Philip E. Austin

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The 13th president of the University of Connecticut (UConn). He has been president since Oct. 1, 1996. He served for seven years as chancellor of the University of Alabama. He was president and chancellor of Colorado State University.

Austin served as deputy assistant secretary for education for the Dept. of Health and Welfare in Washington D.C. From 1971 to 1973 he served as an economist in the director's office of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Austin has taken credit transformation of the University of Connecticut, and helped lobby former Connecticut Governor John Rowland to support building programs like UCONN 2000 and 21st Century UConn, which have led to the $2.1 billion, 20-year transformation, cost over-runs, cost cutting corners, and hundreds of firecode violations.

Austin has also been criticized for significant lapses in construction oversight. Several university officers have been forced to resign over the affair. In addition student resent for Austin has increased as he has repeatedly fought the efforts of legislators to institute a freeze on tuition. In September 2005 Professor Richard Vengroff of the Department of Political Science wrote a letter to the editor for the student-run newspaper, The Daily Campus, and asked for Austin's resignation. In addition, the newspaper endorsed an editorial calling him to resign. These followed a call for a faculty vote of no confidence in Austin. Austin did not resign and passed the blame on to low level administrators.

His official web site: http://president.uconn.edu/