We’ve started yet another academic school year here at Saint Xavier University, and this year SXU has welcomed a new Provost, Saib Othman, Ph.D. Embracing a new administrator is always of the utmost importance, especially one as important as the senior academic administrator.
Saint Xavier’s administration is in a unique position because new members bring fresh ideas and new perspectives to campus issues.
We, at the Xavierite, would like the new Provost to focus on the following areas.
To learn more about the university’s new Provost, visit the SXU website to read their welcome to Saib Othman, Ph.D., or visit the Xavierite’s website and read about Grace Van Cleave and Nuala Hanlon’s interview with Dr. Othman.
Despite being new to the job at SXU, Othman has worked in higher education for two decades. His most recent job prior to coming to Saint Xavier was at National Louis University, where he served as the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The Provost will continue to become more comfortable with our community. But in the meantime students have already begun to ask is, when will we start to see change?
Understandably, there will not be immediate changes to student issues, fixing things takes time. However, bringing campus issues to light, early and often, can help some cases.
One member of the Xavierite Editorial Board talked about the amount of interim positions at the school currently, such as the Interim Library Director and the Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences.
“I would like to see the empty academic positions addressed.”
Filling administrative academic positions is a difficult and lengthy process because the university wouldn’t want to hire an unqualified individual, and have to fill the position again for the next academic year.
But these are important positions that need to be filled for the benefit of the whole university. Filling these interim positions is of the utmost importance because it will progress the functionality of the school, which mainly benefits the students it is teaching.
A consequence of high administrative positions remaining interim is that it may be a bad look to people outside of the school.
MGT of America Consulting, LLC, says, “Even in cases where the institution bestows full authority; others may be unaware of this decision and perceive the title of interim as temporary and possessing limited authority to lead the college or university”.
Even with the university facing the challenge of filling interim positions, a further question SXU has to answer is how to improve commuter involvement and experience.
Another board member said, “I would like to see more events for commuters to provide them more opportunities to get to know others around campus.”
It can be a very daunting task to meet people on campus, especially for students who may have been online for the last two years due to COVID-19. The early days of the pandemic may be in the rear view mirror, but the effects on society still run rampant.
It also doesn’t take talking to many individuals around campus to realize there is a student involvement issue.
When asking students questions about events on campus they’d like to see added or improved, the overwhelming consensus was that they weren’t involved enough on campus to comment on anything.
Understandably, commuters often don’t stay on campus because of other commitments such as jobs. Many commuters want to get involved but the programs often require too much time engagement.
A solution to this problem could be designing programs that don’t require a large amount of time commitment. Creating spaces that are built to help students who commute to campus will give them a better sense of community and an improved college experience.
In order to improve the student experience at SXU, the university’s administration needs to evaluate the events, clubs, programs and gather student feedback on them. The student body has plenty of feedback to give the university, it’s about whether or not they are willing to listen to us.