The University of Rhode Island must find more ways of collaborating with other institutions in the region. Its very impressive new leader recognizes that.

We had a nice chat the other week with URI President David Dooley, formerly provost of Montana State University and a longtime chemistry professor at Amherst College. His general plan is very sound. Let us hope that the public and private sectors help him implement it.

First off, it should be said that URI has some great strengths. It had some top-notch programs, especially in the sciences, with at least one program, oceanography, world class. It has very practical and attractive locations (the main campus in Kingston, the Bay Campus, in Narragansett, and a downtown operation in Providence) between New York and Boston. The Kingston campus is remarkably lovely, especially considering the dearth of funding from a state government that has tended to be a firm believer in stretching the possibilities of deferred maintenance.

Further, in part because of effective marketing by recently retired President Robert Carothers, it is drawing from a wider range of students than ever before, becoming an important player in the competition for students from out of state.

This not only makes the school more worldly and interesting, it has provided urgently needed revenue, since out-of-state students generally pay considerably more individually than do in-state ones.

But a deep recession and deep state deficits ensure that President Dooley faces a very stiff challenge in taking URI to the next level.

Still, he seems to know how to do it. Among other things, he would like to tighten, and in some cases create, relationships with Brown University, Johnson & Wales and other institutions. As he told the Providence Business News the other week, this might even involve cross-registration between URI and Brown at the undergraduate level, as is famously done among the University of Massachusetts, and Smith, Amherst, Mount Holyoke and Hampshire colleges.

In such fields as biotechnology, URI, with its strong pharmacy school, and Brown, with its medical school, can make each other stronger through collaboration. President Dooley, who also had an appointment with the departments of cellular and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts when he was at Amherst College, and displayed powerful management and fund-raising skills in Montana, seems well suited to lead this effort. We can foresee a world-class Brown-URI joint facility in Providence’s Jewelry District, near the region’s largest hospital complex and the Brown Medical School.

And the business schools of URI and Johnson & Wales can do things together –– fueling much needed entrepreneurialism. But we would go further, and urge URI to consider such cross-registration with nearby out-of-state colleges and universities, too, such as the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Connecticut College, in New London.

Rhode Island’s cultural and economic future will rely to no small extent on the success of URI. We have high hopes that President Dooley’s combination of practicality, vision and people skills will succeed in raising the state university to higher levels of excellence and influence.