IOWA STATE DAILY
IOWA STATE DAILY PAGE 5 An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
FRIDAY 10.13.2017 No. 039 Vol 213
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THE FINAL FOUR ADMINISTRATION
Iowa State’s next president could be one of these people
KATLYN CAMPBELL/IOWA STATE DAILY
ASHELY SIEGNER/IOWA STATE DAILY
HANNAH OLSON/IOWA STATE DAILY
MIKINNA KERNS/IOWA STATE DAILY
Sonny Ramaswamy
Wendy Wintersteen Dale Whittaker
Pamela Whitten
BY ISAAC.CARSON @iowastatedaily.com
BY DANIELLE.GEHR @iowastatedaily.com
BY ISAAC.CARSON @iowastatedaily.com
BY JILL.ALT @iowastatedaily.com
Sonny Ramaswamy is the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Wendy Wintersteen is the endowed dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is also the only internal candidate to be selected as a finalist.
Dale Whittaker is the provost and executive vice president of the University of Central Florida.
Pamela Whitten is the senior vice president of student affairs and provost at the University of Georgia, Athens (UGA).
Whittaker held an open forum at the Memorial Union on Wednesday where he gave a presentation and answered questions from the audience. Whittaker spoke on his goals for Iowa State University if elected president. His three goals would be Iowa State to offer the best undergraduate learning experience in the AAU, Iowa State will be a worldwide leader in ending hunger and creating a renewable future, Iowa State will unleash the potential to transform lives and livelihoods. Whittaker believes his first goal can be accomplished through faculty focus, student success and institutional alignment. The issue of world hunger ties into Whittaker’s personal mission statement he wrote after achieving tenure in 1992. “End hunger, heal the earth through knowledge.” During his presentation Whittaker also said “When you aspire to a future you have to build on your strengths,” said Whittaker. He believes Iowa State is one of the university’s best poised to address this global problem. He thinks this can be achieved with Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Partnerships, Reputation and impact. For student success Whittaker noted that Iowa State’s first year retention rate has not broken 90 percent. “We will break 90 percent for the first time this fall at UCF,” Whittaker said. This is something that Whittaker would want to bring to Iowa State if appointed president.
Whitten said she was impressed by current enrollment rates and by the current successful student transition to work rate. However, Whitten said Iowa State should set higher goals. “If we look at retention rates, it’s very positive to have an 80 percent retention rate at Iowa State, but we’re shooting for the mid 90s for retention rate,” Whitten said. “The graduation rate up around 74 percent for six years is good, but it’s really time to reach and stretch that toward an 80 percentile.” She said four-year graduation rates are around 44 percent, and the university should aim to reach for the 60th percentile. Whitten addressed student finances as well and introduced a few programs that were implemented at the University of Georgia. “You have to think toward those students that are so challenged that we risk losing them for small financial reasons,” said Whitten. “We have discovered that it’s more common than people want to admit. So, we have created an emergency fund through the financial aid office because we would find that students would drop out of school because they were short $375.” She said students should not have to drop out for financial reasons. Tuition coverage was not the only service introduced. Whitten also used the University of Georgia’s “Let All the Big Dawgs
He has worked at several land-grant universities in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Kansas, Indiana and Oregon. On Monday, Ramaswamy held an open forum at the Memorial Union where he gave a presentation and answered questions from the audience. Each open forum followed the theme: “Organizations expect new leadership to help lead them to the next level. What is the next level for Iowa State and how will you help us get there?“ “It would be totally presumptuous of me to answer that right now,” Ramasamy said. “You have a strategic plan laid out. You cannot expect the incoming president to have all the answers, but I ask great questions.” For Ramaswamy, the importance of universities lies within student success, innovations, discoveries, engagement and campus environment. Ramaswamy spoke about the importance of transparency. He said he is aware of issues of transparency within the last administration. He noted that sometimes it can feel like there is a firewall surrounding the administration. Ramaswamy said that students must be provided with all of the following while at Iowa State: a foundation in the liberal arts and sciences, an introduction to practical education and military leadership, with teamwork and critical thinking skills. During the part of Ramaswamy’s pre-
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“What I bring is a deep understanding of these issues. I know the players, I know the history and the context and I think it allows me on day one to begin the work,” Wintersteen said after the forum. “I am so much better prepared because I’m an internal candidate.” Wintersteen described herself as someone who can manage a set of complex issues. Since she was named dean, she and her colleagues raised $250 million. In that same time period, they were able to take the number of donor funded professorships and chairs and increase them from 21 to 45 position. She said she is most proud of a joint activity that she was a part of to recruit faculty for awards and increase the number of faculty in the National Academy. In last five years, they were able to double the number of Iowa State faculty in the National Academy. Wintersteen then moved on to student success. She said the agricultural entrepreneurship initiative launched in 2004 was estimated to have created about 400 jobs based off of the students who have been through it. Regarding the theme of all the presidential open forums — which is how each candidate will bring Iowa State to the next level — she listed four steps to proceed
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WHITTAKER
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WHITTEN
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