IU hosted one of its two chancellor finalists, David Reingold, in a town hall meeting on Thursday.
The second finalist has yet to be announced but will participate in a second town hall March 6. Thursday’s proceedings began with a faculty meeting at noon, followed by an open town hall in the Indiana Memorial Union’s Whittenberger Auditorium attended in person by about 50 people.
President Pamela Whitten reinstated the chancellor position last June after a 19-year hiatus, which began when Kenneth Gros Louis, the last person to hold the position, had his title changed to university chancellor emeritus in 2006.
In an email to the Bloomington campus in June, Whitten said that the “challenges of higher education paired with the size and complexity of the Bloomington campus have made it clear that a chancellor is needed”.
The email said the chancellor would oversee diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, campus finances and student life.
A search committee consisting of 16 IU students, faculty, staff, members of the Bloomington Faculty Council and the firm Isaacson, Miller, narrowed the selection process down to two finalists.
Reingold, the first candidate, is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and a professor of sociology at Purdue University. He’s served in that role since 2015 and has been senior vice president for policy planning since 2023.
Prior to his appointments at Purdue, Reingold served as the executive associate dean of IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs from 2008 to 2015. He was a professor of public policy at IU from 1997 to 2015.
“I have no intention, if given the opportunity, to sort of take the things that have worked at one university that I’ve been involved in and just simply move them to another university,” Reingold said.
He said his solutions and innovations would be campus-specific. He highlighted his work at Purdue, including reimagining general education requirements to create 15-credit certificate that would cover up to 60% of students’ core curriculum. He oversaw the hiring of 120 faculty members to “revitalize some of the core disciplines” of the humanities and social sciences. He said he broke down barriers for students seeking multiple degrees, allowing them to double-dip in their major requirements.
Reingold mentioned his “laser focus” on Purdue’s graduate programs. He said they received some of the highest stipends and lowest teaching loads across the Big Ten.
At IU, he said he aspires to be the kind of chancellor who would work with graduate students, professional colleagues and faculty to address the challenges they faced, address concerns and find solutions.
“I’m committed to working with all graduate student groups.” Reingold said.
He touched on the turbulent federal funding environment and how he would work to develop a revenue plan that would help alleviate the disruption in income flow, stating that philanthropy would have to become a central part of the strategy to chart a path forward.
Another central issue, according to Reingold, was professional staff and faculty relationships. He said as chancellor, he’d ensure a model where faculty members worked “shoulder to shoulder” with professional staff.
“Faculty, you know, need to understand that their ability to sort of achieve those goals for the university depend on the ability to rely on their partnership with professional staff,” Reingold said.
As chancellor, he said he’d have to take a closer look at how IU celebrated and provided career ladders to professional staff.
“There are clear trajectories for all staff to be able to advance their careers, to develop their skills, to achieve the kind of heights that they are aspiring to in their professional lives,” Reingold said.
