Next UI provost likes optimism, energy he sees on local campus

Apr. 20—URBANA — One thing John Coleman said impresses him about the University of Illinois is the optimism and energy he sees.

Higher education is facing a tough time right now, but the UI can be a leader, he said.

"Let's be the university that shows people why higher education is so important," he said.

A University of Minnesota dean, Coleman is poised to become the next vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost at the UI's Urbana-Champaign campus starting July 19, pending approval by the UI Board of Trustees.

He was one of four finalists for the position following a national search.

Coleman will be paid a total annual salary of $553,900 and will hold a zero-time appointment as a full professor with tenure in the Department of Political Science, UI spokeswoman Robin Kaler said.

Coleman, who holds a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, where he's served since 2014.

During his tenure, Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts has significantly increased enrollment and retention rates for students from under-represented backgrounds and graduation rates for all students, UI officials said.

He also was said to have led faculty-focused initiatives with new investments in programs to reward research innovation, supported the development of new cross-college degree programs and expanded the college's engagement with alumni, donors and the community.

Before coming to Minnesota, Coleman served for more than two decades at the University of Wisconsin as a faculty member and chair of the political science department; prior to that, he was an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.

That he's on his way to his third Big Ten university isn't a coincidence.

"I love the Big Ten," he said. "There's a Big Ten way of operating. There's an integrity of the processes. There's transparency about the operations. There's a commitment to research and instructional excellence in doing work that matters to the community."

Each Big Ten university is a bit different from each other, Coleman said, but as a collective group, "it's a place where I've always wanted to be and stay."

"Dean Coleman has established an international reputation as an educator, scholar and academic leader," UI Chancellor Robert Jones said. "He has served nearly his entire academic career in Big Ten, public, land-grant research universities, so he comes to Illinois with a deep and profound understanding of our foundational obligations to translate knowledge, education and exploration into better lives for those we serve."

Coleman will take over for UI Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs William Bernhard, who has been serving since July 2021 as interim vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost following the departure of Andreas Cangellaris.

"I am delighted to be joining the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a world-class institution with excellence that runs both wide and deep," Coleman said.

"Great institutions are driven to excel and to ask themselves what's next," he said. "During my conversations, I was impressed by the optimistic determination of the Illinois community at this transformative time in higher education to wrestle with the big questions facing us and to do so in a spirit of creativity, collaboration and inclusion that ensures we expand opportunity and impact across all facets of our land-grant mission."

Coleman said he's made three visits to the UI campus, but was already familiar with the region. His wife, Laura Leitch, got her undergraduate degree in political science from the UI, and her father lives in Normal, he said.

What initially attracted him to the UI: "It's a fantastic university, to start with," he said.

The UI has a diversity of disciplines across campus, presenting opportunities for interdisciplinary opportunities and connections, Coleman said.

One of the topics he discussed when he visited the campus about a month ago is that "we have a bit of an industrial-age education model" with standard 15-week, three-credit-hour courses, he said.

That feels "a bit out of date to me," he said.

"I think we can be much more flexible and dynamic in how we deliver courses," he said.

He also sees the UI having the potential to be a leader in the artificial-intelligence space, and he wants to continue making progress on student retention and graduation rates, he said.

Coleman said he also thinks a lot about stresses on both graduate and undergraduate students — for example, wondering if they'll get a job after graduation and financial and mental-health factors.

"Students spend a lot time worrying about those things," he said. "We need to absolutely reduce that stress."