The fall semester of 2007 marks a lot of big changes – and not just freshmen trying to adjust to shared bathrooms. The biggest change in faculty, however, comes from a change of Presidents – with Dr. Youngblood retiring, LSSU found itself in need of a new President – and Dr. Rodney Lowman has stepped up to the plate for our school.

Lowman comes to the Sault from California, near Los Angeles, where he was Provost for Alliant International University, a multi-campus school with eight locations – as the name might suggest – both in California and in Mexico and Japan. His education itself, however, comes from Michigan – where he obtained his PhD at MSU, and served on the faculty at U of M while furthering his studies beyond that. He also attended school in New York, and his wife hails from northern New Hampshire – so he says the snow shouldn’t be too much of an adjustment for them. Dr. Lowman holds his PhD for psychology, with specializations in industrial, organizational, and clinical fields. With regards to his childhood home, he said that he is the child of a military family “So when you ask where I’m from, I could say I’m from X, Y, Z, - I’m from a lot of places.”

“My career has been in and out of academia... and I particularly like areas that have to do with starting new programs, and doing transitions with institutions that need to make a change, and I would put Lake State as an institution that needs to make some changes, in terms of becoming more visible, student enrollments, and in retention”, Lowman said last Thursday. He also pointed out the good news – that for the first time in years, enrollment at LSSU was up this year – thumbs up for the freshmen.

“We need to better define what the Lake State ‘brand’ is,” he explained, “What is the university about, define that, be able to put it into a sentence... I’d like for us to define what that is for this school, what we want to be, and get that message out there.” He also said that he is still discovering for himself what that might be, but that he believes there are very strong programs here, some of which have been under publicized. “I also want to look at the things that cut across majors – Is there a set of things that we want every Lake State graduate to master? ... We need to look at our current programs. What are we doing well? Do we need to change anything to adhere back to that sort of broader theme? And what programs do we not have now that we should have? What can we do to make all the good things that we do here be better known?”

With regards to his hiring, while it may have seemed quick to some students, Lowman said that the interviewing process was extremely intensive, and that the procedure had been going on over the summer as well, when he discovered the job opening in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a publication that, essentially, serves as the Classified ads for college administration, among other things – students might think of it as just like their magazines (Only not. The differences will be left to the imagination of the reader.) “I do think the Board must have felt some urgency with the hiring, as the President and the Provost both retired at the same time, and the search was very thorough... I didn’t know very much about this school before I applied for this job, but the more I learned about it, the more I felt that it was a good match for me, in terms of what this University’s needs were/are, and from the reaction I got meeting with the people here.”

Lowman began his duties officially on October 1st, and while he is still working to get to know school, students, and faculty, he has been involved in the process since the beginning of the year, working his way into the job, so that he can, as he says, hit the ground running. “I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen here,” he added.

When asked his first impressions about the school, he spoke of the beautiful setting, the scenery around here - “I lived in Michigan for seven years, but I don’t think I ever made it past the bridge before”, he said, and that he wished he had – but his own schooling left him little time then, something many students here might sympathize with. “It’s a nice size school as well – but I would like to see it grow”

At the end of the interview, President Lowman wanted to tell the students that he is very optimistic about the future of the university, and that we just need to make sure the message about the school gets out to the rest of the public, that we change what needs to be changed, that the school continues to provide its students with excellent customer service, and keep a watch for new things that can be brought to the school, to enhance both the experience here and its attractiveness to the public and prospective students. “My policy is to be very direct and open with people about the issues we are dealing with, the strengths and the challenges, and to ask people to participate and be part of the process with what is going on with the University.” He indicated also that he plans to have open forums and meetings with students and student government, the first meeting with SG officials will have been this Tuesday.

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