Neeli Bendapudi

If she was only the provost, a university’s chief academic officer, Neeli Bendapudi might not have given her personal cell phone number to the entire freshman class last fall.

But at the University of Kansas, Bendapudi also holds the title of executive vice chancellor, so in addition to academics she oversees student affairs, undergraduate studies and a few other units.

Bendapudi hasn’t been overwhelmed with calls from bewildered first-years, though.

“They text,” she said.

Bendapudi’s strategy also included telling everyone who reports to her that the freshmen have her number.

“If you’re running into walls and no matter what you try you’re not able to make progress, reach out,” Bendapudi said. “So if a student reaches out to me, it means they’ve tried everybody up and down the chain and they couldn’t succeed. A little tongue-in-cheek, but I think it gives everybody more incentive.”

Bendapudi started as provost and executive vice chancellor July 1. Previously she was KU’s School of Business dean. The Journal-World recently sat down with her for a Q & A on happenings with her office.

What major changes have you made so far, or plan to make soon?

With budget uncertainty at the state level and a new — yet unknown — chancellor coming this summer, Bendapudi said she hasn’t initiated any sweeping new plan.

“In a period of transition I didn’t feel, and the chancellor didn’t feel, we should start a whole lot of new initiatives, because we don’t know who the leader will be. It’s not fair to an organization,” she said.

“The worst thing is when someone starts a whole bunch of things and they leave, someone else comes in and says, ‘Oh, that’s all bad,’ and they start their own.”

Right now, Bendapudi is promoting “GOHIO.”

The acronym stands for “Get our house in order,” Bendapudi said, crediting a KU alumnus, now an Amazon exec, who recently visited the campus.

“That’s the philosophy that I’ve talked to everybody about,” Bendapudi said. “There are things we know that we could be doing that no matter who comes along, they would say, ‘Thank you for doing this.'”

Where does KU stand with its efficiency initiative, including outside consultants?

Bendapudi said some major initiatives from former provost Jeff Vitter’s Changing for Excellence efficiency and cost-saving plan had concluded, though some contracts are ongoing.

“I’m hopeful that the discipline and the process continues, because it’s the search for how do we stay more nimble, stay more agile; where do we find savings?” Bendapudi said.

But as for initiating new contracts with outside vendors, as Changing for Excellence did, Bendapudi is leaning the other way.

“We’re trying to do it more internally focused,” she said. “We’re trying to tap in more to our internal expertise because there’s a lot of expertise on our campus, no matter what topic.”

Work by Huron Consulting Group, which made recommendations for the earlier plan, is nearly all complete but for some efforts in the area of research, Bendapudi said.

Shorelight Education continues its partnership with KU to run the International Academic Accelerator Program to recruit and assimilate international students to college life and academics.

“Again, it’s a contractual obligation and it’s continuing, but we’re open to and looking at many other models as well,” Bendapudi said.

Everspring continues to help develop online courses, though KU is doing much of that in-house.

“That’s just one small part of our online effort,” Bendapudi said of Everspring’s work. “I do think we need to build our internal capacity.”

What are you doing to accommodate state budget cuts?

“It’s a pretty collaborative process,” Bendapudi said.

Centrally, that involves thinking about what can be done to reduce overhead, she said. Beyond Strong Hall, every unit on campus is talking about being the “best stewards of the public trust.”

The provost’s office also is wary of potential future cuts.

“It’s a difficult time for everybody because of unpredictability,” she said. “That is part of our reluctance to launch a whole bunch of things, because you want to be sure you can pay for it.”

Talk about diversity progress.

KU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Group met last school year and released a report with 30 suggestions in April. Bendapudi’s office used it to develop a Diversity Action Plan, which is being updated online at provost.ku.edu as steps are completed.

A few highlights: There’s now a common orientation for domestic and international students; KU has taken steps to make fees more transparent online; and deans are creating special positions to focus on diversity within their respective schools. A small amount of money has been set aside to enable faculty-staff councils — common in the corporate environment, Bendapudi said — for employees with shared backgrounds to come together for support and ideas.

The overarching idea is to make KU more inclusive, which in turn will help attract and retain talent, Bendapudi said.

Are you planning any changes to the established KU Core curriculum, including requiring diversity-related courses as some have suggested?

There’s no overhaul planned, Bendapudi said, though she’s trying to get deans and faculty more involved in specific changes.

“The shared governance is such a big deal that changes to the curriculum bubble up, if you will. It’s not so much top-down,” she said. “That’s been a big focus to me, building stronger ties across.”

As for diversity?

“That was already part of the Core curriculum, in a broader sense of preparing students,” Bendapudi said. “Wherever they are they have to figure out how to work with folks here, around the world. So that appreciation for diversity of thought and of life experiences is already in the Core curriculum. There’s no major plan to introduce something new.”

It’s a common misunderstanding that the only way to develop diversity is to take a class on diversity, Bendapudi said.

She’d rather see faculty incorporate different perspectives to existing classes. One example: Although one may take a course on business ethics, ethics also must be incorporated and applied in all business subjects, such as advertising or sales.

What are the biggest challenges you see coming next?

Uncertainty over the budget is big, Bendapudi said. One concerning manifestation is how that affects faculty strength.

“Think about Jeff Aube (former distinguished professor of medicinal chemistry) leaving or Michael Detamore (former professor of chemical and petroleum engineering), among two of our superstars that have left,” Bendapudi said. “People don’t realize that when they leave, the millions of dollars in grants that they bring is gone, the students that come here because of them are gone. Science is moving at such a quick pace that if we go three, four years without being able to bring in someone of that caliber because we cannot afford to, that’s sometimes hard to make up.”

Is there any chance that, beginning next fall, the entire sophomore class will be walking around with the personal cell number for their chancellor?

“I do get asked that,” Bendapudi said.

Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little has announced she’ll step down after this semester, and the Kansas Board of Regents has begun the search process with a goal of hiring a replacement to start by July 1.

Talking openly about looking at other jobs, even internally, can be uncomfortable and she wants to be respectful, Bendapudi said. But she hinted she was considering this one.

“I have not applied yet because the application process is not open,” she said. “It’s definitely a position I’m interested in.”