The Daily Cardinal: Do you think your previous work within the UW System will serve as an advantage in your new role as president?
Raymond Cross: I think being here through some of what’s happened in the last three years is going to be helpful. Being a part of some of those events and having an understanding of the landscape, both politically and apolitically, is helpful. I also believe that it gives me a better understanding of some of the issues. I also believe that my experience with [University of Wisconsin] Extension and with the [University of Wisconsin] colleges throughout the state - the Extension is in all 72 counties, so I have a pretty good picture of what goes on at least in county government through extension in every county in the state and in the 13 colleges spread out across the state. I have less of a Madison-centric viewpoint. It also has exposed me to, I think, incredible value of the university to the state. The university brings such great value to the state in helping people of the state understand how it impacts their lives, both in the short term and in the long term, is a really important aspect to the presidency.
DC: You mentioned how many campuses there are and how many different factions of the university there are. How do you plan on meeting each individual university’s needs?
RC: I’m not sure any normal human being, which I am, is going to meet all those needs; I think that’s impossible. Understanding those needs comes through listening and spending time with them and trying to understand how to help them address those needs in a collaborative way, in a partnership, whether it be the needs of a community or a campus, or in general, the people of the state. I think that’s part of this job. I think in some ways the university has become somewhat isolated from the people of the state, not intentionally, it’s just part of what we do to try to solve the world’s problems or engage in the world. And when someone can’t find a job in, Butternut, or in Pierce County, their concerns and their issues are right here and they see the university dealing with this. They want the university to be engaged with them as a partner in dealing with their problems. I think we have to do more with that, we have to pay more attention to that, and that’s part of what I intend to do, without sacrificing our interests in global issues.
DC: You’ve said multiple times how you hope to hold listening sessions and that listening is very important to you. What do you hope to get out of those sessions? Will students be involved? Will faculty?
RC: Yes, to all of those questions (laughs). Students will be involved, faculty will be involved, but also community folks and businesses, corporations; all of the elements, the stakeholders, in the state that have an invested ownership, if you will, in the university. In some ways, and this is sort of a play on words, so forgive me but, we are the University of Wisconsin, which that phrase speaks more about location. We are the university of the state, the public university of the state. I would like to play on that a little bit: we are the university working with Wisconsin. We’re the university for Wisconsin. How can we have an impact on the problems of the state, be it employment, job creation, health and nutrition issues, energy issues, this whole propane shortage issue right now … I know these are short-range issues, but from my perspective, what might the university be able to do to help develop strategies for dealing with those kind of things? Whether you’re dealing with the economy or dealing with health and nutrition or you’re dealing with energy or things of that nature, what is it that the university can do to improve the human condition of the people of the state of Wisconsin? If you look at [the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin System], at this incredible statement of purpose, and just read the last line: “inherent in this broad mission,” meaning the mission of the university system, “are methods of instruction, research, extended training and public service, designed to educate people and improve the human condition. Basic to every system is this search for truth.” So what does it mean to improve the human condition and educate people? I think that’s a powerful challenge to us.
DC: I know especially for students a big concern, most notably for students out of state, is the rising cost of higher education. What are some things you’re hoping to do to address that?
RC: I don’t mean to repeat these numbers, but the cost of higher education, particularly in private higher education, has risen much higher than the cost of living has risen over the last couple of decades. It’s also true in public higher education, though it’s not as severe as it is in private higher education. The ability to reduce your costs has a whole array of variables around it. One is financial aid, and making more financial aid available makes net affordability better. A second is time to degree. The average Wisconsin student at this point takes about nine and a half semesters to complete a degree. Reducing that to nine or maybe even eight would have a big impact on the cost. Now, I realize that a number of students, much more than in the past, change majors, which makes that more difficult and many times they are in unrelated areas. I also realize that more students want to take minors or concentrations related to their major, which adds to that. But if we can find a way to shorten time to degree for students, that is significant money saving, not just in tuition, but also in cost of living. Now, directly, it’s important that the universities also work hard to control its cost. We have frozen tuition, in some ways not voluntarily, for the last two years, and we’re trying to find reasonable ways to understand and display our finances so that it’s much more transparent and open to legislators and the public. It was open before, but not as easily understood as it should be, so we’re working on that. In attempting to create a third factor here, attempting to create a rational tuition policy that’s clearly predictable and understandable to the public, both in state and out of state, is important. What are the factors that might contribute to a rational tuition policy, what are your balances, what funds do you have available, what expenses are you facing, what efforts are you taking to control your expenses, are you effectively looking at the right mix or balance of where is the most efficient way of delivering a quality program? There are a number of those factors that have to go in to this analysis. It’s not a simple matrix; it’s complex.
DC: In previous articles or statements, it has been said that when originally approached with the opportunity to take this role, you weren’t really interested. What changed? What became more attractive of the position, or what made you say ‘yes’?
RC: I really wasn’t interested at all when [a Wisconsin State Journal reporter] called me, it was almost like a joke. His first comment was, ‘What are the first three things you’re going to do when you become president’; I said ‘What?’ It was shortly after Kevin [Reilly] had announced his intent to step down. I really hadn’t given it any thought at all and wasn’t considering it and I didn’t even after that for quite a while. And then I ended up getting nominated for the position by a number of folks, and the search [and screen committee] called me and had a long conversation and I still wasn’t very excited about it. But then I started talking to others and thought, ‘Well, maybe I should do it, maybe I should do this. Well, I don’t know. Well, maybe I should!’ and [I went] back and forth. So I sat down and I actually wrote out what do I think I bring to this and also, what weaknesses do I bring, that this position will expose and/or cause problems and how do I deal with that? So you weigh that out and I felt some of the strengths that I bring would be especially helpful right now, so I said ‘Okay, I’ll do this.’ I would’ve been happy if they found someone else, that wouldn’t have bothered me. I like this job, these are good people who I work with.
DC: Looking at things that Kevin Reilly has achieved in office, are there any things that you would hope to emulate during your tenure and are there things that you think you want to handle differently that he has done?
RC: I really hope that when I’m done, I don’t know when that’s going to be but, that the university will enjoy a very positive relationship with the Legislature, with folks from both sides of the aisle, and I think that’s important, to have a close working relationship, a partnership if you will, with the state Legislature. That’s something that’s important to me and I think that relationship building with legislators regardless of their ideology is helpful, so I think that’s something that’ll be a little different. It’s something that I think that Kevin did very well. He had a very collaborative style of management. I hope to continue some of that. Obviously I’m not him, so I have differences. I think it’s important in these next few years that we understand the role and scope of what it means to be a part of a system. Are we adding value to the campuses and institutions, and are we adding value to the state? Do we understand how to balance those interests, so the states interest and the institutional interest is kept in perspective and managed well? I also think it’s important that the system do its best not to create a “one size fits all” approach, whether it be in policies or in practices. These institutions are different and we want badly to have differences and yet, sometimes we work at creating policies that homogenize us and make us look too much alike. The strength of this system is in its diversity and in its inherent differences; let’s magnify that.
DC: So even though there are things at the grander level, is there anything Madison-specific you hope to accomplish, especially with outreach to students?
RC: Well, I actually miss being on a campus and engaging. I used to play basketball with students all the time and you develop relationships and I miss that fun, I really do. I miss that in this job, being engaged with students. Some of the students in student government, student government leaders, I have built some relationships with them and it’s been really enjoyable. So I hope I am able to do more of that, and that one of these days I’m back playing basketball with students in the SERF or something. As long as they go easy on me; I’m getting really old. But I miss that interaction and that sense of ‘this is why we’re here. This is the core of why we’re here.’ Even the research and education and teaching, transforming lives; that’s an important part. We, too often in education, believe that the importation of knowledge into someone’s brain is a disconnected function, we’re actually shaping and forming whole lives. Particularly, young lives that are really, really very malleable; what a tremendous responsibility. When you graduate, and in thirty years from now when you look back at those faculty that made a difference on your life, it won’t be typically those that provided you with the greatest knowledge, it’ll be those that impacted your character and your values and what makes you a person; it’ll be those faculty you remember. Those kinds of things are forged in relationships and the more we can engage faculty and students together much like old tutorial models in England and Europe, the more we can do that interface, it’s just a wonderful thing. I remember working with a faculty member, who was the first person who treated me like I was a professional in that discipline, like I was a colleague and he was more or less mentoring me and bringing me along. I was a student but I was made to feel like this was my career. I felt like a professional, and he worked hard to do that. I think if we look at students like that, these are blossoming professionals in a career, how do we bring them in to this, in a really good way?
