Emory University selects an engineer with a commitment to the liberal arts as its new president
James W. Wagner, EG '75, says he never set out to be a university president or, in fact, to be an academic at all. When he came to the University of Delaware as a freshman from his home in Silver Spring, Md., he says, he just wanted to become an electrical engineer.
Wagner achieved that goal, working for almost a decade as an engineer with the federal Food and Drug Administration while earning a master's degree in clinical engineering and a doctorate in materials science. Along the way, he says, he discovered a passion for higher education and its challenges.
Last September, that passion led him to the presidency of Emory University in Atlanta, an institution known for its professional schools in medicine and law, its partnership with the Carter Center in human rights advocacy and for theology, liberal arts and many other specialties--but not for engineering.
"My background as an engineer surprised a lot of people here, and I think a lot of them are probably still surprised that Emory selected me," Wagner, whose immediate predecessors in the presidency were a literary scholar and a theologian, says. "But, engineers today must pay attention to so many things, including money and budgets, environmental impacts and ethical issues. I would like to think that somebody who has an appreciation for functionality, for the environment, for ethics and society may have the attributes needed to be an academic leader."
Wagner likes to quote Ben F. Johnson III, chairperson of Emory's Board of Trustees and head of the search committee that selected him unanimously, from 150 applicants, to be the university's 19th president. "Well," Johnson once said when asked about Wagner's engineering background, "I guess everybody's gotta come from somewhere."
Wagner's career as an academic began at Johns Hopkins University, where, as he was completing his doctorate, his thesis adviser encouraged him to apply for an opening on the faculty. He calls the job "a great opportunity," which led him to spend 13 years at Hopkins, including a term as department chairperson. From there, he went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1998, serving as provost and vice president and spending 15 months as interim president.
"I never planned to be an administrator, but I enjoy the challenge of trying to contribute to higher education and to make things better," he says. "I certainly never had aspirations to become a university president, but I've always had aspirations to contribute, and when the opportunities arose, I couldn't say no."
One of those opportunities came when he was approached about Emory's search for a new president, he says, but his first reaction was that the timing wasn't right. With a daughter who was soon to begin her senior year of high school, Wagner says he didn't want to ask her and his wife, Debbie, CHEP '76, to move. Still, recalling his father's advice not to turn down opportunities but to "let other people close your windows for you," he says he began calling friends and colleagues about the Emory position, expecting to be advised against pursuing it.
"I tried," he says with a laugh, "but nobody I talked to would tell me 'no.'" The first person Wagner called was Thomas Burish, president of Washington and Lee University, whom he has known for several years. Burish had just been part of a reaccreditation team that reviewed all aspects of Emory's operations.
"I thought Jim would be a perfect match ... and told him so," Burish says, describing himself as "delighted" that Wagner later was offered and accepted the job. "I thought then, and think now, that his style, high standards (both personal and professional) immense knowledge about higher education and talent fit well with the considerable opportunities that Emory has to build upon its already excellent foundation."
Wagner began work at Emory last September and was formally inaugurated in an April ceremony on the campus of the private, 11,600-student university. He says his first task was to help the institution develop "a clear vision of where it wants to go" and to articulate that in a realistic and useful form. The resulting vision statement specifies the goal of having Emory become a "destination university," which Wagner says means that top faculty and staff will want to come to the university and remain there and that prospective students will select it as their first choice for higher education.
"Now, we're launching into a strategic plan to accomplish our vision," Wagner says. "Mostly, I see my plans as an acceleration of what we've been doing, rather than a major shift in direction. But, there are opportunities here in such areas as establishing new partnerships, and we want to make use of those opportunities."
Atlanta, he notes, is a rich source of potential partnerships, with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies located there, as well as educational institutions such as the Georgia Institute of Technology. Increasing Emory's partnerships with Georgia Tech, Wagner says, "appeals to the engineer in me."
In his inaugural address, Wagner spoke about the higher purpose of higher education, describing it as a way to expand one's perspective beyond a self-centered view of the world. "We commit that our focus will be beyond ourselves," he said.
"We believe that higher education should prepare people to pursue truth, to understand the past, to seek and disseminate knowledge.... It should enable us to perceive the world from others' perspectives and should empower us to make a positive impact on society."
In his first year at the university, Wagner has drawn praise on campus. "The strong consensus at Emory is that President Wagner is doing an outstanding job," Martine Watson Brownley, director of the university's Center for Humanistic Inquiry, says.
"Some initial uncertainty about President Wagner's engineering background quickly evaporated when he arrived, and the Emory community saw his remarkable stature as an academic, as an administrator and as a human being," Brownley says, adding that she's been impressed by his understanding of the humanities and his commitment to liberal arts.
Wagner says his passion for higher education began at the University of Delaware, where he "thoroughly enjoyed studying engineering" and also held a part-time job as a student trainer in the athletics department, "taping up a lot of ankles." He recalls being highly motivated in his classes, not by grades but by a desire to learn.
"I remember very enthusiastic teaching at Delaware," he says. "The professors I had were very good at motivating us, and they were very motivated themselves."
--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73