What a Provost Knows and Can't Tell

James J. O'Donnell, now Provost at Georgetown University, gave a well-remembered plenary session at the SCUP annual, international conference in Vancouver, almost a decade ago. His latest viewpoint piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education shares some of what the changes in his life was when he moved from purely faculty to having an administrative role. You will need a Chronicle subscription or a day pass to read this:

The provost knows things that the faculty members don't. And a lot of them have to do with money.

I know that this year's operating budget is the least of our worries. The capital budget, the institution's debt capacity, the current debt load, the anticipated need for significant maintenance (deferred or not) — those each cost a lot of money and fluctuate broadly, sometimes unpredictably: "Mr. Provost, that roof on the dining hall? I know you don't want to put a new roof on during sleet storms in December, but ceiling tiles in the vegetarian stir-fry just aren't acceptable." (That particular dining hall was in the residence hall where I lived at the time, so we all spent December listening to the contractors drill through concrete to put in the drains. It felt as if everyone in the building was having dental work at the same time.)