The Daily Orange

Media Credit: Lindsay Adler [Click to enlarge]

Eric Spina never planned on stepping foot in this office.

Someone else should have this majestic view of the Syracuse University campus. Someone else's name plaque should be on the door.

Someone else should be SU's provost and vice chancellor.

If all went according to the plan Spina had when he arrived at Syracuse 19 years ago, he would still be in the classroom, scribbling mechanical engineering notes on a blackboard, teaching eager students.

He never planned on being more than Professor Spina.

But fate intervened, and after working his way up the ladder of power, he finds himself second-in-command at SU behind Chancellor Nancy Cantor.

"It's been a career path that has put me in progressively more responsible administrative positions, but at no time did I ever have a plan to get here," Spina said. "It just kind of happened by accident."

It was an accident that Spina rose from a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor to department chair to associate dean, and then dean of the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, all the way to vice chancellor and provost - the university's chief academic officer.

But he has not forgotten his roots - where he's been, the people he has met, influenced and touched. His current title may be more significant than the ones he held in the past, but to Spina, nothing has really changed.

"I still introduce myself as a faculty member who just kind of happens to be the vice chancellor, as well," he said. "That's really how I define myself."

After two years of graduate school at Princeton University, a fresh-faced, ambitious, 24-year-old Eric Spina headed to Washington in 1985.

He had been hired by Anser, a non-profit organization focusing on aerospace consulting.

He was ready for the real world, ready to put that mechanical engineering degree he received from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983 to use.

But after just three days on the job, Spina knew this particular workplace wasn't for him.

"I thought to myself, 'You know, I really like academic life. I think I want to work at a university,'" Spina said.

He wanted to be a teacher - a desire that he derived from his parents who had both been teachers in Buffalo, where Spina was born and raised. His mother was an art teacher, and his father taught science before becoming a principal.

"My parents and other teachers had a huge impact on my life," Spina said. "I wanted to do the same thing."

So after two more years at Princeton to complete his doctorate, Spina thrust himself into the job market again - this time as a prospective faculty member.

He doesn't remember how many schools interviewed him - or even which ones. But he does remember it came down to two schools: Syracuse and the University of Notre Dame.

Ed Bogucz, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said he remembers Spina's interview at Syracuse in 1988 vividly.

"It was one of those things where you meet someone new and within 30 minutes, it's as if you've always known him," Bogucz said. "I was just thinking, 'This is a great guy who I like a lot and would be a great faculty member here.'"

Spina was equally impressed with SU's interest in his development as what he calls "a whole professor," encompassing teaching, research and service.

"From the very beginning, SU was a great fit," Spina said. "Most other places really only cared whether I would be successful in research. While I love doing research, I am also deeply committed to teaching, and it was a strong message when SU affirmed that and others, including ND, did not."

Kathleen Joyce always knew Eric Spina should, and would, be more than a professor.

Joyce, the director of undergraduate recruitment for the College of Engineering, saw his ambition, his drive, and knew it would bring success in a position of authority.

"Even at the department level, he always had such great ideas and such a high level of energy," said Joyce, a 1990 SU graduate. "I used to always think, 'Wow, if that guy was a dean or if he was even higher up, I can only imagine the amount of influence he could have on everything.'"

Joyce witnessed Spina's rise from professor to department chair to associate dean to dean. She experienced first-hand his ambition and drive, and she came to love her job because of it.

With Spina's help, the recruitment office began to do things it had never done before -road trips to meet with prospective students, specialized publications and more ambitious projects.

"When Eric began to oversee undergraduate programs and he and I began to work closely, I found tremendous energy and inspiration and enthusiasm for this job," Joyce said. "And it was because of Eric that I began to grow so much as a person and as a professional."

Even now, a year after leaving engineering after being appointed interim vice chancellor, Joyce said Spina's work is still going strong.

The biggest part of his legacy is the way he made the learning experience a positive one for undergraduate students, Joyce said.

"That's one thing that sets this engineering school apart is its attention to undergrads," she said. "No student will ever, ever walk away without the attention or the help they need, and that really comes from the top. And I think Eric really started that."

Before graduating at the top of her class in May, Aubrey Francisco said she didn't feel as if she were a part of anything at all, unchallenged by SU's curriculum.

"I went to Dean Spina to ask for a recommendation to transfer to another engineering school," Francisco said, who is currently working toward her doctorate in bioengineering at Duke University. "I liked engineering and I wanted to pick a discipline. I just didn't feel like SU was the right school."

Spina disagreed.

Recognizing Francisco's potential as a student, Spina connected her with faculty member Julie Hasenwinkel, providing what Spina said is a necessary personalized experience.

Francisco went on to hold two internships before graduating at the top of her bioengineering class.

This fall, before classes began at Duke, she received a handwritten letter from Spina wishing her well.

"I think one of his greatest qualities is he looks at people and sees their potential," Francisco said. "He didn't see me as a freshman. He could see that I wanted to do something else, and maybe he needed to direct me."

Francisco was just one of many engineering students who, while Spina was dean and because Spina was dean, loved to learn.

"For me, this epitomizes why I love doing what I do," Spina said. "These small successes day after day and year after year are so rewarding."

Spina will depart early on a Sunday morning for a three-day business trip on the West Coast, representing SU at a chief academic officers meeting of the Association of American Universities.

Across the country, he will miss his daughter Kaitlyn's first day of seventh grade at a new school.

"I have always tried to be there for any first day," Spina said. "But especially at a new school. I love the excitement of the night before school, the morning of, and then the stories around the dinner table about the new teachers, friends, etc."

The stories can be told when he returned, but it won't be the same.

For Spina, his family - wife Karen and daughters Kaitlyn, 12, and Emily, 9 - is what keeps him going through opposite-coast business trips, long days at the office, weeks without time to catch a breath.

"You couldn't do this job without a family there to keep you grounded and to give you the joys," he said.

Spina met Karen, who is Bogucz's sister, when the two were named the godparents of Bogucz's first child in 1991. A few months later, Spina approached Bogucz and asked his best friend permission to date his sister.

Bogucz didn't have to think twice.

"It's great to have one of your best friends as your brother-in-law," he said.

It's hard now, as vice chancellor, for Spina to spend time with the family he speaks of with such pride.

Hard to have time to see glimpses of himself in Kaitlyn, who "tends to be kind of serious and focused and follows the rules and is always on time," Spina said.

Hard to have time to appreciate Emily who "is sort of a free-spirit. She's all over the place and just really an enjoyable young girl," Spina said.

But Spina and his tight-knit family manage, savoring the moments they do get to share, missing each other when they are apart.

Just weeks ago, Karen, Kaitlyn and Emily visited some of Karen's relatives out of town, leaving Spina alone for the week.

"It was a pretty busy week, so it was kind of a good week for them to go away," Spina said. "I did nothing but work. But at the end of the week, I was thinking, 'This is a pretty joyless life.' I certainly appreciated my family before, but when they came back, there was an increased appreciation that they really do keep me grounded."

Joyce, an ECS professor, was a beneficiary of Spina's strong family values when she was "an orphan" in Syracuse, living alone.

Spina invited her to holiday dinners with his family at his home, an invitation he said was the natural thing to do.

"It's amazing how he honors his role as a father, as a husband and as a person in the community," Joyce said. "I don't know how he does it, how he holds that up and is still able to be so effective on the job."

Spina will be the first person to say holding the position of vice chancellor is a full-time job.

As chief academic officer at SU, he bears a heavy burden on his broad shoulders.

It is a position he holds with modesty, with dignity, which makes his job seem effortless to his colleagues.

He brings "a combination of very, very strong smarts - he's a really, really smart person - and a sense of centeredness about who he is without even a shred of arrogance," Chancellor Nancy Cantor said. "It's that combination of someone who can see things quickly, has great insights, feels confident in who he is, but isn't arrogant about it."

Spina's selflessness is a trait that helped him rise to second-in-command at SU, leaving his humble mark behind.

"I think this job is not about having a headline that says, 'Spina does X,'" he said. "It's about having a headline that says, 'Professor X does whatever' or 'student does something' and just having a deep internal satisfaction that you had some small part in that success."

Success is the most important thing to Spina in his new job.

Not success for himself, but success for professors, success for students, success for Cantor's overarching goals for the university.

He had no personal goals coming into this office except to continue what was already in progress.

"He's really willing to roll up his sleeves and get things done," Cantor said. "He's committed to the same kind of values that I have for universities and about universities."

Bogucz said Spina is a perfect, hand-in-hand partner for Cantor.

Joyce said having Spina as vice chancellor will mean only good things for the university and all of its colleges.

But both are quick to admit there's a bit of a hole left at the engineering school, where Spina was named Outstanding Department Professor in 1994 by students, his name permanently inscribed on a plaque in Link Hall.

"I miss him terribly," Joyce said. "I miss him just as a person and as a boss. It's probably the thing I think about the most now. The main thing is how we miss him over here."

He never had plans to get where he is now, but Spina admits he does have a plan for the future, for life after vice chancellor.

"I don't think of myself as anywhere but at SU," Spina said. "It's home. I want to serve as vice chancellor for as long as I'm effective and the chancellor wants me to serve. But I can't imagine that it will be the position that I hold when I retire."

Where does he see himself?

Back as Professor Spina, encouraging students to be life-long learners, engaging in research, teaching and promoting what he calls "intellectual discovery."

The day Spina returns to the faculty is a day Bogucz, and the entire engineering faculty, is looking forward to.

"There will be a time when he will return to the faculty," Bogucz said. "He'll be back in the classroom and his name will be up on that plaque again."

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