President Neil Theobald is getting a new title, as professor.
No it’s not a conference meeting, it’s a freshman class. Once a week, President Theobald opens his doors at Sullivan Hall for twenty-four recipients of Temple University’s President Scholarship. The class showcases some of the many topics and issues he faces on a daily basis.
“It’s about organizational change. When you come into a new situation how do you figure out what’s going well, what isn’t going well, or those things that aren’t going well, what are the things you need to fix right away,” Theobald said.
“It’s basically kind of an overview to figure out how this big complicated university works to kind of set up for next semester,” said Pat Barbro, Theobald’s teaching assistant. “Then students will then try to work on implementing some sort of change through a project that they pick.”
According to Theobald, one semester will not be enough as the same group of students will be automatically enrolled for part two with the president in the Spring of 2014.
“They will look at an issue that they think it important to Temple that needs to be addressed and then they will spend next semester determining what they think Temple should do about it,” President Theobald said.
While many of the issues the university faces on a daily basis takes months or years to resolve, the president believes the best perspective is the freshest perspective.
“This gives me an opportunity to spend an hour every week as issues come up, well how’s that work out in your world, what’s going well there and what are things we can do differently. So I’m getting lots of ideas,” Theobald stated.
The president finished by summarizing that this class has been the best and most effective way to truly learn a student’s perspective of the campus he walks everyday.
Be the first to comment