ENERGIZED STATE

Vicky Carwein has set foot on all seven continents.

She and her husband accomplished that rare feat last year with a cruise to Antarctica on board a converted Russian research vessel. "It's something I always wanted to do," she told BusinessWest, noting that while there isn't much to do on the

Carwein is a true world traveler. She takes several trips a year, and counts among her favorite destinations South Africa, Egypt, and Australia, to which she will return later this year. Through all those excursions, however, she had never been to New England, and had never heard of Westfield and the 165year-old state college located there.

But the now former chancellor of the University of Washington at Tacoma (UWT) said the school presented the type of professional opportunity she was seeking, and thus she moved from one side of the country to the other.

"I was looking for a different kind of challenge," she explained, adding that UWT had a specific niche upper-level and graduate programs - and was essentially a commuter school. "I really missed the four-year, residential, comprehensive college campus, and wanted to return to that environment."

At UWT, Carwein presided over a massive, long-term project to give the school a new campus and an expanded role in the community. She oversaw the opening of the school's permanent campus in Tacoma's historic Union Station warehouse district, and orchestrated tremendous growth from 732 students in four academic programs to 2,100 students and seven programs, including an institute of technology and a business school.

She said the challenges at Westfield State will be much different. The school is financially sound, she explained, and it has a clear, well-defined role within the state's and the region's - higher education infrastructure. "This is not a school that's in trouble or that needs to be turned around."

But there is some work to be done.

Carwein said the school has a solid working relationship with the community, but there are ways to make it stronger and deeper. Meanwhile, fundraising will be another priority, as Massachusetts, like other states, gradually diminishes its commitment to higher education.

"There is more pressure on public institutions to raise private dollars than ever before," she said. "That's the reality facing public schools and the people trying to lead them into the future." BusinessWest begins a series of articles introducing a group of new college presidents in the Pioneer Valley with a profile of Carwein, a traveler who believes that, personally and professionally, she's in the right place at the right time.

Class Act

Carwein told BusinessWest that, while Massachusetts and Washington are on opposite ends of the country, they are also on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to higher education.

The Bay State, while it has a number of fine public schools, is home to dozens of private colleges, she explained, and it is these institutions - Harvard, MIT, Amherst, Williams, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Tufts, and countless others that give the Commonwealth its reputation as the place where the world comes to learn. Washington, in contrast, has very few private schools, and it is the state system that provides most of the opportunities for higher teaming.

"If it wasn't for UWT, many people in the Tacoma area simply wouldn't have been able to attain a college degree," said Carwein, who described herself as a product of public higher education - all three of her degrees are from such institutions and one who greatly appreciates their value.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the education I received at public schools in Indiana and California was absolutely topnotch," she said. "And having taught at public institutions all my life, I saw their enormous value. Public schools provide opportunities to those who otherwise wouldn't be able to go to college; they transform lives."

Carwein has spent her entire career in education within the public school arena, or the "publics," as she called them. Prior to her arrival at UWT, Carwein was dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she taught for a number of years and eventually directed a master's program. She holds a bachelor of science and a doctor of nursing degree from Indiana University and a master of science degree from the University of California, San Francisco.

She said she went to UWT because she wanted to lead a college. Her experiences there went well beyond academia, as she led a building program that changed the look of not only the school, but also the community.

Created in 1990, UWT was originally located in two rented offices in downtown Tacoma, Carwein explained. State and college officials identified a 46-acre site comprised largely of padlocked, 100-year-old warehouse buildings built around a terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad as the school's future, permanent home. When Carwein arrived at the school in 1995, it was her job to oversee the building project, which made the college an economic engine in the city located on Puget Sound.

"I worked with city and business leaders to put together what we considered very entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box projects to develop the campus faster than if you were relying on state funds alone," she said. "I was able to create partnerships with the city and some private business men and women who wanted to do some things on our campus. As a result, we were able to get some buildings renovated that we would not have been able to get done because there was not state money for the project."

Some of the partnerships were quite imaginative, said Carwein, recalling one where the university took one of the vacant warehouses it owned and turned it over to a private developer who renovated it for offices, retail, and other uses, including college functions, if needed. When the longterm lease that was negotiated with the developer expires, the property reverts to the college.

"We didn't need the building at the time, but we knew we would need it 15 or 20 years down the road," she continued. "So by doing this, we got one of our buildings renovated, removed an eyesore from the landscape, and created a facility that we could use in the future."

Another project, also undertaken with private developers, involved creation of an apartment complex and parking garage, a facility that would not have been possible, at least for many years, if the school relied on state funding to get the job done.

Looking back on the academic and economic development efforts at UWT, Carwein said, she said the school's expansion gave her invaluable experience in cultivating partnerships, a talent she intends to tap in her new position in Westfield.

"As I met with people in the community, I saw a real passion for the college ... people really believe in the school," she told BusinessWest. "I want to work with the city and its business community to build stronger partnerships and to make the college even more of an asset for Westfield."

Based on preliminary discussions with city development leaders, Carwein said many believe the college can and should have a larger presence in the city's struggling downtown. How a larger presence might manifest itself remains to be seen, she said, noting that there are options ranging from the creation of new housing facilities for students to encouraging students to support local businesses.

Progress - by Degrees

Carwein told BusinessWest that she has spent her first several weeks in office getting a feel for the school, the community, and the challenges she faces. She praised the previous administration, led by President Frederick Woodward, for expanding the school, both physically and academically.

During Woodward's tenure, the school spent more than $200 million on new dormitories and renovations. It also acquired the former corporate headquarters of Stanhome Inc., just down Western Avenue from the main campus, and moved several offices into the facility. Late last year, it opened a new $17 million field house, named after Woodward.

The challenge is to leverage those assets in ways that will create more opportunities for the school and the community, she said, noting that the athletic center is much more than a basketball arena.

Indeed, the new building also houses academic programs, such as Movement Sciences, and a number of sports facilities for the entire student population, including a running track, a climbing wall, and batting practice nets. It was also designed so that the floor can be covered to accommodate concerts, theater, large meetings, and conferences.

"We want to maximize our opportunities with the field house and utilize it to enhance learning opportunities," she said, "but also use it to make the school more visible and a greater resource in the community."

When asked to describe the role played by today's college presidents, especially those at state schools, Carwein said they must conduct a balancing act, working simultaneously on internal and external responsibilities and obligations.

Internal matters include curriculum, faculty development, and other academic concerns, said Carwein, while the latter category consists of community relations, lobbying of local and state legislators, fundraising, and what she 'called "friendraising" activities.

"Friends come before the funds," she explained, noting that while maintaining relationships with donors and those already familiar with a school is important, college presidents must also work to make new friends.

Over the past few decades, there has been a shift in job responsibilities for public school presidents, she said, noting that the external obligations are weighing more heavily as other societal issues, especially health care, compete with education for attention and funding.

"Thirty years ago, for public college and university presidents, that external piece was not as big a piece of the job as it is today," she said. "But because the state support for education has gradually decreased, the need for public institutions to raise private dollars is much greater than it was. That need has always been there for the private schools, but it's there now for the public institutions."

WSC has a small endowment, about $3 million, and is challenged in its efforts to grow it because the graduates of many of its more popular programs - education, criminal justice, communications, and others - don't wind up in careers that lead to large donations to their alma mater.

Thus, the school, like others in its category, will have to be creative in both identifying and then pursuing new categories of donors, including local businesses and national corporations. At the same time, said Carwein, the school will be aggressive in its pursuit of grants, foundation donations, and other state and federal funding sources beyond traditional subsidies.

To that end, the school has hired a director of corporate relations and grants, who, as the title suggests, will be forging relationships with the business community while beating the bushes for additional grants.

"It's an important new position," she said, "one that is going to move us forward in this important arena."

Course of Action

As Carwein said, WSC is not a school that needs to be turned around or reinvented. It is stable financially, and enrollment projections for the next several years, when schools will benefit from the Baby Boom echo, are positive, she explained.

Her goals, both immediate and longterm, are to take the school's solid foundation and continue to build upon it, in both a literal and figurative sense.

In Tacoma, she created a larger, more diverse center of learning and a driving force in the local economy. She wants to do the same in Westfield.