Three final candidates with differing backgrounds and experiences gave presentations for the position of vice president for regional campuses this past week.

Each candidate was asked to discuss the challenges facing higher education in the context of a regional campus system and the future of an applied technical sciences college.

Margaret (Peggy) Shadduck

Associate Dean, New College, University of North Texas

Faculty Director, Applied Arts and Sciences, University of North Texas

Shadduck summarized her presentation with seven foreseeable boundaries and the overall statement, “Higher education can and must move beyond our normal boundaries.”

The boundaries she presented were:

1. Time

2. Credentials

3. Teaching Modality

4. Traditional training of faculty

5. Institutional boundaries

6. Responsibility

7. Real classes versus the image of traditional college life

Shadduck believes Kent State’s regional campuses provide the university the opportunity to lead the way in changes to higher education. 

Her candidacy for the vice president of regional campuses and dean of the College of Applied Technical Studies was announced as one of three finalists for the position Oct. 15. 

Shadduck, who is currently the associate dean of the New College and Faculty Director of the Applied Arts and Sciences at the University of North Texas, says that she knows navigating the two roles at the same time will be difficult, but her current position has prepared her for the challenge. 

She feels her experience with small private colleges, two-year colleges and comprehensive universities gives her a wider point of view on university issues. Working with her current universities satellite campuses, she says that the regional campuses have a better understanding of their surrounding communities.

“They have a better knowledge of what’s happening right now and where the issues are that may not be as easy for the Kent campus to do,” Shadduck said. 

Shadduck believes that both the regional campuses and the College of Applied Technical Studies deserve better advocacy to make more people aware of the opportunities they hold. She hopes to be a voice for programs within the campuses and colleges to make sure they are not left behind.

“There are opportunities across the regional campuses as a whole to take a very hard look at the need of nontraditional learners,” she said. “That is where there is opportunity to do a lot more, and something to be done in close collaboration with those at the Kent campus as well.”

David M. Dees

Interim Vice President for Kent State System Integration 

Dean and Chief Administrative Officer, Kent State University at East Liverpool and Salem Campuses

Dees opened his presentation by sharing his love for learning and how Kent State strengthened this passion.

“Without a place like Kent State, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said.

He proposed three challenges facing higher education:

1. Access

2. Affordability

3. The public good

Dees never planned to stay at Kent State when he came to study theater history in 1991, but fell in love with the value system and hasn’t left since.

“I realized that many of the people at Kent State had a similar experience to me, trying to figure out ways to go to school and the importance of higher education in changing my future,” Dees said. 

Dees has spent 26 years at Kent State, working from a teaching fellow position in 1991 all the way up to interim vice-president for System Integration. He spent three years working at Gannon University as an assistant professor from 2001 to 2003, but came back as a tenure-track faculty member in 2003. 

Dees sees the university as an eight-campus system, and says that when President Todd Diacon suggested restructuring the way the university works with the satellite campuses years ago, it allowed the satellite campuses to have a voice in major university discussions.

“Having this position at the cabinet level,” Dees said, “there was an advocate at the table when larger conversations and decisions were happening.” 

There has already been some collaboration with other faculty for innovative thinking to find new ways to connect the campuses, he said.

He has also started working with the learning centers across the systems to find the strengths and weaknesses of each and use this information to help strengthen the connection between them, he said.

He sees the overlap between the two positions as natural, and says that the position raises the opportunity to create change campus-wide. He hopes to see the CATS program grow, and expects to plan for an expansion of infrastructure to support the program.

Dees has been interim vice president for Kent State System Integration since 2019, and says he didn’t approach the job interim. He hopes that he has created positive momentum for the chosen candidate in order to keep the position moving. 

Jennie Gallimore 

Dean, College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering, Bowling Green State University 

Gallimore opened by saying she is a collaborator and communicator, honest and transparent and passionate and creative.

She discussed four external forces facing higher education:

1. Cost and outcomes

2. Student demographics

3. Workforce development and STEM

4. Education trends

Her values the way Kent State provides opportunities to students who may not be looking for a traditional education experience. 

Coming from Bowling Green State University, where she serves as dean of the College of Technology, Architecture, and Applied Engineering, Gallimore says that the regional campuses provide opportunities for all of Northeastern Ohio, having a higher education so accessible.

Gallimore hopes to facilitate the understanding that all campuses are a part of the whole university, and hopes to extend the “We Are Kent State” mentality to the satellite campuses.

“Kent State is a university that has opportunities in more than one location,” she said, “and those opportunities are even greater because they can collaborate across all eight campuses.”

Gallimore understands that, although the campuses should be seen as a cohesive university, it should be acknowledged that different campuses have different needs. 

Approaching the position as both vice president of regional campuses and dean of the College of Applied Technical Studies, she thinks that the unusual combination of the two positions will work together to give a better understanding of how executive decisions made by the university affect professors and other staff members.

“Because faculty members work on the regional campuses and this is the vice president, you have a better understanding if you’re also working as a dean what they’re facing so that you can better inform the university as the vice president,” Gallimore said.

Once selected, the position will begin Jan. 1, 2020. 

Jessica Cobb is a regionals/CCI reporter. Contact her at [email protected]. Megan McSweeney is an administration reporter. Contact her at [email protected].

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