September 25, 2006
UNM Announces 2006-07 Carruthers Chair
Choosing university president focus of free lecture
Former University of Minnesota Chancellor Samuel Schuman has been selected the University of New Mexico's 2006-07 Garrey Carruthers Chair in Honors, announced Rosalie Otero, University Honors program director. Schuman will deliver a free public lecture, “Everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask, about being – and choosing – a college president,” on Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 7 p.m. in the University Honor's Forum, Student Health building lower level.
Photo: Samuel Schuman, Garrey Carruthers Chair, Honors
Schuman has been campus CEO at two public universities, beginning in 1991 at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, and at the University of Minnesota, Morris, prior to coming to UNM.
“I want to try to de-mythologize the job a bit and describe it, as I've experienced it, in a straightforward way. What are the challenges and tribulations, what are the gratifications and the rewards of being the chief administrator at a contemporary college or university? What is required of a university president or chancellor in the 21st century?” Schuman said.
“It seemed to me that this topic might be of some general interest to the UNM community, as it prepares to search for and select its own new president,” he said.
Schuman is teaching “Vladimir Nabokov: An Introduction,” a course cross-listed with the English Department, and “Shakespeare in Film” in honors. He earned a Ph.D. in British Renaissance drama from Northwestern University and is past president of the Vladmir Nabokov Society and National Collegiate Honors Council. He has authored dozens of articles and chapters, and five books on English Literature and American higher education.
His latest book, “Old Main: Small Colleges in Twenty-First Century America” was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2005. The book documents the historical shift from the early 1800s, when all colleges and universities were small, to present-day higher education. “Schuman describes the fascinating range of missions, levels of prestige, Carnegie classifications, structures, and faculty in his group of small colleges and enlivens his narrative with individual interviews and stories,” writes reviewer Charles Blaich of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.
For more information about University Honors, call 277-4211.
Media Contact: Laurie Mellas, (505) 277-5915; e-mail: lmellas@unm.edu