AMHERST, MASS. — Just spend the day walking across the sprawling campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who has a grievance against the university’s current chancellor.
“He’s really a nice guy,” says an immigrant groundskeeper, who asks to be anonymous. “I see him around and he’s always smiling. We like him. He’s a real good leader.”
While it’s no secret that faculty, staff and administrators at colleges across the country regularly clash over governance issues, Kumble R. Subbaswamy—or “Swamy,” as he’s known on campus—has managed to escape the battles that often come with leading a land grant institution that is bigger than some small American towns.
Now, two years into his stint as chancellor of the 151-year-old public flagship, the soft-spoken administrator, who first came to the U.S. from India in the 1970s as an ambitious graduate student, has favored collaboration over conflict. In the process, he has won over the unions, improved campus morale, increased academic standards and become the university’s most vocal cheerleader for diversity and inclusion.
Subbaswamy’s accomplishments since he took the helm of the campus with an enrollment of more than 28,000 students are no small feat, particularly at a university that has witnessed shaky leadership within its administrative ranks. Prior to Subbaswamy’s arrival in 2012, UMass had three chancellors over the past decade, whose tenures were all short-lived.
“What has most impressed me is the way in which he is working with students,” says Dr. Amilcar Shabazz, a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and the faculty adviser to the chancellor for diversity and excellence. “The chancellor has offered a different model in which authentic conversations can take place with students around their concerns and around his vision and way of leading the campus.”
Vinayak Rao, president of the Student Government Association, agrees. He says that Subbaswamy, who lives on campus with his wife, can regularly be seen interacting with students.
