Provost Levy to step down next June

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

Eugene Levy will step down from his position as the Howard Hughes Provost at the end of the academic year — exactly 10 years after his July 1, 2000, arrival at Rice.

	EUGENE LEVY

President David Leebron made the announcement Tuesday via an e-mail to the Rice community in which he commended Levy’s ”decade of extraordinary service to Rice.”

”Although the provost is officially the chief academic officer of the university, every part of Rice has benefited from Gene’s counsel,” Leebron said. ”Put simply, we could not have accomplished all that we have in the last decade without Gene’s leadership and support.”

The new BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) embodies the ”bold mark” that Levy has left on Rice, Leebron said. ”Gene early on realized that this location was uniquely at the epicenter of Rice and the Texas Medical Center. And if you had any doubt about that, he carried a map in his wallet that made it clear.”

Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy, said universities must be attentive to the trajectory along which human knowledge is advancing. ”It had become clear that in the 21st century, biology would occupy a larger and larger part of the knowledge frontier and would see huge advances in understanding,” he said. “At the same time, as scientists learned more about how living systems work, both normally and pathologically, we would gain the capacity to intervene with greater efficacy and specificity to improve health and well-being.

”Biology is rapidly becoming a mechanistic science, engaging knowledge and tools from physics, chemistry, computational science, mathematics, engineering, et cetera,” Levy said. ”In this emerging era, the combined capabilities of Rice, with its deep expertise and capabilities across science, engineering, computation and mathematics, and the extraordinary depth in biology and biomedicine that exists in the research and educational institutions of the Texas Medical Center, such as Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the UT Health Sciences Center, presented an irresistible opportunity.”

Still in the process of opening, the BRC is already showing its transformative potential, Levy said. “It is impossible for me not to be excited about what this new nexus of research and education will do for Rice’s students and faculty, for our TMC partners and for the city of Houston.”

Leebron noted that Levy was an early and effective supporter of the growth now under way at Rice. In fact, even before Levy arrived at Rice, he commented on the university’s potential for growth in a Feb. 3, 2000, Rice News article that announced his selection as provost. ”We must expand our vision in research and graduate education,” he said. ”The world is changing, and increasingly, exposure to outstanding research and graduate students is what the best undergraduates want and need.”

Leebron said that even though Levy is a scientist, he has a deep understanding of and affinity for the humanities, social sciences, music and professions. ”In five years of working with Gene, I found him to be a passionate and articulate advocate for the full range of our activities and aspirations. He has supported the NSF ADVANCE grant and other efforts to add to the diversity of our faculty and student body.”

Formerly the dean of the College of Science at the University of Arizona, Levy has spent most of his career in university leadership roles. ”I love universities,” he said. ”I’m very promiscuous about intellectual things. There are very few things about universities that don’t attract my attention.”

One thing that particularly caught Levy’s attention was that many of Rice’s undergraduate students seemed too ”campus-bound.” This feeling was underscored when a Rice alumnus who had found a job in Houston told him that it wasn’t until after graduation that he discovered Houston’s zoo a few blocks from campus. ”It was only an anecdote, but it reinforced my already existing sense that we needed to work harder to bring to our students the cultural and social advantages that a city like Houston has to offer,” Levy said.

As an undergraduate student at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, Levy felt that his time spent exploring urban New York was among the valuable aspects of his college years. ”I spent as much time as I reasonably could — though much less than I wanted — exploring the city’s theater, music, art and museum culture, ethnic restaurants and cafes and pubs.” When METRO’s light rail opened across the street from Rice, he saw an opportunity to help make Houston’s museums and downtown theaters easily accessible to students. His ideas led to the Passport to Houston program that gives undergraduates free or discounted transportation and admission to the city’s cultural offerings.

Leebron said improvements to the research infrastructure and support for graduate students occurred under Levy’s leadership. ”He has worked tirelessly to ensure the fairness and efficacy of our tenure process. He made time for faculty members and worked to understand and support their work. He led the effort to improve the continued quality and effective utilization of our teaching and research spaces, and our IT network and resources. Gene has also been a highly effective recruiter of talented faculty and senior administrators.”

Former President Malcolm Gillis, who hired Levy, said the provost ”exceeded expectations” to enhance quality in teaching and research and to expand and improve the university’s outreach and service activities locally, nationally and internationally. ”He has been a valuable source of strength and trusted counselor to two presidents,” Gillis said. ”Gene should take great pride in Rice’s accomplishments during his watch; Rice takes pride in his leadership in nurturing quality, civility and unity across all schools and disciplines on our campus.”

Leebron also noted that Levy’s work as an astrophysicist is known throughout the world and has brought honor and prestige to Rice.

Levy plans to take a one-year sabbatical to write a book aimed at a general readership and usable as a textbook for a general education science course. ”It will deal with parts of physics and astrophysics, Earth science, the origin of development of the universe and the development of life, but I hope with a deeper perspective on some of the science than is typical in such books,” Levy said.

He will then return to Rice to teach in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and serve as a senior fellow for science policy and education at the Baker Institute for Public Policy.

”I’m really looking forward to being able, once again, to focus on the intellectual reasons that I embarked on this academic life in the first place, instead of guiltily stealing minutes for it, which is what I’ve had to do in recent years,” Levy said.

Leebron said the search process for Levy’s successor will begin soon.