Temple installs its 1st female president

Pledging greater attention to the environment, academic excellence, international learning, and the pockets of alumni donors, Ann Weaver Hart was officially installed yesterday as Temple University's first female president.

Alternately beaming and choking with emotion in a pageantry-filled ceremony, Hart also reaffirmed Temple's commitment to its North Philadelphia surroundings and the educational opportunities it long has offered the underprivileged.

"Temple will change," Hart, 58, said in her inaugural speech. ". . . Our fundamental values will not."

Hart also stole a bit of her own thunder by announcing the selection of a new provost, Lisa Staiano-Coico, currently the dean of Cornell University's College of Human Ecology. Staiano-Coico officially starts as the university's chief academic officer on July 1, exactly one year after Hart took the helm.

Temple officials said Staiano-Coico's hiring marks the first time women have held the president's and provost's positions at a Philadelphia university.

Hart, former president of the University of New Hampshire, was selected by Temple trustees last May to replace David Adamany as president.

As the university's symphony orchestra performed Handel's Water Music in the Liacouras Center, Hart entered at the end of a long, robe-bedecked procession of Temple academics and delegates from 130 other colleges and universities.

At center stage, she received a standing ovation as trustees chair Daniel H. Polett draped a ceremonial chain of office and medallion around her neck. She smiled broadly, took a deep breath, blew a kiss, and exclaimed: "Wow!"

Then she got down to business, announcing two incentive plans to make Temple more global while affirming its devotion to its local surroundings.

Hart said she soon would launch a program to give financial assistance to faculty and staff to buy houses near Temple. The target area will stretch from City Hall north to Temple's health sciences campus, she said, and more details will be disclosed this spring.

"Temple students and faculty kindle sparks throughout North Philadelphia," she said. "They work in elementary schools; they shovel snow and clean up neighborhoods; they offer medical and dental care and social services."

At the same time, Hart urged more students to study abroad at Temple's international campuses in Japan and Rome, as well as in places such as Paris, London and Ghana.

As an incentive, Hart said, she and her husband, Randy, will pay passport fees for first-time student travelers through a fund they will establish.

"If Temple does not internationalize teaching, research and community outreach, we will be increasingly left behind in a dynamic and changing world," she said. "Temple is distinctly poised to become a truly global university."

Hart said Temple would be getting greener by using cleaner and more efficient power and heating sources and expanding environmental programs such as recycling.

While pushing for higher standards - Hart cited an ongoing search for 130 "world-class" professors this year - she said Temple would remain a place of opportunity for financially needy students who often are the first in their families to attend college.

Many of those first-timers are now sending their own children to Temple, she noted, urging them to help create "a new culture of philanthropy."

Despite 240,000 living alumni, Temple "does not enjoy the large endowment incomes of other institutions, nor their long traditions of private giving by alumni and friends. We must create that tradition now," she said, citing the 76 percent of Temple undergraduates who demonstrate "serious financial need."

Temple's new provost also received a standing ovation.

As dean of one of Cornell's four state-funded colleges, Staiano-Coico oversaw a $70 million budget, more than 1,400 students, and a $23 million annual research program.

In a prepared statement, Hart lauded Staiano-Coico's experience as an administrator, researcher and teacher.

"Yet what has impressed us most - and what makes her a perfect match for Temple - is her energy," Hart said. "She is a dynamo."