a student newspaper of the university of tulsa
september 4, 2012 issue 1 ~ volume 98
Geoffrey Orsak: TU’s new ideas man After eight years with former president Steadman Upham, the University of Tulsa finds itself with a new face in Collins Hall. The Collegian sat down with President Orsak to discuss his vision for the university. Kyle Walker News Editor
Late last semester, Geoffrey Orsak was selected by the University of Tulsa’s presidential search committee to replace Steadman Upham, who had been TU’s president since June 2004 and who retired on June 30, 2012. Born in Schenectady, New York, Orsak feels spiritually at home in the Southwest. His father worked in Schenectady, but Orsak eventually moved to Texas where he at-
tended Rice University and earned a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a doctoral degree. From Rice, Orsak immediately went into academia and held faculty positions at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Orsak had his first taste of academic administration while a tenured professor at George Mason. “I was asked to move into the president’s office as a special advisor to the president,” he said. After a year, Orsak left his position with the president convinced that administration was not the field he wanted to go into. “I went back into doing everything I loved—which was teaching and research.” After relocating to Texas, Orsak was eventually asked to serve as head of research in the dean’s office of the Lyle School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University. Orsak would later serve the engineering school as dean. “By some strange set of circumstances I was on an airplane and I got a phone call. I was asked if I wanted to get back into administration,” Orsak said. “I decided on the flight that I’ve always been an institutional builder, somebody who’s committed to the university. If that was what was good for the university than I was going to step in and do it.”
For Orsak, administration proved to be “intellectually stimulating.” While at SMU, Orsak developed an understanding of the problems of academic administration. “The problems are hard. Being an academic researcher is incredibly difficult, but trying to run an academic organization is equally challenging.” In his academic research, Orsak found that he could always solve a related problem if the problem he set out to solve proved insoluble. “But that’s not the case here,” he said. “In administration, you’ve got to solve the problem you’re faced with, and when I show up every day there are issues that are not going to go away unless we deal with them.” Experience working in university administration has given Orsak a lot to think about on the topic of higher education. “I believe deeply in the fact that a university’s purpose is to expand people’s understanding of themselves and the world around them,” said Orsak. “TU’s responsibility is not to get you to that very first job but to prepare you to be successful across your entire career and to prepare you in ways that even we can’t predict.” It may come as no surprise that Orsak
See President on page 4
WELCOME: 2 . p n o s a e S l l a b t New Foo
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ation p. 10 TU students were treated to fireworks at the Thursday Activities Fair in conjunction with the rededication of Fisher Hall.