Katsouleas named new UConn president

Thomas C. Katsouleas Thomas C. Katsouleas Photo: Contributed Photo: Contributed Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Katsouleas named new UConn president 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

STORRS — Promising to keep students first but at the same time help the state’s economy, Thomas C. Katsouleas, a physicist and inventor, was introduced Tuesday at the University of Connecticut’s 16th president.

He is set to take office on Aug. 1, once Susan Herbst steps down after eight years as president of the state’s flagship university.

Katsouleas, 60, rose to the top of a list of more than 200 candidates reviewed by a 44-member search committee, and he received the blessing of Gov. Ned Lamont.

The governor was on hand Tuesday for the unanimous Board of Trustees vote, which took in the Wilbur Cross building on UConn’s campus. Lamont said Katsouleas, who currently serves as provost and executive vice president at the University of Virginia, has a lot of work to do.

“Tom’s reputation is one of advocacy and relationship-building, a key attribute for president of our flagship university,” Lamont said. The governor said he is counting on Katsouleas to keep up the momentum Herbst started in building UConn’s reputation.

The new president will get a five-year contract with an overall annual cash compensation of $675,000 plus a car and housing compensation. There are also performance bonuses and in subsequent years automatic 3 percent increase in his base pay of $525,000.

Herbst, who was at the meeting, had a package that before bonuses totaled $899,000.

“Go Huskies,” Katsouleas said after being introduced.

Katsouleas called UConn a vital piece of Connecticut’s economic engine, and pledged to make sure the priorities of university are aligned with priorities of state.

“Good public universities are pillars supporting their state,” Katsouleas said. “Great flagship universities ... are the crown jewels of the state, uplifting the minds and spirit not only of their own students but of the surrounding communities and the entire state.”

He said he enters with eyes wide open to the state’s financial situation. UConn has experienced steady budget cuts over the past several years.

“I know Connecticut is somewhat cash strapped,” Katsouleas said. He chalked up legislative budget cuts to necessity, not ideology.

Students, Katsouleas said, are his top priority, and he promised to set up office hours in a campus coffee shop. Another immediate goal is to double the university’s research dollars over the next decade. That number is now about $265 million annually.

“We need to get to half a billion,” he said.

UConn Board of Trustees Chairman Thomas Kruger said a wide net had been cast in the search for a new president.

“(Katsouleas) has a deep and comprehensive understanding of what makes a major research university work and what success looks like,” Kruger said.

Katsouleas said he is eager to visit UConn’s branch campuses. He pledged to support athletics, including UConn’s struggling football team, and promised to be accessible to students.

An inventor and researcher, Katsouleas (pronounced Kat-soo-LAY’-es) taught for 14 years at the University of Southern California before becoming dean of engineering at Duke University. He said he has two teenage children who still live in California and will visit him during breaks.

He landed at the University of Virginia in 2015, but announced his intention to leave when the president who hired him announced her intention to step down.

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan said UConn made a fantastic choice.

“I am excited for Tom as he takes on this new challenge,” Ryan said in a prepared statement.

On past campuses he was known to scoot across campus on a personalized skateboard — no word on whether he is bringing it to UConn.

He is big on swimming, and began his own higher education at Santa Monica Community College. He transferred as a junior to UCLA and proceeded to flunk his first calculus midterm. It was uphill from there. He would eventually leave with a Ph.D. in physics and has become a leading scholar in the field of plasma science.

Teresa A. Sullivan, Virginia’s president emerita, said Katsouleas combines a strong research and teaching background with a principled approach to administering higher education.

“He is unafraid of challenge, whether they be intellectual or organizational,” Sullivan said, also in a prepared statement.

Katsouleas is also not a stranger to academics in Connecticut. Tarek Sobh, an executive vice president at the University of Bridgeport, calls Katsouleas a friend and good colleague.

“We worked together to establish a Grand Challenges scholar program in UB since 2015,” said Sobh, an engineer and computer scientist. The program prepares students to solve problems and is part of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges program.

“In a nutshell, (Katsouleas) is the kind of leader needed for public universities in the 21st century economy,” Sobh said.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck