Phelps announces plans to retire

By Sharon Dickman

harles Phelps, provost and eminent health-care economist, will conclude 13 years as the University’s chief academic officer on July 1. His contributions as teacher, scholar, and leader span two administrations with a portfolio uniquely suited to a national research university and its medical center.

“He is a splendid analyst with a nimble mind, who has institutional knowledge and decision-making skills that have been particularly important in focusing on pivotal University-wide issues, including research policy and compliance, budgeting, intellectual property, and strategic planning,” said President Seligman in announcing the provost’s decision last week. “He’s been an amazingly important provost on the national scene and is highly respected. He also has played an extraordinary role in shaping our University leadership by chairing searches for a dozen senior leaders.”

Provost search committee named

Members of the search committee, which President Joel Seligman will chair, are Mark Bocko, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Brian Brent, associate professor and associate dean of graduate studies at the Warner School; Howard Federoff, professor of neurology, medicine, microbiology, and immunology at the Medical Center; Gerald Gamm, associate professor of political science and history and chair of the Department of Political Science; Bette London, professor of English; Richard Niemi, Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science; Lynne Orr, professor of physics; Thomas Pearson, Albert D. Kaiser Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine; Marie Rolf, professor of music theory and associate dean of graduate studies at the Eastman School; James VanDemark, professor of double bass at the Eastman School; Joanna Wu, associate professor of accounting at the Simon School; and Jerold Zimmerman, Ronald L. Bittner Professor of Business Administration and professor of accounting at the Simon School.

Once a national search firm is chosen, the formal process of accepting nominations for provost will begin, says Seligman. Finalists also will be interviewed by the senior leadership group of the University, the senior leadership group of the Medical Center, representatives of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, and a Board of Trustees Advisory Committee, which will be chaired by Hugo Sonnenschein ’61, former president of the University of Chicago. The trustee group will include the chair of the Board of Trustees, G. Robert Witmer Jr. ’59; Sheila Blumstein ’65, the Albert D. Mead Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and former interim president at Brown University; and Cathy Minehan ’68, chair of the board’s executive committee and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

A 12-member search committee has been appointed. (See right.) Phelps will continue as provost at least until July 1 or until his successor is in place.

“This is an unbelievable amount of time to serve in a very tough job,” says Thomas Jackson, Distinguished University Professor and president emeritus. Phelps has done it well, notes Jackson, because he has many academic skills and is an optimist. To him, the University of Rochester comes first and foremost.”

Phelps, now 63, arrived at the University in 1984 as professor and director of the Public Policy Analysis Program offered by the Department of Political Science in conjunction with the Department of Economics. Five years later, he became chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Those posts established a trend in Phelps’s career to bridge disciplines and support the exchange of information and ideas around the University. The titles he carries now are another reflection of his expertise in many fields: professor of political science, professor of economics, and professor of community and preventive medicine.

In 1994, he was appointed provost with responsibilities for overseeing all academic activities, including teaching, research, and supporting services in each of the University’s six schools. Working with Jackson for 11 years and now with Seligman, Phelps has advanced the stature of the University by raising the standard for faculty excellence and by attracting national visibility on significant higher education issues. He also has held leadership roles in national groups on the oversight of academic research and the role of libraries in the digital age, among others. He has testified in Congress on such topics as intellectual property rights and copyright protections for peer-to-peer file sharing.

As provost, Phelps has made a concerted effort to teach a course on health economics every year for upper-level undergraduate students. He has helped supervise the dissertations of 27 doctoral students with three now in progress. His textbook, Health Economics, is in its third edition and has been translated into French and Chinese. His engaging teaching style attracts large numbers of students, and the Charles Phelps Award is given to recognize the best honors thesis in the College’s Health and Society program.

Phelps was elected in 1991 to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and has served on the Board of Trustees of the Council on Library and Information Resource for nine years with the last two as chair of the board. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Report Review Committee of the National Research Council, which is the primary quality control mechanism for the National Academies. He also has been a member of the Board of the Center for Research Libraries since 2003.

On the Rochester scene, he is a member of the board of directors of VirtualScopics, a diagnostic imaging technology company that was founded by University scientists.

Phelps earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and both his M.B.A. in hospital administration and doctoral degree in economics from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Rochester, he worked as a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. He is married to Dale Phelps, professor of pediatrics and neonatology at the School of Medicine and Dentistry.