Stan
Albrecht veered from veterinary plans to role as Head
Aggie
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By Megan Roe
February 9, 2005 | Stan Albrecht
never planned on becoming a university president.
As a young boy, he wanted to become a veterinarian.
"I discovered somewhere along the way that
I was really more interested in people than I
was in animals," Albrecht said.
Albrecht said he loves teaching, working with
students and research. These are the reasons he
chose this profession -- not to become president.
Nevertheless, new position makes him one of the
busiest people on campus. In fact, the new USU
president has been so busy he hasn't had time
to put together a detailed agenda or decide if
he will follow in former President Kermit Hall's
footsteps and put his inauguration money into
a scholarship. He said he is not going to have
an expensive inauguration, but he will have "some
kind of celebration."
The new USU president said he needs to meet with
potential donors, Congress and constituent groups
around the state but he'd like to make the first
100 days of his presidency to be "campus
focused."
"Over that 100 days, I'm going to meet with
100 students, 100 faculty, and 100 staff and just
get a feel from those at our university as to
how they feel about Utah State, what they're excited
about and what things they'd like to see their
new president do," Albrecht said.
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NEW MAN AT THE HELM:
Stan Albrecht in his office
in Champ Hall,
Old Main. / Photo by Josh Russell |
He hopes that an agenda for his presidency will "evolve"
out of that period. He already has many ideas. Some
of those ideas are to continue to focus on academics,
retain freshmen, not deny students for financial reasons
and retain and attract faculty.
Albrecht said USU faculty salaries are about 17 percent
below those of its peer institutions. He said Logan's
cost of housing is actually higher than many of the
cities where those schools are located. He said the
professors that are most successful are attractive to
other institutions. That's why the other schools
are constantly trying to "lure them away"
from USU.
"After three years of no salary increases, that's
not good enough and we're losing a lot of key people,"
Albrecht said. "We have to be in a competitive
position. We're not right now."
USU faculty will probably get a 2.5 percent increase
in pay from the Legislature, but that's not enough,
Albrecht said. He said tuition dollars will probably
need to be devoted to help with faculty salaries. The
school is trying to increase salaries by 4 percent,
along with better benefits, Albrecht said.
Also, USU has the lowest athletic budget of the nine
Western Athletic Conference schools it will be competing
with next year, when the Aggies switch to their new
conference, Albrecht said. He said the school needs
upgraded facilities in order to compete with these schools.
"We have a football stadium that's almost
falling down, the press boxes are separating from the
stadium, we don't have adequate restrooms and
we have lot's of other problems," Albrecht
said.
However, Albrecht said he does not plan on giving money,
which would otherwise support academics, to the athletic
department. He said academics will always come first.
USU also needs to expand budgets to allow new technologies
in the classrooms, Albrecht said. Some funding would
come from private donors, some from legislative support
and some from tuition dollars.
Albrecht said he is looking "very carefully"
at the proposed 43 percent tuition increase in the next
three years. He will not know how much tuition will
increase until he knows how much the legislature will
give USU. This won't happen until the legislative
session ends.
"If the stars align right and we get the help
we hope to get, then obviously that will affect our
ability to look differently at how we will do Tier II
tuition," Albrecht said.
With all of these stresses, Albrecht also wants to
team-teach classes.
Because he is so busy and would have to miss class
frequently, Albrecht said he doesn't want to teach any
classes by himself. But he still wants to be involved
in the classroom -- where he began as an assistant professor
at USU in 1970.
"My view is presidents of universities should
do the kinds of things that we expect of our faculty,
to teach and research and have success," Albrecht
said.
"Then if administrative opportunities are presented
to them and they enjoy them and do them well, other
things will follow."
Photo by Josh Russell
MS
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