Rice president to lead research universities group
A prestigious group of North America’s top research universities selected Rice University President David Leebron as chairman of its board of directors on Tuesday, making him responsible for representing the Association of American Universities to U.S. lawmakers on issues of higher education policy.
Known as the preeminent higher education organization for the United States and Canada, AAU’s 60 U.S. member universities produce several billions of dollars of federally funded research a year and convey nearly 60 percent of the nation’s doctoral degrees in engineering, the physical sciences, math and computer science. Two Canadian colleges also are group members.
The appointment, Leebron said in an interview, “is a recognition that Rice is regarded as a very significant research university in the U.S., even though it’s a comparatively small institution.” He’s been leading Rice since 2004 and formerly was the dean of the Columbia University Law School in New York.
As chair for a year, Lee-bron, previously the vice chair, will serve as spokesman for the AAU, help develop national policy positions connected to research and higher education and oversee the association’s strategic direction.
Leading the nonprofit university association’s board holds special significance during and after a presidential election. Leebron will have to adapt to a new presidential administration and the partisan priorities of a newly elected Congress.
In a political climate that’s been critical of higher education, this presents a particular challenge, Leebron said, adding that regardless of whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is elected president, the higher education group will push for policies that would strip away regulations making it more challenging for universities to access federal funding.
“The regulatory environment has, generally speaking, become increasingly onerous and expensive,” he said.
After the election, a top priority for Leebron and the AAU will be to establish how new federal legislative leadership will approach academic research and higher education funding, said Barry Toiv, an AAU spokesman. “It’s going to change regardless of who wins and which (political) party controls the House and Senate, but we don’t know exactly how,” Toiv said.
Despite tensions between higher education institutions and the federal government, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle “can seem to agree on the need for basic research,” said James Savage, a politics and public policy professor at the University of Virginia who worked in government relations at the University of California System and at the University of Virginia, which are both AAU members.
“At the end of the day, the federal government relies on these institutions to do the work,” he said of highlevel research universities.
With limited membership and its rigorous academic qualifying standards, the AAU’s exclusive reputation places it on a pedestal of sorts. Membership requires a university to meet high benchmarks in categories like the number of doctorate degrees granted annually and its volume of academic research. A committee led by the chair of the outgoing board of directors evaluates non-members seeking entry to the group.
“There’s a view in the AAU that it’s very important to be able to sit around a very large conference table around the periphery of the room and have a single conversation,” Leebron said of the group’s intended academic exclusivity.
Rice has been an AAU member since 1985 and is one of three Texas universities in the group, along with Texas A&M University and University of Texas at Austin. Former UT President Bill Powers was AAU board chair from October 2013 through October 2014.
The University of Houston has pushed for AAU membership over the last few years, with President Renu Khator explicitly lobbying for UH in her most recent fall address. Khator has said that membership would raise Texas’ profile in higher education.
While UH meets or exceeds the minimum threshold for membership, she said in a speech earlier this month, the AAU holds incoming members to stringent standards in its evaluation.
Leebron said he does not expect to play a role in new membership decisions, but that he would “be happy to sit down with President Khator or anyone else from Texas to talk about what their aspirations might be.”