JASON E. KAPLAN What’s your take on enrollment trends post-pandemic? Nationally, the number of high school graduates is declining, and the way that seems to be playing out post-pandemic is large flagship universities are seeing modest to really strong enrollment growth while smaller universities, the 1,000- to 2,000-student universities, are struggling. We’re not competing with each other — more than half of our students come from Central Oregon — the problem is there aren’t enough students going on to higher education. One of the things I think that the seven public universities need to think about is how do we together increase the participation rate of high school graduates going on to college? You’ve been involved with both public and private universities. What made you stick around for so long at OSU? Both Duke and Boston University were big, private, very successful universities with excellent students, but there was a bigger and better group of marine geologists at OSU. But the reason I stayed at OSU is because I found the public university mission really much more rewarding. The idea that the university is there to serve the people of Oregon is something almost all the people I know who work here take really seriously. It was wonderful to teach students at Duke, but you’re teaching a certain kind of student and a narrower slice of students. Here we’ve met every qualified Oregonian, and having admitted them, we try to get every single one of them graduated. That’s a very fulfilling mission. I hear you come from a family of five sisters. Tell me about growing up. Yes, five younger sisters. I grew up in upstate New York, in a small town in an agricultural county right under Lake Ontario. We had a football team, but I wasn’t good enough, so I picked up soccer. I learned to play because of the love of the game. So I talked to my colleagues here, and when we build athletic fields, the first thing we’re going to do is paint soccer lines. What about leadership here? Do you have plans to change the structure? I’ve got a number of people in interim leadership roles, so we’re working on what our permanent leadership structure should look like. The biggest change isn’t a change in management. It’s more clarity on the idea that we’re part of OSU. It’s one entity. The success of OSU-Cascades is a university priority. That’s always been true, but it’s not always been clear. That lets us take advantage of the fact that OSU-Cascades is not starting from zero but is a part of a very successful, very visible, very established university. Meanwhile, OSU-Cascades didn’t get state help funding a new health and recreation facility. What’s plan B? We’re learning what the options are to diversify the funding mix. Are there private partners that might be interested? Philanthropy? And how do we build a stronger case to the state? We’re going to build the building at some point. A different strategy would be helpful. I don’t know what that strategy looks like. Before becoming chancellor, you ran the university’s $1.5 billion budget-planning office. How would you describe your work there? It was an opportunity to learn the other half of how universities work. The business folks don’t necessarily understand the work that faculty do. The faculty worries about things that don’t make sense to the business side. A lot of my work would be policy and making the budget more visible and understandable: How does it work? What’s driving decisions? I had a very talented financial guy, so I didn’t do any of that. Is there anything you’d like to add? OSU has been in Corvallis forever, it’s been part of the community forever. It’s not the same sense as here,x where we’re creating something new, and that level of active engagement. People advocate for us, help us with financing, help introduce me to people in the community who might be interested in being part of the innovation district. I don’t have just my staff, I have all of these people in the community who actively want to help us be successful. Most places don’t have that in the same way. 13
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