The former provost and acting president takes the full time job after a vote of the board of trustees.
On Wednesday, Marquette University announced that the university’s Board of Trustees held a special meeting and during said meeting, elected Dr. Kimo Ah Yun as the 25th president of Marquette University. The vote was unanimous.
Dr. Ah Yun has been serving as the interim university president since the death of Dr. Michael Lovell in June. President Ah Yun has been with the university since being hired as the Dean of the Diederich College of Communication in 2016. He was named acting provost in 2018 and elevated to full time provost and executive vice president for academic affairs in 2019.
President Ah Yun came to Marquette after a 20 year tenure at Sacramento State where he held a variety of positions at his alma mater, where he earned a degree in communications studies. He earned his masters degree in speech from Kansas State, and a Ph.D. in communication from Michigan State.
Press release quotes time! Board of Trustees chair Todd Adams:
“Dr. Kimo Ah Yun is a proven leader who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to Marquette University’s Catholic, Jesuit mission, vision and values. As provost and acting president, he has been a leader in the university’s proactive efforts toward continuous improvement to ensure Marquette thrives for generations to come. Marquette is in a strong position in a challenging environment for higher education, and the Board of Trustees has full confidence in his ability to provide the stability necessary to lead Marquette forward to achieve our vision of being among the most innovative and accomplished Catholic, Jesuit universities in the world.”
Very Rev. Karl Kiser, S.J., provincial of the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, and please remember: Dr. Ah Yun is the second non-Jesuit president in university history.
“Dr. Ah Yun is a committed Catholic and a servant leader. On behalf of the Society of Jesus, I congratulate Dr. Ah Yun and his family, and I look forward to working in partnership with Dr. Ah Yun and his leadership team as we continue to serve the greater glory of God.”
President Ah Yun himself:
“At Marquette, we take seriously our mission to serve God by serving our students. My top priority is ensuring we continue to provide a transformational education for our students so that our graduates are problem-solvers and agents of change. Grounded in its Catholic, Jesuit mission, Marquette was founded on the promise of educational access, and as we approach our 150th anniversary, students remain at the heart of all that we do. I look forward to continuing to work closely with our faculty, staff, students, alumni and Milwaukee community in our continuous pursuit of excellence, faith, leadership and service.”
It’s hard to see the Board of Trustees’ vote for Dr. Ah Yun as anything but a statement to continue the direction of Marquette as guided during Dr. Lovell’s 10 years as university president. If the board truly had any issues with how things were going, then the move is to make an outside hire of literally any kind. Instead, they elevated the guy who’s been running the academic side of the university for the past six years. It’s an interesting move, at least in light of the Journal Sentinel report on Tuesday that the Marquette Academic Senate was planning a vote of confidence in the university’s direction and leadership next week. It’s not a secret that the university has been working towards cutting $31 million from the budget over the next seven years, and I’m sure some of the cuts are particularly stinging to various departments and faculty members. With that said, I’m not sure removing $31 million from the operating budget is that drastic of a cut. There are currently just over 8,000 undergraduate students this fall, and they’re paying, one way or another, $50,000 for tuition this year. I can do math, and that’s $400 million worth of undergraduate tuitions coming in. That’s a cut of less than 8%, which means about 1% a year across the term described…… and I didn’t calculate housing payments or graduate tuitions at all.
There’s someone out there who is yelling at their computer screen right now about how I have oversimplified this.
With that in mind, let’s at least point this in the direction of Marquette’s athletic department, as this is nominally a sports blog. With Dr. Ah Yun unofficially installed as university president — an inauguration ceremony will be held in the spring — Athletic Director Bill Scholl can return to his plan to retire when his replacement is hired. Scholl and the university announced the plan to change athletic directors at the end of last school year, but the hiring process was put on hold after the death of Dr. Lovell. Given the notable position of leadership within the university, it stands to reason that the permanent president should be involved in the hiring. On top of that, I would imagine that most candidates would prefer to take a job knowing who their boss is actually going to be before signing on. It’s unclear whether that process will have to start from square one now or not, but I imagine it could be possible to have a new AD at least announced by the end of the school year in May 2025.