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Chapter 2: Managing A Maturing Institution
Chapter 2
Managing A Maturing Institution In fall 1993, only four years into his administration, Eric Gilbertson sat down for an interview with Amy Barnes, reporter for The Bay City Times. She asked the SVSU president to reflect on the university’s past and future on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. Instead, Gilbertson talked about where the university was at that moment: in the early stages of a remarkable growth spurt. (The campus would double in physical size and student population would grow by nearly a quarter over the ensuing decade.) “We’re maturing as a full-blown university,” Gilbertson told Barnes. The president acknowledged that expansion eventually would slow and that careful conservation of resources was key to success: “The challenge is to fight and find the resources to meet new needs,” while monitoring a limited supply of capital. Those new needs, Gilbertson said, fit the university’s mission, advanced since its earliest days, “to give more people access to a college education, develop a more highly educated work force and serve as a regional cultural and intellectual resource.” In 1993, responding to new needs meant finding ways to enrich the university’s offerings of degree programs and expand community outreach. Education and community engagement often intertwined in collaborations between the region’s organizations and SVSU faculty, staff and students.1
Regional Economic Development and Outreach
SVSU has long understood its role in regional economic development. “We are very much concerned about the direction of the economy,” Marwan Wafa, then dean of the College of Business & Management, said in 2005. He added, “[and] the linkages between SVSU … and the business community are critical to making an impact on this community.”2 Linkages frequently have been interdisciplinary. George Puia, Dow Chemical Company Centennial Chair in Global Business, pointed out in 2011 that business, technology and industrial development all work hand in hand. “It takes different skill sets to run a business than it does to develop technology,” Puia noted. “It takes a team … [and] we’re exposing business
Marwan Wafa
