Professor shadows chancellor
By Blair Busch
Staff Reporter

Most people only have one shadow. But for this school year, Chancellor Victor Boschini has two. His second shadow is in the form of Richard Duran, a French professor from Baylor University.

“He’s here to learn what I do, and later on, he will try to find a job as an administrator somewhere else,” Boschini said.

Duran is serving an American Council on Education Fellowship that began Aug. 1. The ACE Fellows program assigns a senior faculty member from one school to follow around a president or chancellor from another school for a full academic term. The participant can go back to their home school and become an administrator there after their fellowship.

Duran goes wherever the chancellor goes and observes all of his daily activities. He sits in on all of Boschini’s meetings, trips and dinners.

“It has impressed me how much time that his job takes and how much the chancellor is always on stage,” Duran said. “He’s doing everything from dealing with students, professors and administrators to the maintenance personnel.”

Boschini said the program is beneficial for both of them.

“I think that I get more out of the program than what he gets, and he’s the one who is supposed to be getting more out of it,” Boschini said. “It’s just wonderful for me to have someone to talk to who can process what I am doing.”

The ACE likes to get a president or a chancellor in their first year to do the program, because the fellow will see the type of things he will encounter during his first year as an administrator, Boschini said.

“If Baylor is smart, they won’t lose him,” Boschini said.

Duran said there are three areas he wants to focus on when he returns to Baylor: international programs, an honors program and more diversity.

“There are so many different aspects to a university,” Duran said. “One can’t be an expert in all of them, and ... I have chosen those three to be my main interests, because I have somewhat of a background in them.”

Senior Associate Dean of Business William Moncrief participated in the ACE Fellows program during the 1998-99 school year, when he followed Tulane University President Scott Cowen.

“The main thing I did was listen and watch leadership styles,” Moncrief said. “It was a very different view of the way a university is operated.”

Boschini said he had a fellow shadow him during his first year at Illinois State and that he was happy to do the program again.

“It was a great experience then, and it is a great experience now,” Boschini said. “He’s a lot smarter than I am, and he sees things differently than from what I do.”