'Twisted' career path leads to Rodin's office

Steve Schutt, vice president and chief of staff in the office of University President Judith Rodin, held five very different jobs in the last 10 years before coming to work for Rodin. "I've been very lucky because I've never been bored," Schutt said. "I've had the opportunities to do the things that truly interest me." But while Schutt's career has taken a twisting and turning path, he said earlier this month that he has always been interested in higher education. When Schutt graduated from a small Quaker college in Indiana, he went to work as a general assignment reporter for The Springfield Daily News and Sun. Two years later, he chose Penn Law School over Columbia's School of Journalism. Though he decided to leave the profession, Schutt, a self-avowed political junkie, still recommends the field of journalism. After Penn Law, which he and his wife graduated from in 1983, Schutt joined a Philadelphia law firm as a business litigator. A chance meeting with former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford (D-Pa) in 1987 changed Schutt's career path once again. Wofford, who was also a lawyer by training, had served as president of Bryn Mawr College and of a school in the State University of New York system. Schutt said he asked Wofford for advice on how to go from being a practicing lawyer to a university administrator. "Instead of really answering my question, he hired me," he said. "I took a long detour from an interest I had nine years ago." Wofford was then secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and hired Schutt as his deputy secretary. When Wofford was appointed to fill an empty Senatorial slot in 1991, Schutt went with him to Washington as his chief of staff. But during the 1994 elections, Wofford lost to Republican Rick Santorum, and Schutt was faced with another career change. This time, though, he moved from being a senator's chief of staff to a university president's chief of staff. Schutt said he and Rodin had met through a similar network of friends and colleagues. He wrote to her to see if there were any "interesting opportunities" at Penn and after several meetings, Rodin hired Schutt as her chief of staff. "It was in many ways a dream come true," he said. And at the beginning of this semester, the University's Board of Trustees promoted him to vice president. Both Rodin and Schutt said his responsibilities have not changed since the promotion. Rodin explained that the trustees wanted another vice president who would be responsible for institutional planning after former Vice President for Human Resources John Gould resigned at the end of September. "[Schutt]'s been playing a very large role in the strategic planning," Rodin said. "His role is as much an advisor to me as a team integrator." Rodin said Schutt serves as a bridge between the academic planning of Provost Stanley Chodorow and the administrative restructuring project led by Executive Vice President John Fry. Schutt said he oversees the various offices that report to the Office of the President and serves on a number of planning committees. In recent months, he worked with Chodorow and the deans of the schools to design the Agenda for Excellence, a five-year strategic plan which was released in November. "I think the plan that we're crafting will really help Penn to be one of the truly greatest universities in the country," he said. And while Schutt has stopped paying his Bar Association dues, he said he works with General Counsel Shelley Green to monitor the legal issues facing the University. Will his next job be as a university president? "Way down the road, if an opportunity presented itself, I would be interested," he said. "[But] I am delighted to be doing what I'm doing and I hope to be here for a long time."