Chancellor Brehm tackles first weeks

For the past nine days, rain or shine, Sharon Brehm has walked the half-mile from her home to her office, moved by the almost "spiritual" effect she claims IU's beauty affords. \nShe's strolled through the Arboretum, pausing to reflect on the aesthetics of the place she now calls home. She's stepped along the footpaths in the Old Crescent area of campus, down Indiana Avenue and past the Sample Gates, into her quiet room in Bryan Hall. \nAlong the way, she doubtlessly calculates the gravity of the responsibilities the coming months and years will bring as she steps in to fill the shoes of retired Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis. She surely anticipates the commencement of the upcoming semester as she assumes her position in a long line of leaders with legacies. \nAnd every day when she steps into her office, she's faced with an increasingly lengthy to-do list. She tackles stacks of papers and forms and university business. Yet the woman IU President Myles Brand terms a "doer" has a plan. She has a focus. And she can't wait to get started.\n"I'm the sort that never believes you rest on your laurels," she laughed. "When I first came to campus, I identified three areas of concern; academic excellence, diversity and partnerships."\nAcademic excellence, Brehm said, is the "heart and soul of IU," a legacy imparted largely by her predecessors Herman B Wells and Gros Louis. At the University's core, she said, lies a firm commitment to teaching and learning. But ways must be sought to sustain and increase the success of those fields of study.\nDiversity also lies at the center of the University experience, Brehm said. It's an area Gros Louis has identified as crucial for development, and Brehm plans to nurture the delicate multicultural climate on campus.\n"We learn from our differences," she said. "This is a obviously a multicultural world, and we need to learn to interact with individuals of different races and experiences."\nThough a seemingly diverse campus, only 9.4 percent of IU's student body consists of minorities, according to the Office of Academic Support and Diversity Web site. And while Brehm said she has "no specific methods" this early in her tenure, she hopes to work closely with Vice President for Student Development and Diversity Charlie Nelms, as well as deans and faculty at a multi-campus level, to increase the numbers of multicultural students attending IU.\n"We need a significant critical mass," Brehm said. "It's easier than to become full partners, to encourage real conversations and dialogue."\nBrehm's third major goal includes developing both on- and off-campus partnerships, encouraging collaboration between departments, campuses and individuals.\nIncluded in that premise is the conscious effort to garner support for university research, which Brehm feels leads to the creation of useful products in the business and industrial realms. \nBrehm comes to IU well-equipped. An administrator "by accident," she was teaching at the University of Kansas in 1987 and writing on the side when she answered an advertisement seeking a director of the university honors program in the student newspaper. \nShe applied and got the job. \nBrehm, who describes herself as "restless," soon began to look at other administrative possibilities. She most recently served as provost at Ohio University, where her achievements included bolstering scholarships by 266 percent and hiring dual spouse faculty. But Brehm claims she never planned on becoming an administrator.\n"Students sometimes come to me and say, 'How do I prepare to become a dean?'" she said. "There's no magic formula for success -- you have to start with a love and passion for a discipline and become a professor. Then a few odd fish like myself actually become administrators."\nDirector of Media Relations Susan Dillman met Brehm when she came to IU last spring for a press conference and said she was "very impressed" with Brehm's "optimistic outlook, her energy, her dedication and warmth."\nIt's precisely that warmth Brehm wants to communicate to students. She wants them to know her doors remain open for the most timid freshman or the confident senior seeking his first job. \n"One of the most touching things students have told me about Ken Gros Louis that they always felt welcome in his office," Brehm said. "It's not good when everyone's in their own little cubbyhole. I want lots of interaction"