Dooley

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The role of the University of Rhode Island is to educate students for the future — “for careers that do not yet exist that are based on technology and knowledge not yet known,” says David M. Dooley, a finalist for the university presidency. “We’re going to do that by engaging students in the process of acquiring the knowledge and the new technology,” Dooley said Tuesday, describing the link between teaching and research that has driven his academic career for more than 30 years.

Dooley, the provost and chief academic officer at Montana State University, began a day-and-a-half visit to URI Tuesday as the third of three finalists to succeed URI President Robert L. Carothers. The Board of Governors for Higher Education is expected to announce its selection May 11.

At Montana State, Dooley, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has helped build the research budget from virtually nothing to $100 million in the last nine years.

Dooley said Tuesday he sees the importance of research intensifying at URI across all disciplines — the humanities as well as the sciences — if the university is to fulfill the mission of land grant institutions “to educate the common man for the common good.”

Dooley, who is known at Montana State for his ability to divide his time effectively between the lab and the provost’s office, said that as president of URI he would be prepared to phase out his own research role to concentrate on making higher education more accessible and affordable to Rhode Islanders.

Dooley said the passion he first felt as a professor of chemistry at Amherst College in the late 1970s still drives him.

“I love science, figuring out how nature works, probing fundamental questions, and engaging students in that,” Dooley said in a brief interview before his appearance at the public forum in the Memorial Union.

“At Amherst, I tried to get students interested in pursuing science, especially women,” he said. Some of them today are “better scientists than I am.”

“As I went along in my career, I got intrigued about bigger and bigger questions; how to communicate the value of science to students and the value of higher education and research to the public,” Dooley said.

He said he became convinced that “the opportunity and challenges in higher education were going to be critical” to the country’s future, particularly in public institutions, where annual enrollment is 4 million, four times that of private colleges and universities. In 1993, he left Amherst for a public university — Montana State at Bozeman — to further his goal of providing the highest-quality education for the greatest number, Dooley said.

“If you are successful, then I am successful,” Dooley told an audience of about 100 people at a public forum in the Memorial Union.

Dooley said, “The most important component of achieving a goal is to develop consensus about your vision of where you’re going.”

If “your promise” is about “the integration of learning with the discovery of knowledge,” he said, “it becomes relatively straightforward to keep your focus.”

Times are tough, but recessions end, Dooley said.

Even now, the return on an investment in higher education is far greater than the stock market or any other kind of venture, Dooley said.

“We need to make that argument” to the General Assembly, to the federal government in Washington and to the public, he said.

He envisioned a continual campaign of fundraising, both in the public and private sectors.

“We have a lot of alumni who love this place; a lot of people who have been positively impacted by this place,” he said.

Sometimes, it is the students “who can tell the General Assembly the most compelling stories about the effect URI has had on their lives,” Dooley said.

With Dooley winding up his visit Wednesday, the Board of Governors for Higher Education will spend the next week or two deliberating on the three candidates, including a review of evaluations turned in by faculty, students, and others who met with the finalists, according to Jack R. Warner, the higher education commissioner.

With reports from Jennifer D. Jordan

A glimpse of the 3 candidates for president of URI

ROBERT D. NEWMAN

Current job: Associate vice president for interdisciplinary studies, dean of the College of Humanities and professor of English at University of Utah.

Some accomplishments

Began new interdisciplinary programs in international studies, environmental humanities, American Indian languages, Latin American studies, animation studies and others

Increased funding to College of Humanities by 300 percent

Increased undergraduate majors in humanities by 15 percent

SONA KARENTZ ANDREWS

Current job: Provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor of geosciences at Boise (Idaho) State University

Some accomplishments

Added new Ph.D. programs in geosciences, electrical and computer engineering

Created a task force to help freshmen adapt to college life, raised freshman retention rate 7 percent

Launched afterwork program for adults to complete bachelor’s degree

DAVID M. DOOLEY

Current job: Provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor of chemistry/biochemistry at Montana State University

Some accomplishments

Fostered development of new core curriculum for undergraduates with required first-year seminars

Established learning centers for math and chemistry in residence halls

Oversaw creation of new Ph.D. programs in animal and range science, neuroscience

gmacris@projo.com