AMHERST, MA—University of Massachusetts-Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, under whose leadership ranking of UMass Amherst has skyrocketed to 24 from 52, is one of the top educational leaders in the country.
In an exclusive video interview on Chai With Manju’s COVID-19 Diaries series, Mr. Subbaswamy urges Class of 2020 across the country to not lose hope and be resilient. His advice is relevant not only to students but everyone whose life has been affected by COVID-19 pandemic.
“Pandemic has affected everyone,” says Mr. Subbaswamy, adding that economy will come back and it is just a matter of when.
To watch the full interview, please click here or on the image below.
Mr. Subbaswamy became the 30th leader of UMass Amherst July 1, 2012. He has emerged as a popular and well-regarded chancellor for his pursuit of academic excellence, promotion of research and outreach, and initiatives aimed at addressing campus climate, diversity, and culture.
Mr. Subbaswamy has overseen the opening of new cutting-edge academic and athletic facilities, including Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community, the Integrative Learning Center, the Life Science Laboratories, and the Football Performance Center. He has made sustainability a campus priority and he is focused on strengthening community relationships, supporting area communities, and increasing access to the university’s rich academic and research resources, according to his official bio.
Championing an open and transparent leadership style, Mr. Subbaswamy enacted a comprehensive campus-wide strategic planning process to continue to build on the successes of UMass Amherst in the coming years. As part of fortifying the future, he has played a key role in UMass Rising, the $300-million fundraising campaign, the largest in campus history.
Mr. Subbaswamy has instituted plans to improve the UMass educational experience by introducing more opportunities for undergraduate research experiences and integrative and team-based learning. His priority is also to increase the enrollment of students from low-income communities. Under his tenure, the campus’s status as a research powerhouse that touches— and often transforms—communities in the state and around the world will be enhanced.
Before coming to Amherst, Mr. Subbaswamy served as provost at the University of Kentucky since 2006. A physicist, he joined Kentucky’s faculty in 1978 after serving as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Irvine. During his first 18 years at the University of Kentucky, he served as associate dean of arts and sciences and as chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
In other administrative positions, Mr. Subbaswamy was also dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami from 1997 to 2000. Then he left to become dean of arts and sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, serving until 2006 when he moved to Kentucky.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in science from Bangalore University, a master’s in physics from Delhi University, and a PhD in physics from Indiana University. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1989. His primary research area is the optical properties of novel materials and nonlinear excitations. He has published more than 60 articles and coauthored a book on the local density theory of polarizability.
