“It’s exciting,” Spina said, reflecting on his first week on the job. “I understand we haven’t gotten to the hard part of the job yet, but I think the level of support and the quality of people bodes well even when the chips are down.”
This newspaper interviewed Spina on Thursday and discussed his outlook for the University of Dayton.
The conversation included his plans for engaging faculty, students and alumni in charting a vision for the university, promoting diversity at the predominantly white institution, and remaining committed to global engagement and research.
‘Strategic visioning’
The year ahead for Spina will include “strategic visioning” across the university, “really listening to people and what their hopes and dreams are for the university, and areas where we should invest to become an even greater university over the next 20 or 25 years.”
“It’s going to be an authentic process. I don’t have a cheat-sheet — ‘Here are the seven things we’re going to work on,’ ” he said.
Among the issues he already has an eye on are diversity, research and affordibility.
The university, he said, has “a great track record in being innovative” when it comes to affordability. On expanding diversity at a place where the vast majority of students are white, Spina said, “I want to continue to make good progress in that area.”
Assisting those efforts are three newly hired vice presidents in advancement, enrollment management and marketing, and diversity and inclusion.
“And research, we’ll do $115 million of research this year,” he said. “But still, there are places in the university where I think we’ll do a little more.”
‘Nothing on fire’
Spina references the institution as a place where “nothing is on fire.”
Still, the university experienced some high-level turbulence in the waning years of former President Daniel Curran’s administration.
In 2014, 107 tenured faculty cast ballots for a non-binding vote of no-confidence against now-ex Provost Joseph Saliba. Of UD’s 313 tenured faculty, 160 participated in the online vote organized by the authors of the call for action. Those faculty alleged, among other criticisms, that university administrators operated in an aggressive, businesslike manor.
Spina was asked if he believes the concerns that prompted the faculty’s public rebuke of administrators are reconciled.
“I don’t know the details of what happened. I don’t want to know them,” Spina said. “I hope that the faculty here recognize that there’s a new president here who’s a faculty member, a new provost here who’s a faculty member.”
Saliba’s successor, Paul Benson, assumed the provost role this month after an extended interim term.
“As a president from outside the university and as new president, it’s important for me to have someone who is trusted by the faculty and trusted by the trustees,” Spina said.
UD is ‘international’
Spina has adopted the Twitter handle @DaytonPrezSpina to interact with the community. Among his first tweets as president: a greeting of “Eid Mubarak to our Muslim students, faculty, staff and alumni.”
“We’re thinking of you on your important holy day,” he tweeted.
Inclusivity of students regardless of gender, color, race, creed, religion and sexuality, he said, will be a hallmark of his leadership.
“This is an international university,” he said. “We’re significant, not just in Dayton — we are and we’re proud of that — but not just in Dayton, not just in Ohio, not just in the United States, but globally.”
“We’re proud of that,” he said. “We have students in 17 different countries just this summer. We’re not going to shy away from that part of who we are.”
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