Research, collaboration draws candidate to UI
Lee Kats said he knows firsthand how valuable land-grant institutions are to local communities.
Growing up on a farm in Indiana, he said his family always knew what to do when their crops didn’t grow according to plan.
“We’d take a soil sample and send it to the land-grant institution and they (gave) us an answer,” Kats said. “I was inspired by these unknown, unnamed people who were providing answers to our farm.”
Lee Kats
Kats, a candidate in the running for the new provost and executive vice president position at the University of Idaho, said he always aspired to work for a university that gives back to the public.
Kats is the third finalist to visit UI for an on-site interview and open forum. He is currently the vice provost for research and strategic initiatives at Pepperdine University in California and has held the position since 2011.
Addressing an audience of faculty and staff Tuesday, Kats said a few major challenges facing higher education are accessibility and affordability, maintaining universities as innovation centers and focusing on community-level research and engagement.
Kats said he is impressed with UI’s efforts to address these challenges, and believes the leadership of UI President Chuck Staben will be instrumental in moving the university forward.
“The University of Idaho is uniquely poised to deal with these challenges,” he said. “The university is in good shape to make those adaptations.”
Kats said he hopes the issue of college accessibility and affordability will be at the forefront of higher education problem solving strategies in the years to come.
“It’s a good dialogue to have,” he said. “The country, the state will be a better place if the University of Idaho can solve these issues and enroll more students.”
He acknowledged UI’s enrollment shortfalls and said if he were hired, he would place a strong emphasis on retention efforts.
Kats said there is a stigma among some legislators and members of the public that higher education institutions aren’t the centers of innovation they used to be. He said some of the most intelligent and innovative humans — university students, staff and faculty — are packed into places that are not creative.
“Universities have to figure out a way to break through that and become innovative places once again,” he said.
To combat this challenge at Pepperdine, Kats created an innovation initiative where faculty, staff and students proposed research projects and competed for significant funding to pursue their ideas, he said.
Kats said one of the overarching goals of higher education intuitions should be to put an emphasis on community engagement. Reflecting on his childhood, Kats said land-grant institutions play a public service role in small communities.
Kats said he was elated to see much of UI’s research is done through collaborations among different colleges and departments.
“Out of all the universities I’ve read about, looked at and I’ve visited … I see more interdisciplinary work going on here already that most institutions even think about,” he said.
Kats has spent most of his career in private, religion-affiliated institutions — such as Pepperdine — and believes the experience would positively contribute to UI. He said he believes there are constraints on those institutions, and he would like to work at a university where possibilities are limitless.
Kats said he has been a “thorn in (Pepperdine’s) side” for pushing diversity efforts. He said one of the reasons he would like to come to UI is because of its strong commitment to diversity.
“We are better students, we are better teachers and we are better scholars when we have colleagues from diverse backgrounds,” he said.
Kats said if he were hired at UI, he would ensure there is adequate representation among the colleges and departments when it comes time to develop a strategic plan for future years.
He said he is not afraid to address challenges in higher education, rather he is excited to overcome them.
“I don’t view the challenges of higher education as ominous and as something to be discouraged about, but as something to take head on,” Kats said. “I think (UI) is in a great position to do that.”
Amber Emery can be reached at [email protected]