Schmaling comes to EWU to interview for open provost position

Eastern Washington University students and staff met the first of three finalists for the open provost and vice president of academic affairs position.

Dr. Karen Schmaling, professor of psychology at Washington State University-Vancouver, appeared at two interview sessions, Jan. 28 at Showalter Hall at the Cheney campus and Jan. 29 at the Spokane Academic Center - formerly Riverpoint campus.

Schmaling is a professor of psychology at the WSU-Vancouver and was the vice chancellor for academic affairs from 2010-2012. Before WSU-Vancouver she was the dean of the College of Health and Human Services at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

During her interview, Schmaling presented a bullet list of future ideas for each vision she would look at if she was hired. She looked at the different student organizations on campus and explained how synergies between them could be used to engage more students.

She also studied the withdrawal and transfer rate at EWU and asked what the university could do to bring those students back after they drop out after four years. Schmaling said she also wants to strengthen expectations for graduates and detect early warnings, as well as recognize progress and celebrate "milestone accomplishments."

During questions, interm-director of community engagement Gabby Ryan asked Schamling what experience she has in developing relationships between colleges and the community and how she would continue the partnerships between Cheney and EWU if she was hired as provost.

Schmaling said she spent hours helping the UNC-Charlotte's community engagement office build a network with businesses, helping students connect with local businesses for volunteer work, jobs and other opportunities.

"The relationship between a university and the community takes effort and it needs nurturing and time," Schmaling said.

When Schmaling was asked about her opinion of the provost's role in "Living Learning Communities," she said she would like to understand what the provost's current role is with the communities, see if it meets its needs and take it from there.

"Every university is different and I would want to make sure it gets the attention it needs," Schmaling said

Dr. Barbara L. Alvin, Department of Mathematics Chair said staff are concerned about budget cuts and larger class sizes and asked what resources Schmaling would suggest to make sure larger class sizes do not impact individual student learning.

Schmaling said there are lots of ways to acquire resources, including seed money to allow the department to "do some course redesign."

"At UNC-Charlotte we used that money to redesign the course curriculum (of Human and Health Services) into a scalable model that included occasional online classes, some labs, and one lecture a week," Schmaling said.

Margaret O'Connor, professor and chair and co-director of the Turnbull Laboratory for Ecological Studies, asked Schmaling's approach to manage academic units in time of crisis

Schmaling said she would seek out resources and conduct some "good academic planning."

"The hardest decision to make is to cut programs, it takes a lot of discussion," Schmaling said. "There was a program in WSU-Vancouver that shopped it to other colleges. There were low enrollment rates and we talked to faculty involved with the program. You want to make these kinds of decisions far in advance."

Schmaling also suggested using research and institutional grants that support ongoing activity.

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].