Colo. administrator tapped to lead Ga. Tech
Eds: ADDS number of applicants for job, number of students at Tech.
AP Photo NY117
By DORIE TURNER
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA (AP) — University of Colorado at Boulder Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson has been named as the finalist to take over as president of Georgia Tech, University System of Georgia officials announced Monday.
Peterson, 55, who has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, is a former NASA researcher who has headed the Boulder campus since 2006. He was selected in a national search to replace longtime President G. Wayne Clough, who left in June to lead the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., after serving since 1994.
“I am humbled to be considered for the post of president of the Georgia Institute of Technology,” Peterson said in a news release. “Georgia Tech is a wonderful institution and presents a special opportunity for me and my family.”
CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard said Peterson would not comment further until the Georgia Board of Regents votes on his nomination sometime in the coming weeks. That vote has not yet been scheduled.
The Regents are scheduled for a monthly meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday, but by state law, they have to wait 14 days to vote on the nomination. Peterson emerging as the only finalist from a pool of 38 candidates makes him essentially a shoe-in for the job at the 19,000-student campus in Atlanta.
Peterson came to CU-Boulder after a spate of national scandals marred the reputation of the campus. CU System President Elizabeth Hoffman resigned in 2005 after a sexual assault scandal in the football program and after a professor ignited a national firestorm by likening some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis.
CU-Boulder is the flagship campus of the University of Colorado system, with about 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Peterson helped calm upset donors, increasing fundraising by 80 percent, Hilliard said. He also increased federal research money by $14.1 million to $280 million from 2007 to 2008, Hilliard said.
“If selected, it will be a great loss for the University of Colorado,” said CU System President Bruce Benson. “We are not surprised that an institution of the caliber of Georgia Tech would pursue him, particularly given his engineering background.”
Before CU-Boulder, Peterson served as an administrator at Texas A&M University in College Station for 19 years before moving to be chief academic officer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, from 2000 to 2006. He received his bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering from Kansas State University and his Ph.D. from Texas A&M.
He worked for a few years as a high school math and science teacher before going back for a graduate degree. He was as a research scientist for the NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston from 1981-1982 and served as the head of the National Science Foundation’s Thermal Transport and Thermal Processing Division in 1993.
“He is really the total package that you look for in a university president,” said Susan Herbst, executive vice chancellor for the University System of Georgia, who worked closely with the presidential search committee. “As chancellor at the University of Colorado, which is a huge comprehensive research university, he has an understanding of the different academic disciplines. That is so incredibly valuable for us as we try to push Georgia Tech to the next level.”
Peterson and his wife, Val, have four grown children.
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On the Net:
University System of Georgia: http://www.usg.edu
Georgia Tech University: http://www.gatech.edu
University of Colorado at Boulder: http://www.colorado.edu/
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