“I would be delighted with a Lane clone.”
This statement by Richard Shumway, professor in the School of Economic Sciences, was affirmed by many of the faculty and staff participating in two public forums before the presidential search advisory committee on the Pullman campus Thursday. President V. Lane Rawlins will step down in June.
A common theme at both forum sessions — intended to solicit accomplishments and characteristics sought in a new president — was building on the progress WSU has made under Rawlins’ leadership.
Regent and search committee chair Rafael Stone agreed and summarized some of WSU’s accomplishments, but said what WSU needs isn’t a clone, but a president who can take the university to the next level.
That next level, added Shumway at the noon session, must include an emphasis on graduate education.
“We made improvements in all aspects of our strategic plan,” he said. “The big gap right now is graduate education.”
“Our ratio of graduates to undergraduates is very low,” said Yogi Gupta, Regents professor in physics and astronomy, at the earlier session. “We won’t be a world-class institution if we don’t improve our graduate student population in both quantity and quality. That should be a number one priority.”
Another priority, said Lance LeLoup and Mary Furnari, associate vice provost and director, respectively, in International Programs, should be internationalizing the university.
“All great universities in the future will be global universities,” LeLoup said.
Hand in hand with globalization is diversity, added Shumway, which must continue as a priority.
Other topics of concern or priorities that the new president should understand, according to forum participants, include:
* Physical sciences. The importance of the physical sciences, and “not the life sciences only,” said Gupta. “We won’t be world-class if we don’t emphasize the broader sciences.”
* Humanities. “WSU is much more broad than Cal Tech,” said Alex Hammond, associate professor and vice chair of English.
* Balance. “The new president must — like Lane — look at the entire university,” Hammond said. “There are lots of competing interests and the president needs to balance them.”
* Technology upgrades. “The new president must be technologically savvy,” said Gunjan Sinha, director of Information Technology Services. “Technology investment is needed to accomplish these other goals.”
* Community relationships. The next president must be ready to look at changes to College Hill, said KNona Liddell, professor of chemical engineering. Student behavior in that neighborhood, like late weeknight parties and illegal parking, damages the university’s reputation.
And community relations extend beyond the edges of campus, said Ayad Rahmani, associate professor of architecture.
“I want the president to have a vision for the relationship between the campus and community,” he said. “It’s not sufficient to attract quality faculty. If the physical environment, the lifestyle, isn’t there, these people will leave.”
* Retention of students.
* Student training. Better training student employees so they have the skills at graduation sought by outside employers.
* Agriculture. Continued work with agricultural commodity groups.
* Employee relations. Good relationships with union and other civil service employees.
Personal characteristics desirable in the next president, according to forum participants, include:
* Integrity.
* Accessibility to students.
* Academic experienced with graduate education and research.
* Visionary.
* Creative and multidisciplinary.
* A person of national stature. “So doors open for them just because of who they are,” said Beth Monteiro, assistant director of operations for University Advancement.
* A Cougar.
Examples of good presidents to emulate included Ruth Simmons of Brown University, suggested by Gupta, and the past 30 years of presidents at the University of Iowa, suggested by Phil Ronniger, student affairs adviser/counselor in Career Services.
“I’m amazed at the caliber of people they’ve consistently had in the past 30 years,” he said of Iowa. “We should look at what they’re doing to attract these folks.”
The presidential search advisory committee continues to take comments at forumcomment@wsu.edu. A website soon will be set up with updates and more information.
