By Kristina Goetz
Illustrations by Charlie Zimkus '00

Jim Garland didn't think he'd ever be a college president until a few weeks before Miami University offered him the job. When Garland was an undergraduate studying experimental condensed matter physics at Princeton, he figured he'd spend his career as a professor, advising students and researching how metals conduct electricity at low temperatures. He loved the intellectual stimulation of it and - after studying at Cornell University and the University of Cambridge - he joined the faculty at Ohio State to do just that.

The notion of leading a university only occurred to him after he was approached by a search firm representative while serving on a committee to look for a new dean at Ohio State. Garland's name had surfaced, the rep said, as a candidate to replace outgoing Miami President Paul Risser.

Soon after, the then 54-year-old made the academic leap from executive dean of Ohio State's College of Arts and Sciences to Miami's 20th president. Ten years in the position have not diminished Garland's enthusiasm for the job, but he's looking forward to retirement and a new chapter in his life at the end of this academic year.

"Being a university president has got to be the most fascinating job in the world," Garland said. "I never know from day to day what problems will come up to my office. It's never boring, but it's relentless. After 10 years, I feel like I've run a marathon. I'm glad I've done it, but it's good to see the finish line."

When Garland arrived in Oxford, he already knew of the University's reputation as a "Public Ivy" and found the campus itself stunningly beautiful. What surprised him was a sense that the faculty and staff were craving stability and that there was a nervousness about too much disruptive tampering with the status quo.

"Miami had almost become mired in its tradition," he said. "I wanted us to keep an eye on the future and not be so apprehensive about change. I feel like I've had a role and a voice in that, and I'm proud of it."

Garland's chance to lead Miami through major change came sooner than he might have anticipated. At his first board of trustees meeting, Garland, who had only a passive interest in sports, found himself amid what many still consider the most controversial debate in Miami's 197-year history: changing the school nickname from Redskins to RedHawks.

"It was a camp divided," recalled former Athletic Director Eric Hyman, who was at Miami from 1995 to 1997 and is now at the University of South Carolina. "And no matter what you did, you weren't going to win. It was one of the first issues of that magnitude that he had to navigate through."

David Vickroy '63 of Dayton, Ohio, said die-hard fans still feel the bite of that decision, though time has allowed some of the sting to wear off.

"There are going to be people who go to their graves hating the name change," he said, adding that he and his wife still attend all football and basketball home games. "I told Dr. Garland, 'I'm always going to be a Redskin,' and he said, 'I understand.' I blame him for making the decision, but that doesn't mean I don't like him."

In fact, Vickroy believes President Garland's support of student-athletes will be a large part of his legacy. "If you look at where we were before he came, he did a lot, providing things to student-athletes. I think we're better off now than we were. His legacy will be that he did a lot of good things, especially the people he brought in."

Though the campus lost three men's teams because of Title IX, Miami - known for exemplifying the student-athlete model - also saw some of its greatest gains in sports during the past decade, both on the field and in its facilities.

Wally Szczerbiak '99 first captivated the nation when he scored a career-high 43 points in the RedHawks' 59-58 victory over Washington in the 1999 NCAA tournament. He went on to sign with the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and was recently traded to the Boston Celtics. The sweeping success continued with Ben Roethlisberger '04, the quarterback who led the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers to a Super Bowl win in February.

During Garland's tenure, the Gross Family Student-Athlete Development Center, between Millett and Yager, opened to cater to the academic and physical needs of Miami's student-athletes. At the same time, almost half of the sports facilities went through significant renovation.

"[Dr. Garland] understood the value of the visibility that Miami athletics brought," Hyman said. "And he got caught up in the school spirit and showed his support for student-athletes. Some of the pinnacles Miami reached were during his tenure. He hired quality people to work for him, and that's the true test of a leader."

Stronger Academics
Athletics wasn't the only thing that brought Miami into the spotlight. Higher academic standards and excellence in research and instruction have been the most celebrated hallmarks of Garland's tenure.

The most comprehensive changes on campus have stemmed from the strategic plan he initiated at the turn of the millennium, called "First in 2009," which aims to make Miami the national leader among public universities by its 200th birthday. The plan's eight goals are to create: a more highly qualified student body; greater support for faculty; a curriculum designed for the 21st century; a richer intellectual and cultural life on campus; increased diversity; enhanced facilities; a stronger revenue base; and improved benchmarking with peer institutions.

Six years into the plan, Miami has made significant strides toward those goals.

In 2003, the University announced plans to add 50 full-time, tenure-track faculty members when other universities were either cutting back or holding their numbers steady. Ten of those faculty members were ushered in as the first installment last year. Miami also revised its promotion and tenure requirements.

"It's very important to students and their parents to have more full-time faculty," said Paul Anderson, director of Miami's Center for Writing Excellence. "They can provide advising, work with students in independent study, and provide support in ways that part-time faculty can't. Full-time faculty often have a fuller view of every aspect of the University, and that benefits students."

In 2004, sponsored research set a record of $22 million - an 89 percent jump over the previous two years. The University has also revised its MBA program and expanded its programs in engineering. And for the first time, last fall Miami began offering a Ph.D. in social gerontology.

Allison Kolodziej, a senior from St. Clairsville, Ohio, and editor in chief of the student newspaper, said that when she heard about the 2009 initiative her freshman year, she was skeptical.

"What seemed like very far-reaching, idealistic ideas have really been developed," she said. "With Dr. Garland, Miami really has taken a step forward. When I was in D.C. two summers ago, there were alums all over the place. The name has become so much bigger recently. It's not just that people knew the name Miami, but that they had some connection to it."

To help attract students from middle-class Ohio families who find it tough to pay for a Miami education as well as to increase diversity on campus, Garland announced a new tuition and scholarship model that was implemented in fall 2004. Often used by private universities, the plan received nationwide attention and was deemed by the president of the American Council on Education a courageous move. Miami now charges every student the same sticker price but gives Ohioans generous scholarships to offset the cost. The change allows Miami greater flexibility to offer larger scholarship packages to bright students with financial needs.

"Vision combined with courage is how I would describe his leadership," Anderson said. "He is able to conceive fundamentally new ways of achieving goals, like using the new tuition plan to show Ohio's citizens the value of a Miami education. Once the plan was developed, it took great courage for him to implement it. There was no guarantee it would work."

To ensure Miami's continued progress, last spring the University unveiled a $350 million fundraising campaign, called For Love and Honor, and announced the biggest single gift in school history - a $30 million commitment from Richard T. Farmer '56 of Cincinnati's Cintas Corp.

Campus facilities have also undergone a transformation with $309 million in building projects. The new psychology and engineering buildings, as well as the new Goggin Ice Center, are under construction, and a new business school and performing arts center are in the planning stages.

The president has constantly engaged in gentle cajoling and prodding, as one professor put it, to spur change, and supporters say his continuous theme of raising standards has only improved Miami's reputation.

"Miami has been a school that has worked hard at the image of a 'Public Ivy,' and I think Jim enhanced that," said Robert Glidden, president emeritus of Ohio University. "A president that doesn't have the right values can take a university in the wrong direction. Jim was the right president for the time at Miami. I have the highest regard for him and the work he has done."

Crisis, Controversy, Tragedy
Always the face of the University, Garland took on many roles during his 10 years at Miami: master of ceremonies at commencement; ambassador to the state legislature; liaison
to potential donors; target of criticism in contentious times; and a university patriarch in moments of tragedy.

"He's careful and thoughtful," said Charles Falco, Garland's friend of 30 years and an endowed chair of condensed matter physics at the University of Arizona. "He's not prone to making snap judgments. When we discuss issues, he's always fair. He strikes me as someone who always tries to make the right decision."

One policy change that Garland worked many months on was to offer benefits - including health and dental insurance, tuition remission, ticket discounts, sick leave for family and medical purposes - to same-sex domestic partners.

State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr. filed a lawsuit against the University arguing that Miami's same-sex partnership violates Ohio's constitutional ban on civil unions. Though some faculty and staff support Miami's effort because they see it as making a statement about social fairness, the official policy of the University is that Miami must offer the benefits to remain competitive with other universities and private industry. Garland said he expects the benefits that the University began offering in July 2004 to remain unchanged.

"Our official position has nothing to do with morality," Garland said. "And that's what's going to insulate us in the courts."

Although court issues may be draining, the most daunting times for a university president revolve around the tragedies.

In April last year, Garland, who has a daughter and a son himself, served as something of a father figure when he met with friends of three Miami students who were killed in a house fire near campus. Moments like those were the most heartbreaking for him.

"Most people go through the school year just fine, but terrible things happen to some of them," Garland said. "If you're a president of a university you're right in the middle of that - shell-shocked roommates of a student who was raped or walking into the hospital last year after we had that fire. Seconds before, I had seen a body pulled out of the house. You wish you could do more. I wanted to do what I could to make them feel better."

A Decade Gone By
When President Garland announced his retirement last August, some on campus were surprised he had been president 10 years because they realized they didn't know a great deal about him personally. Some think him a very private person, but those who know Garland well say he has a warm, funny side, a genuine interest in people, and an often self-deprecating sense of humor. His own wide range of interests - from bluegrass music to a long-time love of amateur radio - has informed and seemingly influenced
his presidency.

His sincerity and kindness have made some lasting impressions. Once, after his executive secretary, Debbie Mason, had complicated surgery for a detached retina, Garland brought in one of his wife Carole's multicolored sun hats for her to wear in the office because she was sensitive to light, and he informed the staff that the lights would be dimmed until she recovered. And when Doug and Linda Balogh sold radio station 97X in 2004, Garland became a near cult hero among student listeners after sharing his online journal entry about the importance of rock 'n' roll. Posts on the station's message board went on for weeks about that cool college president.

Officer Don Fox (whom the president calls Woody) has worked as a Miami police officer for nearly 17 years and notices every time Garland commends the force in a speech. The two also share an amateur radio hobby and swap e-mails about it every now and then.

"Garland likes to collect old equipment and restore it, and he has shown some of it to me," Fox said. "There is an obvious difference in pecking order, but he didn't want to run around and take a big rubber stamp that says 'president.'
At Hamfest, unless you know him, he's just another ham radio guy at his table."

When Garland has spare time, he likes to go to Ace Hardware to talk to owner Jeff MacDonald about pan head stainless steel screws or to Spring Street Auto to chat about a vacuum modulator on a 1987 Mercedes sedan.

"He has very much a problem-solving orientation, but he's not staid," said Karen Dawisha, director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies. "He's not ever going to tell an off-color joke, but he's surprisingly relaxed. He's sort of a techy guy. He's in love with TiVo. He loves talking about technical things, the lab side of the University, but we also talk about higher education policy. He's a policy wonk, and that's where we connected."

Those who work closely with Garland say he's a brilliant man who's thoughtful and reflective, but he can also play the role of absent-minded professor. He once called Mason from the Cincinnati airport to say he'd inadvertently left his luggage at Lewis Place. "He probably walked right by it to get to his car," Mason said. His staff also learned to make two copies of his speeches so if he forgot his own copy another would be waiting in the wings.

"He can remember the details of something years and years back - even at Ohio State - but he can't remember where he laid the paper I gave him an hour ago," Mason said. "Little stories like that, we all have them."

The Road Ahead
Garland says he doesn't much think about what his legacy will be because he's too busy focusing on the future, both immediate and long term. After this May's graduation, he and Carole will move to Santa Fe, where they're building a house near the Baloghs. Finally, he'll have his own ham radio workshop - 1,260 square feet of which he helped design, including the location of every outlet. And when he's not in his workshop, he plans to stay involved in higher education.

"I will do some consulting and continue to help raise money for the University," he said. "I'd like to start an alumni chapter in Santa Fe and write at least one nonfiction book, something about an issue in higher education, and then a fiction book.

"I always like to keep my eye on what's ahead."

Kristina Goetz, a former higher education reporter at The Cincinnati Enquirer, earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in May 2005 and now works as an editorial assistant to journalist and author Carl Bernstein in New York City.

Charlie Zimkus '00, our illustrator for this article, is a staff artist at The Columbus Dispatch. He started at Miami the same time as President Garland and often drew the president in editorial cartoons for The Miami Student.

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