Choosing the Best Vision
Each of the three finalists for the presidency of Cal State Channel Islands has particular strengths. The one to be chosen should be the one with the best vision for how to integrate the fledgling university with the community that has worked so hard to get it off the ground.
If ever there was a communitywide effort in Ventura County, CSUCI is it. For three decades, committees of civic leaders and ordinary folk have toiled to turn the county’s dream of a four-year public university into reality. There have been struggles over the location and struggles over funding. But now that the university is settling into its campus on the former grounds of Camarillo State Hospital, the biggest challenge is shaping curriculum, faculty and administration that truly represent the strengths and needs of the county.
Founding President Handel Evans and his team have focused on designing programs that will take advantage of the area’s unique assets and fill its particular demands. With Evans preparing to step down in June, which of the finalists is best suited to carrying this intention forward?
Last week, each of the three candidates received a separate tour of the campus and county, and met with administrators and two citizens advisory committees. Early next month, all three will be interviewed by the California State University Board of Trustees. A new president for the planned university is expected to be named shortly thereafter. The candidates are:
* Vicky Carwein, 52, chancellor and dean of the University of Washington at Tacoma. She says her experience in developing and expanding the 5-year-old Puget Sound campus has prepared her for the CSUCI challenge. She has been engaged in the type of public-private partnerships and income-generating ventures that Channel Islands plans. Carwein holds a doctorate in nursing science from the University of Indiana.
* Michael Ortiz, 53, provost and dean of academic affairs at Cal State Fresno. He says the education needs of county residents should be the first priority when recruiting students. He has developed a number of community partnerships in Fresno, including an entrepreneurial center that helped local businesses get off the ground. A native of New Mexico, Ortiz holds a doctorate in special education and a bachelor’s in English and secondary eduction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s in special education from the University of New Mexico.
* Richard Rush, 58, president of Minnesota State University at Mankato. A former executive vice president at Cal State San Marcos and former dean and director at San Diego State University’s north county campus, he became president of the Mankato campus in 1992. During his tenure, the campus developed partnerships with telecommunications companies and is in the process of becoming a so-called wireless campus, where each of its 12,000 students will be provided with a hand-held device that has telephone, Internet and e-mail capabilities. Rush holds a doctorate in English renaissance literature from UCLA.
Each of the three brings a lifetime of experience and enthusiasm for the task ahead. Whichever of them is selected, it will be up to the Ventura County community to keep up the vigorous support that has already done so much to bring this university to life.
