As IU’s 14th president, his leadership advanced in significant and lasting ways the quality of the university and its distinction within the state, nationally, and internationally. During his administration, the university was strategically strengthened in endowment; budget; enrollment; degree programs; campuses and schools; and academic, research, and cultural facilities.
John Ryan
Featured Leadership Topics
Storytelling
“Our regional campuses, some of them go back to 1914 and 1916. They were established for a purpose, in those days, and in fact, if you go back, I think, to the Constitution of 1856, or something like that, maybe in the 1880s in Indiana, but I think it was 1856, there is a requirement that the Indiana, the faculty of Indiana University visit every county once a year, for purposes of education, by which they meantgive a lecture or something in a church or in a hall. So from very early on, after all the university was founded in 1820, so it wasn't very old when this evidence, that the state expected to see the university visibly involved all over the state, was put into place. And Indiana University has tried to comply with that ever since, certainly Purdue University has, with the Cooperative Extensions system and so forth. I mean the universities are everywhere in the state doing things that, hopefully, are relevant to everybody in the state.But as eras come and go, every so often, ten years, twenty years, fifteen years, times change, the environment changes, the economy changes, the social picture change. ”
Description of the video:
On the campus and they expected that. I think to achieve that requires a certain human scale. Now you might say when you get to 35,000 students or 32,000 students, they've already lost the battle. And indeed, that may be so, but there has to be a difference of scale, talking about 30,000 students versus 50 or 60,000 students. And there were big ten schools, Wisconsin, Ohio State, others that that really didn't concerned themselves with just how many they had. I mean, the problem of size was to be met by having enough classrooms and laboratories and faculty members. And we added into that set of discrete requirements, preserving to the extent we could the essence of what Indiana University was like 203050 years before that. And when I came here in 1952, there were about 11,000 students. When I became president, there were about twice as many Okay. That that great increase in numbers didn't change what I observed to be the character of the campus. I don't know how big you can get before you lose that particular element, but I don't but we didn't want to lose it and we didn't get when I left office, I think we were about 31 or 32,000 students, and I felt that we were still okay. Okay.
Define Your Vision
“I mean, there's been Indiana and Purdue, and IUPUI kind of a hard-to-describe linkage between the two, and I think every day that goes by, it's becoming more and more a partnership of three, because I think Indianapolis represents opportunities to have things, to do things that weren't done before, not simply not in Indianapolis, but not at all. And so because we did it the way we did it, and we did it as a partnership between Indiana and Purdue, Indianapolis has not had to make its way fighting and clawing over the other two already great institutions, but rather, I think, applause comes from West Lafayette and Bloomington when good things happen in Indianapolis. And believe me, that's a much better way to develop the long-range thinking, a long-range vision for higher education in Indiana.”
Description of the video:
On the campus and they expected that. I think to achieve that requires a certain human scale. Now you might say when you get to 35,000 students or 32,000 students, they've already lost the battle. And indeed, that may be so, but there has to be a difference of scale, talking about 30,000 students versus 50 or 60,000 students. And there were big ten schools, Wisconsin, Ohio State, others that that really didn't concerned themselves with just how many they had. I mean, the problem of size was to be met by having enough classrooms and laboratories and faculty members. And we added into that set of discrete requirements, preserving to the extent we could the essence of what Indiana University was like 203050 years before that. And when I came here in 1952, there were about 11,000 students. When I became president, there were about twice as many Okay. That that great increase in numbers didn't change what I observed to be the character of the campus. I don't know how big you can get before you lose that particular element, but I don't but we didn't want to lose it and we didn't get when I left office, I think we were about 31 or 32,000 students, and I felt that we were still okay. Okay.
Navigate Change
“I became president in 1971, and in 1974, I introduced a reorganization of the university that fundamentally changed the relationship of many parts of the university. One of the objectives, and clearly stated, was to knit together Bloomington and Indianapolis professional programs, with one School of Public and Environmental Affairs. There was no articulated policy of that kind prior to 1974. I don't know what people assumed, and most people I think didn't even think about it.”
Description of the video:
On the campus and they expected that. I think to achieve that requires a certain human scale. Now you might say when you get to 35,000 students or 32,000 students, they've already lost the battle. And indeed, that may be so, but there has to be a difference of scale, talking about 30,000 students versus 50 or 60,000 students. And there were big ten schools, Wisconsin, Ohio State, others that that really didn't concerned themselves with just how many they had. I mean, the problem of size was to be met by having enough classrooms and laboratories and faculty members. And we added into that set of discrete requirements, preserving to the extent we could the essence of what Indiana University was like 203050 years before that. And when I came here in 1952, there were about 11,000 students. When I became president, there were about twice as many Okay. That that great increase in numbers didn't change what I observed to be the character of the campus. I don't know how big you can get before you lose that particular element, but I don't but we didn't want to lose it and we didn't get when I left office, I think we were about 31 or 32,000 students, and I felt that we were still okay. Okay.
Promote Values and Ethics
“I think to achieve that requires a certain human scale... I mean the problem of size was to be met by having enough classrooms and laboratories and faculty members. And we added into that set of discrete requirements, preserving to the extent we could, the essence of what Indiana University was like twenty, and thirty, and fifty years before … That great increase in numbers didn't change what I observed to be the character of the campus. I don't know how big you can get before you lose that particular element, but we didn't want to lose it and we didn't get, when I left office I think we were about 31, or 32,000 students and I felt that we were still O.K. ”
Description of the video:
On the campus and they expected that. I think to achieve that requires a certain human scale. Now you might say when you get to 35,000 students or 32,000 students, they've already lost the battle. And indeed, that may be so, but there has to be a difference of scale, talking about 30,000 students versus 50 or 60,000 students. And there were big ten schools, Wisconsin, Ohio State, others that that really didn't concerned themselves with just how many they had. I mean, the problem of size was to be met by having enough classrooms and laboratories and faculty members. And we added into that set of discrete requirements, preserving to the extent we could the essence of what Indiana University was like 203050 years before that. And when I came here in 1952, there were about 11,000 students. When I became president, there were about twice as many Okay. That that great increase in numbers didn't change what I observed to be the character of the campus. I don't know how big you can get before you lose that particular element, but I don't but we didn't want to lose it and we didn't get when I left office, I think we were about 31 or 32,000 students, and I felt that we were still okay. Okay.
About John Ryan
John W. Ryan served Indiana University as president from 1971 to 1987. His leadership advanced in significant and lasting ways the quality of the university and its distinction within the state, nationally, and internationally.
Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1929. He was awarded the B.A. from the University of Utah in 1951, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Indiana University in 1958 and 1959. While working toward the doctorate he served as visiting research professor with the Indiana University Group at the University of Thammasat in Bangkok, Thailand, and as assistant director of the Indiana University Institute of Training for the Public Service at Bloomington. In 1958 he joined the political science faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
His abilities quickly became well known and over the next decade he served as executive assistant to the president and secretary of the University at the University of Massachusetts, vice president for academic affairs at Arizona State University, and chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
In 1968 he was called back to Indiana University as vice president and chancellor for regional campuses. For the next three years he greatly advanced the development of the regional campuses and the administrative coordination of the University system.
John Ryan was appointed president in January of 1971. During the nearly seventeen years of his administration, the university was strategically strengthened in endowment; budget; enrollment; degree programs; campuses and schools; and academic, research, and cultural facilities. He coordinated the eight campuses into a wider university organization that is unique for its administrative structure and dedication to common goals. This in turn enhanced the university’s contributions to the educational, economic, and social development of the state.
Ryan’s leadership in numerous national organizations contributed importantly to the reputation of Indiana University as a major participant in the concerns of American higher education. His international expertise resulted in a substantial increase in the university’s academic and research affiliations with universities abroad, and its role in the educational development of several countries. His profound sense of the values of higher education and his vision for the future built upon the traditions of Indiana University to advance the creation of an institution of high quality, breadth, and substance.
John William Ryan died in 2011.
Explore the full oral history of John Ryan