Dr. John Petersen, executive vice president and provost at the University of Connecticut, was named UT president April 21, 2004, by the board of trustees. His salary was set at $380,000, with $20,000 per year for UT-related entertainment and a $50,000-a-year retention bonus if he stayed a minimum of five years. The contract ran through June 30, 2006. The trustees also provided guidelines in areas such as travel, entertainment, and work on the president’s residence. Petersen signed the contract on May 2.
Before assuming the position at Connecticut, he had been dean of the College of Science and professor of chemistry at Wayne State University (1994–2000). Prior to that, he served as department head and associate dean for research in the College of Sciences at Clemson (1983–93), and as assistant professor of chemistry at Kansas State University (1975–80). He earned the PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1975) and the BS in chemistry from California State (1970). He was selected in an unusual open search process in which 47 candidates publicly stated their candidacy, and in which all of the finalists participated in lengthy public interviews.
Petersen and Jim Murphy, trustee vice chairman, announced on February 18 that Petersen would resign as president effective June 30, 2009, and would be on administrative leave with pay from March 1 through June 30. In submitting his resignation, Petersen’s stated: “As I approach the end of my fifth year, I have been giving serious thought to my future plans and had determined I wanted to leave in June. In discussions with Vice Chair Murphy and other board members, we agree that it serves the University’s interest best to make the change now so that the person responsible for implementing cuts in next year’s budget will be the person leading the difficult budget decisions in the coming months.”
The announcement of Petersen’s resignation also indicated that Dr. Jan Simek, UT Knoxville anthropology professor and previously interim chancellor of UT Knoxville, would be recommended to the board to fill the post for up to two years, becoming acting president from March 1 through June 30 and interim president thereafter.
Petersen’s presidency had been one of friction with the Knoxville campus, particularly the Faculty Senate, resulting in a vote of no confidence in 2007 for mishandling a campus-wide
e-mail and information technology breakdown. Another vote of no confidence was threatened in 2008 after the ouster of Chancellor Loren Crabtree, among several other disagreements about the change of UT’s mission by Petersen in 2007 and various debates about how the management of Cherokee Farm should be organized in 2007 and 2008. Continuous dissatisfaction with the communication between Petersen and the Knoxville campus had been a hallmark of his presidency. A fall 2008 confrontation of his wife with a major donor and volunteer leader had also grabbed headlines.