Rogers

Q and A with chief academic officer Ralph Rogers

By: Brian Bultema

Posted: 9/22/08

After a six-month vacancy, the position of vice chancellor of academic affairs, PUC chief academic officer, was filled over the summer by former dean and professor Ralph Rogers.

Rogers comes to PUC after serving five years as dean of the College of Technology and Computer Science at East Carolina State University, the third largest school in North Carolina.

Rogers' background also includes administrative and faculty positions at Old Dominion University and the University of Central Florida. He has also served in faculty positions at Ohio University, Piedmont Virginia Community College and the University of Rio Grande.

The Chronicle recently sat down with Rogers to discuss his appointment, his future at PUC and exactly what the vice chancellor of academic affairs does.

The Chronicle: "Students and faculty hear about many vice chancellors and assistant vice chancellors. What is your role on here on campus vice president of academic affairs?"

Rogers: "The term means all academic affairs report to me. Professors work for a department head, the department head works for the dean and the deans works for me. My position focuses a lot on larger issues - the allocation of resources, assessing academic needs, enrollment, admissions. Some more things I run into are experiential learning and the honors program, and budgets. We constantly deal with budgets. It's kind of like being a head coach."

The Chronicle: "When you refer to the allocation of resources, what is it that you mean?"

Rogers: "Money. You know, one way or another it comes down to money. And that's money for equipment, faculty positions, graduate positions. At one point or another I carry all the needs from the academic departments over to the Senior Leadership Team. It's my job, or part of my job, to make sure the needs of our academic affairs are presented to the chancellors and vice chancellors. And it's not a military type of leadership where you tell those lower down what to do and they just do it. The power of those higher up here depends very much on your ability to sell your ideas. It's, I know I keep coming back to this, but just like a head coach.

The Chronicle: "You talk about selling your ideas. What ideas and aspirations do you have for the future of PUC?

Rogers: Well, it's to see PUC as the leader in regional universities. I really think the regional universities are where the action's at. And they're a relatively new phenomenon, only in the last 50 years. The role used to be like PUC, a commuter campus, where you come get your education and leave. But the role in now tied to region. It becomes a stabilizing force in the region by providing an educated workforce, the learned citizenry, but a lot about where a region wants to go economically. They represent the most stable force in a region. It's really asking, how do we help the region we're in?

The Chronicle: "I heard recently that the graduate school is planning on expanding."

Rogers: We'll be looking to increase the number of master's programs here soon as well as the number of master's students. The program's we'll emphasize are what we call workforce development where working professionals are looking to increase specialized knowledge who will attend part time while working.

The Chronicle: Now that the semester is underway, how have the first few weeks been for you?

Rogers: It's been busy since I started July 1, but being in my position I've had very little contact with faculty and students. It's different for me. I miss teaching, but right now because of my other duties I think students would get the short end of it. What I do like about it is that I now see the bigger picture about how everything at a university has to work together.

The Chronicle: What did you see in PUC initially that made you think it would be a good fit for you?

Rogers: One is the fact that it's a regional campus. East Carolina had higher aspirations and had 28,000 students moving to 30,000. It was going in a direction I didn't think I wanted to go. They had a medical school that was the big dog on campus and a big-time athletics program. I won't miss it from an administrative standpoint. I believe in regional universities and the fact is I'm having a ball.