Incoming President Draws Praise

New Leader Deemed 'the Right Choice at the Right Time'

Steven Knapp's interests include drumming and sheep farming. (Katherine Frey - Twp)

Steven Knapp comes to the presidency of George Washington University by way of Yale, Cornell, UC-Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, where he has been provost for the past 10 years and helped land a $50 million gift, just announced. He continued teaching English literature even as he handled major crises at Hopkins, testified before Congress and led the school when the president was out of town.

As if that weren't enough, he's such an accomplished musician that he considered a career as a drummer. And he and his wife run a sheep farm.

Their family fleece was -- what else? -- Maryland state champ this year at the fair.

George Washington got just the well-rounded and impressive leader it was looking for, many people on and off campus said yesterday, someone with the academic credentials, fundraising experience and skills to push the school to become a more ambitious and better endowed research institution.

"He is just the right choice at the right time. . . . Everything is a plus," said Lilien Robinson, chairwoman of the executive committee of the faculty senate. "I don't see any minuses."

Lamar Thorpe, head of the student association, said, "Everyone on campus is happy."

Knapp has a very different personal style from that of Stephen J. Trachtenberg, who will step down in the summer after nearly 19 years as president. Trachtenberg is credited with pushing the school into greater national prominence, being innovative and transforming the physical landscape at the downtown university. He's a dramatic figure, a talker, a storyteller, a showman. He's blunt and sometimes divisive.

Knapp is quieter, more modest, more low-key, more of a consensus-builder, his colleagues said. He has a great sense of humor, said Randolph-Macon College President Robert Lindgren, who worked with Knapp at Hopkins, but not in a dramatic way; he's someone who can laugh about the irony of things and keep meetings light. "Steve is a fellow who wears very well," Lindgren said.

In an interview yesterday, Knapp talked about his vision for the school, the challenges he sees ahead -- and the family's sheep.

"It's nice to have a spread of activity," he said. "It keeps you healthy, I think. It gives you a balance on things.

"In the sheep business," he added, "I don't do much of the strategic thinking. I do the manual labor." He described cleaning the hooves -- or trying to clean the hooves -- of a very reluctant, and extremely strong, sheep recently. "I was wrestling. This was a sheep that wasn't crazy about the idea."

His wife runs the farm, north of Baltimore, which they'll keep when they move into the president's house at GWU this summer. He will begin the job Aug. 1.