University Business

Ready for launch at Purdue

November 14, 2007

In case you think that running a university isn't exactly rocket science, you might check with Purdue University's new president, France Córdova. She should know, having alternated her life in academia with tenures as chief scientist for NASA and astrophysical researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"It's harder than rocket science. Much harder," says Córdova of life as a college resident. "It's just more complex. Universities have more parts than rockets do. There's a huge dynamic range of things that you worry about, all the way from very mundane, simple things to very complex, very challenging problems to figure your way through.

"And you have to ask yourself, 'What's more forgiving: making mistakes in scientific research or making mistakes as head of a public institution?'"

After spending five years as chancellor of the University of California, Riverside-and a career straddling the worlds of academia and applied space science-Córdova touched down in West Lafayette last July on a campus that has produced nearly two dozen astronauts for the United States space program.

Those alumni include Neil Armstrong, whose trip to the Moon in 1969 inspired the recently graduated English major from Stanford University to look heavenward.

"It was a defining, defining moment, and that was followed shortly afterward by a program on PBS all about neutron stars, which had recently been discovered," recalls Córdova, who had moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The scientists interviewed were at MIT, so I just marched down there and volunteered myself to a couple of the people who were featured on the program."

The View from NASA
Córdova used her writing abilities to help review articles on X-ray astronomy, and proceeded to Cal Tech for a Ph.D in astrophysics. She worked for a decade in that field at Los Alamos-with an emphasis on multi-spectral research on X-ray and gamma ray sources, and space-borne instrumentation-and then moved to The Pennsylvania State University to head the Astronomy and Astrophysics Department. Along the way, she was recognized by Science Digest as one of "America's 100 Brightest Scientists Under 40."

When Córdova moved on to a three-year appointment at NASA, she arrived as the space agency's youngest and first female chief scientist and worked on projects such as the Hubble Telescope. Administratively, Córdova developed a knack for dealing with government agencies and elected officials, when she wasn't brushing up on her survival skills.

"Some people said, 'France, you're coming from outside, you're a woman. You're going to sink here,'" she remembers. "So you think, 'I've got some image problems to overcome.'" She came away with the Distinguished Service Medal, NASA's highest honor.

"When she was chief scientist, I didn't think she'd be able to do it," admits Al Diaz, the former director of the Goddard Space Center, who followed Córdova to Riverside as vice chancellor for administration. "Now you wonder what else is it that she could do that you haven't imagined yet?"

The skills Córdova honed at NASA carried over in her return to university administration, first as vice chancellor at UC, Santa Barbara and then in the top job at UC, Riverside, where one of the initial challenges was to rescue a stalled plan for an alumni and visitor center.

"It had been a dozen years in the works, and there was nothing to show for it. There was too much dissension," she explains. "So I did make recourse to my background at the space program. You accomplish your mission by brutally looking at the resources you have. And then if you have people on the team who have bigger imaginations and plans, you say, 'OK, that's phase B.' And all of a sudden, when we made that simple decision, all of the pieces fell into place.

"It's an absolute jewel of a building. It's not a behemoth, but it's the right size and scale. So many times building something just big enough to move ahead is the right answer. And the alumni were thrilled to have finally gotten that project done," Córdova says, adding that the current NASA mantra of "better, faster, cheaper" served the university well.

"She's a person of vision and accomplishment," Diaz observes. "She knows how to make things happen."

During her tenure at Riverside, Córdova presided over developments from the creation of a child care task force (which added an additional day care facility to the campus) to the entry of the men's baseball and women's basketball and volleyball teams into post-season NCAA tournaments (a vital preparation for the heavyweight emphasis on intercollegiate sports in Purdue's Big Ten Conference.)

A Medical Success Story
Córdova's crowning achievement, most observers agree, was the creation at Riverside of the first medical school west of the Mississippi in almost 50 years. The university already provided the first two years of education to medical students who would finish their degree at UCLA. But the expansion to a full medical program represented a quantum leap, even by Córdova's standards.

In fact, Córdova says she had more questions than answers before deciding on the project: "Where are we now? What assets do we have? What makes us distinctive? What are the biggest challenges and needs for the region and the state, and how do we marry those two things together? What would be the impact? Would this raise the reputational rankings of the university and the economic development for the region on a large scale, or would it just be a drop in the bucket?"

She got the answers when she appointed a blue-ribbon panel of deans from public and private medical schools. "You have to get together really good people who know more than an astrophysicist about what it takes to do that," she notes. "There wasn't anybody whom I brought to the table who didn't say, 'This is the right thing to do, and we're going to help you.' That made a big impact on people."

Satisfying the University of California Board of Regents was another matter, Córdova recalls. "Nobody had done this since the 1960s, so the UC Regents were all asking, 'What comes first? We weren't around when the last medical school was created.'"

So Córdova visited each regent herself. "At the beginning they said, 'Not another medical school! Those are a lot of work.' But they all got on board, and the legislators were supportive. Everybody realized what an opportunity it was for inland California."

Last November the regents gave their conditional approval.

With a final business plan and a curriculum on track for this spring, the four-year medical school would begin operating in 2012, with the cost of building, staffing, and other expenses through 2020 expected to reach $1 billion.

"Medical schools never stop costing money," Córdova explains. "Just ask UCLA. You build building after building." And the former English major quotes Yale professor and literary critic Harold Bloom to size up the positive outcome.

"When he was asked what constitutes great art, he said, 'Great art is that which surprises well,'" Córdova explains. "And I think that is something you can apply to anything that you do. It can be applied to leading in higher education. When the California regents gave us the go ahead, that was something that surprised well. It's this moment when you realize that everything has come together."

The Purdue Challenge
The frames mounted behind Córdova's desk in the president's office at Purdue contain large, abstract splashes of warm color set against a deep black background. One profusion of blue resembles the iris of the human eye while another set of reddish-orange shapes looks like a convocation of celestial beings. A closer inspection, aided by an explanation from Córdova, reveals that they are both infrared telescope photos of exploding stars.

To hear members of the presidential search committee tell it, Córdova fits right into the firmament at Purdue. "We had over 100 different people express interest in the position," says Tim McGinley, chairman of the Purdue's board of trustees. "She was a star of stars."

"I thought of it as an opportunity to move to a bigger, national stage for talking about what's important for higher education," Córdova says. "UC, Riverside was a splendid place, just smaller in scale." And the Purdue presidency represents the ideal administrative opportunity of keeping her head in the clouds and her feet in the mud.

"I really appreciate the role of agriculture in the land grant mission, not just as it pertains to agriculture but as it pertains to economic development writ large for the state," Córdova continues. "The tradition of engineering and its coupling with basic science at Purdue really matched my background. And then there's the fact that we've graduated so many of NASA's astronauts, including the first and last men on the Moon."

Córdova inherited a 70,000-student institution (with four regional campuses) that has made considerable strides under her predecessor Martin Jischke, who retired this summer. "The situation at Purdue is this," notes McGinley. "We are coming off a six-year strategic plan that, by any measure, has been a success. We had a $1.7 billion capital drive, built $750 million in new facilities, and hired 300 new faculty beyond those retiring and leaving. So I think the challenge is to keep the momentum going."

Bernard Tao, a biological engineering professor and former university senate president who also served on the presidential search committee, adds that big problems on campus have become conspicuous in their absence. "We're not bringing in someone to solve a lot of crises. We don't have to worry about cutbacks or faculty leaving or buildings degrading," he says. "What do you do next? That's the real challenge."

Tao underscores Purdue's technological edge as he leads the way through the two-year old Burke Nanotechnology Center, part of the new glass and steel complex called Discovery Park on the southwest side of campus. Scientists and technicians in sterile suits move behind the glass enclosing "clean rooms" that keep out the tiniest of unwanted particles.

In one such room an atomic layer depositor is capable of placing individual atoms on surfaces, a process full of possibilities for manufacturing. "Can you imagine making a wire one atom thick?" Tao asks.

Looking Ahead
For all the advantages of coming to Purdue, Córdova says she still has her work cut out for her. For starters, a number of the facilities funded over the past few years still need to be built. "When you embark on big initiatives," she points out, "there's that very heady, exciting stage when you have all the design drawings-like you're designing a colony on the Moon or Mars, but you still have to develop the rockets to get the crew there, deploy them, and build everything."

órdova is contemplating initiatives of her own, such as increasing the presence of minorities and women in the sciences. Her concerns extend to the attrition at a number of universities of female faculty members in science, engineering, and medicine. "I've found that they disappear at the highest levels," she says. "And minorities as well."

"If any place has a real opportunity of changing that," Córdova continues, "I think Purdue does, because of its scale, because of its dominance in engineering and science. It's already a magnet for students in this country and abroad to come here for that education. And it should parlay that into being a magnet for more women and for students from underrepresented backgrounds."

Córdova also sees a place for greater academic collaboration. "I come from a background in liberal arts and science and had a stint in anthropology research, so I want to bring all those threads together. I think we can build more bridges across the disciplines." She herself is a member of the Purdue physics department and plans to teach here, as she did at Riverside, where she taught introductory physics and a course on the search for extraterrestrial life.

"I'm on what I call my 'listening and learning plan,' " Córdova says of her first months on the job, during which she has organized faculty focus groups and connected with Purdue's regional campuses.

"I think the biggest mistake is ignoring anybody. You have to learn to pay attention. I grew up as the eldest of 12 children, so a survival skill sometimes was tuning out the noise in that system. Since then, I've had to adjust," she explains.

According to Tao, she's off to a good start. "I have immense respect for ability to handle people and to engage and relate to every one around her," he says. "She's gracious and very, very personable."

Córdova adds that her management style has also matured over the span of her leadership posts. "I have learned to have more confidence in myself and to trust my instincts," she says. "It doesn't mean I won't make mistakes, but I'll make fewer of them, and other people will trust me because there's consistency to what I do. Every time I have misstepped, it is because I have not followed my best instincts."