Q. What does it mean to be an assistant chancellor?

A. Within UW Oshkosh, the chancellor has cabinet positions reporting directly to him that hold the title of the assistant chancellor. In my case, my new position [Assistant Chancellor for Access Campuses] is reasonably similar in scope to my most recent position within the UW Colleges NE Region as Regional Executive Officer and Dean. In that role, I reported directly to the Chancellor of UW Colleges/UW-Extension.

Q. What do you like most about what you do?

A. My job is extremely varied, not only with where I may be each day [on the campus, or off campus, meeting with community/business leaders] but also with learning what is effectively a brand new institution and its policies, processes and the new connections at the Oshkosh campus. I have a marvelous access campus leadership team so I like dealing with the issues we face in higher education to make the University a better experience for our nearly 15,000 students and 1,500 employees.

Q. What do you think about the colleges merging, and how do you feel this will affect your work?

A. We believe that all three campuses have been given a remarkable opportunity in this joining, and that is how we describe this restructuring. I am excited about my work and the challenge that lies ahead in taking what we all have to offer and creating the new University. My work is already affected greatly and I have the dozens of new people I have met through this process to thank for that: students, faculty and staff are helping slowly learn about Oshkosh traditions and practices, and I can, in turn, help them understand what made our access campuses so remarkably successful at what we do.

Q. Did you always know you wanted to work with students?

A. My work with students has changed greatly over the 20 years I have worked in higher education. I worked at a regional comprehensive university previously when I taught chemistry, and my involvement with students was in advising and undergraduate research and honors college projects. I also loved those activities that I did when I was teaching organic chemistry at the UW-Fox Valley campus, and especially team-teaching interdisciplinary courses. My work with students now is different; my advising is in a different capacity as students seek me out to help them solve problems or because they are facing a barrier to their next educational steps. Working for our students is what we do every day; I heard it before restructuring and I continually hear it now. We truly are a student-focused University.

Q. Do you spend more time on one campus than the others or is it balanced?

A. Balance is tough to find in this transition time. As well as spending time on the intense issues that are in front of us, we begin to act in ways that reflect our “three campuses, one University” reality. I am committed, with the faculty and staff at our access campuses, to leadership in Menasha and Fond du Lac. So being on all three campuses really is a part of the work and that involves travel. I do have an office on each campus and having worked in a multi-campus environment for the last [nearly] three years, I am very comfortable making good use of technology such as Skype for Business for meetings and use of the cloud for accessing my files.