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on the cover

in
the

High
Energy

OU President Ora Pescovitz brings
her Jewish values to the job.

JULIE EDGAR CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

o call Ora Hirsch Pescovitz an
overachiever would be a vast
understatement.
She went to medical school at
Northwestern University at 17
years old. She practiced and taught
pediatric endocrinology. She ran a
hospital in Indianapolis. She headed
up the University of Michigan Health
System. She served as senior vice
president at Eli Lilly and Company.
And she recently became Oakland
University’s seventh president.
Surprisingly, she is the second
Jewish woman to hold the spot
(Sandra Packard got there first), rob-
bing her of one distinction. But she
is the first physician in the post.
While the president’s house on
campus — a Frank Lloyd Wright-like
residence called Sunset Terrace — is
readied for her arrival, Pescovitz,
61, is living in a hotel. If that’s not
stressful enough, there’s a jam-
packed schedule of meetings and
speeches. Yet, Pescovitz, who has a
halo of black curls and a big smile,
seems relaxed rather than harried.
On a recent visit, she brought out
photographs of her children — she’s
got three (Aliza, an attorney; Ari, an
architect; and Naomi, a television
anchor) — and her four grandchil-
dren. Her bearish late husband,
transplant surgeon Mark Pescovitz,
M.D., stands next to her in a wed-
ding photograph, beaming.

Pescovitz brings all her experi-
ences to bear in what she does. She
was one of 61 candidates who vied
for the position at OU, and one of
two finalists. She was the only one
who offered a slide show in which
she included photos of her family
and talked openly about losing Mark
in a car accident in 2010. His car was
slammed by a truck on an icy stretch
of I-94 as he drove back to Indiana
after visiting Ora in Ann Arbor.
But the slide show wasn’t what
clinched the deal.
“Ora brings an interesting dynam-
ic to Oakland,” says Ric DeVore,
chairman of OU’s Board of Trustees
(along with Mark Schlussel and
Robert Schostak). That she’s a medi-
cal doctor factored
in — Pescovitz is
aware of various
revenue streams
the university’s
7-year-old medical
school might tap
into — and she has
hospital adminis-
Ric DeVore
tration experience,
he says.
“That’s almost
more important than being a doc-
tor. But what was really attractive
to us was her energy level,” DeVore
says. “She has an energy and a pas-
sion that is undeniable. I said from
the inception of the search that we

continued on page 10

8

January 4 • 2018

jn

Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz,
Oakland University
president, plans to boost
diversity among the student
body and faculty.

