Columns::August 27, 2001
Minority enrollment
Dyer to step down as vice president for instruction
Casting your vote
Office manager in special education department receives college staff award
Forest resources professor’s career branches off in different directions
Watkins named School of Leadership director
Newsmakers
A new class of leaders
New Media Institutute rocks
Symposium focuses on vet research
Campus News
Gordhan Patel, grad school dean, named VP for research
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
Gordhan L. Patel will become the university’s permanent vice president for research after serving for the past 10 months as
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interim vice president. Patel’s appointment is effective immediately upon approval by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents.
Patel, who is also dean of the Graduate School, was recommended for the vice presidency by the committee that conducted the national search to fill the post. A national search will be conducted for Patel’s successor as graduate dean.
“After a long and productive career at the university, Gordhan responded with extraordinary strength to the new challenge when he became interim vice president,” says President Michael F. Adams. “His performance as interim vice president made it clear that he was the person to lead the university’s research efforts going forward.”
Patel, a biochemist who has been on the UGA faculty since 1967, became interim vice president last October when Joe Key retired. At the time, the appointment was considered temporary until the search committee could recommend a candidate to fill the job permanently.
The committee interviewed three candidates for the position earlier this year. During the interview process, the committee asked Adams and Karen Holbrook, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, for permission to also interview Patel, with the understanding that he would be subjected to the same rigorous review as the other candidates.
“After completing the full process, the committee was even more enthusiastic about recommending him as their final selection,” says Adams.
Adams says that Patel has made significant organizational changes in the research office, including bringing in an associate vice president who will improve the process for preparing and submitting applications for research grants and contracts. He has also hired new directors for technology commercialization and research communications.
“Throughout this search, Dr. Holbrook and I agreed that we needed someone who could lead the faculty toward a substantial increase in research productivity, hire an extremely competent staff and work well with the faculty,” Adams says. “That’s exactly what Gordhan Patel has done in the past year. The final numbers aren’t in, but all indications are that research awards from external sources will be up by some $20 million over the $102 million we received in fiscal year 1999–2000.”
“Dr. Patel has been doing a superb job during the past 10 months,” says Holbrook. “He has taken on and resolved difficult research issues, he has made key hires and he understands institutional priorities.”
In addition to general administration of the university’s research program, the vice president also oversees a number of specialized research centers and units. The research office also administers patents and licenses for the university, conducts a technology commercialization program and is responsible for care and use of research animals.
Patel, who holds the academic rank of professor of cellular biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, has been dean of the Graduate School since 1989. Previously he served eight years as head of the zoology (now cellular biology) department.
Patel specialized in research on proteins involved in unwinding of the DNA double-helix.
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