Interim Provost Vincent Price | Making the most of the interim

In the time since University President Amy Gutmann asked me to serve as interim provost, I've had occasion to reflect on what "interim" means. Literally, it means that I will remain in this role only temporarily, until a new provost takes office some months from now. I assure you that it does not mean any loss of momentum in the work of the Provost's Office or any relaxation - personal or collective - in our ongoing efforts to strengthen our faculty and student body; advance our educational and research missions; and engage our local, national and global communities.

It does mean a new and exciting set of challenges, at a time when the shifting economic climate makes it all the more interesting to serve as the University's chief academic officer. And fortunately, it means working alongside President Gutmann and Penn's outstanding leadership team, which impresses me as the finest such team one could hope for in guiding this institution in the months and years ahead.

Perhaps because of this recent change in my personal circumstances, I've become keenly aware that few things about life on a University campus - indeed, about life in general - are anything other than temporary phases, transitions from one state to another, often so gradual as to be imperceptible.

There are, to be sure, phases whose interim status is well understood from the start. Being interim provost is one of them, and so is being a student at Penn. In these stages, well-marked boundaries create a period of heightened opportunity. The clear definition of an interim stage, as all Penn students know, produces a temporary state of grace. It compels you to make the most of your time, enjoy every part of your experience and leave knowing you did the best, and the most, that you could.

From this perspective, everything we do is, in a sense, interim. Each phase - child, teenager, college student, young adult or middle-aged parent - feels straightforward when we're in it.

Yet it is, on reflection, only an interim identity, full of potential, poised between one stage of our lives and the next.

I share with our wonderful Penn students - undergraduate, graduate and professional - the determination to make the most of my interim opportunities, to show up every day and work as hard as I can to advance our extraordinary university. Yet, in truth, this latest phase of my academic life is no more or less interim than those it follows or precedes.

From the moment I set foot on a college campus, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life on one, nestled in a park-like setting, surrounded by inspiring architecture and even more inspiring minds. But my path was always interim, as it took me intellectually through the sciences (in my early years), to literature (my eventual major), to the social sciences (in graduate school and my faculty research), and geographically from L.A. (where I grew up), to the San Francisco Bay Area (where I spent my undergraduate and graduate years), to Ann Arbor, Mich. (where I taught for 11 years).

Along the way, I enjoyed interim jobs in stage acting (a couple of summers), college admissions (four years) and survey research (over 20 years). I've also served interim roles as a fan of teams in the Pac 10, Big 10 and Ivy League; and, though I'm now an Eagles fan, a part of me still feels nostalgic for the Rams, despite their abandonment of my hometown some years ago.

As I've lived through these disparate parts of my life, I rarely, if ever, thought, "Here I am in a transitional phase." Each seemed in its own time stable, not ephemeral. Ideally, recognizing the interim quality of our experiences brings into focus how valuable they are, how ardently we need to make the most of them and how quickly, yet certainly, these wayward paths will compose our lives.

I feel fortunate and honored to be entrusted with this latest interim role as interim provost, as unexpected and enjoyable as it is humbling. I sincerely hope that you also feel this way about your opportunities at Penn. Your hard work and accomplishments have gained you access to potential experiences that very few others enjoy. I pledge to make the most of my interim opportunity, and I trust that you will make the most of yours as well.

Interim Provost Vincent Price is the Steven H. Chaffee Term professor of Communication in the Annenberg School for Communication, with a secondary appointment as a professor of Political Science in the School of Arts and Sciences.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.