Wesley Kent Fuchs (; born 1954) is an American university professor and academic administrator. He is the current president of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Upon taking office on January 1, 2015, he became the university's twelfth president. He previously served as the provost of Cornell University from 2009 through 2014. In January 2022, Fuchs announced his intention to step down as President so that he may remain at UF and return to faculty.

Education

Fuchs holds a

B.S.E. A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Bache ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

; a

M.Div. For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, ''magister divinitatis'' in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America. It is the most common academic degree in seminaries and di ...

from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; and a M.S. and Ph.D. in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the University of Illinois.

Career

Fuchs was a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department and the coordinated science laboratory at the University of Illinois, from 1985 to 1996. He was head of the school of electrical and computer engineering and Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck distinguished professor at Purdue University from 1996 to 2002; While at Purdue University he was appointed a distinguished professor. He was the Joseph Silbert dean of the Cornell University College of Engineering, from 2002 to 2008. He was the fifteenth provost of Cornell University in October 2008. In 2011, he led in the team and strategy that resulted in the winning proposal, in partnership with the Technion and New York City, to create a new graduate applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The Cornell Tech campus reported to him as provost. In 2009 Fuchs launched Cornell's re-imagining initiative that resulted in enhanced efficiency in administrative services. As provost, Fuchs was also responsible for transforming Cornell's budget model. In 2010 he led the development of Cornell's Strategic Plan and the establishment of metrics for assessing Cornell's academic stature.

National Science Board

On September 16, 2016 President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Fuchs as a member of the National Science Board and National Science Foundation. He is a member of the board’s class of 2016 – 2022.

University of Florida

As President of the University of Florida, Fuchs barred three professors from testifying in a voting rights lawsuit against Florida governor Ron DeSantis over Senate Bill 90. After the university blocked its professors from providing testimony in court, the University of Florida's accreditor started an investigation into the university.

Personal

Fuchs is married to Linda Moskeland Fuchs, who previously taught at The King's Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. They have four children, two daughters-in-law, a son-in-law and three grandchildren.

References

External links

Faculty web siteProvost Kent Fuchs reflects on Cornell's future and his own
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Kent 1954 births Living people Cornell University faculty Duke University Pratt School of Engineering alumni Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE Presidents of the University of Florida University of Illinois alumni