The College Fix

Alexander Cartwright known for pushing conventional diversity, though

Missouri’s Republican governor says its flagship university’s new chancellor will have to hustle to fix leadership upheaval, evaporating freshman enrollment and a looming budget crisis.

But the provost of the State University of New York is starting his tenure at the University of Missouri by sneaking a surprising priority into a more conventional list.

Alexander Cartwright, named to Mizzou’s top post last week, says Mizzou’s “top priority” commitment to diversity should not marginalize “diversity of thought.”

In introductory remarks to students and faculty last week, not long after the financially strapped university announced hundreds of job eliminations, Cartwright said he had been “so impressed with the ways in which Mizzou has addressed the importance of inclusion, diversity and equity”:

[W]e’re not just talking [about] racial diversity. Diversity includes race, gender, geography, socioeconomic [status], sexual orientation and diversity of thought. Exposing students to different cultures and perspectives help them form a better understanding of our global economy. I feel particularly strongly that we have to strive for inclusive excellence.

MU announces its new chancellor, Alexander Cartwright. https://t.co/TxcKc9dzPk

— Columbia Missourian (@CoMissourian) May 24, 2017

MORE: Massive layoffs coming to Mizzou as enrollment craters

Cartwright is perhaps better known for his efforts to improve racial and gender diversity. Times Union reported in September 2015 that Cartwright helped draft policies that required each of SUNY’s 64 campuses to hire a chief diversity officer.

Under the multi-year plan, incoming students could specify their sexual orientation, gender identity and a host of other group characteristics, including veteran status. The university said that data would help it track performance and retention across demographic groups.

Cartwright, also an electrical engineering professor at the University at Buffalo, championed the field of humanities last year when he was a finalist for the chancellor position at the University of Tennessee.

During an open forum with UT students in November, Cartwright said that, despite the beliefs of some of his engineering colleagues, “technology in and of itself does not create society,” according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

During the same forum Cartwright championed interdisciplinary work as an approach to problem-solving.

We love what new @Mizzou Chancellor Alexander Cartwright had to say about IDE at his introduction today! https://t.co/LH5YYAz8XZ pic.twitter.com/bTrWTM4Pvz

— Mizzou IDE (@mizzoudiversity) May 24, 2017

MORE: Mizzou enrollment plunge means several dorms closing

A spokesperson for Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens told The College Fix in a Tuesday phone call that the new Republican governor had already spoken with Cartwright.

Greitens is prepared to take a “leadership role” to support the chancellor-designate’s intellectual diversity aspirations, the spokesperson said, but his office has “nothing to reveal just yet.”

In a statement May 24, the first-term governor said he looks forward to working with Cartwright, but cautioned that university leadership would have to make some “hard decisions” to right the troubled university.

“The University of Missouri has lacked strong leadership for far too long,” Greitens said, alluding to the campus race protests that gave the university a national black eye a year and a half ago.

“That leadership vacuum has created a crisis,” he continued. “Since the Fall of 2015 [when the race protests took place], the University of Missouri-Columbia freshman class has shrunk by over one-third,” which is “the worst enrollment performance of any flagship university in the country,” he said. “That cannot continue.”

Mizzou is scheduled to close seven dorms and increase tuition next year amid a projected 7.4 percent drop in enrollment and elimination of 400 jobs.

“These new leaders must move quickly to address the serious and immediate challenges our universities face,” Greitens said in his statement. “They are stewards of the people’s trust and the people’s money. We need a new, bold approach for our flagship university and the entire UM System that creates excellence and puts the needs of Missouri citizens first.”

Greitens urged leaders to shed middle management and “focus on value.”

“Instead of adding layers of administrators, we need to focus on value,” he said. “Prioritize teaching and research that get results. Invest in our priorities, not in pet projects or privileges. Take advantage of the great potential of our students, and seize opportunities for excellence.”

During a Republican gubernatorial debate held at the Mizzou campus a year ago, Greitens faulted then-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon for “a complete lack of leadership” during the fall protests, saying he should have told college students to toughen up.

A Navy SEAL veteran with four deployments, Greitens compared Mizzou students unfavorably to the “19-, 20-, 21-year-old” servicemembers he served alongside.

Provost Garnett Stokes took over as interim chancellor in May after Hank Foley, her predecessor in the temporary position, left Mizzou for the New York Institute of Technology this year. Cartwright begins in his new position Aug. 1.

MORE: Mizzou dorms are only going ‘offline’ to see if anyone comes back

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IMAGE: University of Missouri