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• Stephen E. Thorsett
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Steve Thorsett, Willamette University’s new president, majored in math at Carleton College and went on to become an astrophysicist — but it is a freshman philosophy class, a marathon in Paris and a professor who took him out into the Minnesota snow for field work that he remembers most about his undergraduate experience.

It sounds a lot like the stories of Willamette’s students, which is part of why Thorsett is so excited to join the university.

“In the liberal arts, we’re helping students learn to write and communicate effectively and persuasively, to interpret and criticize textual and visual media, to reason formally, to manage uncertainty, to understand the scientific method, and to recognize and appreciate cultural differences,” he says. “There is no better model in educating people for the 21st century.

“Willamette is special. At its core, it’s one of the strongest liberal arts colleges in the west, known for the quality of its teaching and learning. But it also is distinctive in that it mixes the strong liberal arts core with three outstanding professional programs that we can leverage to make Willamette stronger than the sum of its parts.

“When I combine these characteristics with the fact that Willamette is in a state and a region I care deeply about, I couldn’t be more excited about leading this university.”

Willamette is distinctive in that it mixes the strong liberal arts core with three outstanding professional programs that we can leverage to make Willamette stronger than the sum of its parts.

Thorsett’s freshman seminar at Carleton on Zeno’s paradoxes in philosophy was transformative, he says, because it introduced him to the rigor in reading and analysis of texts, and the production of persuasive and analytical writing that he would need throughout college.

He conquered the Paris marathon during his junior year studying abroad in England. He’ll never forget how running down the Champs-Elysees that day taught him about what he was capable of accomplishing.

And braving the Minnesota winter? That was due to a faculty mentor who invited him to help build and test a small radio telescope. Just one year later, Thorsett was in graduate school at Princeton working on the world’s largest radio telescope in Puerto Rico.

“By the time I left Carleton,” Thorsett says, “I was convinced that a liberal arts institution was what I wanted to be involved with later in my career.”

Prolific Researcher and Proven Leader

It was Willamette that first introduced Thorsett to the small college, liberal arts environment.

An academic leader’s principal commitment must be institutional, but I believe that effective leadership of faculty must also be based on a personal commitment to excellence in one’s own teaching and scholarship.

He grew up in Salem, the son of Grant Thorsett, a Willamette biology professor emeritus. To this day, he still calls Salem his hometown, the place he returns to over the holidays. Thorsett’s observations of his father and Willamette inspired him to seek a liberal arts education and become a professor.

After Carleton, Thorsett went to Princeton for his MA and PhD in physics, and thus began an accomplished career in astrophysics. He taught at Princeton — like Willamette, known for a residential liberal arts undergraduate program where faculty support student involvement in research and scholarly work — before joining the faculty at University of California, Santa Cruz in 1999.

Thorsett earned numerous grants to support his research on the late stages of the lives of stars, publishing more than 100 articles and monographs and serving as an active leader in two large NASA telescope missions. He taught everything from introductory science courses to core classes for pre-med students.

For the past decade, Thorsett shifted his talents into academic and administrative leadership, starting as a committee chair in the academic senate at UC Santa Cruz and working his way up to his latest position, Dean of Physical and Biological Sciences, the largest division on the Santa Cruz campus.

He built a record of creating and sustaining strong undergraduate programs, including innovative lab experiences, field programs and community internships, and he made it a priority to hire and retain outstanding faculty, hiring more than 40 new professors as dean and working to expand the number of women faculty in the sciences.

He also worked on behalf of UC Santa Cruz at the state level on issues surrounding interdisciplinary scholarship, academic freedom, programs for preparing K-12 math and science teachers, and California’s master plan for higher education.

Throughout this time, Thorsett still took time to research, publish regularly, mentor students and serve his discipline on various advisory boards.

“An academic leader’s principal commitment must be institutional,” he says, “but I believe that effective leadership of faculty must also be based on a personal commitment to excellence in one’s own teaching and scholarship.”

Financial Manager and Fundraiser

His dean role also places him in the perfect position to lead Willamette, he says. His division has a slightly larger number of faculty, staff and students than all of Willamette University.

He brings experience in managing his division’s $100 million budget, also slightly larger than Willamette’s, as well as a proven track record in fundraising, an important role for a college president. UC Santa Cruz is currently in the quiet phase of its first comprehensive fundraising campaign, and the science division, under Thorsett’s guidance, has brought in about $50 million in the last five years.

“The organization I lead at UC Santa Cruz is the perfect size,” he says. “It’s big enough that it has unimaginable complexity and richness, but at the same time, it’s small enough that it has a human scale.

“One of the things that excites me about Willamette is that it has that same scale. It is an institution that one can wrap one’s mind around in terms of the people, but still have the capacity to do outstanding things.”

Experiences Outside the Classroom

Thorsett also recognizes the power of students participating in co-curricular opportunities. That’s why he names the Paris marathon as one of his most formative experiences.

Students can have self-defining experiences in many ways — on a football field, in a wilderness program, volunteering in a homeless shelter or school, on stage in a drama or musical production.

“When students come to a university, they’re engaged in a challenging and important stage of self-definition and formation of their adult identity.

“Students at Willamette are highly involved in service and in student organizations, and that includes the vibrant Greek system that also provides leadership opportunities. Athletics are also important, not just for the 25% of students competing in a collegiate league, but also for those who are participating in recreational and intramural sports.

“Students can have self-defining experiences in many ways — on a football field, in a wilderness program, volunteering in a homeless shelter or school, on stage in a drama or musical production.”

Leadership Style

The Willamette community will soon discover the three main words Thorsett uses to describe his leadership style: optimistic, consultative and celebrative.

Lee Pelton has built a really strong management team of dedicated and engaged people. I’m going to rely on that team to help me learn the institution.

He’s consultative in that he regularly meets with faculty and staff leaders in his institution to seek their guidance and to be transparent in his decisions and the reasons behind them. But consultation has its limits, he says, and when the time comes, he does not shy away from making a decision and moving forward.

“Lee Pelton has built a really strong management team of dedicated and engaged people,” he says. “I’m going to rely on that team to help me learn the institution, in particular the deans of the professional schools. I’m going to be very focused on working with the graduate schools to understand how they interact with and provide benefit to both CLA and the rest of the institution.”

Thorsett says he’s celebrative because he feels it’s important to take time to recognize accomplishments, whether those are faculty promotions, student awards or major university milestones.

But the characteristic he cites first is optimism. “I go back to Robert Noyce, a Grinnell alumnus and an early leader of Intel, who emphasized the role of optimism in enabling people to make the hard choices, to travel instead of stay home, and to adopt change instead of the status quo. A successful leader must be able to project that optimistic sense of the institution.”

Getting to Know Willamette

Thorsett understands that Willamette has changed a great deal since his childhood. Meeting the people who make up today’s university will be one of his top priorities when he arrives, both through formal meetings with large groups and smaller, more relaxed conversations.

When I listened to people from across the university talk about their passion for Willamette’s mission, it really made me want to be part of this university.

“One of the groups I want to focus on early is the younger faculty. With 40 percent of the College of Liberal Arts faculty having arrived since 2005, I think it’s important I get to know as many of them as possible and to hear what excites them about the possibilities of Willamette.

“I’m looking forward to meeting more of the students and hearing what drew them to Willamette, and I also want to find time in the first six months to be out on the road meeting Willamette’s alumni. Their support of the institution is so critical.

“One of the important parts of what binds Willamette together is a shared commitment to a student-focused education and the service mission embodied in the motto, ‘Not unto ourselves alone are we born.’ When I listened during my visits to people from across the university talk about their passion for Willamette’s mission, it really made me want to be part of this university.”