How is this for a stunner – the head of CalTech is off to Saudi Arabia to head a new school on the Red Sea (co-ed if you can imagine). The details are from the LA Times article.
The new Tech University has an initial funding of $10 Billion which may give it some credibility.
College presidents are guns for hire or carpetbaggers or all about the Benjamins…or so it can seem to this observer sometimes. Some of them definitely fit the description.
Generally not my favorite category of “leader”, but I’m sure some are good guys too.
Don’t know how valuable these individuals are to a university…in US they are often the cheerleaders for the athletic dept, and spend almost their entire time fundraising when they are not out job hunting.
But does beg the question of whether our university system can be reconstituted elsewhere, outsourced and offshore. $10B is a lot of carrot for brains that can be drained to non US locales…