Provost Fuentes on staying true to yourself

This summer, Montserrat Fuentes became the new executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa. She says that her leadership style is team-oriented, collaborative, compassionate, and also strategically focused. Having a long history of moving to new places, she says it’s important to remain true to yourself. Photo by Justin Torner.

This summer, Montserrat Fuentes became the new executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa. She moved to Iowa City from Richmond, Virginia, where she had served three years as dean and professor in the College of Humanities & Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“I feel incredibly fortunate and privileged to be here,” says Fuentes. “My kids and my very supportive husband love Iowa City. They already have friends, and they feel that this is a very welcoming community. They see this already as their home.”

Fuentes has a long history of moving to new places and engaging with new communities. She was born in Asturias, a province in northern Spain that borders the Bay of Biscay and is known for its lush greenery, beautiful beaches, and rugged coastline. When Fuentes was a child, an international array of hikers would pass by her house as they traveled a famous pilgrim’s trail, the Camino de Santiago, which stretches from southern France to the western edge of Spain.

Fuentes’ father was in the military, and the family often moved to new bases and cities around Spain. She says this taught her how to adapt to a new place while remaining true to herself, an ability she found useful as a first-generation student at a university.

“I think when you belong to a minority group or you move away to a different community where there’s a different culture, there can be an expectation of adaptation,” says Fuentes. “But that doesn’t mean that you change who you are. You continue being true to yourself and proud of who you are. You continue being the best version of yourself. I want to nurture that at Iowa—celebrating the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of all the members of our community.”

For Fuentes, part of being herself means being a musician. As an undergraduate at the University of Valladolid, Spain, she studied statistics and piano, and she has kept up with both. Most often, she practices music at home—her usual audience being her three children, two of whom are interested in the arts. Her middle son, Ethan, plays hockey, but her eldest, Veronica, is a dancer, and her youngest, Jaden, is an aspiring actor.

“They have great creativity, and I do anything I can to nurture that,” says Fuentes. “Music has always been a very important part of who I am and a way to express myself, but also it helps me to integrate mind, body, and feeling; it encompasses those different dimensions. It has helped me develop a greater ability to connect with people, and I think that I’m here today because of that.”

After completing a PhD in statistics from the University of Chicago in 1998, Fuentes served on several planning and budgeting committees, served as director of an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research program for the National Science Foundation, and has been principal or co-principal investigator on 20 research grants, with total funding of more than $25 million.

She says that she has taken on administrative and leadership roles in her career because of the greater sense of satisfaction those responsibilities often yield.

“I still see myself as a faculty member, as a statistician,” says Fuentes. “And I want to continue engagement with students and with research. But I decided to take more responsibility in administration because I found myself getting satisfaction from the success of individuals who were part of my team. I was getting much more satisfaction from that than my own achievements, so progressively I started to take on more responsibilities. But I still see myself as a faculty member, and I don’t want to lose track of that. I am here for the students, and any opportunity I have to engage with them I will take.”

Fuentes describes her leadership style as team-oriented, collaborative, compassionate, and also strategically focused. She sees the role of the Office of the Provost as supporting faculty so that they can give the best of themselves to students.

“There are a lot of conversations right now about the cost of higher education, but not enough about value,” says Fuentes. “Students who come here are making an investment. We need to make sure that it’s a good investment in themselves and in their future, and that they make timely progress toward their degree. It’s a priority for me to make sure that when students come here, we have a path for them as well as the resources and infrastructure to help them be successful—that we provide a very inclusive, welcoming community that they call their home.”