ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610210097
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
As a recent meeting broke up, Radford University's new vice president for academic affairs turned to statistics professor Jill Alcorn.
"You know what she said to me?" Alcorn recalled. "'How are your classes going?' No one has ever asked me that from the administration before."
As far as many of Radford's 455 full- and part-time faculty are concerned, their lives took a turn for the better July 1 when Ann S. Ferren took her place among Radford's top administrators. Over and over again, the same adjectives emerge as her faculty describe her: Strong. Straight shooter. Collaborator.
"You're going to know where you stand with her," said Steve Lerch, the acting associate dean of arts and sciences. "When you work for somebody, you can't ask for a whole lot more than that."
Ferren, who spent two years as interim provost at The American University in Washington, D.C., made her way to Southwest Virginia via one of the region's former higher education leaders. Former Hollins College President Paula Brownlee, now director of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in Washington, worked with Ferren last year when Ferren, on leave from AU, was a fellow at the association.
"She is a person of just remarkable acuity, brightness, very thoughtful about many aspects of higher education," Brownlee said.
Ferren's job is to be Radford's chief academic officer - known at many universities as the provost. As Ferren puts it, that's the person who, among other things, "really cares what goes on inside and outside the classroom how to get our students and faculty in tune with the changing world."
And she says she's been impressed with how seriously Radford's faculty take their work with students.
Chief among Ferren's accomplishments during her lengthy stint at American was the development of the school's general education program. Now, amid her myriad duties, Ferren will oversee Radford's assessment of the courses students are required to take under the general education curriculum.
But, Ferren points out, "It's different. There, I was developing something from a very casual, loose distribution system. Here, there's a structure people have recommitted themselves to - things they're trying to assess."
In other words, the system for looking into the general education program at Radford was just about in place when Ferren arrived.
Radford faculty sometimes express frustration when it comes to getting the word out about their good work and their school's student-oriented focus - perhaps a legacy of Radford's days as a normal, or teaching, school. For nearly three years, controversy has had a way of finding Radford. The last person to fill the seat Ferren holds - Charles Owens - was acting president two years ago during the tumultuous year following President Donald Dedmon's abrupt departure.
By early last school year - the same year the school welcomed a new president - Owens decided to take an early retirement.
"Once Dr. Owens made the decision to retire, I think anyone in that position [would find] it's a difficult position to be in," Lerch said. "There are just so many ways he probably felt his hands were tied in terms of funding, the university changing internal governance policies, the institution of a Faculty Senate."
Enter the only job finalist who never hesitated when asked a question.
"Others did," said Alcorn, the Faculty Senate president who sat on the search committee that unanimously recommended Ferren's appointment out of 120 applicants last spring.
Among the programs in which Ferren has been highly visible has been a new, five-session series of discussions on "building a community of learners." Sponsored by the university's Faculty Development Center, the idea has been to draw students, professors, staff and administrators to talk about what Radford wants to be.
"It was quite telling at the last session, when someone read the events that went on in my lifetime," said Alcorn, who graduated from college before 1978.
On the list: Woodstock, Vietnam, events that are largely foreign to the current crop of college students.
"We need to understand where students are coming from," Alcorn said.
Under Ferren, Radford's year-old Faculty Senate also seems to be finding its place. Earlier this month, professors received word about Academic Advising Awareness Days. In a show of joint support, Alcorn and Ferren distributed a memo to all professors, and asked them to remind all students that second semester registration was on the way. With a change in the academic probation policy, this was the time for students to visit their advisers.
"We need your assistance in this important effort to help our students be successful," read the memo.
Ferren, mother of two and a former high school teacher, says she saw in Radford a place that "has early distinguished itself in terms of faculty development, writing across the curriculum, assessment, support programs for students those are all things that are sort of new dimensions of the regular academic process."
And that's where she wanted to go next in her career.
"Due to her complete knowledge of higher education and curriculum reform and working with faculty, she would be a wonderful leader for Radford at this particular time," Brownlee said. "I did nominate her for the position."
Former AU colleagues describe Ferren as strong and focused. During Ferren's two-year tenure as acting provost - during which time the school also had an acting president - "things continued to move. The campus was engaged and involved," said John Martone, the acting vice president of student services.
She is known for being "extremely open, and really emphasizing a teamwork approach," said Ivy Broder, AU's dean of academic affairs. "She is not a command and control administrator."
And she demonstrates that when asked where she thinks Radford should move in the near future.
"It's not my dream, first of all," Ferren said. "If people do not share the dream, it will not happen. I am not the institution."
Still, Ferren keeps some pie-in-the-sky items on her list for Radford students, whom she sees as people who go on to lead practical lives. Internships for all. And, she said, "what if every student who wanted to could study abroad?"
Ferren's busy schedule and focused work style have not only impressed the faculty, but also the Board of Visitors.
"The board's asked her some very difficult questions she's always seemed to come through with solid information," said Jim Stutts, rector of the board. "It appears the board likes her, the faculty likes her and the president likes her. She appears to be a wonderful asset to the university."
Ann S. Ferren
Education: Ed.D., Boston University; M.A.T., Harvard Graduate School of Education; A.B., Radcliffe College.
Last job: Senior Fellow, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Washington, D.C.
Last university: The American University in Washington, D.C. Ferren's association with AU goes back to 1975, when she conducted workshops on teaching as a faculty development consultant. From 1993-1995, she was interim provost. In between, she held posts ranging from associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to director of the general education program.
Hobbies: Canoeing and hiking
Personal: Ferren's husband, Jonathan Fife, is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at George Washington University. She also is mother to two sons, Peter, 27, a student at Yale Medical School, and Andrew, 32, a lawyer in Chicago. She has two grandchildren.
Current favorite leisure activity: "When we're not house hunting, we're poking down back roads ... having a cup of coffee and a piece of pie," Ferren says. The new vice president also has been among audience members at student performances on campus this fall.
LENGTH: Long : 148 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Alan Kim. 1. Ann Ferren speaks at a recent Radfordby CNBUniversity Faculty Senate meeting (ran on NRV-1). 2. & 3. Ann Ferren
(above) and right) fields questions and explains to the Raford
Faculty Senate the State Council Performance Indicators Project, a
state-mandated post-tenure evaluation program that will be
implemented at all Virginia universities. 4. As vice president for
academic affairs, Ferren is always on the agenda at Faculty Senate
meetings (above). As is the case with most c=vice presidents, she is
a nonvoting member of the Faculty Senate. color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE