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I wonder if I made a difference?




This afternoon, I dropped my son off at tennis practice at Julia Davis Park. I crossed the Boise River and entered the Boise State campus. 

My long history of higher education  when I was an adjunct faculty member at Boise State teaching speech communications in 1985.  I only taught one semester. 

 10 years later  I was asked to be on the Board of the Boise State Alumni Association. I served as the president of the association in 2001. 

In 2003, the State Board of Education asked me to be on the search committee for a new Boise State president. Ultimately, the state board hired Bob Kustra.

A year later, President Kustra asked me to change my career and work for him. For 2 1/2 years, I was the Director of Government Relations and ultimately the Interim Vice President of Institutional Advancement at the University. 

I resigned because I didn’t want to deal with the "silos" in a university setting.   In addition,  despite my credentials, I didn’t have a PhD so faculty did not respect me.

A year later, a initiative was passed to form the College of Western Idaho.

Given my experience in higher education, business, and lobbying, I put my hat in the ring to be one of the initial five trustees provided in state law.

Over 100 applied, and I was honored to be selected to be one of the initial trustees of the college. I took my oath of office in July, 2007. 

We had nothing other than two buildings, 100 acres, and a dream. We did not even have a telephone. We had no staff.

Our first enrollment in 2009 was less than 1,300. At the time, a local news paper essentially said we were a failure.

In May, we will celebrate our 10th graduating class. We have more than 33,000 students. 

Some failure.



In the last decade, I have put my whole heart and soul into the College of Western Idaho. 

I have ran three times for election and won. College trustees are not paid. It is a volunteer commitment.

I do this because I love our students and their success. I am passionate about the CWI.

My commitment was tested in January of 2012 when I had two ischemic strokes. The second one almost killed me. Weeks in the hospital, years of therapy, and communication issues still linger.

I never missed a meeting.

Today, I wandered around Boise State campus today thinking about my commitment to education and my history.

I saw my 7th floor office near the river and I remembered why I resigned. 

I was a husband with a two-year-old son and I had no job. I simply could not deal with the higher education bureaucracy. 

I was excited to be part of a new community college. It would be different.

Almost 12 years. 

I wonder if it’s really different. I wonder if I’ve made a difference.





Comments

Rebecca Dutton said…
As a collage professor for 20 years I can relate to your feelings. Students rarely come back to say thank you so it is hard to know what effect I had.
April 18, 2019 at 7:50 AM
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