DON'T TALK; COMMUNICATE, EDUCATORS SAY

University presidents can't just talk. They have to communicate.

Four former Southeast Missouri State University administrators had little trouble doing that in a panel discussion Wednesday night.

Dr. Dale Nitzschke, Southeast's current president, jokingly described the panelists as "an extremely rowdy group."

The panelists were Dr. Kala Stroup, Missouri's commissioner of higher education; Dr. Bill Stacy, president of California State University-San Marcos; Dr. Les Cochran, president of Youngstown State University, and Dr. David Strand, president of Illinois State University.

Both Stroup and Stacy are former presidents of Southeast. Stacy also taught speech at Southeast before becoming the school's president.

Cochran previously was provost. Strand served in various administrative posts, including dean of students at Southeast.

About 300 people attended Wednesday night's Low Lecture in Robert A. Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium.

The event was part of a week of activities celebrating the inauguration of Nitzschke as Southeast's 16th president.

"Communication is truly one of the key elements of leadership," Nitzschke said. About 60 percent of management problems result from faulty communication, he said.

Stroup became president of Southeast in 1990. She left Southeast in 1995 to take the job as commissioner of higher education.

She told the audience she missed the campus and the basketball games. She said she still has many red and black outfits.

As Southeast's first woman president, Stroup said she changed a lot of people's perceptions.

Being a woman helped in some ways, she said. "I was out of the box. I was different."

Stroup said some people questioned whether a woman could lead the university's jump to Division I athletics.

"I know an awful lot about athletics, but I had to sell it constantly," she said.

But athletics wasn't the central goal at Southeast. "What unified us on this campus was not our basketball team, it was learning,' she said.

University administrators need to know how to communicate the school's needs.

Southeast tried repeatedly to get state funding for a new business building by insisting that the campus needed the space.

But Stroup said Southeast's enrollment had been flat for 10 to 15 years. "We didn't need space. We needed quality space," she said.

In the end, Southeast succeeded in securing funding for the project by changing its tune to stress what the business college would do for economic development in the region.

Stroup said it helps for university presidents to have a sense of humor.

Times are changing rapidly in higher education, said Stacy, who led Southeast through the 1980s.

University presidents today must be more than "gentleman amateurs."

Stacy compared a college president to the driver of a skidding car. Both have to make course adjustments.

"The new university is a threat to nostalgia," Stacy said, adding that schools must adjust to constant change.

"There is no corporate ladder anymore," he said.

Cochran joked about "Scud memos" at Southeast that "went over Academic and missed the target."

He said he learned it was better to get all the parties together than to communicate through hit-and-miss memos.

As president at Youngstown, Cochran said he makes it a point to communicate both with campus and off-campus constituents.

"You have to get out and deal with people," said Cochran, who sends birthday cards to Youngstown State employees.

Strand stressed what he called "the ABCs" of communication. He said school presidents should have articulate, brief and clear messages.

"Effective communication, from my perspective, is both a science and an art," he said.