AUSTIN, TEX. ? At a recent send-off celebration for a retiring colleague at the University of Texas-Austin, Richard W. Lariviere discussed his own move to Lawrence.

“People are nervous,” the future Kansas University provost told a co-worker, the two standing in an airy room on the UT campus.

Lariviere was speaking of some unease at KU, where he will replace David Shulenburger, provost for more than a decade.

“It’ll take a while to convince them how wonderful I am,” he said with a smile.

Lariviere, his wife, Janis, and his assistant, Liliana Merubia, will head to Lawrence later this year in what is the biggest staff change at Strong Hall since the arrival of Chancellor Robert Hemenway in 1995.

After a national search, KU picked Lariviere for the $278,000-per-year job responsible for everything, from determining faculty tenure to setting the temperature in KU buildings.

It’s a significant change for both KU and Lariviere, dean of UT’s College of Liberal Arts.

He will be leaving the UT campus within a bustling city where the battle cry around town is “Keep Austin Weird.”

It’s the town where the Larivieres bought their first house, raised their daughter, and where Lariviere rose through the academic ranks to become the top man in charge of the largest liberal arts school in the United States.

Despite the evident perks of his situation, Lariviere, 56, said it was time to leave.

“I’m really keen to get up there and get on the ground,” he said.

Moving up

UT’s campus is a tight cluster of buildings circled most of the day by dense traffic. Great oaks, their branches twisting lazily, stand near pale buildings with Spanish-style roofs.

Lariviere, a Sanskrit scholar, joined UT in 1982. Within four years, he was appointed director of UT’s Center for Asian Studies. He held that post for more than a decade before becoming associate vice provost for international programs in 1995 and liberal arts dean in 1999.

He’s a rare administrator, said friend Kinky Friedman, Independent candidate for Texas governor. “It’s not easy for a dean to be soulful and human,” Friedman said. “He’s very far from being a stuffed shirt or a pompous ass.”

Some predict Lariviere’s career will continue to climb.

“In 10 years’ time, I think it would be surprising and disappointing if he were not president of a major university,” said Nikhil Sinha, a former UT faculty member who has worked closely with Lariviere.

Lariviere was among those considered in UT’s recent search for a president, but officials chose William Powers, UT’s law dean. Some say Powers was a shoo-in, but Lariviere wanted the position.

“He’s ready for bigger things than he’s doing,” said Cotton Carlson, an Austin businessman.

Lariviere was on the lookout for a new opportunity – checking with colleagues, applying and turning down some offers – when the KU job arose.

“When Jan and I came to Lawrence we were pretty neutral on the opportunity,” he said, “and within 24 hours of seeing the campus, meeting with people and students, we were absolutely charmed by the place.”

Lariviere said he was looking for a top research institution with sound research, teaching values and the potential to be an important force in virtually every area of research in which it’s engaged.

“My goals are to use what limited talents I have to make KU the best place it can be, given our resources available,” he said.

Responsibility

In a break between meetings, Lariviere retreats to his office. He sits in a black-lacquered rocking chair with the seal of the University of Pennsylvania, his graduate school alma mater.

An 8 by 10 of his hero, Abraham Lincoln, sits on a bookshelf.

When times get tough, Lariviere thinks of Lincoln, presiding over the bloodiest times of American history, and he gains perspective.

With 14,000 students and 600 faculty, UT’s Liberal Arts College is the largest school at UT.

“It reflects all of the challenges that the university as a whole faces,” Sinha said of the college. “It is a very tough job.”

Distributing funds in a school with 40 departments all competing for the same pot is one of the bigger challenges facing Lariviere.

“How do you balance out resources for departments who are basically competing for the same money?” said Terri Givens, faculty member and director of UT’s Center for European Studies. “I certainly would not want to make those decisions.”

But while Lariviere said he slept pretty well at night, personnel issues, including tenure decisions, could keep him up late.

“The only time that I’ve ever really had trouble sleeping at night probably had to do with questions of whether or not the institution is being fair to individuals we’ve had to let go for various reasons,” he said.

In such cases, Lariviere said he had a series of questions he asked himself. The first: Is it in the best interest of the institution? Second: Are we being fair to everyone involved? Third: Can I live with this decision personally?

But as for regrets, Lariviere said he had few. There is a leaky pipeline for women on the path to full professorship, and Lariviere said he regretted that he hadn’t been more quick to understand the unique circumstances facing female faculty. But generally, he said, he doesn’t have many.

“I wish I hadn’t lost my hair as early as I did,” he said.

Intelligent design

A for-sale sign stands outside the Lariviere house, a well-maintained though not exceptionally large house by Austin standards.

Upon entering the home, a visitor finds a warmly lit living room, its walls covered with bookshelves and Indian art gathered from travels abroad.

The guests, including several UT professors, chat on a screened-in porch in the back. Nora Jones plays on the radio. An in-ground pool glows aqua blue.

Over dinner, the group chats about the Larivieres’ daughter, Anne Elizabeth, who is in her final year at Barnard College in New York; the plentiful number of bookstores in Lawrence; and Kansas.

The guests ask Lariviere about his new post, revealing a man still learning about his future home.

“Who’s the governor?” one asks.

“Kathleen Sebelius,” he responded. “I haven’t met her yet, but I’m extremely impressed.”

They venture into the territory that many conversations about Kansas ultimately go: the clamor about intelligent design and science education in Kansas schools.

Janis, a former high school science teacher who now trains future teachers, points out that she’s testified before the Texas board of education on the issue.

According to a transcript of a 2003 hearing before the Texas board, Janis said: “Our students’ faith is personal and private and a discussion of it does not belong in the science classroom.”

Social gatherings are common for the Larivieres. Sarah Weddington, a UT faculty member and attorney in the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, said the Larivieres’ home was a place where good conversation could be found.

“It’s like a modern-day salon in the sense of interesting people with interesting ideas,” she said.

Texas

Lariviere – who often shades his head with a fedora – drives a hulking Chevrolet Suburban. It’s the official vehicle of Texas, he explained, and he may trade it in before moving to Kansas.

Lariviere speaks several languages, including Texan.

“We’ve kind of adopted him,” said Carlson, a businessman who goes fishing and quail hunting with Lariviere. “He says ‘y’all’ every now and then.”

Some in his position might not acknowledge an association with Friedman, a cigar-smoking songwriter who is gathering signatures for a run for Republican Gov. Rick Perry’s post.

Lariviere said he distributed Friedman’s campaign stickers and was an unofficial campaign manager until the campaign became official, and he stopped for ethical reasons.

“I figured it was a joke,” Lariviere said.

Lariviere’s mark is still on the campaign.

Friedman said Lariviere coined the slogan: “I’ve got a head of hair better than Rick Perry’s. It’s just not in a place I can show you.”

“We ran with it, and it’s been very effective,” Friedman said, adding that it’s one of the slogans played by the talking Kinky Friedman action figure.

Lariviere invited Friedman to speak at a UT commencement – a move that one colleague said showed either Lariviere’s comfort in his position or his indifference to keeping it.

“I don’t have enough friends like him,” Lariviere said. “We have similar senses of irony, outrage and sense of humor.”

Manager

The eldest of two, Lariviere grew up in Marshalltown, Iowa. His mother was a homemaker. His father worked for a utility company. Neither had college degrees.

Lariviere went on to the University of Iowa, where he worked odd jobs and collected various scholarships to pay for school. He married Janis at age 21. He received a graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Colleagues say Lariviere requires professionalism from those with whom he works.

“If these things are not clearly laid out and organized very well, he doesn’t have time for it,” said Janet Davis, chairwoman of UT’s American Studies Department.

Givens, director of UT’s Center for European Studies, said Lariviere didn’t have patience with complainers.

“Because he’s so busy, he doesn’t want to deal with people who just want to complain and don’t have a solution,” Givens said.

Givens thinks Lariviere is a good judge of character.

“Our personalities meshed,” she said. “I don’t think that’s always the case with everybody.”

Business

In a low cupboard in his office, Lariviere pulls out a box and uncovers a 1776 copy of the Rig Veda, the sacred Hindu text.

He discovered and purchased it from an Indian merchant years ago with the promise that he would use it to teach others.

Though Lariviere’s current post has him functioning more as an administrator than scholar, he said he’d chosen to be a dean because he liked helping facilitate the work of others.

But it could have turned out differently. In the mid-1990s, Lariviere and Sinha, a fellow UT faculty member, put their combined expertise in India and telecommunications together to form a consulting company.

“India had just begun to throw open its doors,” Sinha said. “There weren’t many people who had the expertise that we had.”

They consulted for General Instrument Corp., Perot Systems and others.

That work led to the development of eMR Technology Ventures, a business outsourcing company that Sinha now leads full time. Lariviere serves as a company board member.

The net effect of outsourcing, Lariviere said, is a significant increase in American jobs. Outsourcing leads to job displacement, but not job loss, he said, and Americans must harness the realities of the marketplace to prosper here.

“From a macro perspective, it’s very, very good for the U.S. economy,” he said. “If you’re one of the people whose job has been outsourced, it’s very hard to see that macro perspective.”

Lariviere almost left academia. The business world was lucrative.

“The opportunities were pretty thick on the ground, and there was pressure to pursue them,” he said.

But, Lariviere recalls a morning – before he became dean – getting out of bed and realizing his heart lay in academia.

“The two don’t compare in terms of what’s worth your time,” he said.

Richard Lariviere

Job: Kansas University provost and executive vice chancellor

Age: 56

Family: Married for 35 years to Janis, who also will work at KU; one daughter, Anne Elizabeth, 21, who is in her final year at Barnard College in New York.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history of religions from the University of Iowa in 1972; doctorate in Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978.

Employment: He has worked at the University of Texas-Austin since 1982, most recently as dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the largest in the United States with 14,000 students and 600 faculty.

Languages: He can read the languages of French, German, Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Hindi and Bengali.