The second of four provost candidates visited with faculty and Student Senate last Thursday. The candidate, Greg Sterling, is currently the Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame.
Sterling met with various departments and toured the campus on Wednesday and Thursday before sitting down with the two groups.
“They’ve been long days, but good days,” Sterling said as his meeting with the senators began.
The senators asked what he would bring to the job that the other applicants could not.
Sterling said at Notre Dame he is jokingly called, “the fireman, because when there are problems I’m there to put them out.” He stressed that he would continue to be accessible to students while also finding ways to improve the provost’s relationship with student leaders.
Sterling mentioned three things about SMU that he thought stood out from other universities, mainly, the campus layout.
“Since you go to school here, you take it for granted, but the grounds are laid out thoughtfully and the uniform architecture is a plus.”
He also highlighted the “exceptional” professional schools, saying they represented the school’s mission well. Finally, he said SMU is on an upward swing and continuing to improve rather than regress. Sterling mentioned this issue’s importance because universities can become stagnant and unproductive.
The senators also brought up a need for increased diversity among SMU professors. Sterling agreed and said different views were needed for students to have a complete education. He also mentioned that students need mentors, and the more diverse the staff, the better chance of students having someone they can relate to.
Sterling said that policies must be developed on a university level that encourages the “aggressive pursuit” of qualified individuals. He also said search strategies should require that departments look for candidates from underrepresented groups.
Sterling concluded his meeting with the senate by asking what they thought it would take to improve SMU and thanked them for their thoughtful questions.
Where the Student Senate meeting was calm and relaxed, Sterling’s meeting with the faculty was intense and rapid-paced. After a short introduction, faculty members began a thorough questioning of the candidate.
Sterling mentioned that SMU had several areas to improve in, foremost the ability to develop resources to advance the institutions academics. He also said that the professional schools are stronger than the core academic units, and the professional schools are leading the university instead of the core. A strong academic core feeds the professional schools at most universities, according to Sterling.
Most troubling was the fact that when he asked other educators of an impression of SMU, they could not name one. Sterling believes that institutions with “distinctive identities are able to have national impact and form a unique identity.” Sterling repeated this mantra throughout his session with the faculty.
When asked about the state of the graduate programs at SMU, Sterling mentioned that, “graduate stipends are not competitive and cannot change without more money flowing in.” The small number of students also hampers the quality of the education according to Sterling, because the lack of students means no seminars and little discussion between peers.
He also said that some of the professional schools need to focus on having strong undergraduate programs only and allow others to have the strong graduate programs. “You can’t be everything, and there is nothing wrong with excelling in undergraduate work.”
The proposed School of Education was the focus for the remainder of the meeting, with faculty trying to grasp what role Sterling sees the school having.
“I believe that the new school would solve the problem of putting faculty in place where they are generating and making a difference,” he said. Sterling also said that the new school needed to have adequate funding for it to serve its purpose.
Sterling completed his undergraduate studies at Houston Baptist University and received Master’s degrees from Pepperdine and the University of California, Davis. He completed his doctoral work at Berkeley.
