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The University of Louisville on Tuesday named Neeli Bendapudi its next president, making the University of Kansas provost and executive vice chancellor the permanent replacement for longtime Louisville president James Ramsey almost two years after Ramsey was ousted amid scandals.
Bendapudi was the dean of the business school at Kansas before becoming provost and executive vice chancellor at the university in 2016. Her priorities at Louisville will be making the university a place where students can learn and one that is attractive to faculty, staff and the surrounding community, according to a university news release. She wants to create a culture of trust and openness, it said.
The hiring comes after much turnover among high-level leaders at Louisville in recent years. Kentucky's governor engineered Ramsey's exit in 2016 after the president drew attention for leadership scandals, a secretive style and high compensation. Neville Pinto, who was acting president after Ramsey's departure, left to become president of the University of Cincinnati in 2017. Louisville had to restart a search for its chief financial officer earlier this year after its choice for the job backed out, citing family reasons.
The university also fired athletics director Tom Jurich and men's basketball coach Rick Pitino in October after several scandals rocked the athletic department and men's basketball program.
Bendapudi acknowledged she “would have been a fool” not to have looked carefully at the university's recent history of scandals, according to the Courier-Journal. But she compared the university to an old house with “good bones.”
She has also been noted for her fund-raising abilities.
