Hanlon said typically a major responsibility of a University provost is to closely monitor and plan the University’s budget around increasingly complex budget negotiations in the state legislature, something he plans to make a priority as well.

“Continuing fiscal stability has to be job one,” he says, before saying he wants to talk about something “more fun.”

And what Hanlon considers “fun” is research. Mind you, this is the man that Sullivan described as having “in some ways a dull story, in some ways a nice story” and who Coleman said though typically seen as “very serious” also “has a droll sense of humor."

“I’m very interested in how we as a university can deploy our research breadth to tackle complex world problems,” Hanlon said. “And we do some now, but if there’s one thing I’d like to elevate, it’s that type of activity.”

That activity could, among many other areas, include the revitalization and preservation of the Great Lakes — something Hanlon says the University is uniquely positioned to help with.

“There’s a major federal effort to restore the Great Lakes … and involved in that is the necessity to solve a whole lot of technical problems,” Hanlon said, explaining that the University could offer assistance and learning opportunities in areas including biology, chemistry, economics and public policy. “We have the resources and the affinity.”

However, Hanlon says the Great Lakes are just one example of how the University could turn the real world into more of a classroom and help students not only learn through real practice, but also directly impact the world in a positive way.

“We educate a really large number of very high quality students. We just have terrific students here,” Hanlon said. “And they’re going to go out, many of them here, and land in positions of influence and land in positions where they have the opportunity to make a difference in the world.

“I feel like the way our University can most impact the world is through our graduates and what they do when they leave here,” Hanlon continued.

“The way we teach them to view the world is going to make all the difference in the way they act once they get out into the world."