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EDUCATION

Ottawa University taps new president, CEO

Duties include overseeing OUAZ

Posted 4/30/21

Dr. William M. (Bill) Tsutsui has been selected to serve as university president and chief executive officer effective July 1.

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EDUCATION

Ottawa University taps new president, CEO

Duties include overseeing OUAZ

Posted

Ottawa University Board of Trustees Chairman Lucky DeFries announced April 30 that Dr. William M. (Bill) Tsutsui has been selected to serve as university president and chief executive officer effective July 1.

Dr. Tsutsui will succeed Chancellor Kevin C. Eichner, who will continue to serve the university as Chancellor Emeritus through his contract period ending June 30, 2022.

The board announced in January that it had hired the firm of EFL Associates to conduct a nationwide executive search, orchestrating a planned succession process a full year before Eichner’s official retirement. The goal is to ensure that the new university president will benefit from Eichner’s years of experience, contacts, and continued engagement in ongoing strategic initiatives.

“We have been most fortunate to benefit from Kevin’s leadership, and First Lady Marylin’s grace and hospitality, over these past 13 years,” DeFries said. “This has been a period of unprecedented growth and progress at our university. We were very gratified at the quality of the talent, experience, and the enthusiasm of those who applied. After careful deliberation, the board agreed that Dr. Tsutsui represented the best fit for ensuring the continued momentum of the university. We’re delighted to welcome Dr. Tsutsui as Ottawa’s new University President and CEO, and his spouse, Dr. Marjorie Swann, to the life of our institution.”

Mr. Eichner said he is proud to welcome Drs. Tsutsui and Swann to the university.

“Ottawa University is a very special place, and Marylin and I have been greatly blessed by the opportunity to help shape the future of our alma mater over these past years,” Chancellor Eichner said. “On behalf of the entire Ottawa University family, we extend our warmest welcome to Bill and Marjorie. Bill and Marjorie understand completely our mission and core values and have a great appreciation for the transformative power of the type of higher education OU has been providing for more than 156 years.”

Dr. Tsutsui earned his undergraduate A.B. degree in East Asian Studies summa cum laude from Harvard in 1985. In 1988, Oxford University’s Corpus Christi College, where he was a Marshall Scholar, awarded him a Master of Letters in Modern Japanese History. Dr. Tsutsui earned his M.A in 1990 and Ph.D. in history in 1995 from Princeton.

 He has received Fulbright, ACLS, and Marshall fellowships, and was awarded the John Whitney Hall Prize of the Association for Asian Studies in 2000 and the William Rockhill Nelson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2005.

He currently serves on the boards of directors of the Association for Asian Studies, the U.S.-Japan Council, and the Federation of State Humanities Councils, and was appointed to the Japan-United States Friendship Commission in 2020.

Most recently, he served on sabbatical as the Edwin O. Reischauer Distinguished Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Prior to that, from 2015 to 2019, Dr. Tsutsui was president and professor of history at Hendrix College, a national liberal arts college n Conway, Ark. During Dr. Tsutsui’s tenure, Hendrix was re-accredited by the Higher Learning Commission or 10 years, and he oversaw a strategic plan resulting in significantly increased access, diversity, and affordability initiatives.

Dr. Tsutsui is the author or editor of eight books, including Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan, Banking Policy in Japan, and Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization. His 2004 book Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters was called a “cult classic” by the New York Times. 

He has been married for 31 years to Dr. Marjorie Swann, a professor of English at Hendrix College and an expert on seventeenth-century British literature. Dr. Swann has her own impressive resume, having received her B.A. in English from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and her M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Oxford University, where she and Bill met.

Dr. Swann has taught at Princeton, the University of North Texas, the University of Kansas, and at Hendrix and was also the Director of the Museum Studies Program at KU. 

Dr. Tsutsui is equally excited to participate in, and further advance, the ongoing development of the university’s young campus in Surprise, which he describes as a sort of “educational miracle rising from the desert” of the West Valley, and to engage deeply with one of Ottawa’s adult and online educational programs and related sites in Phoenix.

“I am honored, humbled and absolutely thrilled to be selected as Ottawa University’s President and CEO,” Dr. Tsutsui said. “Under Chancellor Eichner’s strategic leadership, Ottawa University has emerged as one of the great success stories in twenty-first century American higher education. At a time when many private colleges have struggled, Ottawa University has distinguished itself as far-sighted and entrepreneurial, pioneering a diversified business model that has retained the historic mission of the institution, while expanding incrementally into new markets and reaching out to new learners. I have come to deeply respect Ottawa as a university not afraid to embrace change and be bold in its vision, even as it has upheld its values of integrity and accessibility, its heritage of quality, and its deep Christian roots. Marjorie and I are excited to immerse ourselves in the extended OU community, and I look forward to working with trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alums to further elevate Ottawa University and the impact of the life-changing education that it offers.”

Dr. Tsutsui will assume the chief executive level responsibility for Ottawa’s university system  on July 1 of this year. The Chancellor’s Cabinet, consisting of the two residential campus presidents located in Ottawa, Kan. and Surprise, the EVP and CFO, the EVP for OU Online, the University Provost and Chief Academic Officer, and the VP’s of Advancement, will report to Dr. Tsutsui at that time. As has been the case for the Eichners, Dr. Tsutsui will be expected to maintain a strong personal presence in both Kansas and Arizona, but will take up residence initially at Granger House in Ottawa.

DeFries said the board determined that Dr. Tsutsui's clear strategic vision and in-depth appreciation for Ottawa’s diversified business and academic model stood out. 

“Bill brings with him not only a deep understanding of higher education, but also after having served as a professor, dean and university president, he manifests a strong appreciation of how to manage and lead complex organizations through the inevitable changes that are facing all institutions of higher learning today,” DeFries said. “He is a seasoned and respected scholar, author, educator, historian, and a consummate leader in higher education with a record of innovation.”