This interview is with Ralph Hexter. He was recruited to UC Davis as Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, effective January 1, 2011. He had previously taught Classics at Yale from 1981 to 1991, taught Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado from 1991 to 1995, and at UC Berkeley from 1996 to 2005 where he rose to Dean of Letters and Science, and served as President of Hampshire College from 2005 to 2010. He served as Acting and then Interim Chancellor from April, 2016 through July, 2017, after which he resumed his role as Provost. He returned to teaching in 2020 and retired in 2025.
Ralph was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Ralph was Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor during a period that UC Davis experienced much growth and change. He spearheaded the 2020 Initiative—which significantly expanded enrollment and campus infrastructure. He launched the Hiring Investment Program (HIP) to foster interdisciplinary faculty recruitment. He also championed diversity, and public scholarship.
Since his retirement, Ralph has published Entertaining Ambiguities: Sexuality, Humanism, and Ephemeral Performances in Fifteenth-Century Italy and is now enjoying reading and writing whatever he wants, traveling, and as always, music.
He is interviewed by his friend and colleague, Ken Burtis, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Dean Emeritus of the College of Biological Sciences.
