New provost excellent fit for Rice

By Staff Editorial     4/22/10 7:00pm

On Wednesday, President David Leebron announced that George McLendon, currently the dean of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University, will become Rice's new provost on July 1 (see story, page 1).First, we'd like to express our gratitude to the administration for securing Rice a distinguished academic and leader from one of our peer universities. In addition, McLendon went to the University of Texas-El Paso and Texas A&M University for his undergraduate and graduate degrees, respectively, and is originally from the great city of Fort Worth, so he knows Texas. And, therefore, he is likely already familiar with Rice and the prestigious reputation that the university maintains in this state.

When McLendon begins to oversee academic affairs in a couple of months, we recommend that he continue to support many of the initiatives current Provost Eugene Levy has headed during his tenure. Levy helped start the Passport to Houston program; supported Leebron's Vision for the Second Century tenets, with the opening of the two newest residential colleges; and helped drive the creation of Rice's first minors. With our student body rapidly expanding, forcing the university to make unparalleled changes that will drastically impact the school for years to come, we need a provost who will keep both Rice's history and aspirations constantly in mind. And having had experience at one of our peer universities will undoubtedly serve McLendon well, though this might not have served him as well in Rice's recently vacated position of dean of undergraduates, where we encouraged appointing someone experienced with Rice student life ("Dean Forman a unique character, devoted leader," April 16).

Lastly, though McLendon brings with him a wealth of scientific accomplishments as a noted biochemist, we hope he takes a comprehensive look at the Rice student experience, particularly in the area of humanities. Long the neglected childen4 of a university that claims a commitment to letters, arts and science, the School of Humanities and the School of Social Sciences are often overlooked in favor of the smaller but vastly more flashy, vastly more funded engineering and science schools. We have high hopes for McLendon and hope he keeps this in mind as he settles into his position. After all, a university is only the sum of its parts.

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