After week on job, new exec VP feels right at home

Executive Vice President Janet Hale, the University's new chief financial officer, is adjusting well to University life after a little over a week behind her desk in the Franklin Building. Hale, who comes to the University after 12 years in various posts in the U.S. government, said she has "loved" her introduction to the University. "It's a tremendous institution with terrific faculty and students and staff who've made me feel very welcome," Hale said. "It's a terrific institution, which is something I knew when I interviewed for this job." Hale said it is too soon to tell exactly how much her University post differs from her former jobs in government, but she said there are some similarities. "Some of the issues are the same when you have to deal with student loans and health care and those sort of issues," Hale said. "The same decision-making process goes on in Washington where you have to get good information and touch base with all the various constituencies. In a school this size, that constituency is very diverse and that same diversity exist in government." She added that she has a very strong administrative staff and that many people at the University have tried to make her transition an easy one. "Faculty have introduced themselves and tried to welcome me," she said. "People are clearly interested in the institution and are trying to make me feel welcome." Hale said she finds Philadelphia to be a very different place than her former home in Washington, D.C. "I'm used to Washington which has so many monuments and open space and parks," she said. "[Philadelphia] is much more of a traditional eastern urban center with all the diversity of neighborhoods that entails. It's exciting." Hale said she thinks that the University's long-term financial goals deal with how the institution can better spend its money to support its research and academic missions. She added that she is not sure how her goal can be implemented, but that there are several interesting projects currently being investigated. "There are a number of projects out there that could help the administration do things better," Hale said. "We need to explore ways to cut administrative cost and funnel more tuition dollars back into research and to support the University's academic mission." Hale said she is not worried about the loss of several top University administrators over the next few months, including President Sheldon Hackney, who was named yesterday to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. "Clearly, as administrators leave there will be a loss of those individuals," she said. "But I think that the institution is very forward-looking and it will continue moving ahead. Something that I learned in Washington is that a few individuals do not make the federal government and the same is true at the University." Hale's first official public appearance was last week as she spoke at a Panhellenic Council rally for better safety and housing, two issues she said were very important to her. "If students and faculty don't feel safe walking across campus then this is something we at the University can't afford to neglect," she said. "I think this is an area where we can make an immediate difference." Hale added that she thinks some new lighting has already been installed to increase security. Hale said she thought she had a good sense of the University community even before assuming her new job because the interview process she went through before getting the post allowed her to meet with students, facutly and staff from all facets of the University. "When you go through an interview process like I did before coming here, you have a good chance to meet and to understand people," Hale said. "I wasn't surprised by anything." Hale said that 10 years from now she hopes to "see the University even stronger than today," with "an international student body and with all the strengths it currently has." Hale is currently working with former Acting Executive Vice President John Gould to "learn the ropes" of her position. Gould will return to his previous post as executive director of the president's office in a couple of weeks, Hale said.