Our Next President

Less than a month after being named Lehigh’s 14th president, John D. Simon surprised students in James Peterson’s Afrofuturism and Black Visual Culture class when he walked into their room one Tuesday morning and took a seat at the seminar table.

Though Peterson, a member of the Presidential Search Committee, knew Simon was coming to Drown Hall, he didn’t tell staff or his students, who were reading and discussing the novel Zone One by Colson Whitehead. Now, with Simon in the room, wearing a Lehigh shirt, the students took the opportunity to talk with Lehigh’s next president about their experiences at the university as well as his vision for Lehigh as it approaches its sesquicentennial.

“He was very candid about being in a learning phase,” said Peterson, associate professor of English and director of Africana Studies. “He’s an incredibly attentive listener.”

Simon, a renowned chemist and widely respected leader in higher education, will assume the presidency on July 1, at age 58. He said he was attracted to Lehigh for a multitude of reasons: the breadth of work being done here, especially the interdisciplinary collaborations; the commitment and quality of faculty and staff; the quality of the undergraduate and graduate students; the “deeply ingrained” practical application of knowledge, and the faculty, students, staff and friends whom he has found to be “incredibly passionate” about the university.

Currently executive vice president and provost at the University of Virginia, Simon has been meeting with Lehigh’s senior leadership, faculty and students in regular visits to campus since the fall, even taking up an offer from the Sigma Chi fraternity to have dinner on the Hill. Whenever he’s spotted walking on campus, with a bounce to his step and a smile on his face, he’s frequently stopped. People want to talk to him.

“It’s really important for me to understand the important elements of the Lehigh culture and how things are done here,” said Simon during one of those visits. “And if change is needed for the institution to move forward, you have to do it from within that context.”

Simon said Lehigh must take pride in what it’s doing well. “There are some absolutely outstanding faculty here who do work in areas that Lehigh has not traditionally been known for,” he said.  “Our faculty should be comfortable and encouraged to take credit and promote their excellent work.

“In my view, excellence in the arts, humanities, social science, education and business doesn’t take away at all from the institution’s deep and long-term commitment to STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education], nor our desire to stay at the forefront in the fields of engineering and science. And yet, the institution is very different from the days of Bethlehem Steel. We should take pride in that and really decide the very small number of institution-wide signatures that will define what Lehigh is in the space of higher education.”

Those who know Simon well – at UVA, where a 2012 leadership crisis strengthened his reputation among faculty and students, and at Duke University, where he helped guide the strategic planning process – describe him as smart, collaborative and creative, with a good sense of humor. They say he enjoys interacting with other people.

“John believes in leading a team,” said former Duke Provost Peter Lange, who tapped Simon to be that university’s vice provost for academic affairs in 2005. “He doesn’t believe in just doing it himself.”

At UVA, Simon is seen as thoughtful – and courageous.  “He’s got a lot of good common sense with a lot of intellect,” said Patricia Lampkin, UVA’s vice president of student affairs. She said Simon’s an inclusive leader, one who is not driven by personal motives. And, she said, he’s not afraid to discuss the tough issues that come up on college campuses.
 
“He’s great with intellectual discovery,” Lampkin said. “He’ll always bring up a new angle to consider in a totally non-judgmental way.”
As Simon has begun to do at Lehigh, he set out to learn UVA’s culture when he arrived there in 2011. “And he pulled out the best of our culture,” Lampkin said. “He did not make it John Simon’s culture.”

A life-changing experience

Simon grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mom was a homemaker, and his dad helped run the family tailoring business. Later, his dad started an advertising company that sold promotional materials.

With a penchant for math, Simon initially made math his major when he began his studies at Williams College in Massachusetts, then added chemistry for a double major. But by senior year, as a result of research work he did with one of his professors, William Moomaw, he saw his future.  “He got me excited about doing science,” Simon said. “And that, quite frankly, changed my life.”

In a moment of discovery, Simon obtained data on how the chemical element Europium was binding to crown ethers, which are cyclic chemical compounds. It was the first time he knew something that no one else knew, he said, and he wanted to share that knowledge. “I knew at that moment that if I could make it, I was going to be a scientist,” he said.

That’s what Simon would become, of course, but his interests extend beyond academics. He enjoys college sports, and he was on hand when Lehigh’s wrestling team beat Columbia 34-3 in November at the New York Athletic Club. He also was at Yankee Stadium for the 150th playing of the Lehigh-Lafayette football rivalry. In basketball, he admits to being a Duke fan, but smiles as he says he’s learned to take pride now in Lehigh knocking off Duke in the 2012 NCAA Tournament.

He reads a lot of fiction, mostly modern authors, and he likes live music. (He was a rock ’n’  roll fan until his younger son introduced him to country music.) An avid bicyclist while at Duke, Simon often logged 50 to 75 miles on a weekend and participated in triathlons and Half-Ironman events. Aware of Lehigh’s iconic hills and the 2,600 steps on the Asa Packer campus, he’s gotten back to running and biking.

In the past decade, Simon’s research interests have focused on understanding the structure and function of human pigmentation. Most recently, he collaborated with scientists from around the world to study the only known intact pigments recovered from the Jurassic period. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award and the Fresenius Award. He has authored or coauthored nearly 250 academic papers and four books.

After graduating from Williams College in 1979 with a degree in chemistry, Simon went on to Harvard University for his doctorate.  A fellowship followed at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he worked with chemical physicist Mostafa El-Sayed, whom he counts as one of his mentors. Now director of the Laser Dynamics Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology, El-Sayed saw Simon as personable, creative and smart. “He sees things faster than anybody else,” El-Sayed said.

It was at UCLA that Simon met his future wife, Diane Szaflarski, then a graduate student and now an associate professor at UVA’s School of Nursing. (She will be a professor of practice in chemistry at Lehigh.) The two worked together in the lab, on a project to measure the lifetimes of unstable ions. They wouldn’t start dating, however, until Simon joined the department of chemistry and biochemistry at University of California, San Diego, in 1985. He and his wife have two sons, Alec, 16, and Evan, 18.

In 1998, Simon headed east, joining Duke as the George B. Geller Professor of Chemistry. He soon became chair of the chemistry department and was tapped by then-Provost Lange to also lead the academic priorities committee.

“It was the first time in my life, after being totally immersed in science, to learn about a law school, environmental school, medicine, business, public policy,” said Simon. “Universities are amazing places when you lift your head and look at what people are doing outside your area of expertise.”

The path to a presidency

Simon led the academic priorities committee at Duke for five years. Then one evening, Lange told him that Duke’s vice provost for academic affairs was planning to step down. He asked if Simon, who shared a compatible vision for the university, would take the job.  Unprepared for the offer, and wanting to confer with his wife since it would affect the demands on his time, Simon told him, “I don’t know.” 

Simon said Lange gave him until the following morning for a formal reply. When Simon did accept the position, it was Lange who slowed things down.

“I was thinking about it overnight,” Simon said Lange told him, “and you’re not committed to being an administrator. So I need a plan from you on how you’ll be scientifically active five years from today, so that if you don’t want to be an administrator, I’m not responsible for killing off your career.”

The two worked out a deal that allowed Simon to stay active in science while serving as vice provost, a position he held until 2011. In that new role, Simon guided the university’s strategic planning process and drove initiatives aimed at connecting the humanities, social sciences and sciences. After a widely publicized 2006 scandal involving Duke’s lacrosse team, in which charges against three players were ultimately dropped, Simon led discussions on campus culture.

Simon is able to generate “really good discussion around big ideas,” Lange said, and he is able to formulate concepts and mobilize people to get things done. He said Simon listens to what others have to say, and he’s willing to adjust his position. “He doesn’t always have to be the person who’s right.”

Among the people working alongside Simon at Duke was Susan Roth, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies. The two conferred daily, and sometimes Simon would make her laugh so hard she figured the whole second floor in the administration building could hear her. She said Simon cared about the university, not about what kind of credit he’d get for what he did.

“When I left a conversation with him, my perspective was always enhanced in some way,” Roth said. “He’d think of ways of understanding what had transpired that I never would have thought of. He’d have ideas about how to move forward toward a goal that never would have occurred to me. He’d make me laugh about something that was stressful that allowed me to think more clearly.”

‘A defining moment’

In 2011, the University of Virginia came courting. Simon resisted taking an interview for the job of provost, but eventually agreed to visit the campus. After walking The Lawn at its historic center, he felt an almost emotional connection to the university founded by Thomas Jefferson. On the short list of finalists, he met with UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan. They found they were aligned on philosophical issues concerning education and universities.

Simon  got the job.

Charged with directing the academic administration at the university’s 11 schools, Simon envisioned capping his career as provost. But nine months into the job, in June 2012, Sullivan was forced to resign by UVA’s governing board leaders, putting the university community in tumult. Simon refused to be considered interim president, and when he understood the damage being done to the university, he put his own job at risk when he challenged the board in front of faculty.
In what he called “a defining moment,” Simon told the faculty that he was confronting and questioning whether honor, integrity and trust remained the university’s foundational pillars. He said it was no longer clear what the university’s political leadership valued.
 
“I can tell you with total conviction that when I got up in front of the faculty [on June 17, 2012], I was more than prepared to not to have my job the next day,” Simon said during his recent Lehigh visit. “I was totally comfortable with it because I felt it had gotten to the point where I was going to do what I thought was in the best interest of the institution.”

Simon said he learned more about himself than anything else during that difficult period. Initially, his thoughts had been about self-preservation. How could he navigate the situation so that he would come out on the other end with his job? But he came to realize that the job of provost was one that requires putting the interests of the institution first, and that he is comfortable with the risk involved in taking a leadership position. “The concern about that risk will not drive how I make decisions,” he said.

Within weeks, a groundswell of support from faculty, students and the community swept Sullivan back into the presidency.

After the storm, Simon found himself talking to alumni groups and other organizations about the university’s future. The job expectations had changed, but Simon was having fun. He delivered a speech to one group that he titled “Leadership without a Playbook,” about the events that had transpired.
 
Chris Holstege, who later became chair of UVA’s Faculty Senate, worked closely with Simon in the months that followed. He found Simon to be “an outstanding communicator,” one who is unassuming, who listens and who will ask tough questions to help in decision-making. He said Simon has been very engaged with the UVA faculty.  “He’s one of the brightest leaders I’ve worked with,” Holstege said. “Everyone is grieving him leaving.”

Simon also made a strong impression on UVA students, winning a prestigious Faculty Award in 2013 that was given by a student organization called the IMP Society. Though the award usually goes to long-serving faculty or administrators, the group felt Simon had made a substantial impact at the university in a short time.  Loudly chanting “Simon John, Simon John,” society members interrupted a dinner he was attending and formed a circle around him, as was their custom in announcing the award recipient. They listed the ways Simon had distinguished himself: as an ally to countless students and faculty, in demonstrating strength of character and in devoting himself to cultivating others’ growth.

Stephen Nash, then a student leader, said that as soon as Simon arrived at UVA, he engaged students in academic issues. Describing him as “a bridge-builder,” Nash said Simon brought together student leaders for discussions on issues that included how to enhance the academic experience.
“He just has such an ability to inspire and motivate people to collaborate for a common cause,” he said.

‘A positive move’

In the search for Lehigh’s 14th president, Simon stood out as a seasoned academic and a seasoned leader. In the end, he emerged as the ideal candidate to lead the university.  As he prepares for his new role, Simon has been engaging students, faculty, staff and administrators in his trips to the campus.

Many are aware of the controversies at the University of Virginia, including recent allegations of a campus rape made in a now discredited Rolling Stone article.  “There are a lot of people who’ve talked to me about whether I’m running away from something,” Simon said. “But I’m not running away from anything. I’m running toward the opportunity that I see here at Lehigh. This is a positive move.”

At Lehigh, Simon sees opportunities that include the strengthening of ties among the university’s four colleges. He’s interested, for example, in creating more seamless connections between the research and education occurring on the Asa Packer Campus and that occurring on the Mountaintop Campus.  “My perception is that a lot of people view the Mountaintop Campus as far away,” he said. “It’s not that far away.” In addition to transportation, “if you have activities that people really want to be a part of and go to, distances shrink.”
 
In addition to his meetings with faculty and deans, Simon called together the Council of Student Presidents for a discussion. What made them proud of the university? What did they wish was here? When looking back at their years at Lehigh, what they will point to and say, “That changed me?” 
Students in Peterson’s class wanted to talk about diversity and whether he was committed to making the university a better environment for a more diverse population.
“And I am,” he said.

Simon recognizes the challenges ahead for Lehigh and higher education, including keener competitions for faculty, students and financial resources, fast-shifting patterns in research funding, and heightened expectations by students and their families for personal services and co-curricular programs.

“I think universities are largely defined by the quality of their faculty,” Simon said. “If you attract great faculty, you attract great staff who want to support that faculty, and you attract great students who want to work with that faculty.” In addition to outstanding senior professors, Lehigh has a lot of young and up-and-coming faculty, he said, so ensuring that all can achieve their career aspirations here will be critical to Lehigh’s future.

Also, Simon said, “Lehigh must be a safe environment for faculty, students and staff, a place where people grow intellectually and socially.” He envisions a partnership between the administration and faculty to build on Lehigh’s strengths.

“We can’t do everything,” he said. “Decisions have to be made.”  But rather than step in and dictate next steps, Simon just really wants to listen for a while.