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Meet Joe White | Planet Orange | The Alumni Interview

FEATURE STORY — March/April 2005

New UI president talks leadership, goals and responsibility

By Amy F. Reiter

UI President B. Joseph White

Before B. Joseph White has even left the elevator to the University of Illinois at Chicago administrative offices, he's already getting to know UI employees.

Like me. Even though I'm here to interview him, he won't let me ask any questions until he has asked some first. Where am I from? Where did I go to school? How long have I been in journalism?

Wait a minute — isn't this supposed to be my job?

But that's the thing. You can't get to know Joe White without him getting to know you, too. Tall and slim, with white hair, a crisp suit and an eye-crinkling smile, White conveys ease to everyone around him and wants you to feel the same way.

His wife, Mary, concurs. "He genuinely cares and is interested. He loves finding out about people," she said of her husband. "He brings a sense of energy, and he tries to be inclusive."

It's a feeling his friend and former employee, University of Michigan business professor Sue Ashford, has also experienced. "He is very thoughtful about the people around him, what they think and what they need," she said. "He connects to secretaries as well as to senior associate deans."

That's good to know, because in White's new position as UI president, overseeing campuses in Chicago, Springfield and Urbana, there are going to be a lot of secretaries and associate deans, as well as other faculty, students, staff, alumni, community members and politicians to put at ease — and one great University to make even greater.

When he officially begins work on Feb. 1, White will bring to the U of I leadership and management experience as well as confidence and modesty, warmth, integrity, big-picture thinking and at least one pair of jogging shoes. He will also bring Mary, whom he met when he was 15 years old and she knocked on his door to borrow an algebra book.

"I opened the door, (and I) thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever met," White said. Eight years later they were married. They now have two adult children and two grandchildren.

In college, White would discover another enduring love: business.

As an international economics major at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, White couldn't decide what to do after school ended. Then he read an article in The New York Times Sunday Magazine about the Harvard Business School. "I finished reading the article, and I decided, 'Well, that's what I'm going to do next,'" he said. "So I applied and was admitted and showed up in September four months later."

At Harvard, White found that he loved learning about leadership management and organization, so much so that he decided when he completed his master's, he would get a doctorate in the field. "I went home and said to my new wife, 'What would you think about four more years of school?'" White said. "And I think she gulped and then said, 'Well, that would be fine.'"

In 1975, he received a doctorate in business administration from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, following that up with a job as an assistant professor at U-M's School of Business. White relished the professorial life. "Being a professor at a great university is arguably the highest professional privilege there is," he said. "Because, No. 1, you get to study the subject you love your entire life; No. 2, you get to share it enthusiastically with younger people through your teaching; and No. 3, you get to contribute to developing your subject through your research and publishing.

"Education is the most powerful means of increasing individual opportunity and creating more prosperous, fairer and more just societies," he said. "So to have the privilege of participating in that mission is as much as anybody could hope for in life."

Perhaps one reason White feels so thankful for what he has is that he distinctly remembers the maternal grandparents who did without. White's grandparents emigrated from Italy stocked with the proverbial dream of a better life for their children and not much else. "They came to America, and they said to their children, 'Get an education,' and they sacrificed for that education, and it worked," White said. "Their grandson is president of one of the most great universities. That's their dream fulfilled and more."

As White prepares to lead an educational institution of thousands of young people, he considers lessons learned from helping his own children grow into adulthood: Be an example, listen more than you talk, know that with privilege comes responsibility.

"Fundamentally, what I've learned from my children is that they need both freedom and boundaries and that they benefit immensely from love," White said. "I believe all those things are true in educating young people who are not your children."

He also believes in backing up his words with real-life experience.

As a business teacher and researcher at Michigan, he wanted to make sure that his thoughts on the field were accurate. So he put them into practice, joining Cummins Engine Co. Inc. in 1981. In six years, he served first as the company's vice president for management development, then as vice president for personnel and public affairs.

"Leadership is a performing art, not really a science," White said. "The only way I could really learn more was by practicing my subject."

When he returned to U-M, he continued to rise through the academic and administrative ranks into positions which further honed those leadership skills. He served as dean of the School of Business, helping the school prosper academically and fiscally. He also served as interim president of the university in 2002.

In that time, White helped students, faculty and staff, both individually and as a whole, feel empowered to change and better their school, said Ashford. "He sets very high standards for the group, the institution, and yet he's very supportive," she said. "He stands behind you."

He also stands up when faced with a situation where he can help. When a student showed up at the college one day emotionally in tatters from a fire that destroyed her apartment building the night before, White mobilized the entire business school to pitch in to help that student and two others affected by the blaze, Ashford said.

To initiate the drive, White took out his checkbook and wrote a check for $500.

"It's something about what he did that day but also the culture that he set up," Ashford said. He created a culture in which people were encouraged to help each other out, suggest ideas and become leaders.

He also taught that responsibility requires results. "I don't think that we're put into leadership jobs to maintain the status quo. I don't think we're put into leadership jobs to preside," White said. "I think we're put into leadership jobs to set high aspirations for the future and to achieve those aspirations."