Provost candidates hold open meetings

Two out of the four provost candidates held open meetings this week where students, faculty and staff could ask questions and learn more about the potential future provost of UCF.

The final two candidates, Raymond Alden and Tony Waldrop, will have their meetings on Monday and Thursday, respectively.

Both meetings will be at 3:15 p.m. in the Teaching Academy Room 117.

Here is a summary of the first two meetings in case you missed them:

James Coleman
Provost candidate James Coleman had his time before the crowd on Tuesday.

Coleman is the vice provost at Rice University, located in Houston, Texas.

Working in the big city of Houston, Coleman said, has prepared him for what it could be like working at UCF — another metropolitan university.

He said he has been watching UCF's progress through the years, and would like to be a part of a growing university.

That growth, Coleman said, was why he was interested in UCF.

At Rice, things are more set in traditions, and once they get set, they are hard to change, he said.

Coleman was asked during the meeting about the touchy subject of program cuts.

"There has to be huge amounts of faculty input," Coleman said.

The three key elements to examine while deciding if programs must be cut as a last resort, he said, are the net costs of programs, an inventory of program reviews and how the program fits with the strategic plan of the university.

While he may have a science background, acting as vice chancellor for research as well as a biology professor at the University of Missouri, Coleman said the arts and humanities should be protected.

"There are some things you cannot cut," Coleman said.

Coleman said he has worked to form scholarships for the arts at places he has worked before.

The question most asked of Coleman, he said, was if he could be trusted to stay at UCF for a lasting amount of time, as he has only been at Rice for three years.

He said that this would not be the case, as his move to Rice from Missouri was based on cuts that the University of Missouri was going through due to "political payback" for interest in stem cell research.

Public higher education is his life, Coleman said.

"What makes me excited to get up in the morning, is higher education," Coleman said.


Richard DeMillo
Richard DeMillo, a professor of computing and management at Georgia Tech and former dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing, spoke to more than 100 staff and faculty members Thursday as part of the interview process.

DeMillo said he hadn't considered working at UCF until someone told him of the available opportunity and he "put the pieces together."

Part of his motivation to want to work here, he said,  is that he likes the challenge of working with large organizations.

All successful large institutions have made an effort to get lots of people involved and UCF seems to be that kind of institution, he said.

DeMillo also discussed the College of Medicine and its role in the next 20 years of the university.

"What a freeing opportunity it is," DeMillo said.

He mentioned the fact that it is hard to gauge where UCF might be in 20 years, because the top universities 100 years ago are not considered top universities today.

What he could say, though, is that dollars spent per student, global perspective and the ability to include as many students as possible are going to be the most important qualities for universities to have going forward.

DeMillo also said that UCF has to play a role within the community, as well.
He said that the universities that will be successful are those that rise along with the city. It is going to be really hard to be successful if you ignore the community in which you are located, he said.

Another important issue DeMillo was asked about was online and distance learning.

"I was one of the people who thought the online experience was always going to be a cut below classroom instruction," he said.

He changed his mind because "there's nothing wonderful about being a freshman in a 400-person classroom as opposed to an online experience."

DeMillo said that student input is invaluable when making important decisions about a university.

"Student input isn't just something on a piece of paper," he said. "[Students] are the best indicators of what is going right and what is going wrong."

He said at Georgia Tech, there were problems getting women in the computer science program. He developed strong ties with student organizations to find out where the problems were located.

Without student input, it would have taken months to determine that the problems were, he said.