The third provost candidate to visit campus might soon be able to sing the MSU fight song - in five different languages.
Uday Sukhatme, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo, can speak Italian, French, two Indian languages and English. He held a public forum Monday where he explained his background and his experiences both in Buffalo and at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he served as vice provost of academic programs.
"Unlike the stock market, where a good past doesn't guarantee anything, I believe past experience is an indicator of good things to come," Sukhatme said.
Sukhatme is one of five provost candidates to visit campus and hold a forum, in which candidates are interviewed by members of the MSU community.
The provost is the chief academic officer in the university and oversees areas such as appointments, terminations, salaries and the academic budget.
Sukhatme informed a group of roughly 50 people about the outreach programs he started during his time as an administrator, which he said showcased the University at Buffalo and served as a useful recruiting tool.
"I like all (academic) programs to be of a certain quality, then you want certain programs to become stamps of the university," he said.
Although Sukhatme's background is in physics, he also started a poetry contest for high school students across the United States and Canada. The range of his programs was impressive, said Kimberly Yake, a student member of the provost search and rating committee and a mathematics graduate student.
"I'm interested in how diverse the set of things he's done has been," Yake said.
Jon Sticklen, an associate professor of computer science, said Sukhatme's history of building programs was impressive, as was his overall presentation.
"He said a lot of the right things, and I believed him," Sticklen said. "He spoke from his heart and that impressed me very much. He seemed trustable."
While in Chicago, Sukhatme said he depended on four faculty members as vice chancellors who served two-year terms to help him handle the workload.
He said it is a good idea to work closely with faculty members.
"It gives faculty input to what the administration is doing, and it prepares these people for administrative roles," Sukhatme said.
His cooperation with others marks him as a strong leader, Yake said.
"He gathers a lot of information to make good decisions," Yake said. "Through speaking with him, I saw he relies heavily on having good people around him."
Sukhatme also addressed the importance of a transparent search when hiring administrators.
"In general, you want the person coming in to come with strength," Sukhatme said. "You don't want any semblance of non-openness in the search."
Although MSU is a strong university, it has not done enough to advertise its strengths, he said.
"From the things I have seen and heard, all the academic pieces are in place," he said. "With a little repolishing, repackaging and an increase of self-esteem, this university can really shine."
