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University community meets presidential candidate Melsa
01-18-2001 | University Relations

About 80 people attended a diversity forum and about twice that many came to the open forum Jan. 18 for Iowa State presidential finalist James Melsa.
Melsa currently serves as dean of Iowa State's College of Engineering.
Following are some highlights of his comments at the two forums.

On diversity in a university community.
It's not a problem to solve, but an opportunity. My wife talks about unity without uniformity, and I agree with that. You don't throw out what you are so we blend together better; you celebrate it. We can't make people think things. All we can do is repeat the message and walk the talk every day -- that diversity is richly important to us and to the educational experience.

On retaining women and minority faculty and staff members.
Putting money into dual career programs and rewarding departments financially for their diversity achievements are good options. We need to work with Des Moines employers more to identify those second jobs for couples. I'm not comfortable with targeting searches [to hire someone from an underrepresented group] because it feels too much like we're not picking the best person for the job. We also have to identify why they're leaving by interviewing them before they leave, and then address those problems.

On Iowa State's diversity course requirement for graduation.
I'm not opposed to these courses. They're good steps and I support them, but they don't solve the problem and may only trivialize the problem. We still need to look for a diverse faculty and for global experiences for our students.

On the state's (governor, Legislature) funding commitment to K-12 education.
We have to work hard, starting now, to convince the governor and the Legislature of the regents schools' importance to the state's economy. Things feel relatively comfortable now, but there are signs that this state could be in trouble. Iowa State needs to do more private fund raising and we can. We probably will continue to increase tuition, but we also need to raise more financial aid for our students to offset that. And I think we've reached the point that we can't keep shaving percentage points off our budget. We are reaching the bottom in some areas. With the provost, deans and faculty senate, the president may need to look at what we stop doing, based on the goals of the strategic plan. I don't know what that is right now, but we can't let our quality dribble away.

On globalization.
As students and professionals, it's what gets us to be comfortable with interactions around the world. As president, my job would be to dig out policies that put barriers on traveling abroad. We need to make sure we don't look at the United States as the only place things happen. The president's job also is to keep selling the idea of globalization and to look for connections around the world that make it easier for travel and these relationships to happen.

On faculty who aren't very strong teachers.
Teacher evaluations have to be taken more seriously. I think there's some value in publishing the results of evaluations, once we're sure the instrument measures valid issues. We can't afford to put people in front of students who don't want to teach. I would recommend CTE (Center for Teaching Excellence) activities to them or get them out of the classroom. I feel great sympathy for students in these situations.

On high salaries in the athletics department.
My son-in-law makes $30,000 as a social worker. I wish it wasn't this way; I wish our culture put a greater value on a job, such as his, that is really tough to do. We pay movie stars an awful lot of money. Are they better people? No. As long as we choose to sponsor intercollegiate athletics -- and I think we should -- we need to be competitive. And if we choose to compete, we have to put the money into it.

On homosexuality.
Sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice and a personal choice. I have no problem with it. I suspect there's some discrimination on this campus, but as a university, we have to make it clear that these are lifestyle choices, as is religion or other choices, and we have to respect them.

On the practice of hiring temporary instructors.
A policy that replaces temporary faculty with full-time, tenure-track faculty could be very, very expensive. So we're weighing this cost against just wanting to provide an acceptable quality of education. I'd like to see an earlier read on what departmental teaching needs will be so there can be an earlier release of resources. If 30 percent of a department's faculty are temporary, that seems too high; 20 to 25 percent strikes me as the right maximum level.

On his agenda for a first year as ISU president.

Convince state leaders of ISU's role in helping develop the state's economy.
Expand professional development opportunities for faculty and staff.
Ask for feedback, including annual reviews of his performance from faculty, staff and students.
Look into offering short classes during the January break.
Study ISU's organizational structure to make sure we're using resources efficiently, with an eye to moving more central funds into units.
Expand and rename the CTE (to Center for Learning Excellence) to make it an internationally recognized faculty center.