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Leitzel is the first to diffuse credit for the positive changes that have occurred at UNH during her tenure. "It's hard for me to think of this as my work of art," she says. When she speaks of achievements, she does so in the first person plural--"we," rarely "I." She gives a lot of credit to her administrative team, including Candace Corvey, vice president for finance and administration; David Hiley, provost and vice president for academic affairs; Don Sundberg, vice president for research and public service; Leila Moore, vice president for student affairs; and Young Dawkins, president of the UNH Foundation. They, along with a solid and long-standing staff, were critical to the university's recent successes, she observes.

Some might use the word "schoolmarm" to describe Leitzel, and they would not be too far off. She is "of retirement age," but seems entirely of a different era, from sometime long ago. Her mother, who died in childbirth when Leitzel was 4, had been a teacher of mathematics and Latin. Her father was a school superintendent, while her stepmother was superintendent of a county hospital before her marriage. Leitzel is a woman of precision--in everything from diction to posture to policy. When she says the word "autumn," you can hear every letter.

Leitzel is a mathematician, and sees the world like one. She can focus intently on one matter and then instantly switch focus, with no less intensity, to another. She can do this five hundred times a day, so keep up. She is not given to fiery oratory. When something pleases her dearly, she crinkles about the eyes.

The men's hockey team suprised Joan Leitzel with a ride on the Zamboni in March. Photo by UNH Photographic Services

Leitzel understands many things, and what she does not understand, she goes about learning--deliberately, mathematically. Take hockey. When she came to Durham, Leitzel couldn't tell offsides from icing. She knew that this would simply not do. So she enlisted former UNH hockey coach Charlie Holt to sit with her in the president's box at every hockey game. He drew charts and formations and explained the rules. She listened and read books about hockey and watched hockey videos, then listened some more until she understood. It is a rare game--men's or women's--that finds her absent from the box at the Whittemore Center.

One thing about the UNH hockey operation really caught her fancy: the Zamboni. She wanted to ride on the Zamboni. During the Wildcats' last home game of the season at the Whittemore Center, Leitzel was asked to come onto the ice between periods--ostensibly to give an award to a student. Out came the Zamboni. The driver wore a jacket and tie. Captain Darren Haydar '02 presented a "Leitzel #1" hockey jersey to the president. She pulled the jersey over her blouse and skirt and was hoisted atop the Zamboni for a spin around the ice. Haydar skated alongside, lest the president topple. "It was a delightful and wonderful gesture on their part, and I think I may be the first university president to have ridden on the Zamboni," Leitzel says.

Leitzel has won scores of professional honors and academic accolades. Two of the most recent ones, framed and on display in her office, are the "pink triangle" award from the gay, lesbian and bisexual faculty and staff for her work on securing domestic partnership benefits at UNH and the NAACP Community Leadership Award for "implementation of outreach to students of diverse and multicultural backgrounds."

While Leitzel has accomplished much, she has rarely done so with sweeping gesture or bold proclamation. But on any given issue, Taylor says, Leitzel "would bring people in, hear their side, talk to ... everybody who had a stake in something and make a decision and say: 'This is what we're going to do; this is where we're going to go.'" In an environment of perpetually tight budgets, she has made decisions that were unpopular. "A lot of decisions she made, people didn't like, but they respected her because she explained why she made the decision that she did," says Taylor. Taylor gives Leitzel a huge chunk of the credit for UNH's unprecedented fund-raising success: "A lot of it was her hard work and the respect and confidence that she inspired in major donors," he observes.

Leitzel's immediate post-retirement plan is to return to Ohio, where she was a faculty member and administrator at Ohio State for 25 years, to spend time with her sons, daughters-in-law and two granddaughters. But no one believes she will stop working. "There are those who predict I will be a complete failure in retirement," she allows. In a recent interview with the president, we asked about her tenure at UNH, what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. Here is what she had to say:

Why is it time for you to retire?
Well, it seems to me that the only thing worse than leaving too soon is staying too long. ... Many of the things that I felt needed to be done when I came [to UNH] are at a place where they can be handed to the next president. We're completing the capital campaign. We designed a new budget model [and] budget processes, and they've been implemented. We undertook a very comprehensive academic-planning process that's now into the implementation phase. We reshaped the recruitment and retention of students ... and it's working well. Enrollments are strong. So it's a time when this transfer of leadership can take place with essentially no disruption to the institution.

You must have come in the door with a long list: "Top 10 Things to Do at UNH."
Oh, maybe it wasn't that long. Not top 10 things, because many of the critical components of a successful university were already in place. The faculty was and is exceptionally strong. The students are eager and engaged with their faculty. The alumni are faithful and committed to the institution. But we did need to redesign, repair or initiate some processes, and it was pretty clear to me what those were. It will never be the case that the work is done at UNH. A university is always a work in process, and UNH will always require aggressive leadership.

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