Provost to alumni: "We have a foundation for greatness"

Provost to alumni: "We have a foundation for greatness"

YSU’s new provost has a message for the university’s 104,000-plus alumni—we want you back.

No, not necessarily as students again (though alums are always welcome to return to the classroom), but as active members of the university community.

“I’d like to see our alumni more engaged at the university, more involved in service projects, more connected to our students,” said Brien Smith, who became YSU’s chief academic officer earlier this year.

“Our alumni have so much to offer and have made tremendous impacts in their professions and in their communities. We want to create opportunities for them to make the same kind of impact on their alma mater.”

Smith, appointed following a four-month search that drew more than 60 applicants from across the country, comes to YSU after seven years as dean of the Scott College of Business at Indiana State University and 23 years in various academic capacities at Ball State University. As provost, he oversees the university's academic division, including six academic colleges, the College of Graduate Studies, Honors College and the Office of International Programs. Overall, he’s second in charge at the university, behind the president.

He’s jumped head first into the job, meeting with faculty, working with senior leadership, connecting with the community and, maybe more than anything, taking a lead position in the development of the university’s new strategic planning process.

That plan, he says, will guide the university, allowing YSU to take charge of its future built on a foundation that emphasizes quality academic programs and student success.

“What we do in higher education has the ability to shape the future for our students and transform communities in the process,” he said. “A strong strategic plan can act to strengthen the culture of community and enable excellence and success.”

The important role that YSU specifically, and higher education in general, plays for the nation’s future is something Smith says goes mostly unrecognized and misunderstood.

“We need to do more to promote all the great things we do,” he said. “Our programs have received the highest accolades and many of our talented faculty compete on the national stage. We have the foundation for greatness, and we have something great to offer.”

Smith has published nearly 25 articles in refereed journals and made more than a dozen academic presentations at conferences from New York and Atlanta to San Diego and San Francisco. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and a PhD in Industrial Psychology, a discipline that explores how motivation, communication and morale impact performance and a knowledge-base that certainly comes in handy as the leader of such a large academic enterprise.

“Because of my training, I naturally see where there might be deficiencies here or there that can be corrected to make jobs or systems more meaningful,” he said. “It’s the interplay between jobs and between people that makes a big difference."