The only candidate to respond to Ohio University's call for a top financial officer stressed the importance of involving students in balancing the university's budget at an open forum yesterday.
Stephen T. Golding is the only finalist for the position of executive vice president for Finance and Administration to visit campus - one finalist dropped out of the search, and another has not responded to an invitation to visit OU.
Golding, who is currently a senior consultant to the president at Cornell University and also interim chief financial officer at Wells College, spoke to a crowd of about 50 university administrators, staff, student government members and press at yesterday's forum.
He is an experienced professional in higher education
financial planning and strategic planning said Pam Benoit, executive vice president and provost. He definitely has a sense of adventure and is interested in learning more about OU.
Golding has a bachelor's degree in history from Washington College in Maryland, and a master's degree in political science from the University of Delaware. He served as Cornell's executive vice president for Finance and Administration from 2005 until last year when he was moved to a task force overseeing university public/private partnerships.
Golding said his experience taught him that hard financial times can be an opportunity to make an overextended institution run more efficiently.
By definition - and I'm not necessarily saying this is true for OU - it takes really really tough times to make the really tough decisions
Golding said. Bad economic times are an opportunity to look at things one might not otherwise look at.
Student involvement was emphasized during the discussion.
I think whether it be giving students the opportunity to do a project and taking the work and implementing it
or creating forums that wrestle with the tough decisions
we should engage students
Golding said.
He stressed transparency during the budget planning process, but said it would be premature to comment further.
Students are paying the bill
Golding said. It's important for students to know what decisions are being made
why they are being made
and be able to implement those decisions.
Tracy Kelly, president of Graduate Student Senate, said she appreciated the sentiment.
One of my concerns has been upper-level administrators feel inclusion of students consists of having a student in the room when the decision was made
Kelly said. Including not only student feedback
