UNM finalist weathered storms in previous roles
Shrinking budgets? Deteriorating faculty morale? Athletic scandals?
Garnett Stokes has seen it all before, either at the University of Missouri, where she is currently provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, or somewhere else along her professional journey, like Florida State University.
The University of New Mexico is in the throes of many similar issues, but that did not deter Stokes from seeking a position as its next president. “I really do believe in the importance of
public research universities, and those are the challenges. We need leaders to step up to that,” she said in an interview. “I look at those challenges and they feel familiar. They don’t seem new. Therefore, they don’t seem so daunting.”
Stokes is one of five finalists for UNM’s top job, and visited the campus Monday for a series of interviews and an open forum with the campus community. The final candidate visit, Kenneth Kaushansky, is scheduled for today. The other finalists — David Brenner, Anny Morrobel-Sosa and Charles “Chuck” Staben — came to campus earlier this month.
University leadership is not entirely new for Stokes; she had stints as MU’s interim chancellor and as Florida State’s president, presiding during some particularly rocky times.
During her forum Monday, she recalled the three “negative” media stories that emerged on her second day in charge at Florida State, including news that the U.S. Department of Education had opened its Title IX investigation into how the school handled sexual assault allegations against Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jameis Winston.
Turmoil has also marked her time at MU. In 2015, her first year on the job, racially charged protests erupted on campus. That led to the resignation of top officials, including the school’s chancellor, who wasn’t permanently replaced until the summer of 2017.
She said the frying-pan experiences have taught her the importance of establishing leadership teams with clearly outlined responsibilities and the ability to weather crises, the value of listening to disparate viewpoints — and how not to forget the larger picture.
“I learned how important it is to never lose track of the wonderful things that are happening,” she said. “You can get mired in the negative and you can forget what it is we’re accomplishing.”
Reminding others, including elected officials who make funding decisions, about the university’s societal contributions was a recurring theme for Stokes on Monday. She said she understands why some people have come to question the value of a college education; she used to be one of them.
A so-called “Air Force brat” who routinely moved around as a child, she herself did not plan to go to college when she was younger. After all, neither of her parents had. But she came to see higher education as “transformational” and said universities need to do a better job explaining that outside their campuses. “What I have learned first hand, being at Mizzou in particular, is the importance of building relationships with the citizens of the state, with the communities,” she said.
Sometimes, the explanations should extend to governing boards, she said. In responding to a question about fixing the disconnect between the university’s key decision-makers and everybody else, she stressed communication. Since regents often come to the position from outside academia, she said they should regularly hear a campus-level perspective. She said being a president means constant communication. “You are on 24-7,” she said. When asked what she sees as her biggest challenge should the regents hire her for UNM’s president, she did not cite a single problem. Finances might be tricky, she noted, but she defined her primary goal much more generally: listening to the various constituencies and building trust to ensure a widespread consensus about the university’s direction. MU’s “institutional brand” has suffered due to a breakdown in trust with some across Missouri, she said, and it has shown: The freshman class this year is about 2,000 students smaller than just a few years ago.
“I think that the most important thing that a leader does is really listen, and get to know and build trust and don’t jump too early to conclusions,” she said.
Attendees asked questions on a number of subjects, including her experience promoting faculty diversity in the STEM fields. Stokes said she has routinely promoted hiring diversity in many disciplines. While dean of arts and sciences at the University of Georgia, she said she initiated the first diversity and inclusion climate survey to identify potential problems. It yielded dozens of recommendations. She has also championed a diverse faculty at MU, she said.
“At Mizzou, we’ve probably hired more faculty from under-represented groups in the last year than in the history of the university,” she said.