Daily Iowan

Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Metro

Resume/CV: Loh [Click to enlarge]

Resume/CV: Benbow [Click to enlarge]

Resume/CV: Carney [Click to enlarge]

Resume/CV: Ortega [Click to enlarge]

Resume/CV: Sternberg [Click to enlarge]

Between interviews, public and private, résumé reviews, and dinner discussions, the finalists for the UI's new provost position are five well-screened and highly qualified individuals. And while colleagues, former and current, have mostly positive things to say, not all candidates are unaccustomed to controversy.

Two specific cases stand out: Camilla Persson Benbow for controversial research on sex differences in mathematics and Wallace Loh for a reverse-discrimination suit and distance education.

Benbow's story starts in 1980, when she, along with a colleague, published an article in the journal Science that appeared to show that boys achieved substantially higher results on math-achievement tests than girls.

The study concluded "that sex differences in achievement in and attitude toward mathematics result from superior male mathematical ability." Subsequent studies by Benbow continued with this trend, with one showing a 12:1 male to female achievement ratio on high-scoring math-aptitude tests.

That research has been described as creating "a media field day" and elicited a "statement of concern" from the Association of Women in Mathematics when President Bush appointed Benbow, the current dean of education and human development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel.

Julianna Tymoczko, a UI assistant professor of mathematics, said that while she feels all questions are valid in an academic setting, her main concern was what sort of policy implications Benbow's research could have if they represent her ideological beliefs.

"There is a concern within the department," she said.

Benbow said the intent of the article was to highlight such divisions.

"I couldn't hardly believe it when I looked at the data," she said. "That's the problem - when you do research, you don't always come up with data the way you would like it to be."

In more recent years, she said, the disparity has decreased. Since that time, she has gone on to contribute to scores more articles and book chapters.

Wallace Loh, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Seattle University, was sued while dean of the University of Washington Law School under allegations of practicing reverse-discrimination. After a drawn-out and well-publicized legal battle, the law school eventually removed ethnicity as a determining factor.

During his stint as dean, he more than doubled minority enrollment, in part due to the use of ethnicity as a criterion in admissions. At Seattle University, the number of minority faculty members has tripled and women faculty has doubled since he began working there, he said on Tuesday.

Also, while serving as the director of policy for the governor of Washington state in the late-90s, Loh caused commotion among professors when he predicted digital instruction could become a much more important learning tool.

"My view is simple: To pretend that online education has no role in education is false," he said in an interview Thursday.

Despite this, faculty members familiar with his accomplishments and administrative style have called him an enormously skilled administrator.

"You might land on a few people who don't like him, but you'd be hard put to find anyone who says he isn't highly qualified," said Victor Reinking, the chairman of the modern languages and literature department at Seattle University. "He's extremely articulate, and he is able to articulate an institution's needs and visions."

Faculty familiar with the other three candidates also spoke highly of them.

"I like him very much; I think he is an effective leader," said Tufts Associate Professor Harry Bernheim about Robert Sternberg, the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at that Massachusetts university.

"I think he did a superb job in an environment where resources are limited," Bernheim said, recalling the work Sternberg accomplished in funding a new building.

Reza Moinpour, a professor of marketing at the University of Washington, also pointed out financial astuteness as a key quality of his school's candidate: Suzanne Ortega.

He said that the vice provost and graduate dean challenges faculty "to do more with no more money." A colleague, sociology Professor Robert Crutchfield, who has known Ortega since graduate school, said, "She is a good person and a good administrator."

Robert Schlauch, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, called colleague and provost candidate Arlene Carney "very loyal."

"I think you will be lucky to get her, and I hope you don't," he said of.

Today, the provost search panel is expected to forward its decision to President Sally Mason for her approval.

DI reporter Alyssa Cashman contributed to this report.

E-mail DI reporters at:
daily-iowan@uiowa.edu

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