Two are right here in Michigan. Two are from out west.
All four are vying to be Eastern Michigan University's
next vice president for business and finance.
After an extensive national search process that yielded
56 resumes, the University's nine-member search committee
whittled the field to four finalists, who interviewed on
campus last week and conducted public forums where they
could introduce themselves and answer questions from EMU
faculty, staff and students. The four finalists are: Jerry
Scoby, vice president for finance and administration at
Alma College; Janice Stroh, vice chancellor for finance
and administrative services at Pima Community College in
Tucson, Ariz.; Steve Holda, interim director of
finance at EMU since April 2005; and John Whittaker, most
recently director of resource management at the University
of New Mexico.
The following are synopses of each of the candidates'
experience as well as comments they shared at their open
forums. Candidates are listed in order of their public
forum.
Jerry Scoby
Scoby has been vice president for finance and administration
at Alma College for the past eight years. Prior to joining
Alma's executive team in 1998, Scoby had numerous positions
across the business and finance areas for 22 years at Central
Michigan University.
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Scoby |
"Service. Serve the needs of the institution's faculty,
staff and students and provide institutional-level leadership," said
Scoby, when asked his views on the primary goals of business
and finance at a university. Scoby's campus forum took
place Oct. 30. "Combining the issues of service
and leadership, I think, go well together."
At Alma, Scoby's achievements include balancing operating
budgets annually; creating an operating reserve from year-end
funds for multi-year flexibility; and creating and implementing
a new policy to share some of the year-end balances with
sectors of the college. In addition, he led the issuance
of two bond issues, constructed two new facilities, incurred
new debt to improve current facilities; worked with human
resources, faculty and staff representatives to make required
changes in health insurance offerings; worked with the
board investment committee to significantly restructure
the $100 million endowment; staffed three board committees,
and has been an active part of the leadership team on many
broader institutional issues.
While at Alma, Scoby said he was most proud of creating
a university benefit review team that was able to control
health insurance costs by having employees pay some percentage
of their premiums while offering four healthcare options.
During his tenure at Central Michigan, Scoby spent five
years in facility management, three years in disbursement
accounting, and 14 years leading the institution's operating
budget process of nearly $250 million. He was involved
in collective bargaining for 22 years and headed the staff
employee and employee relations area as part of his role
during the last six years there.
Scoby joked that his primary attraction to coming to
Eastern Michigan was "the great weather," but said it had
to do with his family values and staying in Michigan. Scoby
indicated he started doing his "homework" on EMU back in
March and visited the campus a few times before he was
formally interviewed.
"For me, the approach would be to start with a lot of
listening. There's a lot of history that you know that
I don't," Scoby told the audience. "I would listen and
learn. But, I would bring my own set of views. Ten to 20
percent of the agenda has been developed."
He said getting out of his office and visiting other offices
and personnel would be the best way to learn the campus
and said that, in a Michigan climate of budget cuts, he
said his goal "would be to protect the academic area first" and
that an institution's strategic plan should be tied into
the budgeting process.
"There has to be some linkage to dollars allocated and
a strategic plan. If not, your strategic plan is going
to be very hollow," he said. "A strategic plan should be
a road map that should be used."
Such a plan becomes even more important in the current
Michigan economy, which Scoby sees as EMU's biggest challenge.
"With this economy, these challenges make us do, what
we do, better," he said.
Scoby received his specialist degree in education; his
master's degree in business administration; and his bachelor's
degree in business administration, all from Central Michigan
University.
Janice Stroh
Stroh has more than 30 years' experience in higher education
administration, most recently as vice chancellor for finance
and administrative services at Pima Community College in
Tucson, Ariz., since 2003.
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Stroh |
Along the way, she has met some unique challenges, including
funding redevelopment and reconstruction of campus buildings
at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., after a major earthquake
in San Francisco in 1989; was responsible for the resettlement
of a town on the campus of Culver-Stockton College in Canton,
Missouri, after massive flooding of the Mississippi River
in 1993; and managed to continue daily business operations
at another campus where students striked for two weeks.
Stroh said her reason for wanting to come to EMU was,
in part, to physically be back on a campus. At Pima, a
community college of approximately 76,000 students and
six satellite campuses, Stroh said she worked in an off-campus
office.
"I really did not realize when I got there (Pima), how
much I missed the feel of a campus environment," Stroh
said during her campus forum Oct. 31. "The office had more
of a corporate feel. It's just not the same as being on
campus and feeling the energy of students, faculty and
staff."
Stroh described her management style as "very collaborative,
very open" and added, "Transparency is very important to
me. People should know how the University is operating
and things shouldn't be under the table."
When asked how she would involved faculty in the budget
process, Stroh said that the more people on campus that
understand the budget and finances, the better chance there
will be "buy-in" of the budget.
"Budget development, as tied to the strategic plan, is
important," she said. "For example, if we increase enrollment
10 percent, what kind of revenues do we get and then what
kind of faculty numbers are needed for all these new students?
These decisions have an impact on revenues as well as expenditures."
She added that budget planning should be viewed as a multi-year
approach, preferably three years out, to adequately prepare
for known budget impacts.
In shaping a budget, Stroh noted she's well aware of the
resource restriction at EMU and would sit down and systemically
go through the process to see where cuts could be made
as opposed to any across-the-board percentage cut.
"I would look at the budget as a whole, look at those
things that scream at you," she said.
Stroh previously was vice president for finance at Eckerd
College in St. Petersburg, Fla.; vice president for business
and finance at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y.; vice
president for administration and finance at Culver-Stockton
College in Canton, Mo.; and was in numerous positions at
Washington State University.
Some of her major accomplishments include: she restructured
and refunded a $23 million bond offering; developed and
implemented models used in budget development, planning
and strategizing of budgets in excess of $187 million;
created efficiencies and used best practices within major
organizations, which resulted in major cost savings; managed
construction of a library, residence halls, academic buildings
and a student center; worked with unions in collective
bargaining; and helped develop a campus master plan.
Stroh received both her MBA and her bachelor's degree
in business administration from Washington State University.
Steve Holda
Holda has been interim director for business and finance
since at EMU since April 2005. Prior to that, Holda
was assistant to the vice president for business and finance
from 2002-2005. His experience in financial analysis includes
budgeting/forecasting, cost reduction initiatives, product
development financial modeling and capital budgeting.
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Holda |
"I know EMU. I understand the challenges we face," Holda
said during his open forum Nov. 2. "My organization, including
the physical plant and staff in my office, are starting
to move the University forward. We have a couple big building
projects close to being approved. We've established positive
relationships with the city and state."
While at EMU, Holda pointed to the following accomplishments,
stressing much of the improvements were made with customer
service in mind.
- He said he helped stabilize Human Resources with new
leadership and increased staff levels.
"We beefed up HR. It had been decimated," Holda said. "We
cut and cut and cut (before) at a time when 75 percent
of our expenses were personnel."
- With the cooperation of Student Affairs, he consolidated
the University Budget office with the Auxiliary Budget
Office and co-located the new department with Financial
Services. The consolidation led to the elimination of
four positions and personnel savings of more than $250,000.
- Addressed the needs of Enrollment Services and Academic
Affairs, and championed efforts to seek approval of $2.5
million to improve the appearance of campus, replace old
and damaged classroom furniture, and add technology to
enhance the student learning environment in selected classrooms.
While Holda said things have moved slower than he hoped
for with regards to installing the new technology, he did
say the overall beauty of campus has improved recently
and stressed that is part of the college experience.
- Refinanced $68 million of University debt in order to
take advantage of favorable interest rates, which provided
the University with $6 million of present value savings.
Like other candidates, Holda was asked what could be done
to restore trust in the division of business and finance.
Holda admitted there was a lot of history that has created
that line of thought, and stressed that it would take time
to build and restore that trust. Communication is the key,
he said.
"We need to continue to be transparent and communicate,
and really reach out to divisions and have them understand
the budget," Holda said. "Maybe we'll have Brown Bag 101
lunches once a week or a couple times a month. We'll have
groups discuss something topical (about the budget) and
have a question-and-answer session."
In addition, he said formulating a budget will, in large
part, have to line up with the University's strategic plan.
He said the Strategic Operations Council will review budgets
division by division, organization by organization, to
determine what will remain in future budgets and what will
have to be eliminated.
When asked if he would do anything differently if he was
appointed the permanent vice president for business and
finance, Holda replied, "No. What you see is what you get.
When I was asked to take this role, I said I could only
take the position if I could do it like it was a permanent
position. It wasn't a popularity contest. I had to make
some hard decisions."
Holda received his MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and his bachelor's degree in business administration from
the University of Michigan.
John Whittaker
John Whittaker was most recently director of resource
management at the University of New Mexico from 2004-2006.
While there, Whittaker was responsible for financial planning,
the annual operating budget, the capital budget, faculty
personnel administration and special projects within Academic
Affairs, including implementation of the BANNER system.
He also had oversight of the University of New Mexico Press
and served as a member of the governing board of the university's
Harwood Museum of Fine Arts in Taos.
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Whittaker |
"The role of business and finance is clearly to facilitate
instruction and research," Whittaker said. "What you're
about is knowledge and dissemination of teaching."
Like other candidates, Whittaker said business and finance
should tailor its operations, so that it ties in well with
the university's strategic plan; and the budget process
should be transparent. In an environment of continued erosion
of funding support from the state, an institution has to
generate new revenue sources in order to avoid high tuition
increases, and the division must have a deferred and preventative
maintenance plan for facilities.
On maintaining facilities, Whittaker said, "If you don't
set it as a top priority, it will come back to bite you.
It will affect student recruitment and retention. The literature
says if your facilities are not top-top, you will lose
them (students)."
Before his stint at the University of New Mexico, Whittaker
was vice chancellor for administrative affairs at the University
of Hawaii-Hilo from 1999-2004. While there, he said tough
budget decisions had to be made, including laying off approximately
50 administrators.
He proffered contracting more services — such as
student cafeterias, student housing and day care — to
save money.
"A lot of issues go away when you do contract services," Whittaker
said. "You can dismiss contracts when a company is not
doing the job. It's easier to get out the bad apples."
His other experience includes serving as special assistant
to the president at Roxbury Community College; assistant
vice chancellor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston;
director of fiscal affairs for the Massachusetts Board
of Higher Education; and director of budget and financial
planning for the Connecticut Board of Higher Education.
Whittaker received his doctorate in education from the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst; his master's degree
in business administration from Babson College in Wellesley,
Mass.; and his bachelor's degree in education from Northeastern
University.
"Each of the four finalists for the business and finance
VP position brings a great deal of experience and expertise
to the table. It is a strong pool from which the president
can choose the next vice president," said
Jim Vick, vice president for student affairs who headed
the search committee.
