The first of three candidates for Ohio University's executive vice president and provost spent yesterday on campus meeting with students, faculty and administrators.
Susan Carlson, Iowa State University's associate provost for faculty advancement and diversity, said her first experience with OU was in the 1970s when her brother was a student here, and OU's mixed focus on undergraduate and graduate programs attracted her to the provost job.
I put at the top of the list the focus of the institution on providing a broad liberal arts education to undergraduates ... and managing it so you can also be better known for the quality of the research that faculty do
Carlson said.
Carlson, who spends much of her time directing Iowa's ADVANCE program, which aims to get more women into science, technology, engineering and math fields, said she has enjoyed working on policies that make her university more attractive to faculty. Recently, she has helped construct leave policies that are more flexible, especially for new parents.
The recognition that your work isn't the only thing in your life is really important Carlson said.
OU faculty and administrators have been debating health care and workload policies this year, and those are two reasons OU's chapter of the American Association of University Professors cites for coordinating a union effort. Carlson said she was aware of that effort, but was not discouraged because of it.
It does tell you there is an open discussion and that's good
she said. Contentious discussion would not be my first choice
but I'd rather have people's opinions than be at a place where they don't feel they could voice their opinions.
In a presentation she named Cultivating Community and Critique
Carlson spoke with faculty, administrators and students about her vision for OU, listing increasing diversity, interdisciplinary work, global and environmental awareness, access and affordability, and the use of information technology as her top five priorities.
Questions came mostly from staff members and ranged from how to improve diversity, to retention and Carlson's definition of shared governance.
I've been talking about that a lot today
Carlson joked. She spoke of shared governance as shared responsibility and a part of the professional covenant.
Carlson also spoke about her experience combining two colleges at Iowa, and one faculty member asked about how she included faculty in that reorganization after he pointed out OU faculty were not consulted in a similar change earlier this year.
We initially worked with faculty
staff and students in the colleges
she said after the forum, adding, I think (going to senate) helped us.
The university expects to have the next provost in place by July 1, when Kathy Krendl starts as president of Otterbein College in Westerville.
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