University of Akron President on Equality and Inclusion

I have an affinity for your school. We have a good friend, Carol, and I do Joe Reese, who's a proud alum. I know he's listening right now. So goes Zips and Lisa's Sable is an old friend as well who works on your team. So really delighted. I've had a chance to visit your campus a few years ago. I mean, tell us a little bit about the university because where it is and the community that it serves,

I think is really important to understand. Yeah, the University of Akron is an urban research university and it in downtown Akron, which is you probably knows, a legacy city in America, long history of manufacturing, um the tire and rubber capital of the world. And and really is representative of a lot of what's happened in American cities in Middle America in the last since the early two thousand's.

So what's it like now? I mean, what what is the feel on the ground, Because every time we talked to someone, especially out of our outside of our little bubble, President Miller, we want to know, like, what what is it like? And you know, both in terms of you know, the both of the crises that I guess we're going through just been a heavy you know, it's just been a heavy three months and a heavy then three weeks

on top of it. Yeah, one of the things we were talking to our board about last week was, you know, even though we've had we have a heavy lift with the coming through the COVID thing, this is a real historic moment in America around race relations. And there's been a lot of emphasis on that and I thought about that uh in Acar and a lot of community conversations.

We've had protests uh almost all peaceful, and the University of course is gearing up to think about this uh in in many different ways, including with an action group that students formed and and community conversations that we're focused on and then you know, we've got to examine ourselves too. We're gonna announce a task force next week to look at our practices and policies around you know, unconscious bias and uh and in the way we um assemble a

nurturing and inclusive environment. What's interesting to hear you say that, and and forgive me, because I think we're all trying to figure this out. This is not a new dilemma. You know, we've been talking about as as many of our guests have come on and said, you know, racism, it's been around for four hundred years in America, and yet there's a lot of discussions. UM, but what do you think are concrete steps that need to be taken. I mean, you've been in academia for a long time.

You were chancellor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington's you we're at Wichita State University, UM and more. And I just do wonder what are the practices and policies, the real actions that make a difference and that help a race racism in our country. We're uh, you know, higher public higher education should be in the business of providing opportunities, and I think educational opportunities is what we

do best, and we're focused on that. I think in a city like Akron, where we have thirty percent of the population is the African American forty percent of the school district, you know, we've got to be about understanding the dynamics of those families, understanding how we can work with our community leaders to get UM get these students opportunities for higher education. And we know the jobs of the future are going to require it. We know the jobs in the Acrone area are going to require it.

So that's what we're focused on. But I do think there's a bigger role for our universities. We are often UM UH the honest broker in the community. We can convene people, We have incredible faculty expertise around many issues related to UH systemic racism. We need to deploy those better and in some cases, I think we even have to contribute some of our resources to making our community is better. Is it fair to say UH President Millard

that students are impatient? I feel like, you know, Carol and I both have teenagers, and one of the things I think we've since from them maybe in a in a in a way that we haven't seen in several generations. Is a sense of urgency. I wonder what you're hearing from your students, knowing that they're not on campus now, But I know you're in touch with them, right we are. They are inpatient, but they're incredibly thoughtful too. Um I think,

um my sense in our students. We have very thoughtful students, About seventy of them work. Most of them come from middle or lower income families. They have a real experience, and they're very thoughtful about the problem. But they are impatient. They do want action, and we should, uh, we should take a key from that and uh and work toward action. Well go ahead, no, no, no, no, no, no no, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, we want to talk a

little bit more about coming back. We're gonna do some news in a second, but just in the next thirty or forty seconds, what's the one thing you're most focused on in terms of getting kids back on campus in the fall. So we want them to be safe and we want them to have campus experience. We've learned a lot about education and a lot about technology, and we've also learned that you know, we're a high density organization that thrives on interaction, and we have to figure that out.

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carl Master, Jason Kelly, and our guest at this hour is Gary Miller, president of the University of Grown who, as we mentioned, I don't know if we did we talked to it. I think after we started our discussion. He took this job last October. President Miller is still on the phone with us from Akron, Ohio. I have to say, President Miller, this was not exactly how you expected your first year in the top to go. I'm just guessing, no, it's not.

But I'm not alone. No, you're not. I think it's a really tricky spot to be. Tell us though, about the financial pressures that you are feeling on yourself really and on the university right now. It's interesting this uh this virus really is stressed every dimension of the business model for public higher education, and all of our revenue

UH streams were badly hit. And you know, we're we're looking at about a sixty five million dollar challenge for next fiscal year and we're working pretty hard to to get that figured out. We did do some real interesting things fast though. We were able to reorganize the institution very quickly from eleven colleges to five, which I think gives us a much more nimble administration. We still have all of our programs, but they're in um closer proximity

with the related programs and less administrative costs. The faculty here did that in a month and a half, which I think must be a world record reorganization our education. Have you been able to hold on to everybody in terms of your staff? We will not be able to or we're still working through that. Uh, we're in negotiations now with our union about that. But it's a tough time. It's it's a tough time. And so how does in

the short term the experience change? And again we're asking this question in part as parents, but on behalf of lots of parents out there and candid least some you know, precocious college students who listen to this radio show to you know, be smart about business. I'm sure, Um, what can folks expect when they show up to accor in this fall? This is really into a sting and a lot of us don't know. Um, you know, we'll be

working in a low density environment with twenty thou students. UM. They will be taking classes, almost all of which will be hybrid in some form or another. UM. Campus activities will be very different. We're having to to really emphasize the you know, personal health and math, and we're still UM trying to understand the kind of testing regime you'll

put in. There are a lot of things the universities do, like studios and athletics and dance and the band and the UH that just can't be done in low density normally, and we're trying to figure that out. And of course, you know, these are UM, these are young adults and UM they have minds of their own, UH, so they

will be out in the community. We're working very closely with our local health department, local community hospitals, and we do expect, you know, to have some cases on campus, so we're ready to take care of those quarantine and tests and trace if we need to. It will be very different. We'll learn a lot, we're One of the things we're doing is getting groups of students together to talk to us during the semester so that we can

make adjustments as we go along. Interesting so if they have so we're trying to do some real time adjusting here. If they have complaints about the way we're doing it, we want them to be innovative. I always tell freshmen, make sure you change us before you leave. And so we're gonna get them a real, uh real opportunity this fall to uh to help us figure it out. Well. I have to think you're surrounding community right because of

college or university. It's about the college community university community, but it's also the surrounding community. Right. There's small businesses, there's a lot of things that you know, are you know, rely on you as well. It's a codependency in Akrone. We're we're a hundred fifty years old in this city and uh we we can't imagine being here without Acron and the city can't imagine being here without us, and so we that's true. We work very closely together, and

so you know, it's interesting. I also wonder how much you have to coordinate with other schools across Ohio. I mean, is that the coordination you have to have? Is is it regional? Is it local? Like? Who who has to be sort of all on the same page? Dr Miller. It's a great uh coordinating effort across Ohio. We have a inter university council. We talk, our groups talk virtually

every week. And the things we're doing are setting up common protocols for how we're gonna phase in, how we're going to test, how we're gonna do so that we get um, so that we can learn from each other, and we're all kind of giving everybody the same experience and taking on the same risks. Great group of colleagues in Ohio. I have to tell you, well, and you

know some great schools, including yours, across the state. All right, well, um, hopefully we'll see in some form of another some Zips football. Uh this fault. Gary Miller as the president of the University of Akron, John Us on the phone from Akron. Great to get. I love catching up with college presidents. I do too. I do too, and I kind of say,

you know, they're under a lot of stress. I think about the president of Ithaca that we talked to, and I know someone who's been in the administrative staff there and was talking to them. I mean, it's just not an easy place to be and you're gonna make some people unhappy with whatever. Nobody's gonna be happy. Yeah, yeah, exactly,