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Volume 70, Issue 91,
Monday, February 14, 2005
News Gonzalez urges cooperation Provost candidate focuses on bringing UH to 'Tier I' status By Jim Parsons
A clear, shared vision will be needed for UH to become a flagship research university, provost candidate Gerardo Gonzalez said Friday. "You need a focused vision. That idea of being a ‘Tier I' institution has to be widely shared," Gonzalez, university dean of Indiana University's School of Education, told a group of about 50 during an open forum at the University Hilton. "The other thing that's required is money -- lots of it." Gonzalez said the University is working from a position of disadvantage in its quest for increased research stature because the nation's top schools are an entrenched group.
Indiana University's Gerardo Gonzalez, a candidate for UH provost, stressed the need for planning, collaboration and pride in improving the quality of the University during a forum for the campus community Friday. Carolyn Dunn/The Daily Cougar Gonzalez touched on several topics important to the UH community during the forum, including shared governance -- the concept of students, faculty, staff and administrators joining forces in campus policymaking. "I equate faculty governance to one of the ideal systems of democratic governance. We all know in a democracy, if you don't participate, you can't have a long-lived democracy," he said, adding that shared governance requires "mutual respect" between faculty and the provost. In terms of faculty retention, Gonzalez said the priority should be investing in faculty members early. If a university gives its faculty members what they need, he said, they won't want to leave. He said rewarding faculty members who perform well is also essential. "To try to be egalitarian and keep everyone at a low salary so no one gets mad is a prescription for disaster," Gonzalez said. Some questions focused on attracting and keeping top-quality students, and Gonzalez said part of achieving that is making sure college is accessible to those students. "I think we need to look at the financial aid in this country and the extent to which that's disappearing, and (we need to) be advocates for the students who can't afford the cost of an education," he said. Overall, Gonzalez said one of the most important ways to improve a university is to take pride in what it is doing. "It starts with all of us taking pride in what we do, and when we speak of the University of Houston, doing so with great pride," he said. The next provost forum, for Reed Dasenbrock of the
University of New Mexico, will be held at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday in the University
Hilton's Waldorf-Astoria Room.
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