Tenn. administrator chosen to lead UMass-Amherst

Trustees expected to approve Holub

The University of Massachusetts yesterday tapped Robert C. Holub, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, as chancellor of the state's flagship campus in Amherst, landing a veteran administrator who has held high-ranking positions at two major public universities.

Jack M. Wilson, UMass president, said he will recommend Holub over three other finalists at a special Board of Trustees meeting Monday in Boston. The 22-member board is expected to approve Holub decisively.

Wilson praised Holub, a 58-year-old German scholar who has written extensively about philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as a distinguished academic whose experience will help elevate UMass-Amherst's standing among national research institutions.

"He has very high standards and a consistent focus on quality," he said. "He's done a terrific job at Tennessee and will do the same here."

Holub served for two years as the Knoxville campus' chief academic officer after nearly three decades at the University of California at Berkeley, where in 2003 he was named dean of the College of Letters and Science.

At Berkeley, he oversaw 18,000 undergraduates and introduced reforms in general education, undergraduate advising and educational policy, UMass officials said.

Wilson said Holub's leadership role at two leading public universities was pivotal to his appointment. "We'd like to move in the direction of the Berkeleys of the world," Wilson said.

Wilson said he would look to Holub to increase fund-raising and develop a long-range plan to improve the university.

Contract negotiations are preliminary, but Wilson said he expected Holub to make a commitment of at least three years. He would likely start in late summer.

News of Holub's appointment was well-received across the university system.

Robert J. Manning, chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees, described him as "an inspiring and accomplished new leader," and Max Page, a UMass-Amherst professor who served on the search committee, said he was thrilled the campus "will gain a scholar and administrator of such great stature to lead the flagship campus in Amherst to new heights."

Holub's appointment follows a lengthy national search. If approved, he will succeed Thomas W. Cole Jr., who took over after John Lombardi departed last year to become president at Louisiana State University.

Last spring's news that Lombardi would be stepping down as part of a restructuring of university leadership outraged faculty members, who cast a vote of no confidence in Wilson and the Board of Trustees.

Holub, 58, said he was honored by his appointment.

"This is an outstanding university that aspires to rise even higher," he said in a statement. "I was attracted to this position because President Wilson, the Board of Trustees, and the UMass Amherst community all harbor an ambitious vision for this campus."

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Holub specializes in 19th- and 20th-century German intellectual, cultural, and literary history. He and his wife Sabine have three young children.