CSU presidential candidate sees her role as a "booster rocket"

As the crowd of about 90 gathered in the Columbus State University Center for Commerce and Technology, the fifth and final presidential candidate started her comments with this explanation:

“You know the moment I start talking that I’m not a native,” Jose-Marie Griffiths, vice president for academic affairs, Bryant University, Smithfield, R.I., since 2010, said in a British accent.

She has held three other vice president or vice chancellor positions, with responsibility for information technology (University of Tennessee and University of Michigan) and research (King Research), two deanships (Tennessee and University of North Carolina), two endowed chairs (Tennessee and University of Pittsburgh) and four directorships at research centers or institutes (Tennessee, Michigan, Pittsburgh and North Carolina). She also has received three U.S. presidential appointments, including two requiring Senate confirmation, as a science and technology policy adviser: National Science Board (2006-12), President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (2003-05) and the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (1996-2002).

Griffiths earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University College London in 1973 and a doctorate in information science from the same institution in 1978. She also was a post-doctoral fellow there in computer science and statistics at the same time.

All of which, she said, has “prepared me for the opportunity that exists here.”

As a scientist by background, she likened herself to a “booster rocket” if she would be CSU’s president.

Griffiths is attracted to CSU’s “record of accomplishment and achievement that is on a trajectory to move forward,” she said. “I believe there’s a tremendous role for regional universities, providing access to education and connecting people to the global nature of things. It’s very much a part of who I am.”

A broad array of academic programs, a diverse student body, and construction and renovation projects show her that “things are happening” at CSU, “and that’s always very interesting for people looking for an opportunity to come in and help move it forward,” she said.

Griffiths said she and her husband, Don, live on the Bryant campus and are active in the university’s life, attending official and unofficial events.

“You can’t be a leader without presence, visibility and engagement,” she said.

Byrant’s enrollment is about 3,500; CSU’s was 8,192 in fall 2014.

“My husband and I, we are not looking to go to one of the huge institutions,” she said. “We’ve been there, done that. We want to come to a smaller community, a geographic community and an academic community where we can contribute and fit in and become very active participants.”

While answering a question about retention, progression and graduation, Griffiths said, “It is clear, certainly clear, that you have retention and completion issues, that certain parts of your student (body) are not moving to completion, and understanding why is something I would want to do.”

Asked how she handles day-to-day complaints, especially from parents, Griffiths said her approach is to separate the emotion from the fact and to be as fair and consistent as possible. She listens first and decides later, she said – and she’s been known to make a couple of mothers unhappy, “but the fathers came around,” she added.

The approach is similar with faculty and staff, “straight forward and open,” Griffiths said. With each decision, she said, everybody has a chance for input and she communicates the rationale so “they can say they don’t like it but not that they don’t understand it,” she said.

It was the first of two open forums Monday for the public to meet, hear and question Griffiths. About 25 folks attended the subsequent forum, held on CSU’s downtown campus in the Riverside Theatre Complex.

Griffiths, 62, is the last of the five remaining candidates to visit. The first was Randy Hanna, 56, who was chancellor of the Florida College System, formerly known as the Florida Community College System, from 2011 through Dec. 31, when he resigned to pursue a university presidency while also returning to the Tallahassee, Fla., law firm Bryant Miller Olive. The second was Aldemaro Romero Jr., 63, the former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Southern Illinois University, where he now is a biology professor after losing his five-year deanship Dec. 31 in a reorganization. The third was Chris Markwood, 49, the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi provost and vice president for academic affairs the past four years. The fourth was Carl Stockton, 57, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Houston-Clear Lake since 2007.

Out of 60 applicants, the 17-member search and screening committee chose 11 to interview. Ten were interviewed last month in Atlanta, and five made the cut.

The committee will recommend 3-5, without ranking them, to the University System Board of Regents. The Special Regents’ Search Committee will recommend an unspecified number of finalists to chancellor Hank Huckaby, who will recommend his top choice to the full board.

Tim Mescon, who announced his departure six months ago, was CSU president for six years when he retired Dec. 31 to move to Amsterdam and become senior vice president and chief officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International.

Mescon is the fourth president in the 57-year history of CSU, which began as Columbus College. Thomas Whitley served from 1958-79, Francis Brooke from 1980-87 and Frank Brown from 1988-2008.

Tom Hackett, the CSU provost and vice president for academic affairs, has been serving as interim president.

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow Mark on Twitter@MarkRiceLE.

This story was originally published March 16, 2015 at 10:20 PM with the headline "CSU presidential candidate sees her role as a "booster rocket"."