New Chancellor Mike Lovell will make living on campus mandatory for freshmen as part of changing UWM’s culture. Credit: Kristyna Wentz-Graff

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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee no longer will be known as a local commuter school, but an international research institution that fuels economic growth, helps solve the region's problems and boosts the number of college graduates in Wisconsin, Mike Lovell vowed on the eve of his inauguration as UWM's eighth chancellor.

To drive home that point, Lovell will require freshmen to live on campus to increase their chances of graduating, starting next year. He'll require sophomores to live on campus, too, in three to five years.

"We're not the plain commuter college we were 30 years ago," Lovell said. "We're a vibrant international university. And we're becoming a more traditional university with a campus life."

Lovell's vision for UWM - which he will formally articulate during his 3 p.m. inauguration Friday - calls for fundamental changes in campus culture.

The next freshman class, for the first time in UWM history, will be expected to live in residence halls unless they live with family, are over age 20, are married or are a returning military veteran. Research shows that living in a dorm gives young college students the best chance to succeed - and graduate - because they have more academic support there, make friends more easily and are more likely to get involved in campus life.

The new chancellor said the rule will extend to all sophomores once more residence halls can be built to add about 1,000 beds.

A number of off-campus locations will be considered for new dorms, including on and around North Ave. near the Milwaukee River, where two new residence halls opened in recent years. The old Columbia Hospital will not become campus housing, university officials emphatically promised.

Giving students more activities on campus also is high on Lovell's priority list.

To build UWM's international profile, Lovell wants to quickly double the international student enrollment - from 1,000 students to 2,000 - through graduate programs such as the new School of Public Health and new School of Freshwater Sciences, and other initiatives yet to be announced.

UWM must be front and center in regional economic development and problem-solving, Lovell said. He singled out public health, health-care economics, clean energy initiatives, freshwater sciences, biotechnology and biomedical sciences as areas that mesh particularly well with the university's strengths.

"We have world-class people on this campus," Lovell said. "As the campus is changing, we really can be a resource for the region."

Nontraditional path

Lovell, 44, is the second youngest chancellor in the 55-year history of what is now UWM. The average age of a U.S. college or university president today is 60, according to the American Council on Education.

Lovell didn't take the typical path to the top; he wasn't a vice chancellor or provost first. He quickly jumped from the classroom to the chancellor's office after being hired in 2008 as dean of the College of Engineering & Applied Sciences and a professor of mechanical engineering.

Lovell brings the systematic, process-oriented thinking of an engineer to the chancellor's job, which he held on an interim basis for seven months before being appointed permanently by the UW Board of Regents in May.

He also brings a distance runner's patience, diligence and energy to the job, according to colleagues. It's not unusual for Lovell to send work-related emails at midnight, and be up by 6 a.m. the next day for a run.

After moving into the chancellor's office, Lovell missed his daily classroom interactions with students. So he hired three students to replace retirees in his office.

He said he doesn't mind if students stop him on campus to talk, even if it makes him late for another appointment.

"I have to know what's going on if something needs to be fixed," he said.

'Lovell Palooza'

Students took center stage this week during his "Lovell Palooza!" inauguration celebration.

The chancellor matched wits with six students on Tuesday in a game show, "Are You Smarter Than the Chancellor?"

He rolled up his sleeves to lead an "egg drop" lab at the engineering school on Wednesday. Teams of students wrapped eggs in "engineered" apparatuses to keep them from breaking when dropped from a second-floor balcony. The contraption Lovell's team created kept their egg safe.

Lovell thrives on being a team player, and is known for encouraging collaboration.

His vice chancellors were his "lifelines" in the Tuesday afternoon game show, along with his 16-year-old daughter, Marissa, one of four children he and his wife, Amy, are raising in Whitefish Bay.

"I've never seen anyone that high in power do something like that," senior Leslie Johnson of Racine said after competing with the chancellor in the game show. "He's very down to earth. And I think he really cares about students."

Lovell holds three engineering degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests are tribology (the study of friction and wear), materials processing and product realizations. He previously was associate dean of research and an associate professor of industrial and mechanical engineering at his alma mater's engineering school.

Lovell and his wife of nearly 18 years were college sweethearts at the University of Pittsburgh.

Amy Lovell describes her husband as a man of faith, and a proud Catholic.

"He prays a lot for the university and for the wisdom to lead."

He's not afraid of a challenge, she said, and that's why he considered the chancellor's job when the opportunity came up, his wife said.

The family was allowed to stay in its white, two-story frame house with black shutters in Whitefish Bay because the official chancellor's residence already had been sold. They fly the black and gold Panthers flag from their front porch.

The house isn't nearly as big as the former official residence, but it's big enough for Amy to whip up a home-cooked spaghetti dinner and serve 70 athletes in two shifts.

Any UWM team that wins a Horizon Conference tournament is invited to dinner, usually complete with congratulatory signs made by the chancellor's kids.

A strong start

Lovell has made a strong transition from leading the engineering college to overseeing the entire university with different interest groups, said William Holahan, chairman of the UWM Department of Economics and a member of the Faculty Senate's executive committee.

"The guy is instantly likable, and smart as hell," Holahan said. "That combination has opened up doors for him, and for UWM."

Despite a tight budget, Lovell has used partnerships with businesses, nonprofits and others to help secure resources, Holahan said.

Lovell "very much gets the broad mission of the university," and his academic background in engineering lends itself to economic development, said Timothy Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

"What I really like about him is he 'gets' the importance of the university's connection with the driver industries in this community - those that export goods and services," Sheehy said. "It puts a little pop in economic development."

Lovell has played a major role in developing Innovation Park, a Wauwatosa project that will include buildings for both university research and businesses. He also is helping create a new energy research consortium with UW-Madison, Johnson Controls Inc. and others.

Lovell is a member of several key committees and groups in the community, including the Water Council. As dean of the engineering college, he got a jump-start with the Wisconsin Energy Research Consortium.

"We need research and opportunities for the campus to grow," Lovell said. "As UWM goes, so goes Milwaukee, and vice versa. The more we're tied to the region and moving together, the better we're going to be."

Earlier this week, a prominent sign of the changing times at UWM went up in Concourse C at Mitchell International Airport.

The sign shows the UWM campus and says: "Welcome to our Research Facility: UW-Milwaukee."

"There's no way you can miss it" if you're a student or a parent flying into Milwaukee, or a business traveler forming first impressions, Lovell said.

The chancellor is quick to credit his predecessors, Carlos Santiago and Nancy Zimpher, with positioning UWM for the future.

He will be presented with an investiture at his inauguration that symbolizes progress.

It's a medallion the UWM arts faculty designed to replace a generic silver version the university has given its last three or more chancellors.

"I had medallion envy," Lovell confessed. "UW-Green Bay has a phoenix rising, and UW-Oshkosh has a medallion with links. We had the best art school in the state, and the worst medallion."

The new medallion is a mix of metals with symbolic links that "exceeds anything I could imagine," Lovell said. "It symbolizes how far the university has come.

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Inauguration day

Mike Lovell will start his big day Friday bright and early with - what else - a morning run.

But it won't be just any run. It's the Chancellor's Inaugural Run, beginning at 7 a.m. at the Pavilion, 3409 N. Downer Ave., and heading south on Downer Ave. for about two miles.

He's invited members of the public and campus community to join him.

He'll have plenty of time to recover before his inauguration ceremony at 3 p.m. in the Helen Bader Concert Hall at the Helene Zelazo Center of the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd.

Ceremony highlights are to include a performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by 2007 UWM graduate Naima Adedapo, a finalist in "American Idol's" most recent season.

Lovell ends his first official day as UWM chancellor with another athletic event. "Panther Madness" starts at 9 p.m. in the Klotsche Center, 3409 N. Downer Ave. The chancellor and his team will compete against students in a free-throw contest.

Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.