Parrish was formally the Dean of the School of Engineering and Centennial Professor of Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to that he was a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for 18 years. Currently, he is the editor-in-chief of the IEEE journal and chair-elect of the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. When these are not taking up his time, his calendar is full of meetings and attending orientation events.
The content of WPI's orientation for students was very impressive for President Parrish, who was a judge for the Freshmen design projects. Whereas other schools would just take new students to the library and the computer labs, here an honest effort is made towards building a community spirit. "I've been impressed with the enthusiasm and capabilities of the people here, everyone seems to understand the uniqueness of this place-and everyone seems to be having a ball-WPI is truly a special university."
President Parrish expressed some regret at the fact that his wife Shirley is not in Worcester to enjoy the cool weather we have been experiencing, for she is in Nashville selling their house. Or as went on to say, the 1850's farm where he spent the last eleven years renovating and raising cattle, among other things. He explained that this was all for fun and that the work was: "the engineer in me, I like to do things."
His hobbies include woodworking (he plans to move his shop into the President's house sometime soon) and music, from jazz to classical. President Parrish seems to have a natural talent for picking up musical instruments; he took piano from the time he was five or six until he graduated high school. He also played the clarinet, saxophone, guitar, oboe, trumpet, and baritone in school and Air Force bands. He mentioned that he might like to try cross-country-skiing and that he never caught on with downhill, pointing out that there's not much snow in Charlottesville and Nashville. And as far as hobbies go, "the rest is just projects my wife tells me to do, like wallpapering, electrical work, plumbing. . ."
But he is not one to brag, his first point was that since most people were familiar with the press-release information about him, he wanted to tell me some reactions to being in Worcester. He had been here just two days when he received his first ticket, for parking on campus. That night, Worcester Police dogs chased a suspect onto the lawn of 1 Drury Lane (the President's house) and he awoke to quite a commotion. Since then, he has received another ticket and he has begun to walk a little more.
His plans for the future call for developing plans for increased recruiting and retention of students. New activities will be launched by the Admissions Office to build a national pool of applicants for admission, broaden the base of applicants and market Interface Disciplines and the fact that WPI is a comprehensive university. "We need to get the word out at a national level, within engineering circles the institute has some name recognition; few know about the Plan-outside of engineering and outside of New England, this recognition drops off sharply."
He plans to stabilize the financial situation and he pointed out that to retain quality faculty and staff and a high quality of life, the school needs to provide reasonable compensation. President Parrish also realized that he will oversee the building of the Campus Center, but he feels that because this will be such an attractive addition to the campus, the fundraising should be relatively easy.
This will be a busy, busy year for the new President, who expects to be on the road a lot, maintaining relations with alumni and benefactors, as well as working on the Accreditation Board. But at Vanderbilt he felt that eating with students was a good way to learn what they felt and he hosted open meetings once a semester, where every topic was fair game. So, we might all get to know him as his schedule slows down, but for now he "feels like there's a big key in my back and people just wind me up and direct me to the next event."
Good luck President Parrish in the years to come.
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