I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking what I think of the fact that the new president of Williams College is a theoretical physicist. So, here are my (very brief) thoughts on the matter:
1) As a general matter, I’m happy to see scientists in administrative positions. They tend to have a better appreciation of the demands of scientific research than humanists, and they tend to approach the running of things in a manner that’s a little closer to my own preferences.
Having a physicist as president is highly unlikely to result in the diversion of vast sums of money to fund physics research, though.
2) That said, the actual day-to-day influence of a college president on the running of the institution is pretty minimal. The president of a college, particularly one like Williams, is more a fundraiser-in-chief than a hands-on administrator. The really important factor in the choice of a president is how effective he or she can be at schmoozing with alumni and wealthy donors.
Knowing that Falk is a physicist really doesn’t provide any special insight into this.
3) As for what sort of physicist Falk is, I’m not really qualified to evaluate that. He does theoretical QCD sorts of things, which is so far from my home field of AMO physics that I can barely parse the titles of his papers, let alone say whether they’re any good.
And that’s about all I can say about that. I’ve never met the man, but I wish him well in his new job. He’s got a fairly tough act to follow, in that the previous president, Morton Schapiro, was really popular, at least among people I know who had an opinion.