David W. Pershing won't have to pause to introduce himself to many people as he assumes his duties as the new president of the University of Utah next month. The chemical engineer, who is 63, has been at the university for 35 years, the last 14 as senior vice president for academic affairs. His new office is just 30 feet from his old one.
"One of the advantages I have" in discussions with key donors and state legislators, he says, "is that I know these people."
"He's got a lot of trust in the bank," says David J. Jordan, chair of the Utah State Board of Regents. He says the new president, chosen after a nationwide search, is known as a good listener who understands others' concerns and is "scrupulously fair."
One of Mr. Pershing's ambitions is to help the university, which has more than 31,000 students, stretch far beyond its image as a commuter campus.
He says he wants to raise the flagship institution's admissions standards so it can attract more top high-school students throughout the state as well as nonstate residents. Such a move could help improve the six-year completion rate for the university, which is only 58 percent.
Cultural factors contribute to that low rate. People in Utah tend to marry younger and have larger families than the national average, which Mr. Pershing says makes it harder for parents to fully pay for all of their children's tuition. Many of the university's students are already married. And an estimated 75 percent of students work 30 hours or more a week, he says.
"That's not typical at all for a big research university," he says. "We wish they didn't have to work quite so many hours, but that's just our reality."
Mr. Pershing says he would like the university to offer all freshmen at least one "highly engaged experience" outside the classroom, whether it's collaboration on research or a special project with a faculty member, a community-service project, or study abroad.
He says he also wants to convince legislators that the university can foster the state's economic development, in a way that makes providing funds to it seem like a sound investment. Mr. Pershing has played a key role in the university's fund-raising campaign, which met its goal last month of raising $1.2-billion by 2013, and he expects to be deeply involved in the final two years of the campaign to raise more.
A University Fixture
A good spirit among faculty members and the quality of life in Utah are part of what has kept Mr. Pershing at the university since 1977, when he started as an assistant professor a year after earning a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona. He believes many of his colleagues share his contentment with where they are, and as a result, he says, "in a very real sense, we have a better faculty than the university pays for."
At Utah, he attracted more than $60-million in grants for research projects, including $40-million from the U.S. Department of Energy for the university's Center for the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions, which he directed from 1997 to 2010. Before becoming a senior vice president, he was also dean of the College of Engineering.
He will replace Lorris Betz, who has served as interim president since last spring, when Michael K. Young left to lead the University of Washington. Mr. Pershing expects to move from his mountainside home, from which he says he can walk out the back door "and not cross a paved road for probably 50 miles," into the president's residence close to the campus.
"When I came here, I did not expect to end up here nearly so long as I have," Mr. Pershing says. But now, he says, nothing could draw him away.
