ELIZABETH PRESTON
by JOSHUA CLARK
Editor-in-Chief
The Westfield Voice
WESTFIELD – Dr. Elizabeth Hall Preston, interim president of Westfield State University, is not interested in the permanent position of president.
Preston, who has been in that position since Nov. 8 after the resignation and retirement of embattled now-former president Dr. Evan S. Dobelle, spoke to The Westfield Voice in an exclusive interview conducted before the start of the semester.
She said that even if she were to be interested, Richard Freeland, commissioner of higher education, would not allow it.
“Commissioner Freeland…is very clear that interim presidents are not eligible to be candidates for the permanent position,” she said. “He was very clear on that point when we had a conversation and that’s not a problem for me.”
She holds optimistic hopes for the campus this semester, especially since the 175th anniversary of the university has been an ongoing theme throughout the year. The university released a 2014 calendar that features history of the university, and the committee that plans the events surrounding the anniversary met to revisit their plans.
The former chair of the Communication Department addressed the presidential search process, as well. The process has not begun, she said, because the board of trustees has been tied up with the lawsuits related to the scandal that brought down her predecessor.
“The board of trustees is really who conducts the search and I don’t think they feel like until they’re on the other side that they are in a position to be doing a search,” she said.
The search is conducted by the board of trustees. Typically, a search committee would consist of trustees, administrators, faculty members, and students. Their charge would be to sift through the applications and pick final candidates.
These final candidates would be subjected to further vetting by the campus. They would be brought to campus to participate in interviews, forums, meetings, and one-on-one discussions. This process is not necessarily dissimilar to that of finding a faculty member.
In order to get to the point of creating a selection committee, the 2012-2017 strategic plan needs to be reviewed, Preston said.
Reviewing the strategic plan will allow the administration to figure out the direction that the university is going in. Once they know what direction they are going in, they will begin to figure out what kind of person they would like to select.
“[T]here’s a lot to this strategic plan that we’re focusing on. I think we’re also taking a look at whether the strategic plan needs some revision frankly,” she said. “Given the challenges that we’re facing, not specific to Westfield, but in higher education, whether the strategic plan that we have in place really is adequate for dealing with those challenges and there’s a committee on campus.”
This strategic planning discussion involves the Special Committee on University Planning (SCUP), which consists of faculty, administration, and students in order to make sure that all decisions are holistically-informed.
“Hopefully the folks that are working on that at SCUP can come back and talk about what they see with perhaps things they see that are missing in the strategic plan,” she said.
A list of events commemorating the 175th anniversary can be found on the university’s website at westfield.ma.edu.
