Ravi Bellamkonda is well aware that his recent promotion from Ohio State University’s provost to president was unexpected, to say the least.
Bellamkonda was appointed to the role on March 12, just four days after his predecessor and former boss, Ted Carter, resigned under inauspicious circumstances. After just over two years on the job, an unnamed source told Ohio State’s Board of Trustees that Carter was having an “inappropriate relationship” with “someone seeking public resources to support her personal business.” Carter abruptly resigned after admitting to trustees about the affair.
Since Bellamkonda took over the presidency, Ohio State released its internal investigation into Carter’s relationship with military podcaster Krisanthe Vlachos, which found that Carter “betrayed” the university and “put his own interests and those of Vlachos before the university’s interests,” according to the report.
The new president has seen the latest news, that Carter tried to get Vlachos hired at his previous post as president of the University of Nebraska, and the New York Times’ takeout on the university’s trials under the headline “A Football School Striving to Be More Keeps Dropping the Ball.”
“Although nobody wanted it to happen the way it did, it did in my becoming the 18th president,” Bellamkonda told reporters in a sit-down interview May 1 inside the president’s offices.
Despite the turmoil that Carter’s resignation has caused for the university, Bellamkonda is approaching the presidency with humility and awe. Ohio State is a “consequential” university, he said, one that people across the state and the country care about.
“And not just for football,” he quipped.
Bellamkonda wants the university to be a leader, and he’s willing to take ambitious steps to get there.
“It’s an honor to be here, and I’ll do my best to keep the flag flying,” Bellamkonda said.
Staying the course
Though Carter served as president for nearly two years, he only announced the details of his strategic plan – Education for Citizenship 2035 – in September.
Among those initiatives are AI Fluency, which will embed AI education into every undergraduate’s core curriculum; Game Changer Scholars, a $100 million initiative to attract and retain the world’s best faculty; and Buckeye Bridge, a tuition-free degree partnership with Columbus State Community College.
Bellamkonda said he intends to focus primarily on plans that Ohio State already has in place, as opposed to developing entirely new initiatives.
“Those are powerful ideas, and we will not change them because they are powerful ideas,” Bellamkonda said.
He also noted that, even though Carter launched Education for Citizenship 2035, he and others at Ohio State authored some of its major programs, particularly AI Fluency.
Bellamkonda said his goals for his first year as president are to think aspirationally, celebrate students and find ways to make the university more productive and efficient.
Regaining trust on campus and beyond
University presidents across the country are feeling the pressure of this moment.
Lawmakers eyeing potential political influences on campus are increasing surveillance. Emerging technologies are disrupting the classroom. The Trump administration has pulled millions of dollars in research funding from universities nationwide. Some stakeholders – from students and their families to business leaders and elected officials – continue to question the value of a college degree.
Bellamkonda knows there is trust to rebuild, and he is leaning on the university’s mission to help do that.
At a reception for the new president at the Ohio Union on April 30, Bellamkonda reflected on this historic 250th anniversary year for the United States. Nearly a century after America’s founding fathers’ signed the Declaration of Independence, Congress enacted the Morrill Land-Grant Acts in 1862, which helped states establish public universities specializing in agriculture and mechanical arts, democratizing higher education to the masses.
Ohio State was founded as a land-grant university, which Bellamkonda said provides the university with the important mission of pursuing truth.
“Universities are special places to be unafraid to ask the tough questions,” he said. “Whatever it is, wherever the answer goes, we have to have those places. They are not political places. They are set up to pursue the truth.”
That pursuit can be uncomfortable at times, Bellamkonda said. But discomfort does not sway him. Rather, he sees it as an opportunity to connect.
“I firmly believe that we divide the world up into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and I’d like the ‘us’ to be larger than ‘them,'” he said. “And I will do everything in my power as the 18th president of Ohio State, when I talk to the legislature, when I talk to our students, when I talk to our parents, when I talk to our business leaders… my hope is as I have a chance to speak and get to know folks that I have the ability to build trust for inviting people to think about Ohio State as ‘us’ and not ‘them.'”
Bellamkonda said that doesn’t mean that there can’t be disagreements within the family. But you have to “try to build trust to have a conversation that’s honest about whatever it is that we’re worried about.”
It’s going to take time, but Bellamkonda said he’s up to the task.
“Wish me luck,” he said with a laugh.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State’s President Bellamkonda wants to rebuild trust on campus and beyond
Reporting by Sheridan Hendrix, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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