Jul 25
New Rose-Hulman President Matt Branam Visits RH Ventures
After the effective resignation of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s President Jakubowski on June 30th, a search committee has proven unsuccessful in finding a new replacement for the position, however an interim president was chosen for the 2009-2010 year.
His name is Matt Branam, who has an experienced career as an executive in the private and non-profit sectors. He will serve while the search is underway for a permanent successor to Dr. Jakubowski. Branam is a 1979 civil engineering graduate from Rose-Hulman and started his career early at UPS. Since then he has been a vice president at UPS and chief operating officer at the American Red Cross.
Matt Branam
On Wednesday the 22nd, Matt Branam made a visit to Rose-Hulman Ventures to be a part of the summer distinguished speaker series. He personally greeted and spoke to all of the summer interns, staff, and many of the professors that showed up for the event. His speech constituted of “Things I’ve learned” and highly focused on having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish. Branam quickly talked about his childhood, his time at Rose-Hulman, and how he got his roots at UPS. The later half of his talk was about his opinions and ideas on how he is going to move Rose-Hulman in the right direction during his year stay to maintain the college’s prestigious #1 ranking by U.S. News and World Report, which is for any college or university that offers the bachelor’s or master’s degree as its top degree in engineering. Matt stressed that the Institute needs to establish a clear vision to accomplish this goal. Specifics on how this will be done were not mentioned, but he will pull from his background in private and non-profit leadership to find a solution. As one of his speech morals, Branam stated that having a clear established vision is the key component to success in almost anything you want to achieve.
First impressions from meeting Matt Branam for the first time and from his speech seemed very reassuring. He appears to be very intelligent and delivered his speech very well. It sounds like he already has some plans and goals in mind for Rose-Hulman, and is determined to see them through. It’s going to be a nice change to have a more gritty business attitude leading our college than one simply focused on academics and how to collect more money for the Institution.
Feb 26
Rose-Hulman President to Resign
On Monday morning I got out of bed to get ready for my 9am class, went to check my email…and saw the rare “message from the president” email. Usually I’ll ignore actually reading my emails until later in the day when I’m able to function properly, but this called for action. I opened it and there was just an attachment, which turned out to be Dr. Jakubowski’s resignation later to the campus. All that it entailed was three short paragraphs stating his resignation and how great Rose-Hulman is and has treated him.
As expected, the chatter on campus for the rest of the day was about this email, and everyone wondering why he decided to leave on such a whim. Plenty of rumors went around about him getting into some sort of trouble, arguments with the board, etc…however none of these ever proved to be true or false. The very next morning another email was sent out by Dr. J, addressing the fact that his first email was well, “vague” at best. Included was his future plan, which is taking the position of provost at The California Maritime Academy starting this summer. I looked into this some and it appears that he’s downgrading on jobs with this move, so there has to be some underlying reason for the transfer, but I’m not sure if anyone will find that out.
Dr. Jakubowski has been the President at Rose-Hulman all three years I’ve been there, so it’s sad to see him go. He did a great job at running things on campus, being involved with athletics and events, and being genuinely excited about the college and community. There will most likely be a new president, if just a temporary one, announced later this year or in the summer.
