Winthrop University
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Rock Hill, South Carolina
Race for the president’s office
Jacob Hallex / The Johnsonian
Dr. Daniel Mahony visited the Winthrop Office of Student Publications to dicuss his plans for Winthrop if selected as the institution’s next president.
Kent State official believes he can bring stability to Winthrop Adarrell Gadsden gadsdena@mytjnow.com Faculty and staff morale runs deeper than just salary according to one of the finalists vying to become Winthrop University’s 11th president. Dr. Daniel Mahony believes he can bring stability to a campus where there have been three different university presidents the past three academic years. Mahony who is the current Dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, said that while salaries maybe a part of the problem, he believes the instability in the leadership at Winthrop is also a reason for low morale amongst faculty and staff, and he hopes to have a chance to fix it. “Having some stability is critically important both for morale and developing that vision going forward and of following through with it,” Mahony said. “A lot of people are in a place for two or three years. I don’t know how you get a lot done in higher education in two or three years. You want to
be somewhere you can make an impact, and that’s my goal.” Mahony who is one of the longest serving deans on the Kent State campus told students during a meet and greet Wednesday night that he has seen areas of his current institution be transformed through better recruitment practices and believes the same could help Winthrop. The Rock Hill Herald reported that he is also the finalist for two other high profile higher education jobs, one as a provost at Saint Louis University and the other is for president at a private school he did not name to the Herald. He said that he is excited for the opportunities at Winthrop and believes the campus has room to grow. During his meet and greet with university students a member of Winthrop’s student government, the Council of Student Leaders asked what he saw as the good, bad and ugly of the institution. Mahony cited the positive feelings people have for the institution, citing the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
see MAHONY pg. 3
Eric Hammett / The Johnsonian
Dr. Alan Shao of College of Charleston sat down with Jacob Hallex to discuss why he wants to be Winthrop’s next president.
College of Charleston dean vying for Winthrop’s highest office Adarrell Gadsden gadsdena@mytjnow.com The final candidate for the Winthrop presidency has many previously established contacts on the university’s campus, focus on student preparedness for the workforce and wants to push the enrollment growth imperative across state lines The Dean of the College of Business at the College of Charleston was the third and final finalist for the Winthrop president job to visit campus Sunday. Dr. Alan Shao met with students in the DiGiorgio Campus Center where he answered questions and spoke about how he would transform Winthrop. Shao, unlike the other two candidates for the job has a direct connection to South Carolina besides being employed at the College of Charleston. His mother is from Bethune, South Carolina, outside of Camden. Shao said he loves the state and remembers being here during his childhood. “I love this state. I’ve always
loved this state. I have a heritage. I remember as a kid playing in Kershaw County and Kershaw County Park,” Shao said. “I’m privileged to be able to give back.” Shao said that he’s been able to give back at the Dean’s level at College of Charleston but would love to have the chance to do so on a higher plane. Really focused on student preparedness after leaving college, Shao uses an acronym to describe what a GREAT college is. Shao said there are five ingredients that all college graduates should have. “G is globalization, all students should have a global mindset,” Shao said. “I want all students to have an opportunity to globalize their mind, not just in the curriculum, but be able to study abroad and learn from professors who have international experience.” The “R” in “GREAT” says that students should go into the workplace “ready to work.” Shao believes that connecting students with the surrounding business community will better prepare students for the work they will end up doing after leaving Winthrop. Shao says that students need to have an entrepreneurial mindset, which is the “E” of his acronym and that students need to be innovative.
see SHAO pg. 3
Kelsey Timmerman visits Winthrop Author of Winthrop’s common book talks food security Jami Hodgins hodginsj@mytjnow.com Kelsey Timmerman, author of Winthrop’s Common Book for 2014-2015, “Where am I Eating?”, inspired students with stories from his own experiences and answered questions on campus March 3-4.
“Over the past decade, I’ve been travelling to the places that produce the things that we take for granted,” Timmerman said. He said that he developed an interest in archaeology during college and majored in anthropology, because he wanted to be like Indiana Jones. “Studying archaeology taught me empathy- to try to look at the world through someone else’s perspective,” he said. Timmerman explained that his grandmother gave him $5,000 after
graduating college, and he decided to spend it all travelling across the world. He spoke about how, after working as a scuba diving instructor in Key West, Florida, he began to develop his writing skills as he wrote weekly travel columns for Key West and spent virtually all of his money travelling in his spare time. Timmerman revealed that his investigative adventures began when he decided to visit Honduras after realizing that one of his T-shirts was made there.
In Honduras, he befriended a factory worker named Amilcar whose story deeply inspired his curiosity about the lives of others. After this trip, he said he started to think about the sociology class he took in college. He began to ask “questions that could change the way [he saw] the world as a global and local citizen,” Timmerman said. “That class that [he] thought [he] got nothing out of changed [his] life.”
see TIMMERMAN pg. 8
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