office? It's not that they're not all helpful--it's just that nobody is on the same page.
The study sounds interesting -- except I'm not enough of a Wings fan to wish cancer on my husband just to get tickets.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:46 PM ^
the robot thing is common knowledge. when she laser eye-beam slaughtered that compliance assistant in front of the entire football team, word spread.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:46 PM ^
Sign me up for Wings tickets! As long as you're not like, pioneering cancer treatments on me.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:49 PM ^
You have to be undergoing treatment for Cancer. It doesn't gear up for at least 8 months, so if you want in you still have time. Go hang out by that old reactor site on North Campus and hope for the best.
Oh and you have to be married. We're studying depression in cancer patients and their spouse, namely how the person without Cancer seems to suffer more emotionally.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:57 PM ^
...and we're incredibly jealous of your seemingly endless funding.
Wings tickets? Seriously? We celebrate when our studies compensate $5 for transportation.
January 11th, 2010 at 4:14 PM ^
Wow, $5? Our PhDs get whiny if they have to hand out less than $25 per visit.
What can I say, I have a supplement award that goes away once the R01 goes through, so we have to spent the supplement before the R01 is awarded, so if we buy the study incentives now it is something we can liqudate off the books.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:00 PM ^
... that she is an MSU grad. That is... unfortunate.
Also, I'm not a resume expert, but I'm pretty sure 26 pages is excessive.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:08 PM ^
Ah, but she wouldn't have a resume, she'd have a curriculum vitae. And someone like her could/would/should have one that long.
It's a weird academic thing.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:11 PM ^
1. She obviously is incredibly intelligent and successful; if you're going to take a shot at MSU academics I would explore other options.
2. It's a CV, not a resume, and a very impressive one at that. You indeed are not an expert.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:21 PM ^
... someone is a little cranky today.
Oh, and welcome to the board.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
yeah, i am a little cranky actually. sorry that came off so rudely.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:25 PM ^
Uhh...boom? Newb'd?
January 11th, 2010 at 3:31 PM ^
... I like it. When an existing board member gets called out by a first time (or close to first time) poster. Add it to the lexicon.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:36 PM ^
She is intelligent. However, she will burn in an eternal lake of fire for graduating from MSU.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^
I have heard much about Teresa Sullivan. She's done some amazing things, from successfully landing a plane full of children in addition to resuscitating the pilot, to singlehandedly putting out a brushfire that was sweeping across the American Southwest. She'll do an amazing job at UVA.
January 11th, 2010 at 3:33 PM ^
I'd straddle her fence. Virginia is for lovers!
January 11th, 2010 at 3:37 PM ^
Was impressed by vita until the very end:
Who’s Who in the World, 23rd ed. +
Who’s Who in America, 47th ed.+
Who’s Who in American Law, 7th ed.+
Who’s Who of American Women, 18th ed.+
Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, 23rd ed.+
Who’s Who in American Education, 4th ed.+
The World Who’s Who of Women, 12th ed.
Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, 31st ed. +
The next time I get solicited for Who's Who Amongst Mammals, I am going to make shite up:
* former lead singer of Wang Chung
* hit over 300 homers in Triple A
* Golf buddy of Kim Jong-il
January 12th, 2010 at 11:37 AM ^
My favorite made up accolade is "Nominee for the MacArthur Genius Grant". The beauty is that they never release the list of nominees, so no one can ever prove you wrong.
January 11th, 2010 at 6:17 PM ^
GO HOKIES
January 11th, 2010 at 6:43 PM ^
She's also the wife of Doug Laycock, one of the biggest names in both remedies & religious liberty circles. So he'll be moving to UVA's law school as well, presumably, which will be kind of a big deal in nerdy law professor circles. He's one of the top-10 most cited faculty at UM now.
Edited to Add: Circles. There, that's three.
January 11th, 2010 at 7:27 PM ^
I contacted my former boss who moved from doing Tech. Services stuff in the School of Education to where Teresa Sullivan is/was. He said that she was very cool and nice. Considering the disposition of my former boss towards people in general and especially users that we've had to service, that's a big compliment.
I can say that where I work IT there's probably on the order of 6-7 people that I could say that about (out of a population of 400+ people), I hate just about everyone else. Remember, if you're nice to IT people you will get A LOT more than the typical user.
January 11th, 2010 at 7:31 PM ^
I've been known to flirt with our IT guys extensively. I have also baked them cookies on several occasions! They're all pretty nice and have always taken care of me so I try to take care of them, too.
Whenever anyone in our suite needs IT help they make me call my IT boyfriends for them. 3
January 11th, 2010 at 7:56 PM ^
I'm glad to see that you treat your IT team well, they might not look like they're doing much but they probably are (except in my group where most of the other people aren't).
I've gotten cookie sometimes but most of the time that I get them it's a user acknowledging that they were horrible to us when we were trying to help them or they asked something completely beyond reason but went over our heads to make us do it. As long as you give cookies before you ask us to do something tough we like it, otherwise we think of it as you admitting that you are a horrible person that made us spend hours doing work that we shouldn't have done but you think that giving us cookies makes up for it.
January 11th, 2010 at 8:25 PM ^
Each time it was AFTER they really, really helped me. And one time I brought them green frosted cookies for St. Patrick's Day.
My favorite is when they remote connect to my computer, because we usually end up exchanging funny stories. I 3 my IT guys!
January 11th, 2010 at 8:38 PM ^
I can only speak from my experience and the gleaned experiences of my coworkers, so I'm sure that you would know how to best reward and persuade your IT people but the general feeling of every IT person I've ever worked with about gifts after hard work is what I described. But, as I said, maybe your IT people respond best to cookies after work and they don't think of it the same way I do.
My favorite cookies have always been the out of the blue seemingly for no reason ones. If you really want something but know that you can wait, give them cookies then wait a week or two, and ask for what you want.
If you're exchanging funny stories you're probably doing something right so you're probably just fine.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:29 AM ^
Heh, I think I know who you are talking about. We knew he was good when we got him, because the School of Ed was peeved to have him hired away. Very nice guy.
Anyway, I hear the stories about how some of the people treat the tech crew and it's just embarrassing. I apologize on behalf of everyone at this U who forgets their manners. You guys rock.
January 11th, 2010 at 9:26 PM ^
Nancy Cantor, Syracuse
Lee Bollinger, Columbia
Jeffrey S. Lehman, Cornell (for two years... that did not end well)
B. Joseph White, Illinois
H. T. Shapiro, Princeton
[EDIT]
T. Sullivan, Virginia
I know I am missing some here...
January 11th, 2010 at 10:11 PM ^
I think you forgot one:
G. Ford, America
January 12th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
Yes, it is absolutely a measure of the prestige of this place that a provost or deanship here is a stepping stone to a presidency elsewhere--and those "elsewheres" tend to be prestige places.
Walt Harrison became the president of University of Hartford. Marv Krislov became president of Oberlin. Neither of them were deans, but same idea.
I'd like to have Joe White back, especially after what the State of Illinois did to him.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:38 AM ^
I miss Lee. Stupid Columbia stealing our President. I remember when he introduced the President of Iran:
In his introduction, Bollinger explained to the student body that the 'free speech' afforded to Ahmadinejad was for the sake of the students and the faculty rather than for the benefit of Ahmadinejad himself, whom Bollinger referred to as "exhibiting all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
Although if he kicked ROTC off Michigan's campus I'd have gotten angry at him.