The Right Place At the Right Time:
A Profile of President Ann Weaver Hart 
by Lori Gula, UNH News Bureau
From high school teacher to professor
Her other hat: Her family
Settling in on campus
The work of the president
As Ann Weaver Hart and her husband Randy traveled across the country in July to Durham where she would begin her tenure as president of UNH, the couple was acutely aware that their 5,000-mile journey was more than a road trip.
"It was a journey of space that paralleled our professional and personal journey of moving to New Hampshire," says the new president, relaxed and introspective while sitting in her office in Thompson Hall. She began July 1.
It was a defining moment for a couple who met at Skyline High School in Salt Lake City, raised four daughters and had downsized their lives, only to move into the president's home without enough furniture to fill it.
"We saw all of our children either on the drive itself or before and said goodbye systematically, which was very fun. Then we started across Canada after leaving Missoula, Montana, and experienced the high plains, moved into the Great Lakes, dropped down into the Adirondacks and felt New England coming toward us.
"It was wonderful," she says. "We were very fortunate. It just felt day by day that we were doing the right thing and going to the right place."
From high school teacher to professor
Hart began her career teaching history, math and English at Cottonwood High School and Bonneville Junior High School in Salt Lake City.
"What I loved about teaching in secondary school is the opportunity you have to be the first to introduce your students to some new and exciting knowledge or experience in the world," she says.
In 1973, she decided to stay home with her young daughters, but briefly returned to secondary education seven years later before she was back at the University of Utah full time pursuing a master's degree in history and Ph.D. in educational leadership. After one year as principal of Farrer Junior High School, Hart was recruited to her alma mater as a faculty member in 1984, which was sparked by a research presentation she made to the American Educational Research Association.
Her shift to higher education administration was a journey that began with her desire to earn a Ph.D. and her love of higher education research.
"I never really planned a career in administration during the years I was working toward tenure and promotion, but gradually became more involved in issues that cut across the university rather than being specific to my college. I found myself being captured by both what I could learn, and the complexity and fascination with the issues that universities face," she says
Her career path is one of continuing advancement in higher education: assistant professor, associate professor, associate dean, professor, dean, special assistant to the president, and provost and vice president. In addition, she has served as a consultant to national and international educational organizations, universities, school districts and nonprofit organizations.
"I am proud that I have been able to be a teacher, a student and a leader in public education in the United States. American public higher education makes opportunity at the highest level of excellence available for everyone who has the will and the promise to take advantage of that opportunity," she says.
Her other hat: Her family
While her list of professional and academic accomplishments is extensive and impressive, in her private life, she is most proud of her family.
"I am most proud of the fact that Randy and I have been able to raise four marvelous daughters and that they are building happy, productive and useful lives each in her own way," she says.
Her oldest daughter, Kimberly, lives in Missoula, Montana, and works for a urology practice after earning a bachelor's degree in healthcare management. She and her husband have a daughter Elise, 1. Second oldest is Liza, an architect who is married and gave birth to Hart's grandson, Zane, March 25 -- the first day of her on-campus interviews as a finalist for president.
Emily, third in line, is receiving her master's degree in environmental science at the University of Western Washington Aug. 24. She and her husband are expecting a baby at the end of January. And youngest daughter Allyson is a third-year medical student at University of California San Francisco, the third-ranked medical school in the country.
"We were fortunate that with our four children, their struggles worked out in ways that reinforced the values that we care about as a family," she says. "Every parent enters into child rearing with the full expectation that their child will be healthy, happy, and productive in a way that is satisfying to them personally -- and safe. Not every parent gets to have that, so we know that it's a gift."
The Harts have known each other since high school.
"I met him in the high school orchestra. Randy was first chair clarinet and I was first chair cello," she says. "Kind of corny, huh?"
The two teens were drawn to each other by their mutual love of music, the West and outdoor activities, such as hiking. "He was just fun to be around. We went for hikes on dates. We roasted hot dogs in the canyon on dates," she says.
"I liked his honesty and his pragmatism and the fact that he loved the same things I did. He's a great reader so we could always talk about what we were reading and what it meant to us."
And, he's the perfect father for four daughters. He never has said anything that could be labeled as gender specific regarding what people can and should do, Hart says. Everything he loves to do -- skiing, hiking, backpacking, yard work, house work -- he did with his family.
"We would go backpacking in the Rocky Mountains with all four of them when they were small. You walk into the Wind Rivers with four young women, the youngest of whom was about 6, and you get stared at and remarked about by everyone you pass on the trail," she says
For now, Randy, an attorney, is weighing his career options. "He's packed up and moved twice in the last five years for me. He would like to get to know New Hampshire and spend some time getting a feel for what he'd like to do. I would like him to spend as much time as he can helping me and being with me in this role as president."
Settling in on campus
Three baskets filled with cheeses, fruits and breads plus wine shipped from California greeted the Harts when they pulled into the driveway of the president's house in their new Passat -- with its freshly chipped windshield courtesy of a Canadian construction zone -- at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, July 11.
Perhaps the folks in facilities, food services and the president's office who arranged for the warm welcome are mind readers.
"It was so welcoming, so comfortable and so embracing. We went out on the patio and had cheese, fruit and bread for dinner, evening bread -- abend brot -- which is kind of a custom in our family because two of our children combined several years studying in Germany and Austria, and one in Belgium," Hart says.
Six weeks later, the Harts have settled in on campus and in their new home.
And the campus has noticed.
"We hear a lot about, 'Oh, I saw your cat the other day,' or 'Is that red canoe really yours?' or 'I saw Randy reading the paper on the front porch the other day.' That's kind of new for us, and we like it," she says. "It's been fun to have very specific conversations that bring the centrality of the house to campus into focus personally."
The couple's three cats -- Celia, 18, Brianca, 17, and Alfredo, 12, are frequent visitors to the picnic tables outside of the Admission's Office, particularly at lunchtime, when they can get a lot of attention.
"Getting the cats here was the hardest part of the move. We wanted to drive and there's no way you can bring three cats in a car for that long. In the summer, you can't ship cats in cargo because it's too hot, so you have to bring them in the passenger compartment as your carry-on luggage, which is fine, but you can bring only one cat per person," Hart says.
The president and her husband flew two out with them and boarded them before making their cross-country trek. The third cat arrived in early August with daughter Emily. "The cats have sort of been all over the place, and they are old. One is 17 and one is 18. We inherited all three of them from our children," she says.
When not at T-Hall, you might find the president knitting, reading, on a long walk with Randy, hiking, bicycling and, for sure, canoeing
"When we bought the canoe, we planned to use it on western rivers where you need a pretty sturdy canoe because of the rocks in the very shallow rivers. Now we've got the estuarine environment out on Great Bay and Little Bay, and the Oyster River, as well as other rivers in our neighborhood."
Since moving to Durham, the Harts have visited Portsmouth and Strawbery Banke, been out on Great Bay and Little Bay, and canoed at Mendum's Pond. Randy, Emily and Emily's husband, Ryan, have climbed Mount Washington already.
The work of the president
The president's first few weeks at UNH have been busy with meetings and events with faculty and staff, news conferences with Sen. Judd Gregg and Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, and testimony before state legislators.
In July she outlined four challenges UNH faces for the legislature's Public Higher Education Study Committee. They are competitive salaries, particularly for faculty; maintenance of facilities, particularly in the sciences and engineering; providing state-of-the-art instructional facilities, equipment, computers, etc.; and securing financial aid for students.
"Universities are built around the intellectual resource, energy, and creativity of their faculty members. We have capital in the form of buildings and endowments, but the heart of our capital is the intellectual resource of our faculty. Finding competitive salaries for that faculty has got to be a core focus of all of our financial decisions," she says.
Among her many priorities is a broad approach to institutional advancement. "Institutional advancement is the combination of a cohesive and strong message that captures the vision and mission of the university and communicates it well internally and externally, of strong and vibrant relationships with our alumni and friends, and of carefully planned development activities to secure financial resources," she says. Within a year or two, Hart also will work with the UNH Foundation to begin to plan for the next capital campaign.
As for dealing with the legislature, Hart says she recognizes that there will be occasions when she and others disagree, but she fundamentally believes that men and women of good will can disagree and still work together productively.
"The state of New Hampshire has invested a lot in this university, and protecting and enhancing that investment is worth their time, effort, and financial resources," she says.
In the short term, the president wants to meet as many people as she can, get to know the students, student body officers and their concerns, and develop a deep understanding of the university.
In the long term, the president will focus on building a more solid base for the endowment, creating a flow of resources that is less dependent on tuition, and developing and focusing on "superb research, graduate, and undergraduate programs in areas in which New Hampshire is best positioned to excel."
"A lot of progress has already been made. These can be long-term goals of mine because so much has been achieved here already. I'm not spinning the yarn to weave the cloth to build the garment. The yarn has been spun, the cloth has been woven, and much of the planning and sewing for the garment is complete," she says.
