Much of the University Faculty Meeting Wednesday was devoted to recognizing new university faculty.
President Chuck Staben got a chance to make remarks during the meeting as well.
Staben started off by welcoming the new faculty members to the University of Idaho.
“You are now a part of the Vandal family,” Staben said.
New faculty Staben said, help in training future generations of professionals while also helping other faculty and administration to better understand how to go about achieving university goals.
Staben said he wants to encourage more young people in Idaho to embrace the idea of going on to a higher education institution.
“We”re ready to do great work for the state of Idaho,” he said. “By setting ambitious goals, one of those is creating a college-going culture in our state – which frankly, our state needs improvement.”
Staben said he was already looking 10 years into the future to 2025, which is how long he said he wants to be at UI. Last year, Staben spent a lot of time explaining “what” he wanted to do and this year he said he would focus on explaining “why” his goals are important.
Staben said his three primary goals include offering a more transformative education, increasing enrollment and building a team of faculty and staff.
Staben explained the increasing university enrollment is important not just for UI, but for Idaho as a whole.
Idaho is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to young people going on to higher education, and
Staben said he wants UI to be the institution that makes a difference.
“We want to change the game,” he said. “We want to change the future for Idaho.”
Increasing enrollment is not just a matter of improving recruitment, but also retention rates, Staben said. He admitted last year he may have focused the majority of the attention on recruiting new students, but said keeping UI students who are currently enrolled is equally important.
Staben said he is working to enable the qualified students of Idaho to make the choice to go to college, and estimated there were about 5,000 young people who were qualified to attend UI.
He said he is aiming to get 20 percent of those students enrolled each year, but needs the rest of his team at the university to help.
Staben said he also hopes to strengthen his team. He said his vision for the university is for faculty to be driven by purpose, but is worried that lately people have been letting distractions take away from their personal prospects. He said to combat this, he plans to listen to the faculty and work to mold his team to be goal-oriented.
“If we can do that, I believe that we can be a great team with a great purpose and reshape Idaho,” Staben said.
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer