MAY 2007: VIP
Photo by Timothy
Bullard
|
ViP
Mary Cullinan, President, Southern Oregon University
Mary Cullinan has been around academia long enough that she
says she can sense the mood of a university simply by walking
around campus. “You can feel when people are angry or not
getting along,” she says.
The mood on campus at Southern Oregon University, where
Cullinan is president, has been an anxious one since October
when she leveled with her colleagues that the school faced
a
$4 million shortfall. Despite much hand wringing, the new
president was firm. Programs were pared and schools
consolidated. By 2010 there will be two dozen fewer faculty
positions at SOU.
The shortfall made a rocky start for Cullinan’s love
affair with the 5,000-student university in Ashland.
Cullinan developed a crush on SOU almost four years ago when
she interviewed for its provost position. “I loved this
place and the school’s liberal arts mission. It stuck in
my brain.” She got a job offer in east Texas instead, but
after three years at Stephen F. Austin State University as vice
president for academic affairs, Cullinan made her way back to
Ashland, moving into the SOU President’s House last
September.
She wasn’t expecting a lavish budget when she arrived,
but neither did she know the depth of the shortfalls. The
56-year-old English literature scholar chooses her words
precisely: “It was a question of degree.”
Like a steadfast lover, she is quick to come to the defense of
the small, regional university in her care and to point out
that the current budget crisis resulted from years of paltry
support from the state. She suggests that it’s a poor
economic strategy to allow such negligence to continue. Then
she quickly moves forward to talk about plans for the future:
partnerships, an MBA program, civic engagement, new
relationships.
With a smile that’s almost shy, she confesses
she’s still delighted to wake up every morning on campus.
SOU is at a crossroads, Cullinan says, and she’s there to
nudge it in the right direction.
— Christina
Williams
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