Wilson confident on plans for UMass

To his supporters, Jack M. Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts, is a bold, pragmatic leader, someone willing to shake things up and shrug off criticism to make the state system great.

To detractors, he is a Machiavellian figure who plotted behind closed doors to oust a popular chancellor and consolidate the five-campus system. Or he is a political pawn who set aside his long-held faith in consensus to pursue the hidden agenda of some university trustees.

Wilson's plans to restructure university leadership and unify the five-campus system, which come before the UMass Board of Trustees today , have drawn intense opposition and raised numerous questions about his leadership style.

The reorganization also carries enormous stakes for the UMass system, which many observers say is at a crossroads. The effort, as Wilson hopes, could create a more cohesive university and propel it to greater prominence, or it could lead to increased dissension that could undermine his presidency and set the system back.

Wilson, 61, is confident, despite the UMass-Amherst faculty's recent no-confidence vote in him and the trustees after the plans were abruptly made public May 16. Professors and politicians accused Wilson and the trustees of ousting Amherst chancellor John Lombardi and secretly hatching a "palace coup."

"I feel even more determined to see these things through," said Wilson, while acknowledging that he underestimated the outcry over his plans . "There are always difficult issues that many people will try to avoid, but sometimes there's a benefit to confronting them. I don't run away from the tough ones."

As a part of Wilson's proposal, UMass-Boston chancellor Michael F. Collins would move to the UMass Medical School in Worcester to become its interim chancellor and oversee research and commercial development throughout the system. J. Keith Motley , the system's vice president for business, marketing, and public affairs, would succeed Collins in Boston. Lombardi would step down as Amherst chancellor at the end of next year.

Stephen P. Tocco, who was appointed to the UMass board last fall by Governor Mitt Romney, said Wilson was naive in believing he could talk his way out of the controversy.

"Jack has a lot of faith that if good, smart people can sit around and talk, they can get to the right place," Tocco said. "But with this, there was no discussion -- it just exploded. And so it kind of backfired on him."

Wilson said he views himself as a "consistent, patient, and persistent leader" who listens to dissenting viewpoints and incorporates them into his thinking.

"He makes decisions on facts, not feelings, and he will fight hard for his ideas," said Degerhan Usluel , who supports Wilson and is a former research assistant and business partner. "If he believes in something, he'll do whatever it takes to get it done."

But John Armstrong , a former UMass trustee who stepped down in protest over Wilson's reorganization plan, interprets Wilson's confidence as stubbornness that blinds him from valid criticism.

"One of his greatest weaknesses is that he can't see himself as others see him," he said.

Critics said Wilson's failure to anticipate and appreciate the level of discontent over his plans made him appear amateurish. Some suggest he was a pawn of Tocco.

"He seems completely out of his depth," said Ernest May , secretary of the UMass-Amherst Faculty Senate. "He's an academic naif who has been co-opted by the very strong political forces Tocco has brought to the board."

Tocco and Wilson dismiss the notion that Tocco, the former head of the state's higher education board, is the "man behind the curtain," as Armstrong contends.

Wilson, who earns about $440,000 in salary and benefits and has committed to stay on as president for the next four years, has generally won praise for his collegial manner and for forging consensus, and some critics say that the heavy-handed announcement of the reorganization was out of character.

"A kind of Tammany Hall late-notice, that's really not his style," said trustee Lawrence Boyle , a critic of Wilson's plan. "I think he got some bad advice, because this is aberrant. Generally, he's an excellent communicator."

Wilson, a former physics professor, agrees that he prefers deliberate, rational discussion of a plan's merits to emotional arguments .

"Some of this is about emotion, not reason," he said.

That approach strikes even some supporters as impersonal.

"What he said about collaboration was right," said Seshu Desu , a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMass-Amherst. "But he couldn't convince people. Scientists and engineers just want to state the facts, but people don't always want to listen."

Wilson talks with conviction about scientific collaboration and about leading UMass to greater prominence. Colleagues say he has long favored bold moves over incremental change. In the 1990s, while at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he rose from faculty head to provost, he helped build a $50 million software company from scratch, taking out loans that would have bankrupted him if the business, LearnLinc Corp., had failed. When he came to UMass in 2001 from RPI, he overcame a range of faculty concerns to turn UMassOnline into one of the nation's largest distance learning programs.

His success at UMassOnline served as a springboard, and under previous UMass president William M. Bulger, Wilson rose quickly through administrative ranks. He was named interim president in 2003, then president the following year. During his tenure, he successfully lobbied for more than $100 million in increased state funding since 2004, kept tuition and fee increases largely in check, and increased research funding by $50 million. The system's endowment has doubled from $146 million in 2003 to $300 million today.

Raised in a small town outside Pittsburgh, Wilson memorized the periodic table in grade school, and at age 12 read cover-to-cover a physics book . He went on to study physics at Thiel College and Kent State University before teaching it at the University of Maryland.

At RPI, as an administrator, he continued to teach physics . He said he still misses teaching and research. Married with four children and two grandchildren, the Westborough resident takes adventurous family vacations that include hiking, mountain biking, and whitewater rafting.

"He's willing to take risks," said Mark Rice , dean of the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and a colleague at RPI. "He wants to make major changes, and when you're talking about major changes, you almost never get it just right the first time."

At a farewell reception last week for UMass-Lowell's outgoing interim chancellor, David J. MacKenzie , Wilson seemed at ease for a leader under intense scrutiny. Just a year ago, Wilson's appointment of MacKenzie to replace longtime chancellor William Hogan provoked sharp skepticism and concern. This time faculty members expressed sadness at MacKenzie's departure and excitement over the upcoming arrival of a new chancellor, retiring congressman Martin T. Meehan.

Many told Wilson to keep his chin up, but he assured them with a slight shake of his head that there was no need.

"Hang in there," one professor told him.

"We'll get through this," he replied. "It will just take some time."