Wesleyan Liberal Arts College Nights Fairs on Long Island 2019
This summer marked x years since Stone Jones assumed the function of president of Ohio Wesleyan, making him the 10th president of OWU's 16 to attain that milestone. Just a few days after a surprise celebration to marker his decade in role, Rock saturday down with OWU Magazine editor Molly Vogel to look back, wait forward, and talk over the 24/7 job of existence president of OWU — even if information technology's x:xxx p.m. in a grocery store.
OWU Magazine: Let's offset with the surprise celebration. What'd yous think?
Rock Jones: There were so many things almost it that I enjoyed, well-nigh importantly the free energy of the students and the support of the faculty and staff who were nowadays. I enjoyed the "16" T-shirts echoing the ones that were created 10 years agone when I began. That was really fun for me.
OWU: Y'all mention the energy of the students. Your schedule is so packed, how do you find the enthusiasm for each day?
Rock: Well, the students certainly provide the energy. Information technology's also very important to do things necessary to maintain energy. I take fourth dimension in the summertime to replenish, then I'm careful to devote my time in the places that have the most long-term impact for the University and that besides give me the energy and fuel that I need. So if there'south an athletic event and I'm in town, I'll be there. If there's a theatre performance and I'm in town, I'll be there. If there'due south a campus lecture and I'thou in town, I'll exist there. The energy fades if I lose that contact with the students.
OWU: Tin y'all option a favorite part of your chore?
Rock: The favorite parts of the job all involve people. I have the extraordinary pleasure and honor to interact with a lot of different people at a lot of unlike places in life. Obviously, the students are the focus. Watching them grow and evolve over 4 years and being at a setting where the president knows students well and can actually interact with them is deeply rewarding. And information technology'southward rewarding now a decade in to exist at alumni events and to hear from young women and men I knew every bit students talk now about life subsequently OWU and how OWU prepared them. Melissa and I also go to interact with alumni who are involved in leadership in every sector of our order, who take great passion for OWU, and who desire nothing more than than for their alma mater to thrive. And then there are the kinesthesia and staff who devote their lives every day to our mission, who are the middle and soul of OWU and whose dedication inspires me every day.
OWU: You but mentioned the incredible breadth of people yous interact with, and anyone who has ever emailed you knows that y'all're very responsive. How are you able to continue upwards with that?
Rock: It takes time. Email tin eat you. I have e'er wanted to be accessible, and I exercise arrive a point to reply to every email I receive, just I accept also learned that at that place are times when I have to put that on concord to ensure that the work that is going to have an touch for the next 25, 30 years is non put on the back burner. I do my all-time to not finish the 24-hour interval without being current on email.
OWU: I think everyone knows the tyranny of the inbox. What'southward something about your job that people would be surprised to learn?
Rock: The president'southward domicile here (Pritchard House), which is very comfortable and where nosotros are happy and honored to live and where nosotros host betwixt 75 and 100 events each year — it's amazing the number of people who think we don't live in that location, who think that we just accept official events there. Also, information technology's a very public life. I can be at Kroger at 10:30 at night and someone will end to want to ask a question about OWU, and that's all right.
OWU: Is there a function of your job that y'all have to psych yourself upward for?
Rock: In some ways, the biggest challenges can be the most interesting but they tin can besides exist the most consuming, so working through a particularly dumbo spreadsheet is non likely my favorite role of the job. It's a lot more than fun to exist raising money with donors than to exist balancing a upkeep internally, although both are important.
OWU: How has your chore changed in 10 years?
Stone: This is not so much nigh beingness president at Ohio Wesleyan as it is well-nigh being president of a skillful pocket-sized liberal arts higher. These are difficult times. There are headwinds in our sector that face all small colleges: Demographics are changing, grooming for college has changed, family resource have inverse. There are fewer students with the preparation and the resources, fifty-fifty with the very generous financial aid nosotros provide. There are more questions about the value of a liberal arts teaching than e'er before. I recollect those questions are terribly misguided. We have to exist much crisper in demonstrating the value of what we practise and why it matters. To the extent the job has changed in 10 years, it has inverse not in response to internal dynamics but to external ones.
OWU: Are those challenges something you feel the broader OWU community understands?
Rock: I think they practise. There has been some remarkable piece of work by the kinesthesia: the creation of the new majors, the Bachelor of Science degree, the advocacy of The OWU Connection, and the new sports, the marching ring, the programs to provide additional bookish support and amend retention. All of those are responses to these challenges, and I call back Ohio Wesleyan's faculty and administrative leadership have responded more than briskly than many.
OWU: What do you lot wish people knew about OWU?
Rock: The students who come up to Ohio Wesleyan, who work difficult and do well, when they graduate they are competitive with the best students from whatsoever small college in the state, including those that are ranked the very highest. I don't think the outside earth understands that. At Ohio Wesleyan, the attention that students receive exceeds peer institutions. The OWU Connection is an extraordinary set up of opportunities for students to connect what they learn in course and on campus to fix them for life across OWU, and our surveys show that this is non besides-known as I think it should be.
OWU: In that context, now inbound your second decade in your role, are you lot starting to think about what you want your legacy to be?
Rock: I retrieve the legacy of any president at an institution of our sort at this time, given the challenges I was only describing, would exist to go out the institution where it is healthy and vibrant and where its mission continues to exist fulfilled with a foundation that protects information technology well into the future. We take a campaign to complete that supports that legacy. We have an enrollment problem to solve that is disquisitional to that legacy; I think we're moving on that. Nosotros take a residential life facility problem to solve in order to fulfill that legacy. Those are the large areas of focus for me over the next five years that I think contribute to that ultimate legacy of staying strong, vibrant, and vital as a residential, undergraduate liberal arts academy and perpetuating the mission of an institution that educates moral leaders for a global guild.
OWU: Do yous allow yourself to think virtually what you'll do when you retire?
Rock: Yes. It will involve some combination of books, travel, grandchildren, and continued involvement in higher education – just not anytime soon!
Pebbles
Have yous ever binged a Television set bear witness?
Distraction Ascension to Candleford (BBC) and This Is Us (NBC).
What are your favorite podcasts?
Anything NPR: Freakonomics, This American Life, How I Built This.
Do yous accept a hobby?
Cooking. I read novels in the summer; I enjoy historical fiction. Gardening, when I take time for it.
Final smashing book you read?
Mudbound by Hillary Hashemite kingdom of jordan and The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy Tyson.
What is your favorite getaway destination?
Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.
Exercise you have a favorite AVI meal?
Not nevertheless, I tend to eat salads. This is a job where you have to be careful what y'all consume.
Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Chocolate and ice cream.
Return to the Wintertime 2019 OWU Magazine
Source: https://www.owu.edu/news-media/owu-magazine/winter-2019/qa-with-rock/
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