Board of Trustees announces new university president

Parlange “thrilled” to join the Rhody community

President David Dooley’s successor has been named: meet Marc Parlange. Photo from uri.edu.

The University of Rhode Island has named Marc Parlange as its 12th president.

On April 1, the Board of Trustees presidential search committee voted unanimously to recommend Parlange as the top candidate. The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to appoint Parlange at a virtual public meeting on Monday, April 12. 

Parlange currently serves as the provost and senior vice president of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Over 200 candidates were considered for the position, including M. Brian Blake, the other finalist. Blake, who currently serves as the provost and executive vice president at George Washington University, withdrew himself from further consideration on Saturday, April 10. 

“I’m thrilled to be joining the University of Rhode Island,” Parlange said. “I’m really looking forward [to it] with a lot of energy. It’s an ambitious research university, it’s an important state university, it’s in an important location, so I couldn’t think of anything better.”

Parlange’s background is in environmental fluid mechanics, and he said he has known of URI for a long time for its “pioneering research” on oceanography, fluid mechanics and engineering. 

As president, he is interested in seeing the University continue that research, as well as in other disciplines.

“My main focus is how we’re going to lift the entire education and research programs and keep up the good momentum started with President [David] Dooley,” he said.

“Front and center” in his plans to uplift research across campus, Parlange said he plans to focus on the arts, the humanities, social sciences, engineering and health sciences.

According to an email sent to the URI community on behalf of the Chair of the Board of Trustees Margo Cook, diversity, equity and inclusion are other areas that will be “central” to Parlange’s leadership.

In a public forum on March 30, Parlange said that improving student diversity starts with looking at admissions. In the interview with the Cigar, he noted that universities in Australia and Canada don’t focus as much on test scores when considering students for admission.

“Those [scores] often reflect the privileged opportunities that some students are able to have,” he said. “We want to be able to have people from all different walks of life, and what we have found is that everybody can succeed. Once they come, they can all do great at the University.”

Parlange said that in his experiences at other universities they have been able to “significantly improve” gender and racial diversity in student applications through community outreach. 

In his previous positions at other schools including the University of California, Davis and his current position at Monash, he has been involved in programs where undergraduate students mentor high school students in areas where few students attend that university. 

He said that search committees for faculty must be “diverse and inclusive” and committee members must receive “quite a bit” of training. The way job advertisements are written is another factor that impacts the applicant pool, from what he has seen in his previous roles.

“We write the advertisements [to be] very much more open, we don’t want to write job ads that look like us,” Parlange said. “ We want to be able to be more open and welcoming.”

While Parlange will not be arriving in Rhode Island until late June or early July, he is looking forward to getting to know the Rhody community virtually.

“I’m quite looking forward to being on campus. I really want to find out people’s hopes, their dreams, what are the big issues,” he said. “I think it’s going to be very important to spend time with the state government and with industry businesses, communities and community leaders because I think that everybody can be part of the University of Rhode Island.”

He said he’s been following the sports teams and other campus events, and that he wants the community to know that he’s very friendly and approachable, “even though I always wear a tie.”

Parlange’s tenure as University president will officially begin on Aug. 1. Current president David Dooley was originally going to retire in June but has agreed to stay on until Parlange takes over.