Students at the University of Pennsylvania often compare Patrick T. Harker’s position as dean of the prestigious Wharton School of Business to that of a company’s chief executive officer.

But Harker, who will take office as the 26th president of the University of Delaware in July, says there’s a better analogy for his style of higher education management.

“CEO is a command-and-control sort of position,” he says. “I do not really see myself as a CEO. Rather, I like to think of myself as a managing partner. The senior partners are the faculty, and they are the lifeblood of an institution. Academic administrators come and go, but the faculty, staff and alumni are mainstays. They are the ones who truly advance the institution.”

In another analogy that reflects both his love of jazz and his continuing role as an educator, Harker says he sees himself not as the conductor of an orchestra but as the leader of a jazz quartet. “To be the leader of a jazz group, you have to be able to play,” he says. “That is true of higher education, as well. You might not be in the classroom or laboratory now, but it helps if you have been there.”

Harker’s selection as UD president was announced in December after a nationwide search by a 15-member committee chaired by trustees Robert A. Fischer Jr., BE ’70, and A. Gilchrist Sparks III. The search committee included trustees, alumni, faculty and staff and was assisted by a leading higher education search consultant.

“Patrick T. Harker has an excellent combination of experience and skills to lead the University of Delaware forward,” Howard E. Cosgrove, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said at a news conference announcing Harker’s selection. “He is a man of vision, enthusiasm and commitment.”

President David P. Roselle, who announced last May that he would step down after 17 years as president, described himself as “delighted” that Harker and his wife will be coming to the University.

“Given the leadership of Pat and Emily Harker, I am confident that greater achievements and bigger successes lie in the institution’s future,” Roselle said at the news conference. “Their credentials, energy and commitment will help our students, staff, faculty and those they serve to reach their goals and realize their full potential.”

The path that led Harker to UD has not been a straight line. He did not grow up dreaming of being a college president. “No,” he says, laughing, “and with that, the phrase ‘growing up’ includes last year. I had not really thought about becoming a college president.”

In fact, as an undergraduate civil engineering student and football player at Penn, who first visited UD as a prospective defensive line recruit for the Blue Hens, Harker had not really thought at all about a career in academia, he says. That changed when a series of injuries sent him to the sidelines of fabled Franklin Field.

Once out of football, he was approached by John Lepore, a civil engineering faculty member at Penn. “He said, ‘You know, Pat, now you have some time on your hands,’ and he gave me a job in the lab,” Harker recalls. “I published a paper and won a student competition, and then I was hooked.” He later became a teaching assistant for the professor.

He says the support offered by Lepore and a secretary in the college, Shelley Brown, provided him direction and confidence. “Often, we underestimate the importance of the interactions we have with students,” Harker says. “Not just interactions by faculty, and those certainly are precious, but by staff as well.”

Eduardo Glandt, dean of engineering at Penn, remembers Harker as an undergraduate and says faculty members were impressed with his abilities even then. Today, he says, Harker is “a person of tremendous energy and of vision, and he has great communication skills. He will be great for Delaware, and Delaware will be good for him, although it’s a loss for us. We’ve had great deans at Wharton before, but Pat really has set the bar very high.”

Harker received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Penn in 1981 and went on to earn a master’s degree in economics and a doctorate in civil and urban engineering, with a focus on transportation planning and economics, also from Penn, in 1983. Before graduation, he worked as a consulting engineer in Philadelphia and New York, and he was a member of the faculty of the University of California Santa Barbara before joining the Wharton School in 1984.

Harker is the youngest Wharton faculty member to be awarded an endowed professorship, as the Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise, and in 1994 he was named chairperson of the Department of Systems Engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

He was appointed dean of the Wharton School in 2000 after serving as both interim dean and deputy dean. With an annual budget of more than $270 million and an endowment exceeding $600 million, Wharton is widely recognized as one of the premier schools of business in the world.

At Wharton, Harker led the $450 million Campaign for Sustained Leadership; created Wharton West, the school’s San Francisco-based campus; developed an alliance with INSEAD, the leading non-U.S.-based business school, which has campuses in Europe and Asia; and oversaw the development of Wharton School Publishing and the online business journal Knowledge@Wharton.

Harker says he was very content at Wharton and was not considering a move until Cosgrove approached him last year. “He came to visit me at Wharton,” Harker says. “I had heard good things about the University of Delaware but told him I was happy at Penn. He said to drive down and take a look, so I did.”

On that Labor Day weekend visit, he says, he was amazed at what he saw: “The campus was beautiful, the buildings up-to-date and well-maintained, and the campus showed great pride in the institution.” He decided to become a candidate for the UD presidency.

“By nature I am a very entrepreneurial person. I want to make a difference, to have an impact, wherever I am,” Harker says. “When I get up and go to work, I want to make something good happen. That was true during my 23 years at Penn, and that is what attracted me to Delaware—the ability every day to make a real difference.”

He says UD both aspires to and is poised for excellence, adding that Roselle’s 17-year presidency has made that possible.

“The University of Delaware has been placed on a terrific trajectory by David Roselle, who has brought the institution to a great place,” Harker says. “There is clearly a sense of pride in what has been accomplished here. My job is to continue to build on that momentum and to spend time telling people about what a great place this is. The more we can tell people about what is going on here, the more people will understand what great things are happening at this University.”

Harker says he does not arrive at UD with preconceived notions and will use the early part of his presidency to learn more. “I am spending time now listening to people, meeting with representatives of various schools and departments to find out the next steps the institution needs to take,” he says. “If you listen well, those things emerge quite naturally.”

A key concept, he says, is that of engagement—with the state, government, nongovernmental organizations, business and industry, faculty and staff, alumni and students. “Engagement is important for a whole variety of reasons,” he says. “When you think of the evolution of society, it advances because of crucial networks and connections. Engagement is a shared stream of learning, with information flowing back and forth. Strong societies are those that support the creative enterprise.”

Through engagement, the University serves its two major purposes, he says: educating the next generation directly and developing knowledge that will affect that generation.
Harker says he sees an important role for any institution of higher education in the development of international connections. “The students we’re educating have to understand the world and engage with it in a very deep way,” he says. “Not that long ago, only top executives traveled abroad. Now, we all need be comfortable in a very diverse world to get things accomplished. Of course, that does not mean we have to agree with everyone, but we do have to learn to work with them.”

He hopes to attract a broader array of students, both from other countries and from other regions in the United States, to UD because he says that will best serve the interests of the institution, the students and the state of Delaware.

“Two-thirds of our undergraduates are from out of state, meaning UD serves as a magnet to attract talent to the state,” Harker says. “It would be nice to keep that talent here.”

A colleague from Penn, Susan Fuhrman, who now is president of Columbia University’s Teachers College, worked with Harker in co-chairing a task force on global issues for Penn’s president and provost.

“Pat Harker is a terrific academic leader,” Fuhrman says. “He’s energetic, with a strong vision about the relationship of education to global and societal challenges, a great way of working with people and a wonderful sense of strategy.”

In addition to international involvement, another important task for any university is to build the institution’s alumni community, Harker says: “Alumni activity is very important because learning does not stop when you graduate. As you develop a more diverse student body, you develop a more diverse alumni community. Universities that will be successful in the future will recognize that and will help alumni networks grow and thrive.”

At UD, he says, much of his focus will be on students and faculty. “I plan to work with students, and the most meaningful interaction with students is working on substantive issues together,” he says, adding that such projects help students advance their own education while at the same time contributing to the future of the University. “They will put in place activities that will make the University a better place for the next generation.”

And, Harker says, the most precious resource any university has is faculty time. “It is important to attract and retain a great faculty and, when they are here, to find ways to help them be as productive as possible,” he says.

David Schmittlein, who is Ira A. Lipman Professor and deputy dean of Wharton, says Harker has many characteristics that will benefit UD, including “a positive enthusiasm that is so wonderfully transmitted throughout an organization.”

Even more important, Schmittlein says, is integrity. Harker “leads by living deeply held values, and chief among these are honesty, a belief in the potential for goodness in people and the view that high-quality education provides important opportunities for individuals and societies.”

Harker says it is interesting how life sometimes completes circles. Once the University announced his selection as president, he began hearing from people he had known over the years, including high school friends with whom he had lost touch and former Wharton students, many of them now part of the Delaware community.

“People have been incredibly warm and welcoming,” he says. Harker and his wife, the former Emily Grace Saaty, have three children, Thomas Patrick, Michael Francis and Meghan Emma.