During the past semester, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon has traveled across the country delivering speeches, attending meetings and promoting MSU.

The traveling and the external events she attends have been among the biggest adjustments for the former provost who now is MSU's 20th president. She took over the job in January and became the university's first female president.

"I've spent a lot of time in the car and on airplanes," Simon said. "As a provost, you do a lot more in-person meetings (on campus). Presidents tend to be away more."

After her first semester, Simon said she has become more accustomed to the demands of the job, but said there is still much to learn.

"We've had some bumps along the way, but we're gradually getting better at it," she said.

This first semester, Simon has agreed to join the Worker Rights Consortium, took part in finalizing a ban on open alcohol on campus and has met with different legislators and organizations to establish MSU's future.

MSU Board of Trustees member Dee Cook said Simon's hard work has been refreshing, but it's important that the president continue to balance her personal and professional lives.

"I often worry about her," Cook said. "She has to take some time for herself now and then. I think it's typical of someone who's very focused - they sometimes forget that they have to have some time to walk away from their job. She did the same thing when she was provost. She rarely took a vacation."

Signed on for three years, at which point she'll be evaluated on her performance, Simon said she would like to strengthen academic programs, assist in the state's economic development and modernize MSU's original ideals as a land-grant university.

"We simply want Michigan State to be the prototype for the kind of university that a global society would want to create," she said.

To aid in economic development, Simon has met with legislators several times to make the case for MSU's role in higher education.

Part of her commitment as president has been to open lines of communication, which members of Students for Economic Justice, or SEJ, said they want to make sure she continues to do.

The group has been trying for five years to get MSU to join the Worker Rights Consortium, an organization that works to ensure university apparel isn't made by companies that violate human rights. Former MSU President M. Peter McPherson did not want to join the consortium, but SEJ has been meeting with Simon since she began her presidency, and last month she agreed to join.

"Really, what is most important as president of the university is to be connected to the opinions and the wants and the needs of the students," said Tommy Simon, a social relations and English sophomore and SEJ member. "As long as discussions and negotiations always continue, then she will be one of our great presidents."

As provost, Simon presented a plan last spring to reorganize the liberal arts program - a proposal that left many faculty members feeling their voices had been neglected. The proposal was later abandoned.

Jon Sticklen, chairman of the Executive Committee of Academic Council, said the open communication Simon has tried to foster has begun to make a difference.

"It's not on the surface yet, but just at a board meeting, things are more open," Sticklen said. "The relationship between Academic Governance and the president is not as everyday as the one between provost and Academic Governance. One of the things I've missed is talking with her."

Personally, Simon said she has made the transition from provost - the position she held for 11 years - to president smoothly.

"I did it on a trial basis for five months," Simon said of her interim position as president when McPherson left to aid in the rebuilding of Iraq's economy in 2003. "I had a sense of aspects of the role."

But taking over the role permanently brought a different feel to it, she said.

"When you're accountable in the way a president is accountable for the stewardship of the university, there is an onus to that that you only feel as you become president," Simon said. "It's not something that you can share with others."

Simon is learning to balance the external demands of her time with time-management skills, said Terry Denbow, vice president for University Relations.

"She has really taken advantage of the external roles and responsibilities of a president," Denbow said. "The land-grant commitment to her is real and active, not theoretical. And she lives it."

Staff writer Margaret Harding contributed to this report.