One-on-one with Jakubowski

Download the audio interview (17.9 MB)

Download the full text interview (48 KB DOC)

Monday, September 11, President Jakubowski allowed the Rose Thorn writers to come and interview him. Jakubowski talked about things such as what it’s like to be here at Rose-Hulman, how we’ll determine the future of Rose-Hulman, his duties as president, and more. For the complete transcript go to www.rose-hulman.edu/thorn. Here are some excerpts from the transcript:

Thorn: So why did you want to come to Rose-Hulman?

Jakubowski: Well, jeez, who the heck would not want to be the President of Rose-Hulman? Rose-Hulman is such a fantastic institution. Rose-Hulman has been on my radar screen for over 30 years. I first became acquainted with Rose-Hulman through Triangle fraternity, I came to do a chapter visitation, do some consultation, do some workshops, so I came here to see the campus and was very impressed with what I saw. In the past 30 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with faculty, staff, and students, so I’ve always been very impressed with Rose-Hulman. So when I was nominated for this position, immediately I thought jeez, what an opportunity, and I consider this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I’m very honored to have been selected, and I’m very happy just to be here.

Thorn: Aside from your professional career, tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies, what do you do during your spare time?

Jakubowski: You know, I’ll tell you, I’m just a normal guy, I really am. I don’t put myself on a pedestal and I might have the title of president, but I’m really pretty down to earth. I’ll tell you some things I really enjoy doing. One of my big hobbies is woodworking. I really, really enjoy woodworking, I enjoy bicycle riding, I enjoy traveling, I enjoy gardening and cooking, I especially like cooking, and so the challenge that I have as president is finding the time to do any of those things.

Thorn: At the open forum last year, you mentioned that Rose should consider developing its curriculum to perhaps include a business aspect, or more blurred lines between disciplines, or maybe a graduate program. …How do you plan to study issues such as those, and where does the student body come in?

Jakubowski: Well, first of all one of the things I think Rose-Hulman needs to do is we need to look at, we need to identify our aspirational peers, who are we aspiring to be like. The other thing that we need to do, is we need to look at schools that are aspiring to be like Rose-Hulman, and so we need to ask the question, what are these schools doing to be more like Rose-Hulman, and what are we going to do to maintain our competitive edge? What are other institutions doing that might make sense for Rose-Hulman? … There are programs let’s say, what a lot of institutions are doing things, are doing things in education, I don’t think it makes sense for Rose-Hulman to start a school of education, and so that’s, that’s immediately out of the question, at least in the very near future. Now what Rose-Hulman does 20 or 30 years from now, that’s another issue. … The thing that’s going on in technology today is that there’s a blurring of the disciplines. There’s some, there will always be the traditional areas of engineering, civil, chemical, electrical, mechanical, those traditional areas will always be around, however what’s happening in engineering and technology today is that there’s more and more of these engineering disciplines that are being merged together, a blending of this and that, and that’s what they call a blurring of disciplines. …Basically during the coming year we’re going to be doing a lot of strategic planning for the institute. And all of the, our constituencies will be involved in the planning process, including students, so students will have an opportunity to sit down and to think about what we want to do in the future. The question is well, what is Rose-Hulman going to look like 10 years from now? What is Rose-Hulman going to look like 5 years from now? I don’t think we’re going to look the same then as we do today, it’s just a question of which directions we’re going to take. … Now getting back to your comment about business, you know, I don’t think it makes sense for Rose-Hulman to start a college of business administration here. You know that’s, again, I think that falls into the same area as starting a school of education. But, I think it might make sense for us to integrate perhaps some business courses, or management courses into the engineering curriculum. I’ve received lots of suggestions that’s that worked from people in business and industry. …

Thorn: How will you handle conflict if one of your propositions is met with conflict by the faculty, staff, or students?

Jakubowski: Basically, there’s always an area of compromise, I think the thing that needs to be done is you need to bring people need to consensus. And when you talk about consensus, it isn’t necessary that you have unanimous — what am I looking for — unanimous support, consensus is everybody, the majority of the people can live with it. The key here is not to look for unanimous support, but the important thing is to bring people to consensus.

Thorn: Groups like Homework Hotline help spread Rose-Hulman’s name. Do you have any additional measures or ideas which could help increase the layman’s awareness of Rose-Hulman?

Jakubowski: The best way to increase the Rose-Hulman name is for faculty to get out to conferences, professional conferences, present papers, to be involved in the various professional societies. What we need to do is also to send students to various conferences, including undergraduate research conferences, getting students to participate in the various collegiate competitions, like the Challenge X competition, the SAE mini baja competition, the SAE formula competition, so there’s a whole range, wide range of student competitions that I think all of our students need to be involved with. And it’s just important that our faculty, our staff and our students are seen nationally, and even internationally, we need to, by our people getting off campus and by attending various activities and events, that’s how you get the name Rose-Hulman out there.

Thorn: I guess by doing this, you’re not suggesting, necessarily, like at the conferences, or whatever presenting massive research, so much as conferences that are like professional development or…?

Jakubowski: No, absolutely. It could be research, but the, there’s a lot of other things that faculty and students could present, professional, ideas on professional development.

Thorn: What do you think about the tie with Harvey-Mudd, for first, according to the US News and World Report?

Jakubowski: Well Harvey-Mudd is an excellent institution, I’ve visited their campus on numerous occasions, I lived right there in Los Angeles, I used to visit the campus and meet with the students and several faculty members there, and so I think it’s good news that we’re in good company, and I don’t think that there’s anything for us to be ashamed about, that we’re tied, I think we should look at this positively, this is great. Harvey Mudd is a great institution, so we’re in great company there.

Thorn: So all this aside, what are your responsibilities as president? …

Jakubowski: The, here at Rose-Hulman, I think the president needs to be visible to the students, needs to be seen with the students, to participate with the students as much as possible. But also to work with faculty, to be seen by the faculty and the staff, to make sure that Rose-Hulman continues to be a community, a family. And, so, in addition to all of that, I think it’s important for the president to raise funds for the institute, and so in order to do that, it’s going to be necessary for me to spend time off campus meeting with alumni, meeting with companies and corporations and industry, to do a lot of fundraising for the institute. So, one of the things is you cannot, you cannot raise funds by staying on campus. And so, there’s - my job as president, you have that very delicate balance between being visible on campus but also spending time off campus to raise funds for the institute. … And one of the things I had mentioned before that door is always open, and anybody can stop and see me at any time, whether it’s students, faculty or staff, the door’s open, and if the door’s open, and if I don’t have an appointment, I will drop whatever I’m doing to meet with whoever stops by, and it doesn’t have to be related to school, if people just want to stop by and chat and talk about the weather, or whatever, I’m available. …

Thorn: So, speaking of community spirit, at the open forum last year, you said there would be lots of parties. When are the next few?

Jakubowski: … I’m hoping to have a get-together with the faculty and staff, and perhaps some time in April, try to plan some kind of an activity for the students… The other thing that’s going on is that we have, Lynn and I have invited several groups of people into our house, and so those people are going to be visiting with us. … So we’ve invited the [Student Government] Executive Committee to our house, or at least will be inviting them to our house, we’re going to be inviting the presidents of the greek fraternities to our house, so yeah, we have several things already planned, and there are other things in the works as well. I think it’s, parties and get-togethers are very important, I think it helps promote this whole spirit of family and community.