Dean finalist looks to increase research monies

Two goals Janett Trubatch would like
to accomplish at CMU include increasing research-funding amounts and
shifting more duties of the College of Graduate Studies from administrators
back to the colleges.
Trubatch visited CMU Tuesday in her quest for the
position of assistant vice president for Sponsored Research and dean
of the College of Graduate Studies. The first of five candidates for
the position, Trubatch spoke about her goals and her experience at an
open forum in the Bovee University Center President’s Conference Room.
Carole Beere vacated the position in mid-August to
take over as vice president of Academic Affairs at Walden University
in Minneapolis. Gail Scukanec, former associate dean of the college,
has served as interim since Beere left.
Trubatch said she doesn’t know why the external funding
for sponsored research at CMU is so low, but different possibilities
exist to raise it.
“I think the general feeling around campus is this
is a good area for growth,” she said.
Increasing traditional programs is not the answer
at this time, but looking at the unmet needs that CMU can fulfill in
and out of the state and even the country is worthwhile, Trubatch said.
“Extended learning makes higher education much, much
more accessible to a great number of people, and it can benefit traditional
departments,” she said.
Using a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to obtain external
funding is also worth considering, Trubatch said. Some of the institutions
she has worked with have felt lobbying was immoral, while others favored
it, she said.
“I do not feel it’s immoral,” she said. “I think
the questions have to be ‘how much are you willing to pay?’ and ‘what
will come back from it?’”
Trubatch also addressed how CMU can better its position
for funding with the seven state universities it often competes with.
“I don’t think it makes sense to go head-to-head.
What I’ve done before is create relationships. It’s a wonderful thing.”
Trubatch presently serves as the treasurer of the
Board of Trustees and interim deputy director for the nonprofit Muldoon
Community Development Corporation in Anchorage, Alaska.
She said she is in charge of raising funds for programs
such as youth-nurturing and welfare-to-work programs and for affordable
housing. Prior to this position, she served as the associate vice chancellor
for Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
As an example of relationships between universities,
Trubatch said professors at UAA would go to the University of Hawaii
to teach while U of H professors often taught at UAA.
She said CMU is only a couple hours from many other
universities and this short distance could help in collaborating with
other schools.
Trubatch said she has worked with both larger and
smaller offices of graduate studies than CMU’s. She said she prefers
less “front-end processing” and would like to streamline Central’s office
by giving more duties to various colleges.
She said deciding on qualifications for graduate-study
programs, for example, should be made “at the lowest level where it
can be made. Not lower our standards or break up the system, but clearly
deal with problems.”
Trubatch said the College of Graduate Studies “can
be simplified without shirking responsibilities.”
Other finalists and the dates and times for their
forums at the Bovee University Center include:

• James Weber – 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the President’s
  Conference Room. Weber is an educational psychology professor and
  associate dean for Research and Development at Mississippi State
  University, where he has directed a multi-million dollar research
  and development program for the College of Education since 1993.
• James Hageman – 4:30 p.m. Monday in the Lake St.
  Clair Room. Hageman heads the chemistry and biochemistry department
  at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, a position he has
  held since 1992.
• Elaine Collins – 4:30 p.m. March 1 in Terrace Room
  A. Collins has been serving as interim vice president for Academic
  Affairs at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, previously North
  Adams State College, in North Adams, Mass. She is responsible for
  all academic programs, budgets, personnel and faculty.
• Thomas Kent – 4:30 p.m. March 2 in the President’s
  Conference Room. Kent is chair of the English department at Iowa
  State University in Ames, Iowa, where he manages six curricular
  areas and oversees a $5.4 million department budget.