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Video by Nathan Edwards

Provost candidate David Francko spoke to groups of students, faculty and staff about his policies and experiences Monday during a series of scheduled forums.

Francko, associate provost and dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Alabama and a Kent State alumnus, said many things changed since he attended Kent State. The university has gotten larger, Francko said.

“But what’s interesting is it’s still Kent State,” he said. “What has not changed is the commitment of the university to its students. I mean that’s why I’m here. That’s what Kent has always done well and continue to do well and interests me in terms of coming back here to work.”

Starting off the undergraduate forum, Francko said he has told multiple people since arriving on campus that students are not customers at a university.

“That’s a trite thing to say,” Francko said. “You are the reason for the university’s existence, which is a different animal altogether.”

Francko said he and his office created programs on Alabama’s campus to improve retention of graduate and minority students. He said creating a community on campus for commuters and intervening in students’ lives could benefit them and improve retention, using his own experiences as a biology major at Kent State as an example.

“If it wasn’t for the faculty and staff seeing this kid with a lot of rough edges and saying ‘You could do this. Why don’t you try this? You could do this. Why don’t you come to my lab to work a little bit and learn how to do research?’” Francko said. “And all those things, by the time I was a senior, I kind of had some of those rough edges worked out, and I kind of had some idea of what I wanted to do with my life.”

Francko said he is involved in a lot of cultural initiatives on Alabama’s campus. While a student at Kent State, he said he remembers portraying a Russian soldier and peasant in the chorus of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“I had a chance to be in a play when I was an undergraduate,” Francko said. “I wasn’t a theater major, but Kent let me be in an actual, honest-to-God, big-time production. But for a bio major, it was really cool. I got to see a whole other culture. I got to get out of my comfort zone, go audition for a part, all this, and it was great.”

But he said little cross-pollination occurred between the main and regional campuses when he attended Kent State.

“Now we have an eight-campus system here and clearly everything that I’ve been talking with people about is: This is Kent State University whether you happen to be in the city of Kent or the Geauga campus or whatever,” Francko said. “What ties it together is this is Kent State, and it has certain core values.”

Francko then described his open-door policy, which allows students to talk to him anytime with an issue, and everything his office does is public. He said he had a council of graduate students, faculty and staff to advise him.

“One of the first things I did is I said, I want a really strong graduate council,” Francko said. “I want a bunch of people that are going to get on my case if I’m doing something wrong. … So by doing things very publicly, we’ve been able to do things very quickly.”

After the forum, students filled out sheets about what they thought of Francko. Ben Putano, junior communications major, said he liked Francko’s experience with a major university where the culture is very strong, something Putano said he’s very interested in here at Kent State.

“I liked most his open door policy, his transparency towards students,” Putano said. “I think that is one issue in terms of creating a culture here – is that you know, people just aren’t engaged, and, if they were more engaged in the planning process, the policy changing, things like that, I think that could generate support and generate cohesiveness.”

Robin Wright, senior Pan-African studies major, said she thinks Francko is a good candidate, but she saw both strengths and weaknesses in him. She said she thinks his experience in graduate studies will benefit undergraduates because he knows how to prepare them for graduate study.

“I felt that his experience as a Kent State alum will be valuable to the students because he’s been like specifically here before,” Wright said. “I also felt that on the alternative side, he doesn’t seem to have very much experience working specifically with undergraduate students, which won’t necessarily hinder his ability to coordinate programs effectively for us, but it may become a factor.”

Francko is one of four candidates for provost visiting Kent State in the next two weeks. The other candidates will be on the campus in the next two weeks.

Contact Alicia Balog at [email protected].