About Patrick Farrell

I have been working in higher education for over 40 years, as a faculty member, Associate Dean, Research Center Director, and Provost—at two different institutions.

I spent much of my career (28 years) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, first as a faculty member in engineering, then as Associate Dean, and finally as Provost for almost 3 years. In that time I also took on a number of informal and formal leadership roles within and outside of the university, including helping lead a major teaching improvement effort, serving as the Director of a large externally funded research center, and being a member of the NSF Engineering Advisory Council for 6 years and chair for 2 years. The variety of experiences has helped me learn successful approaches for both formal and informal leadership, and how to be effective when stepping into these new roles.

More recently, I have served as Provost at Lehigh University for 11 years.  Moving to a very different size of university forced me to adapt what I brought with me and learn new approaches for leading this organization. In my time as Provost, we were able to bring in a number of ideas that were new to Lehigh, like cluster hires, and reshape them to better fit our environment and culture. We were able to embed a consistent and focused effort on diversity and inclusion for students, faculty, and staff, and worked to provide the support needed for success. Facilities renovation and construction was not initially a focus for me, but as it became clear facilities were constraining not only what we could do, but what we might imagine we could do, they became a major effort. In my time as Provost we did major renovations of over 400,000 ft2 and built the largest new building ever built at Lehigh. In addition to improved facilities, each renovation offered the opportunity to redefine what mattered most, and to create spaces that would support that new refinement, not just replicate what had been.

We also created a process of broad engagement in looking to our future, which resulted in creating a new college at Lehigh—a College of Health. This has and will represent a major commitment of people and resources, so the effort to find and support consensus around what this new academic entity should do, was critical. The focus of the new college will inevitably shift over time, but I hope we continue the model of thinking broadly, checking our assumptions,  and being willing to experiment as we go forward.

headshot of patrick farrell

As Provost at both universities, I supported and initiated major change efforts and developed these keys to successful change: 

  • broad engagement and inclusion, 
  • active implementation including pilots and experiments, 
  • interpreting what has been learned, 
  • iterating to improve, 
  • integrating actions across organizational scales whenever possible.

As the community got better at these processes, they chose to take on more ambitious initiatives, with reasonable confidence of success.

I look forward to helping your organization learn how to anticipate change, and build confidence, rapport and trust. That way, when change happens again, your organization is robust, dynamic and engaged.

Let’s Talk

[email protected]

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