Regardless of Who Is Selected as the Next University of Utah President, Social, Public Health, and Economic Forces they guarantee that it is not as usual in the state's flagship university.
The Utah Board of Higher Education is scheduled for Thursday to interview two women and a man who aspire to become the 17th president of the college in Salt Lake City. The new president could be appointed on Thursday afternoon.
The finalists run for president during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a national reckoning on educational equity and social justice, and a sea change in the way education is delivered.
The next president will assume leadership of a campus that seeks to resume instruction largely in person. The president will inherit a community with ongoing concerns about physical safety following two high-profile homicides on campus in recent years and faltering efforts to reform police policies and practices.
In the fall of 2017, 23-year-old ChenWei Guo was killed during an attempted carjacking near the gates of Red Butte Garden.
In October 2018, student-athlete Lauren McCluskey was fatally shot outside her bedroom by a man she had dated. McCluskey's parents sued the university and in November 2020 settled $ 13.5 million of their two lawsuits. As part of the settlement, the university acknowledged that it mishandled McCluskey's multiple reports to police.
The university has begun to implement reforms and has hired the university's first security officer director and a new police chief, although both recently left the university.
At the same time, the U. has achieved footholds in academia and college athletics that not long ago seemed like a pipe dream: admission to the prestigious Association of American Universities and being part of the Pac- 12.
On Wednesday, the three candidates addressed the university community in individual town halls held on campus.
The finalists came to campus – although two already have ties to the university – and answered a wide range of questions on topics ranging from COVID-19 response, student access, and fundraising to their respective experience working. with legislative bodies.
The following are a sample of their responses to questions posed by faculty, staff, and students.
COVID-19 and the U.
As the University of Utah prepares to launch the fall term, the mask and vaccination mandates are prohibited by current state law. Each of the finalists was asked what would be the best way to protect public health in these circumstances.
However, there are many other measures that the university can – and is already taking – such as public education efforts that encourage masking, vaccination, and social distancing.
"This is a community that is educable and this is a community that can voluntarily come to a safe place, right? So that's my focus and that's what I'll do given the limitations of this law," he said.
Randall said the business school has approached his response through one-on-one conversations, developing solutions to address people's circumstances.
"COVID is a short term thing, we have to remember that. Our people are the long-term. While we have some limitations, we really have to be patient and empathetic with people where they are and try to find ways to help them, "said Randall.
Dr. Carrie L. Byington, executive vice president of the University of California Health Company and professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, has overseen the COVID-19 response for the entire system of UC.
Byington said his reading of HB308, which prohibits a government entity from requiring that a person receive a vaccine for COVID-19, suggests that there may be a window of opportunity once coronavirus vaccines are fully approved by federal regulators. .
“I think shortly, probably by Labor Day, we will have at least one fully licensed vaccine in the United States. That gives the president of the University of Utah the opportunity to start advocating again, share public health information, and begin advocating for actions that could result in a different outcome for the vaccine. If the fall period has to happen without vaccines or mask mandates, then we need a huge investment in testing infrastructure, ”said Byington.
Diversity, equity, inclusion
When asked to share her philosophy on equity and inclusion and its impact on her approach to leadership, Murthy, who is Indian-American and the first dean in the engineering school from UCLA, he replied, "For me, it's personal."
"I'm an engineer, so I've really been the only woman in the room since I was 16. I mean, that's been my life story, right? So it matters. Access matters. Student success, particularly for underrepresented groups, it's important. And then there's every other area of intellectual enterprise. How can I, for example, marry engineering with issues of diversity and equity? There are big intellectual issues we're starting to invest in. school and UCLA. So that's a big problem. "
Byington replied, laughing softly: "I think I am, perhaps, a random act of diversity."
She grew up on the US-Mexico border and was the first Mexican American woman to serve as dean and senior vice president of an academic medical center in the United States when she was hired by Texas A&M in 2016.
“So it has informed me, the feeling of always being outside, has informed what I see. In fact, I've outgrown diversity and especially just one checkbox of "Do we have one of everything?" We need inclusion. We need real inclusion and that means, at all levels, students, staff, teachers at all levels. We need to hear the voices of the people. It can't be included if you're not sitting at the table, "he said.
Randall said he believes the U. is at a tipping point where" we can actually do something that makes us rise above category in the world of higher education. And I would love to do that with you. But I also commit to you and promise you that it will be an inclusive mission.
"Regardless of sex, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion, we are here to attract everyone. This is a place where society is transformed. It is where we learn to get along with each other. It is where we have to model that behavior. But we also have to give that as a gift to our students because it will be one of the biggest challenges of our life, ”he said.
Why They Want the Job
Randall earned his college degree from U. and his graduate degrees in business from the University of Pennsylvania . It's a third generation professor who said he is 'passionate' about Utah's flagship university.
“My family says I am irrationally passionate. I love that this place has transformed me since I was a student. It has transformed my career. It has really made me imagine a different world for myself, for my family, for the students, ”he said.
The university “may be sitting in front of the biggest opportunity that higher education and healthcare have to offer right now, in terms of population. We have an economy that is probably too hot right now. We have funds in the legislature that are moving now and they want to invest in us, in higher education and in the future. We are an AAU school. Our research dollars are going off the charts. I could go on and on and on. So I'd like to challenge everyone with, "Let's be brave. Let's do something that surprises us and everyone else," Randall said.
Byington, who spent 21 years of her career at the University of Utah Health as a professor of pediatrics, vice dean for academic affairs and faculty development at the university's School of Medicine, said that for the past 20 months she has been immersed in what what has happened during the COVID-19 pandemic and what it has revealed about higher education institutions, medicine and society in general.
“That is really why I am here today because I believe that we are in a period of transformation. As we recover, we will need a higher education. We will need academic medical attention. The 21st century will be defined by how we respond to 2020. It will be hard and transformative work. I would like to be here at the University of Utah, where I believe there is a very special spirit of collaboration and innovation that can help teach the rest of the nation how we develop a more inclusive society with opportunities for all, ”he said.
Murthy, who was one of the first employees of the New Hampshire-based company that developed the world's most widely used computational fluid dynamics software, FLUENT, said she is interested in becoming president of the University of Utah because of her "Amazing possibilities."
"Anyone who is not completely blind will understand that the university is at a tipping point and you can see from the data, you can see that on his admission to the AAU, he is a member of the Pac-12. It's not easy to do any of these things, and having them happen in a short time, in a decade, is a big problem, "he said.
State universities “are very complicated animals. So if it happens (AAU and Pac-12 admission), it happens because there are a lot of things that are working well. There is something very correct in the DNA of your leadership, the DNA of the faculty, the DNA of the students of the staff. Something is coming together. And I want to be part of what makes this university move forward, make a huge quantum leap in the next decade, ”said Murthy.
President Ruth Watkins, selected as the university's 16th president in 2018, resigned in April after accepting the position of president of Strada Impact. Strada is a national social impact organization that works to strengthen the pathways between education and employment.
Dr. Michael Good, CEO of Health at the University of Utah and executive dean of the School of Medicine, has served as interim president. He did not apply for the position.
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