Gordon Gee

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Gordon Gee
14th President of The Ohio State University
Term	2007-10-01[1] – present
Predecessor	Joseph A. Alutto (interim)
Successor	incumbent
Born	1944-02-02 Vernal, UT
Alma mater	University of Utah Columbia University
Profession	Educator
Religion	Mormon
Salary	$775,000[2]
Spouse	Elizabeth D. Gee (deceased) Constance Bumgarner (divorced)
Children	Rebekah Gee

Elwood Gordon Gee (born February 2, 1944) is an American academic. He is in his second tenure as the president of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; he was previously president from 1990 to 1997.

Gee has held more university presidencies than any other American. Prior to his resumption of the presidency of Ohio State on October 1, 2007, Gee was chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 2000 to 2007 and president of Brown University from 1997 to 2000, of the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1985 to 1990, and of West Virginia University from 1981 to 1985.

Gee was born and grew up in Vernal, Utah, 171 miles (275 km) southeast of Salt Lake City, the son of an oil company employee and a school teacher, both Mormon. Gee has been twice married. He recently divorced his second wife, the former Constance Bumgarner, an associate professor of public policy and education at Peabody College, a part of Vanderbilt University.^[3] His first wife was the late Elizabeth D. Gee, with whom he had one daughter, Rebekah Gee, MD, MPH. Gee is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Gee sits on the Board of Directors of Massey Energy, where he is a member of the Public and Environmental Policy Committee.

[edit] Education and early career

Contents 1 Education and early career 2 Brown tenure 3 Vanderbilt tenure 4 Second Ohio State tenure 5 Notes and References 6 External links

Gee attended the University of Utah where he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and graduated with a bachelor of arts in history in 1968. After earning doctorates in law and education from Columbia University in 1971 and 1972, respectively, specializing in education law, Gee clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger for one year.^[4]

After clerking for Justice Burger, Gee accepted a position as professor and associate dean at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He became dean and professor at West Virginia University's law school in 1979 and the university's president two years later. At 37, he was one of the youngest chief executives in academia at the time.

After successful administrations at WVU, Gee moved on to the University of Colorado in 1985 then to the Ohio State University in 1990. It was at Ohio State that Gee met and married Bumgarner. He became president of Brown University in 1998.

[edit] Brown tenure

Gee's presidency at Brown, which he held for only two years, was mired in controversy. According to The Village Voice and the College Hill Independent, one of the university's campus newspapers, Gee received much criticism from students and faculty for treating the school as a Wall Street corporation rather than an Ivy League university.

Critics specifically pointed to his decisions to sign off on an ambitious brain science program without consulting the faculty, to sell $80 million in bonds for the construction of a biomedical sciences building and to cut the university's extremely popular Charleston String Quartet, which many saw as part of a pattern of Gee of leading the school away from its close but unprofitable relationship with the arts.^[5] Gee and his wife were also blamed for an extravagant renovation of the president's residence, which reportedly cost several million dollars.

Gee left under a storm of criticism in 2000, as members of the Brown community widely accused him of departing the school after an uncommonly short tenure because of Vanderbilt University's offer of a corporate-level salary and a tenured teaching position for his wife. Indeed, according to a 2003 article by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Gee was the second highest paid university chief executive in the country with a purported total compensation package of greater than $1.3 million.^[6]

[edit] Vanderbilt tenure

Gee enjoyed a relatively calm tenure at Vanderbilt compared to Brown. He was generally well-liked by faculty and students, demonstrated by his uncommonly high student approval ratings. In 2005, when Gee's approval saw a comparatively sharp drop, it still stood at 88.4%.^[7] During his tenure, Vanderbilt saw a dramatic increase in student applications—more than 50% in six years—and a similarly dramatic rise in the SAT scores of incoming freshmen. Under his tenure, the university completed a $1.25 billion fundraising campaign two years ahead of schedule.

A September 2006 Wall Street Journal article detailed that some of Gee's problems at Vanderbilt—including his wife's actions (such as smoking marijuana in the presidential mansion), criticism of the high cost of renovating his home, and the couple's lavish spending—had come back to haunt him. Additionally, Gee's 2002 announcement that the administration was going to rename "Confederate Memorial Hall" without the word "Confederate" evoked a series of lawsuits, the controversy being summarized in the "History" section of the Wikipedia article on Vanderbilt University. While Vanderbilt's board expressed some concern about Gee's spending, they also strongly endorsed his successful leadership. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education,^[8] he received a total compensation of over $1.8 million in 2005/6, the highest of any continuing university president in the United States.

On Tuesday, March 11, 2003, a student satirical publication at Vanderbilt, The Slant, ran a complete mock-up of The Vanderbilt Hustler, entitled The Vanderbilt Huslter, with the headline GEE DEAD. The hoax received some attention from national media, including an appearance on the Drudge Report. Gee's office responded to the hoax by releasing a photo of him holding a copy of the Huslter (with Gee smiling). Despite Gee's good humor about the prank, the ensuing controversy^[9] led to the removal of The Slant's sophomore editor-in-chief David Barzelay from his post for inappropriately expropriating the Vanderbilt Hustler's news racks in violation of Vanderbilt Student Communications regulations. Gee discussed the hoax in his 2003 commencement speech.

In September 2003, Gee made national headlines when he eliminated the organized athletic department at Vanderbilt and consolidated its activities under the Division of Student Life, the university's general administrative division for student organizations and activities. Some critics cited this reorganization in the recruiting process to call into question Vanderbilt's commitment to football.^[10] However, Gee's action had its supporters, including NCAA President Myles Brand.^[11] Furthermore, a stellar spring for Vanderbilt athletic teams and a top-30 finish in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Director's Cup ranking of college athletic programs for the 2003–04 academic year provided some vindication for Vanderbilt and Gee.

[edit] Second Ohio State tenure

On July 11, 2007, Gee announced that he would be returning to Ohio State as its president, ending his 7-year tenure at Vanderbilt.^[12] According to the Chronicle of Higher Education,^[13] he will receive a base salary of total compensation of over $1 million, the highest of any public university president in the United States, though less than his pay at Vanderbilt.

[edit] Notes and References

[edit] External links

• Office of the President of the Ohio State University

Preceded by Joseph A. Alutto (interim)	Ohio State University President 2007–present	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Joe B. Wyatt	Vanderbilt University Chancellors 2000-07-01–2007-08-01	Succeeded by Nicholas S. Zeppos
Preceded by Vartan Gregorian	President of Brown University 1998–2000	Succeeded by Ruth J. Simmons
Preceded by Edward Harrington Jennings	Ohio State University President 1990-09-01–1998-01-02	Succeeded by John Richard Sisson (interim)

v • d • e Presidents of The Ohio State University Orton • W. Q. Scott • W. H. Scott • Canfield • Thompson • Rightmire • McPherson • Bevis • Fawcett • Enarson • Jennings • Gee • Sisson • Kirwan • Jennings • Holbrook • Alutto • Gee

Persondata
NAME	Gee, Gordon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gee, E. Gordon; Gee, Elwood Gordon
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American academic
DATE OF BIRTH	1944-02-02
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vernal, UT
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH