Duke Names New President Print
Education
By Administrator   
Saturday, 03 December 2016 05:45
Vincent Price, provost of the University of Pennsylvania has been elected Duke University’s 10th president.
 
Price, 59, was selected by Duke’s Board of Trustees Friday morning. He will succeed Richard H. Brodhead on July 1, 2017. Brodhead announced in April that he planned to step down after 13 years as president.
 
Price called Duke “a very special place where innovation is fueled by creativity, and continually informed by rigorous and groundbreaking scholarship. Most important, it’s a place deeply dedicated to improving our world through research, service and education.
 
“Dick Brodhead’s extraordinary leadership magnified these core values and brought Duke to the pinnacle of global universities. Now our collective challenge is to build upon and extend that work: to make Duke an ever more powerful voice for education and innovation, an ever more effective model for openness, diversity and inclusion, and an ever more engaged institution dedicated to identifying and solving the great challenges of society.”
 
Price added, “I am deeply honored to be a part of this most dynamic university, and I look forward to working with our faculty, students, staff, alumni and many friends around the world.”
 
Jack Bovender, who led the 19-member search committee of trustees, faculty, students, administrators and alumni, said Price was the committee’s unanimous choice after an intensive international search.
 
Price has been the catalyst for Penn’s global strategy, hiring the university’s first vice provost for global initiatives and spearheading the creation of the Penn Wharton China Center in Beijing, which opened in 2015.
 
“Vince’s comfort with and in-depth knowledge of the myriad of issues facing higher education were impressive,” said search committee member Dr. Mary E. Klotman, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine. “He has a deep understanding and appreciation of the opportunities provided through strong alignment with an academic health system and medical school as a result of his leadership position at Penn.”
 
Added search committee member Valerie Ashby, dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, “Vince’s demonstrated commitment to the student experience impressed us all. He is an educator first, whose actions to promote diversity and inclusion have been thoughtful, powerful and effective.”
 
Price is a leading global expert on public opinion, social influence and political communication. His book “Public Opinion” (Sage, 1992) has been published in six languages and taught in courses around the world. His work has been widely cited on such topics as the impact of political polls, the effects of TV news coverage and the factors that shape public opinion. His research conducted with Annenberg colleague Joseph N. Cappella and funded by grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts, National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health has explored the increasingly important role of online discussion in shaping public knowledge and opinion.
 
Before being appointed provost, Price served at Penn as interim provost, associate provost for faculty affairs, chair of the Faculty Senate and associate dean of the Annenberg School.
 
“Duke has made an absolutely superb choice,” said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania.  “No one is better prepared or more deserving than Vince to lead a distinguished university such as Duke. We at Penn are both proud and extremely happy for him, Annette and their family, even if our happiness is tinged with the sadness of our cherished colleague and friend departing from Penn come July 1.”
 
Added David L. Cohen, chair of the Penn trustees, “This is a bittersweet day for Penn as we have to say goodbye to a great academic leader, but also have the opportunity to congratulate Vince Price and Duke. To a person, every Penn trustee admires the leadership that Vince has brought in his role as provost at Penn. He has a passion for academic excellence, and a remarkable talent for building and leading highly effective teams in a large and complex environment. At Duke, he will be a president who will be accessible to deans, faculty, staff, students and alumni. I believe Vince is destined to lead Duke on a great path in the years ahead.”
 
Price is former editor-in-chief of “Public Opinion Quarterly,” the leading journal of public opinion research; former guest editor of both “Communication Research” and “Political Communication” and an active board member of several academic journals. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and the University of Amsterdam, and has delivered more than 100 presentations at universities and colloquia around the world.
 
His awards for teaching and research include the Robert M. Worcester Award from the World Association for Public Opinion Research, the K. Kyoon Hur Award from the International Communication Association, the Nafziger-White Award from the American Association in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Award of Recognition from the American Association of Public Opinion Research.