Senior vice provost of academic affairs, Amy Thompson, described her vision for higher education at the third open forum for the provost finalists on March 1.

Thompson discussed matters she would prioritize on campus including opportunities for new programs, helping ease the transfer process, making Central Michigan University a stronger partner with existing businesses and ensuring campus promotes learning and inclusion.

"What you can count on from me as a potential provost candidate is that I would be student centered in all the work that I would do," she said.

She started by sharing her professional values and emphasized the importance of being an empathetic leader because, as she said, everyone is dealing with different situations and challenges.

Thompson discussed the pandemic’s impact on the college experience like more class modalities and the difficulties of online learning. She said those challenges include accessibility to technology, increased mental health problems among staff, faulty and students, inequity for students of color and declining enrollment.

“We will continue to see enrollment challenges,” she said. “You have probably heard of the enrollment cliff of 2025, where we’re projected to see at least a 15% decline in direct-from-high school students."

She explained that Michigan enrollment will be especially affected by a decreasing population in surrounding areas. Less people is something that needs to be planned for, she said, so CMU can attract a diverse selection of students in different ways.

Other current issues among college campuses that she focused on were affordability, inclusiveness and political issues.

CMU is one of the more affordable options in the state, Thompson said, and that's a reputation she wants to maintain. She also said she believes there is a need for a more diverse campus population and mentioned legislative decisions that have affected curriculum in certain states, such as teaching critical race theory (CRT).

Additionally, she mentioned the changes within the workforce such as job shortages and meeting the needs of workers.

“Institutions like CMU can be that solution, can be that answer,” Thompson said.

She said that in the next five years she expects artificial intelligence will become more popular in the workforce causing workers to enroll in more classes to get additional degrees. CMU can provide the tools needed for future careers, Thompson said.

Along with adding unique programs, she feels that growing the population of international and out-of-state students will provide opportunities for growth in academic affairs.

Supporting faculty’s research and promoting their work is important to Thompson as well. She said she wishes to increase the research enterprise by attracting new faculty that are actively involved in creative endeavors and recognizing their efforts.

Audience questions

The first question asked how Thompson planned to make changes quickly.

“As a new potential provost, you have lots of people that you can consult and involve, and you still can make decisions in a relatively quick nature,” she said.

Another audience member asked her how she plans to maintain R2 status - a high rating of the university's research activity - at CMU with dwindling resources for graduate studies and the decreasing enrollment situation.

“I think it’s trying to grow graduate enrollment,” Thompson said. “There’s also opportunities for grants that will sustain graduate enrollment.”

She mentioned offering graduate assistant positions as well.

Another person asked what Thompson saw as supporting the role of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and what she did in support of those efforts in former positions.

“I’ve done creative mentoring programs for underrepresented faculty, I’ve championed hiring policies such as requiring diversity statements for all new faculty hires, we’ve also… created preferred name policies on our diplomas and I created an exit survey because I was very concerned with the fact that we were losing too many faculty of color," she said.

She added that if she were to be appointed to provost, she would continue those efforts by looking at practices and policies.

An audience member asked how Thompson would balance the need to grow revenue while preserving the traditional campus experience for students.

She said both can be done well and there will always be students that want the face-to-face experience. She added that it will be a matter of finding the right balance and looking at the enrollment forecast.

Someone asked about her experience with internationalization and what its value is at CMU.

“It brings a wealth of diversity to the university and the exposure of international students,” Thompson said. “It also creates vast opportunities for us in terms of growth of programs internationally,”.

Thompson background

After graduating from CMU with a bachelor’s in community health and health promotion, Thompson went to the University of Toledo and received a master’s in public health and a doctorate in health education. Thompson then spent 10 years as a professor of public health and two years as senior vice provost of faculty affairs.

Along with currently being CMU's senior deputy vice provost for academic affairs, she is the acting dean of the College of Graduate Studies at the University of Toledo.

Thompson has worked at other universities as well, such as Kent State, Mississippi State and the University of Findlay.

Upcoming open forums

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Parwinder Grewal

3 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.

Bovee UC Auditorium

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Nancy Mathews

1 p.m. - 1:50 p.m.

Bovee UC Auditorium