Before Gordon Gee became one of America’s most recognizable university presidents, he was a bow tie-wearing, 4-H-attending Boy Scout from Vernal, Utah. But this past year he hung up the proverbial bow tie after leading five major universities — and serving twice as president of two of them. Forbes gave him the apt descriptor “dean of university presidents” and Time magazine called him the “big man on campus.”
He’s led large public and elite private universities — including Ohio State, Vanderbilt and Brown — and during his tenure he’s navigated moments of extraordinary institutional change with a front-row seat to the evolution of the American college campus. He’s also been an architect of change. Even now, without the perch of a presidency, the 82-year-old remains heavily influential in conversations surrounding the academy’s future, especially seeking to stabilize college athletics after what has seemed like a decade of tectonic shifts that include transfer portals; name, image and likeness (NIL); and revenue sharing with student-athletes.
