The first of four candidates for Ball State University's provost position will visit campus today and participate in an open forum with faculty, staff and students.
Y.T. Shah, provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of Missouri-Rolla, will give a short presentation and then take questions from forum participants at 3:30 p.m. in Bracken Library, room 225.
The other three provost candidates will visit campus during the week after Spring Break.
Chris Kurtz, Student Government Association vice president and the only student on the provost search committee, said faculty turnout at open forums was good, but student turnout was usually low.
O'Neal Smitherman, chairman of the search committee and vice president of information technology, said if people are not able to come to the open forum, they could watch the webcasts of the forums. Evaluation forms will be available for open forum participants to fill out about the candidates.
The university is looking for a candidate that has good leadership skills and an excellent understanding of higher education, he said.
"We certainly have a wide range of programs on campus and whoever comes here needs to have an appropriate understanding for those programs and the whole university," Smitherman said.
Shah began in the provost position at UMR about five years ago as the university's first provost. He is stepping down at the end of the academic year because UMR has a new chancellor, and Shah said he wanted to give him a chance to select a new provost.
A provost position at a university such as Ball State is the next logical step on his career path, he said.
"I think that Ball State has its own strategic plan," Shah said, "and I think what I need to do as a provost is work with the faculty, staff and students to implement that plan ... Obviously if the plan needs to be changed or modified, that needs to be discussed."
UMR, like many universities across the nation, has seen budget cuts at the state level. Shah said his experience with handling the $8 million cuts at UMR could help him in the provost position at Ball State.
"Even in light of that, we have turned our enrollment around and increased it by 1,000 students," Shah said. "I think it's a matter of working together and faculty, students and staff to face the budget shortfalls by increasing enrollment and research."
Even with the budget cuts, Shah said he hired a new dean of enrollment management and put a plan in place to increase recruiting.
Shah suggested Ball State could increase enrollment by focusing on its nationally-recognized programs and recruiting nationally.
"The third thing you need to do is have more visibility through your faculty through scholarship and research," he said.
Ball State should make sure companies and industries all around the country recruit its graduating students because it would spread Ball State's reputation around the country, Shah said.
UMR's retention and graduation rates have also increased while Shah has been provost. Graduation rates went from 52 percent to 65 percent, he said, and retention rates for returning sophomores was up to 88 percent.
Shah also said he tried to keep contact with students while being provost.
"I am available to meet with a student body group any time or any place," he said. "I try to mediate between their concerns and bring it to the faculty senate and faculty council."
Shah, who has a background in engineering and research, said while his training was not liberal arts, he believed strongly in a broad-based liberal arts education like Ball State provides.
"You can be entrepreneurial and also give an equal importance to the undergraduate liberal arts education," he said.
Shah said he had also applied for positions at universities other than Ball State. He hopes to find a job somewhere further east than UMR so he can be closer to his family.
Shah earned his master's degree in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. He has served as distinguished professor and dean of the College of Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
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