Whittaker: I will rise to challenge as UCF leader
An hour after Dale Whittaker was named the fifth president of the University of Central Florida, he was presented with a fitting gift: A Knights football jersey with his name and the number 5 emblazoned on the back.
“All right, I’m going to have to fill that out,” Whittaker quipped to the roomful of trustees, employees and reporters on March 9, after being introduced as the university’s new leader.
Whittaker, 56, has already been part of the home team for more than three years. As the university’s provost, he oversees faculty, research, academics and curriculum. Now, he assured his bosses, he is ready for the broader, more challenging role of president.
The top post at a major research university demands a risk-taker who longs to “grab the rudder every now and
then,” said Tim Sands, president at Virginia Tech and former provost at Purdue University, where he was Whittaker’s supervisor.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “When you’re the provost, there’s always someone above you who can really be the responsible one when there is an issue. When you’re president, the first day you realize that’s not the case anymore.”
Sands thinks his protege is up to the task.
One of Whittaker’s first challenges: Lifting the university to pre-eminent status, a state marker of prestige. UCF’s rival, the University of South Florida, achieved that measure last September.
“When I came, we had met one of the criteria for pre-eminence,” he told the Board of Governors, the state oversight committee that confirmed him Thursday. “Last year, we met seven.”
Pre-eminent universities must meet 11 of 12 standards, based on factors such as endowment size, graduation rate and number of postdoctoral students. Getting there, Whittaker said, is a short-term goal the university could reach within five years.
One benefit of Whittaker’s familiarity with the area is he seems to understand the local economy and the role the university should play, said Tim Giuliani, president and CEO of the Orlando Economic Partnership, a public-private group representing seven Central Florida counties. Companies especially need workers in areas such as health sciences, engineering and technology, Giuliani said, and as provost, Whittaker hired faculty members in these fields.
But Giuliani said he also expected “some change and some boldness” from the university’s new leader.
“I don’t think people should underestimate his ability to get in there and make things happen and quickly take things to the next level,” he said.
If trustees had any doubts about Whittaker, they seemed to wonder whether he was ready to leap from the academically focused provost role to the all-encompassing presidency.
Whittaker addressed those concerns during his brief appearance Thursday before the Board of Governors.
“Today, I’m ready and I’m excited to serve as UCF’s fifth president, to be its CEO, its chief storyteller, its chief advocate, its chief partnership officer, its chief economic developer, its chief fundraiser,” he said.
In line for the job
When President John Hitt revealed in October he planned to retire June 30 after 26 years in the job, murmurs that Whittaker was the heir apparent spread throughout campus.
Still, the university quickly launched a national search for his successor. A consultant hired to lead the process described it as “one of the most advertised we’ve been a part of,” saying her firm had contacted more than 600 potential applicants. More than 40, including a dozen or so with serious academic credentials, applied.
But on March 9, after all the finalists made their cases to the Board of Trustees, the discussion soon revealed Whittaker was the choice.
Since Hitt disclosed his retirement plans, praise for the outgoing president has been plentiful. During Hitt’s tenure, the university has tripled its enrollment, started a medical school, built an on-campus football stadium and added more than 100 new buildings.
Lately, Whittaker has been a key player in many of the university’s initiatives. He led the charge in the planning of the downtown Orlando campus, which is set to open in 2019, and is considered one of the crowning achievements of Hitt’s tenure.
In an interview Friday with the Orlando Sentinel, Whittaker said he doesn’t worry about comparisons to Hitt, adding, “we are very good friends and he knows that I will be, and UCF will be, most successful when I am fully who I am and do it the way that I do it.”
Whittaker will continue as provost until Hitt retires.
Texas roots
At the start of a March 6 public presentation, Whittaker acknowledged his history at the university, joking that, “I am a second-semester senior, and I’m planning to graduate in four years.”
He might have had a home-field advantage during the UCF search, but he spent most of his career working elsewhere.
He was born in Kewanee, Ill., and grew up in a “working family” that ran a fertilizer business in Taylor, Texas. Each member of the family had specific roles; his were trucker and handyman.
His father, Jim Whittaker, was the first in his town to earn a degree, and for his son, attending college meant opportunities.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from Texas A&M University and his master’s and doctorate in the same subject from Purdue University, Whittaker started his academic career as a professor of agricultural engineering at Texas A&M.
In 2002, he moved back to Purdue to become an associate dean and later a vice provost. He became the provost at UCF in summer 2014.
Whittaker and Mary, his wife of 32 years, have two adult children, and now live in Delaney Park near downtown Orlando. They’ll soon move to the universityowned Burnett House, as required by Whittaker’s contract, along with their cat, Oscar. Whittaker will be paid a salary of $506,000 with the opportunity for additional pay based on factors like graduation rates, retention rates and donations.
University presidents’ spouses often have public roles, and Whittaker has said that Mary is a “student advocate” who has served on boards of nonprofit organizations.
“Mary and I together really gave this a lot of thought and understand not only the commitment, but the opportunity, and how important it is for so many people’s lives,” Whittaker said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun; we also take it very seriously.”