President Neil MacKinnon assumed his role as Central Michigan University’s 16th president on Nov. 1, 2024 and has been introducing himself to the CMU community for the past few weeks.

Central Michigan Life sat down with MacKinnon to discuss how his transition to Mount Pleasant is going and what CMU should expect under his presidency. Questions have been edited for clarity and length.

CM Life: How have your first 18 days as president been?

MacKinnon: It's been... this whirlwind of exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Me and my wife are trying to meet as many people as possible and go to many events. We know we have this window of time right (now) when people are interested in 'what's the new president like?' and maybe trying to share things.

So we try to do a bit of that, but then it's exhilarating too because of just all the cool things.

Why did you want to be CMU’s 16th president?

I can't say that I entered university with the end goal of being a university president. I think it's one of those things you grow into and different experiences shape you. So in some ways, I've had a traditional career path in that I started as an assistant professor, associate professor, full-time professor, department chair, dean and then most recently, Provost.

As far as CMU particularly, the university that I came from is similar to CMU, one of about 20 universities in the country that are public research universities that are R-2 classifications with the medical school. So it's a very small club and I think that was that was part of it. You know part of it was just this part of the country. We like it. This is my third time living in the Midwest.

Under your leadership as provost, Augusta University recently moved its medical school to a more populated city, similar to CMED’s plan to move to Saginaw. Is that something you noticed when coming to CMU?

I suspect you know that's probably one reason that the Board of Trustees were interested in me, because of my healthcare background. Again, I represent and love a whole comprehensive university. So health is just one piece of it.

Here, it's a little bit of a different situation where it's split. So, the M1 and M2 students are here in Mount Pleasant, the M3 and M4 students are in Saginaw.

Generally, medical students start with a lot of classes and anatomy labs, and that progresses where they're spending more and more time seeing patients in hospitals. So in order to do that, you know our class size is just over 100 here, you really have to be in an area that has access to large hospitals or hospitals with a large number of beds.

How are you going about the fundraising for CMED?

That’s a big part of this for sure and we don’t have the total cost estimate yet. We are working with a national firm that does this for a living; that does major medical fundraising campaigns.

So they will be partnering with our fundraising team. We are also working with an architectural firm in Chicago called Studio Gang. They’re currently designing the building… We should know end of maybe the first quarter next year, how much the building would cost.

It will not be a research building and we’re going to keep all the research faculty here, that’ll save a lot of money… This really is a building central around education. We are planning that fundraising campaign now. I am confident that we will receive a lot of private support for this.

What are your personal goals for increasing enrollment?

When I started at Augusta University, (enrollment) was growing but very small. While there were a lot of good people working on enrollment, there wasn’t what we call a strategic enrollment management plan.

Here as well, we don’t have one. I’ve already been working with the leadership of our enrollment team. Unfortunately, it’s not something you can put together in a week. It’s quite complex and once when have it, then its implementing it.

In my first year (at Augusta) enrollment grew 0.4%, so barely at all. The second year, we were starting to implement the plan, enrollment grew 2.2%. My third year, there we have fully implemented the plan. Enrollment grew 7.5%. Then this fall, my fourth and final year, enrollment grew 9.9%.

How long are you planning on staying at CMU?

The board gave me a five year contract, but it is renewable. I would say moving is big when you uproot your family and stuff. The first 18 days have been fantastic here, so I hope it works out that its longer than five years.

Do you have any plans for your cabinet now that you are at CMU?

Not that there’s any magic to 100 days but generally 100 days, just over 3 months, of really listening. I’ve just started that process and part of that is really getting to know my current cabinet.

I don’t think it's fair to them. It doesn’t really help me receive if I suddenly came in and made a bunch of changes. I want to get to know them. One thing I’ve done is ask all my leadership team to talk about what are they passionate about. What do they enjoy? … Listening really will happen over the next 100 days.

I'll be hosting an event in mid-February, where all faculty, staff and students will be invited to and I'll be sharing what I heard. We’ll see if that’s an opportunity for me to reflect on, just hearing from everyone.

In April, there’ll be something called the presidential investiture … it is usually where a new president about six months after they start, shares their vision for moving forward.

What is something you would like students to know?

That their input matters. Students can have an awful lot of influence because at the end of the day, I think anytime a student is sharing something with me, it's from a place of (wanting) the university to work better.

Maybe they feel they didn’t get the attention that was warranted. And not that I can personally solve every problem, it's good to bring those issues to my attention.

Q&A: MacKinnon shares his first few weeks at CMU, plans for the future

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