By Martin Weil and Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Steven Knapp, a scholar and highly regarded academic administrator who is provost of Johns Hopkins University, has been named the new president of George Washington University.
Knapp, 55, will succeed Stephen J. Trachtenberg, 68, who is credited with raising the university to national stature since he assumed the presidency in 1988. He announced in April that he would step down.
"It's extremely exciting and a great opportunity," said Knapp, who will take over Aug. 1.
Both men have been described as strong leaders, but with different styles. Trachtenberg has been a colorful, charming, but sometimes abrasive figure at GWU. In contrast, Knapp, a specialist in English literature, is said to be quiet, a listener who has exerted authority largely from behind the scenes.
W. Russell Ramsey, vice chairman of GWU's board, said the presidential search committee, which he headed, was trying to "really think big" and find someone to boost the university's standing another notch into the highest academic ranks. Knapp, he said, fits that description.
In particular, he cited what he called Knapp's demonstrated ability to expand research and find funding for it, as GWU seeks to do. "He's just got all the right stuff," Ramsey said. "We're really, really excited."
Hopkins President William R. Brody praised Knapp highly.
"He is without a doubt the most able academic administrator I've ever dealt with," Brody said in an interview. "He's extremely smart, very quick. He has great judgment. He understands finance and numbers -- which is rare in academics."
He noted that while managing to remain a scholar and teacher, Knapp has proved an invaluable leader over the long term and in crises. "Steve is our go-to guy," Brody said.
As for his performance at GWU, "Watch for great things," Brody said in a statement.
Speaking rapidly and with evident enthusiasm in an interview last night, Knapp indicated his intention to advance GWU to the top level of research universities while increasing its economic base, stepping up its contributions to the nation's intellectual and political life, and working with its faculty, students and neighbors.
Citing Washington's growing concentration of cultural, intellectual and governmental resources, Knapp said he "can't imagine a more exciting place" to teach, study or do research.
As Hopkins provost, he said, he had been concerned with improving student life and education. He said that he also reached out to the community near the university. "I look to go even further in D.C.," he added.
Knapp also said he has been "very actively involved in issues of diversity on campus."
In raising money, he said, it will be important to forge stronger connections with alumni, particularly the large number in the area.
Paying tribute to his predecessor, Knapp said Trachtenberg had "done a terrific job of transforming the campus and positioning the university to move forward into the first rank of research universities."
He said there is "more to be done along those lines" by linking GWU to the city's panoply of museums, libraries, think tanks and governmental and public policy institutions. Their presence near campus, he said, helps give GWU a "unique opportunity" to contribute to national progress in such areas as law, technology, public policy and education.
In an interview last night, Trachtenberg said his successor "brings perspectives and talents that I don't, and I think he has the ability to take the institution to the next chapter."
The university has both law and medical schools and is the city's largest private employer. According to recent figures, it enrolls more than 10,000 students.
News of the appointment was first reported yesterday in the Hatchet, the student newspaper.
Knapp, a New Jersey native, grew up in that state's Bergen County. He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and a doctorate from Cornell University in 1981, specializing in the literature of the English Romantic period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
He said he has published in the fields of Romantic literature and literary interpretation and taught a course on the Bible as literature.
He went to Hopkins after 16 years teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. He said last night that he had just been elected as chairman of Berkeley's English department when he went to Hopkins to become dean of arts and sciences. In addition to provost, he is senior vice president for academics.
Knapp and his wife have two adult children and a sheep farm north of Baltimore.
Staff writer Valerie Strauss contributed to this report.
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