 Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming out on a Friday afternoon. That's a little cloudy And this is a great way to end the day and make a cloudy day a little brighter I'm Brian Williams vice president for enrollment management, and that's all I'm going to say I'm pleased to kick off this event and get everyone's attention so that I can turn the mic over for the formal Kickoff of the session to the chair of the Roger Williams board of trustees Tim Baxter. All right. Good afternoon. How we all doing? Good should be smiles. It is Friday afternoon and for some of the students their days are only just beginning, right? but By really I'm excited to be here. This is a real historical day for Roger Williams and As I was coming up on the train today thinking about it. It struck me. I said wow 40 years ago. I was coming up here to begin my time at Roger Williams College and Who'd have thought 40 years later? I have the opportunity to introduce our 11th president at Roger Williams. That's pretty special so for me, it's it's pretty touching and I couldn't be any happier Than to have the opportunity to introduce President-designate Janice meal is so not yet Janice so we'll get you in that view but You know, I you know since the announcement some weeks ago There was really an outpouring of positive well wishes Good thoughts and congratulations by so many people and I and I took one example of that From the Harvard president who I will quote Said Janice was a very effective imaginative and energetic dean of engineering at Tufts his enthusiasm for both teaching and research was infectious He brought the same strong leadership to the Museum of Science. This is the part. I really like Roger Williams has chosen well and the quotes and I think we would all agree That that we have chosen well and and we couldn't be more happier that but this was a we the we in terms of the choosing of this And I really want to take a little bit of time to thank a few people who were so important In this process and have been so important Since we began it first I'd like to really thank heartfelt. Thanks for to Andy And Bob Cole Andy as the interim president and Bob as the acting provost Thank you for your passion your commitment your energy your leadership and especially doing it in such a humble way coming after such a Surprise with the passing of President Farrer. So please everybody thank them for what they've done we know we know the university is in is in good hands and Good hands until our our next President joins us in August officially and but I'd also like to thank the co-chairs of the of search committee and Marsha Morris is who is here Jerry Levine who is not they were my partners in this process and We couldn't have done this without without their support. So we greatly appreciate That our fellow Chairman our fellow board I should say I have been very active in this process Isaac Miller Isaacson Miller our search firm They had to heard the cats all of us in the search committee and the extended committee and did a Outstanding job the presidential search committee. How many of them are here? See I see a few of them And to be honest with you I've recruited executives for you know 20 to 30 years and I've never been part of a search committee so large It was a group of 26. I think it was and But it was so well represented We had faculty. We had staff. We had students. We had board members. We had cabinet It was a real representation of the university and the community and I too want to Thank all of them for for their absolute and and great support in this process in addition You know we made the decision to expand that by another 80 people For the last finalist interviews which was four days in Providence full days and we expanded that group To really and truly represent the university in in really an exciting and interesting way I and and quite frankly I wasn't sure how That process was going to work and I'm sure a lot of the folks who were part of it probably had some of the same questions But for me not only did it help us really validate Who and what we needed for the university? But I walked away with so many other gifts so many of the lessons so many of the learnings about Opportunities and challenges that we're faced with here at in the university Especially because the market and the industry and higher ed is changing so rapidly So so we came out of that I came out of that with great learnings and a bit of a to-do list that I will be happy to hand to our new incoming president in the in the coming weeks, but But seriously collectively It was really helped us shape and define Who we are What we need and where we're going and ensuring we have the next leader that's going to enable us to do that and that was the the objective and and I feel like we did a pretty good job pulling that off I'm our next president our 11th president dr. Miollis has a storied career of accomplishments transformation leadership strategic planning and strategic execution Innovative teaching mechanisms and approaches that I think will work very well with things we're doing in experiential learning He is not afraid to try new ways to teach Fun and exciting ways and we learned about that and some of you may have or will as well but he was Tufts school of engineering's youngest dean ever and Help to double the number of applicants And what I'm most impressed by is the improved the increase in female Students in an engineering program grew by 30% under his leadership He has spent the last 16 years He has spent the last 16 years building and developing and helping flourish The Boston Museum of Science and is now has moved from a regional to a national and even work He's doing done on STEM related activity has brought it to a global landscape And we're we're excited about that. I am I know we have a few things in common He is an avid fisherman He is an avid chef. I am an avid fisherman and I love to eat But we couldn't be more happy more honored more proud to introduce to you The 11th president of Roger Williams, Yannis Miollis Good afternoon, and thank you all for coming on a Friday afternoon Don't be confused by my Boston accent. I Actually, I was actually born in in Greece and And that's a Greek accent is impossible to lose for better or worse Before I start my comments and what I plan to do today is just to tell you a few things about me things that Personal and professional so you get to know me a little better things that are not in a curriculum Vita that you might have read One way to judge a high-quality University is student satisfaction and During the search process I came incognito three times on campus here and one time I went to the University College and The story was that my son is interested in attending the engineering school so I went through the campus tours and Actually, there is some element of Truthness to that because my partner son is going to engineering school and he's looking at colleges. So so and I Was so impressed by the quality of the tour guides the program and and the enthusiasm of the students that we met throughout the tour But just to double-check things and I did that twice. I the day before the the long interview day that I had in in Providence I Went to the dining hall to the commons and had three lunches in a row And actually I ate all three of them because the food was darn good and and I talked to Initially a group of students young men young young women that were Were chatting and I sat near them and they looked at me in a weird way Who's this old guy now sitting right next to us because they were empty empty tables next to them And I sat next but immediately I said look I'm a prospective parent. They're all enthusiastic and There were four African-American students sitting together. I chatted a little bit with them I was a little bit disappointed that there were only four in the dining hall at that point, but maybe coincidence But that was a disappointment And then I went and had a third lunch With it was a young woman and a young man the young man was African-American the young woman actually was first-year law student They didn't know each other and they met each other and in that case I did not talk as just listened and both of them were extremely happy with their experience they're exchanging that with each other and So it was a very positive experience. So I thought this is a this is a good place the students are happy here So back to my story. So when I was growing up my my parents had a very small summer house on the water and Gulf of Corinth so I spent a lot of my free time and during summer holidays as a student and Weekends and all that basically in the sea So I love the sea and I was since I was a baby I learned how to swim very young my mom taught me and she told me how to snorkel And then I learned how to fish and and then how to sail actually. I'm a sailor to I started the whole sailing club But at my summer place to teach kids how to sail So I used to sail Optimus and and for 20s I'm so optimistic kids. I used to teach on Optimus, but I used to sell sail lasers and for 20s and And and so I have done pretty much everything at the scuba dive everything one could do the water And so I was interested very much in pursuing marine biology and oceanography and But for some reason I My interest changed and I decided to go into engineering. So I was I chose Tufts as my undergraduate school and tufts is very similar to Roger Williams It's a comprehensive school and the reason that I did choose tufts and not a technical school like MIT or RPI or WPI is because I believe then and Must and I believe more strongly now that the good education should include the heavy component of liberal arts So liberal arts, although I'm an engineer have been a big part of my life and I chose that tufts and I chose chose well tufts Because liberal arts provides you with lifelong skills, whether you're liberal arts students or an architecture student or an engineering student And so I finished my undergraduate degrees in three years and then while I was there I became interested in architecture Because I was interested in solar energy back then solar energy was big it was big then then it was small and now it's getting big again and so I wanted to study a Architecture in parallel with mechanical engineering, which was my discipline So I applied at MIT for both departments and I got into both programs Which was very exciting when I got into both programs The problem is when I got there my advisor told me you're absolutely crazy If you think you're gonna do two masters programs at the same time at MIT So you have to give one up and I give architecture up So that's where the architecture thing ended. It was a short short lived interest now Well, I was at MIT I became interested in entrepreneurship and I took a couple of courses and then At the same I was planning on staying for my PhD at MIT But my undergraduate project a Tufts research project got major funding by the National Science Foundation my advisor there and My advisor was very good theoretician, but horrible in the laboratory So he wanted me back because I was good at the laboratory to do the experimental part of his project and And he learned me back. He gave me a lot of the I had two master students working for me And but not so much of the graduate the whole laboratory lots of resources So I went back, but at that point I was also interested in business and the closest stuffs had in business was economics So actually I picked up a masters in economics At the same time I was doing my doctorate and this was my former liberal arts liberal arts education, so I Did economics and it was kind of a challenging thing for me because that was the first economics I took was advanced macroeconomics So you can imagine starting at that had to learn a lot of economics myself to be able to To to keep up with my classmates so my dream was to become a professor since I was little and I was very lucky when I finished Tufts My PhD because there was only one faculty position because it was a relatively small engineering program at Tufts Only one faculty position in my area of expertise, which is heat transfer and fluid mechanics heat transfer them and it was taken but Unexpectedly the wife of the person that was holding that position Got ill and they went back to Iran. That's where they were from and the position opened up and I got it now about 1215 years later when I was dean of engineering I was opening some old drawers of searches and I found the folder of my search. I Was their fourth choice? I Swear So it is what it is so So when I first started working at Tufts, I was very much focused on my teaching a research back then if you remember it was it was a 87 the research laboratories at the of IBM in jurich the researchers discovered some very cool materials These are superconducting materials superconducting materials can transmits electricity with no resistance and So 25% of the energy we lose every year we waste every year is because of that electric resistance So the cable if you produce electricity here and you transmit it to Providence You're gonna lose 25% of the of the of the of the energy and also if you have no electric resistance You know when you put your laptop on your lap and it's hot That is all heat energy that's being wasted so you could have much faster and smaller computers and You could even have roads from these materials if you make them work at regular temperature Because these materials if you put a magnet on these materials the magnet sees a mirror image on itself You can think of it like that and it floats up in the air so you could have magnetic cards that float like the Jetsons or on On the road so a lot of us drop the research we're doing and focused in making These materials and I had the group of undergraduates that were doing this and these materials were very cool Again, you can take the material put in the liquid nitrogen which may cool it down And then you can put a magnet and the magnet floats up in the air so bought my first house in the storm Massachusetts with my wife and Then we're trying to find a better way I was trying to find a better way to get from home to work to Tufts And I made a mistake and I took the wrong turn and I ended up at a dead end Which was the middle school neighborhood's middle school parking lot So I had never been in an American K-12 school and and actually when I was in In Greece I went to an old-boy school and it's relevant to the story so I Was pulling out of the parking lot that then I thought wait a minute We made these really cool materials in the laboratory. Maybe I would go and show the kids So I parked the car got out of the car and Went to the principal's office and back then you didn't have to pass through metal detectors to go to the principal's office You could work right in the school at the principal's office. I introduced myself and and said on professor at Tufts new resident here doing this research Would you be interested in me coming and talking to the kids? So he brought over this 8th grade science teacher who was an older gentleman He was very excited. He invited me to come the following Friday And I was really excited because I never had the opportunity to teach kids That age and I had never even seen a co-ed school because since grade 4 I was an Athens College was an old-boy school was an old-boy school then So I worked with my other graduates who put together a very cool Presentation with hands-on experiences so the kids would understand the real physics behind the materials and here I am I'm giving my show kids were into it. They were paying attention Right in front of me there was a little blonde girl with frizzy hair and she was really intense She was keeping notes of everything I had to say so after my my talk. I noticed the teacher He was coming toward me with Three boys and he deduced me to these three boys when I first go to the school as he science boys You have to meet my science boys. So the science boys and the teacher were coming toward me The little girl that was in front of me gets up sees them coming She cuts right in front of them and tells me pronouncing my name correctly, believe it or not He said dr. Mia was I would like you to help me with my science fair project. I Had not signed up to help anybody with their science fair project I was there to give it up, but what do you tell the kid that comes up? So so I started talking to her and the teacher comes pulls me aside and whispers into my ear Do not waste your time with her. She's nothing in science. You should work with my science boys In that moment folks changed my whole life And later you see how how it how it the life got changed so anyway, I For again for reasons that that are complicated to explain in a short doc I ended up becoming dean at age 32 so I got tenure in the year after I became dean of the school and There's a problem of being dean when all your faculty used to be your teachers as you can imagine It's difficult to be dean anyway, and imagine if the faculty are or used to be all all your teachers but the school needed transformation and Because it was sort of an old-fashioned engineering school the curriculum was the typical curriculum of accredited engineering schools without any flair and We had one female Faculty member tenure tag faculty member out of close to a hundred faculty back then And I think there was one faculty member of color and there was about 20 something percent Women coming which is high for engineering at Tufts still a high quality school, but but it had issues and We need to do to change the culture Create a strategy Get resources and implement and this sort of has been my format in all my past life or not transforming an organization So change the culture in partnership with the people that are in the organization Create a strategy get resources and implement, and it's not the linear thing things have to happen sort of in parallel so As far as changing the the composition of the school we went from one woman faculty to 25 in 10 years When I started the administration had the no woman or members of underrepresented groups in engineering In it. I was the only one and when I left 50% of the administration was Members of underrepresented group in engineering We doubled applications like Tim said and increased their female student body by 40 percent and and by 2025 percent as students of minority groups the research volume tripled and We connected with all the schools to the point that the College of Engineering Which was sort of a the underdog of liberal arts became a separate school and sat at the We sat at the table sitting at the table with the medical school the law school and and and the school of arts and sciences One of the problems we had Was that when I became team we realized that we were losing? 25% of the students to arts and sciences so students would come into engineering and a tough You could change schools and a quarter of the students would transfer out and I didn't know that was happening because faculty members do not pay that much attention to that that is the dean's Responsibility but when I became dean and I realized I immediately called my predecessor and I said Fred We're losing 25% of the students to liberal arts and Fred goes so what's your problem the average engineering school loses half of them So I said you don't think there's a problem that we lose 25% and I did the unthinkable I brought the students that transferred out and I asked them why I bought them pizza and and they came for the pizza and and And the reason they told me was that we did not find engineering interesting What I found interesting is that had not taken any engineering at that time because first-year engineering students take math science and English and in a computer science course a computer course so we thought of changing the curriculum and make it really cool and innovative starting in freshman year because we the faculty thought that engineering is cool and How do you teach it now in a cool way? Well, if you bring in things you are passionate about in the classroom like your hobbies or personal research interests And you create courses around them engineering courses around them Maybe you'll communicate that passion with the students So I got a big grant from the National Science Foundation because this was a national problem to try this out And we created courses that stand out of our personal interests and passions and of course I as the dean had to give a good example So I thought two of these courses I created two courses my passions is fishing and cooking so my And my cooking course was basically a heat transfer course because when you cook you transfer heat So you can teach an entire course of heat transfer, which is a mechanical engineering and chemical engineering course with examples around the kitchen cooking and thermodynamics you can cover some through the refrigerator actually and so we would do the theory in a classroom and then the Experiments and the application in a kitchen laboratory Which was all funded by frigid air and and Calfalon and had pots and pans in this lab I could never afford to have at home and And the nicest thing was that I had the best smelling laboratory of the university and at the end of the class You could eat the experiment so My fishing course which is not only fishing is basically fluid mechanics How liquids and solids travel and how they interact with our liquids and gases flow and how they interact with solids But from the point of nature so nature has Evolved to take advantage of fluid mechanics phenomena. That's why the fish are shaped the way they are and the birds have evolved that way And so it's basically fluid mechanics from the point of view of living organisms And in one of my favorite moments every year And one of the best examples of life in moving fluids Do you know the little Samara seeds that look like helicopter blades like a little seed that you see on the ground all Over the place in New England This is a perfect example of life and moving fluids because the the plant has evolved to have seeds That when they mature instead of just dropping on the shadow of the tree that with a little breeze they propagate and they fly away so the the the the the plan could could disperse and So we used to learn how this works and how it looks like a helicopter rotor and do all the fluid mechanics And my class used to be taught right before lunch time And I could tell from far away during maple Samara season Which ones were my students heading to the dining dining hall because the other students You know they would walk in the typical way Look at them and everybody thought my students get stoned in my class so So anyway, but it was very nice to see how how they How they had a totally different view of nature and fluid mechanics that they're they're class class classmates so Also, I was very much keen on experiential learning I started the internship program at Tufts and and a program to have engineering students volunteer in schools and and spend a lot of time with children get them excited about engineering and One of the results was my daughter Katrina who's gonna be on campus tomorrow with my older daughter Marina They both mechanical engineers from Tufts actually And that's without the tuition remission benefit. That's after I left they went there There was by that was by choice by choice. They went there So she finished mechanical engineering and while she was there Katrina She volunteered as a student to go to schools and help and three years And last year she quit her engineering job with great engineering job in Boston And she's finishing her master's in education. This is going to be a math teacher. She's actually getting an offer now so so that's that's a result of the program that I started that My family benefited directly directly for that So let's go a little bit back to the to the school so after this incident with Jenny when I was there talking up giving my talk about superconductors I got involved with the school and I realized that the laboratories were pathetic like every single laboratory in every public school in the country and And I was good in getting grants So the first grant we got actually to improve the science program was from the parent-teacher association And I convinced I had a meeting and I convinced them instead of bringing the same flamengo dancers for the third year in a row to Maybe buy microscopes for the laboratory this year and they did it and the school had micro had microscopes which were terrific and And the kids got interested more interested in biology Then we applied for Eisenhower grants This used to be state grants and we got them not got some guns for the National Science Foundation the future double trust And within five years are brought in about two million dollars for a school of about two hundred students So it had the best laboratories you can imagine at that time in the process I started bringing in My my colleagues that we all started having children at that point and they became interested in K-12 education they started programs in their schools and by the time I became dean stuffs had the most active K-12 out reach science outreach program and and At that point we decided to introduce engineering as a new discipline in schools because if you look around us It is almost all engineered And if you don't believe me Try to take away everything that is human made Engineer in this room and tell me what would not be here. What would not be here? Who wants to start? If we take out all the human-made things Nobody knows There wouldn't be a building. There wouldn't be a booth. They're gonna be chairs microphones clothes so all would be left here is Whoever is under the age of about 27 would be sitting naked in the dirt and when I say 27 without pharmaceuticals and water purification systems life expectancy is about 27 So I wouldn't be here and many of many others would not be here And if you look at the curriculum, it's all about the natural world in schools The engineering world is not what now it is but it wasn't part of the curriculum. So we decided to balance The the science that introduces the natural world with introducing the human-made world as part of the regular curriculum And that's what built my passion about introducing engineering into the lives of young children And that is what brought me to the Museum of Science It was very difficult through the University to continue this effort because my job was to admit talented students educate them well and then Administer high-quality research research programs not necessarily doing kindergarten engineering And although we did quite a bit. So the music at the same time I was doing all that the Museum of Science Merged with a computer museum in Boston and a lot of the board members that we were Part of the computer museum that became board members of the science museum and the Royal Tech is engineers primarily So they wanted engineering in the Museum of Science and they're looking for a new president that would make that happen I was passionate about engineering education so they called me up and The search firm and they said we're interested in you and I thought this is crazy. I'm an academic I love tafts. I had just been appointed to associate provost actually on top of my other job And even my golden retrievers or all names after tafts buildings I had had Baloo and then I had Anderson and now I have Fletcher actually Fletcher is part of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy so and so the provost always used to say Yanis will never leave tafts at least until the dog dies he used to say so So the dog was still alive and I decided to leave tafts and go to the museum primarily because I thought would be a wonderful platform and really converted to what the museum the world needs now and and And again, I went to the museum and use the same formula culture change strategy resources and implementation and The museum needed a lot of culture change starting with fundraising The museum was raising about three million dollars a year and There were members of the board of the museum that were giving $5,000 a year to the Museum of Science and $50,000 to the Museum of Fine Arts And there were not members of the board of the Museum of Fine Arts, but that's how much the Museum of Fine Arts asked them So that's where we started And we changed that to 33 million dollars a year. So we went up 11 times We had the the very first capital campaign comprehensive capital campaign from the museum and the goal was 250 million Dollars, which was we didn't know where to start because we never had the capital campaign and we raised 285 and And then money brings money then we got the attention of Mike Bloomberg who used to come to the museum as a child and love the museum So he gave us 50 million dollars and then some big corporate gifts started coming math works gave us 10 million dollars To build a new gallery which were designed They're designing now finishing now and then five million dollars to make a new Film from the Omni theater similar to the New England capsule some of you may remember you remember the little film that that we had Larry Bird and The story drive show about New England with the lobster. Yeah, that's has to be updated as you can imagine so so So nobody knows who Larry Bird is anymore and and the story drive is totally different now So math works is gave us five million dollars to that So during my tenure we raised the close to half a billion dollars about half a billion dollars But it takes a lot of effort to change the philanthropy, but it is doable. We had to change the culture of the staff It was very much a command the control Organization just to give you an example of how command the control it was The third day I was there. I saw my appointment schedule and Lou who was our live animal curator because the museum has live animals Made an appointment to see me and I know he wasn't worried because he everybody knew at the museum once they hired me that I Love live animals and that was one of the areas. I was very much Interested in keeping and enhancing at the museum, but he made an appointment. So he comes and I said Lou What's up? He says I want your permission to buy a second rabbit I said you want to ask me if you're gonna buy a second rabbit But that's the culture of the museum is the president made all the decisions and which is totally different than my idea so when I went to the museum, I had 15 direct reports and It was like being a dentist. I had 15 appointments a day and it was all associated with pain So So and my goal is to introduce engineering into the children of the United States the children of the world I needed to be out there and make the place an international organization I could not be there dealing with how many rabbits were gonna buy and It took quite a bit of time to convince my team to make their own decisions and to take risks and I'm fine if people make a mistake just don't make the same mistake twice That's has been my theory and take risks and take chances. So that's sort of my that had to change Also, also thinking big the Museum of Science was also Always a great institution always a great institution but we're always thinking the exploratory Ms. San Francisco is the elite institution and I remember I had the talk with my one of my senior VP's who is a brilliant brilliant guy and one of the best in the field the National Science Foundation had an announcement that They would give a major major gift to an institution that would introduce Nanotechnology to the general public because they wanted a credible museum to introduce engineering to produce nanotechnology to the public So the public would not build the same paranoia that they built with biotechnology When people, you know, make or panic because they think the whole world is gonna be destroyed for biotech They wanted to a rational way for people to learn about nanotech and immediately he said the exploratory Will get the grant and will be a sub to the grant I said You go get that grant He said you think we can get the grand so yeah, he applied and we got it It was that easy because we were we were better to do that work the exploratory What is a matter of attitude of us being second and not first and And then the music then the culture shifted and the museum right now is the number one museum in the country in getting grants You know getting so there was a hold in that that one act of him getting that grant Changed the whole culture of the museum because now we know that we can do that So we start to implement engineering into curricula we started I started a national center for technological literacy which is part of the Museum of Science and The nctl does for three things Advocates for the introduction of engineering in in state standards and in national standards and in standards in other countries Develops curriculum and does professional development and The museum right now is the number one leader in the world for engineering education for young children We are reaching or they are reaching not have to keep saying we I'm gonna get takes about two or three years I'm gonna be talking about this museum here like I was talking about the University one of the museum but anyway, it We reached 18 million students and when I started the museum was a thousand students and we trained 250,000 teachers from all over the world and And now it's a major income stream for the museum That was not the plan the plan is just to introduce engineering for children but it was a whole new source of revenue that that came in and On the advocacy side We did a lot to change the state Learning standards Massachusetts starting Massachusetts. I was I did this in Massachusetts single-handedly back in 2000 But then we work state by state by state and also when they did the state the federal Standards sort of standards the next generation science standards were instrumental into embedding engineering into this into these standards and I hope to use the skills on the interacting with the federal government state government to To expand our activity both in Rhode Island in this area and also nationally and actually yesterday was my first Full day here. We spent quite a bit of time at the state house with Ed meeting with speaker of the house and another folks So the museum Was transformed and I had to make a decision at the end of last year Do I stay for the rest of my career there to finish the expanded the renovation of the blue wing? Which is a big part of the museum or did I go for a new venture and of course academic life has never left my heart although I have not been a Paid member at the university since I left I have been on the board of trustees at Tufts And I was in the academic affairs committee for 10 years the board of trustees at Wesley and I was in academic affairs and governance committee there I've been on many many advisories committee and followed the whole Evolution of higher education all the good and the bad that has happened since there so Naturally, I thought I'm my last gig is gonna be at the university or the next key and And then I said, okay, where do you what kind of university do you want to go? So I was this was playing in my head and I wanted to go somewhere that if we were successful it would become a national model and Roger Williams when I got in contact with Roger Williams Actually, I wasn't intending I wasn't ready to go I need the break between jobs but things moved really fast really fast and I was fascinated by everything around the school and the thing that Fascinated me the most was the logo to make a university the world needs now And I thought this is really cool. Can they do it and when I looked closer This place has all the ingredients to do that and to become a national model of what what what the university should be anything from the composition of the faculty the mix of programs the fact you have a suburban beautiful campus with we have now in a great entrepreneurial urban campus Everything that That should be in place to get there is in place now and And I got really really interested in the university as I told you I visited Visited the school in Cognito. I met with folks and and Really the final cell was done superbly by the search committee Because they did an amazing job Presenting the university and then of course the last day where I met 80 more of staff and faculty members This was this reassured me that this would be a good place And I was hoping I would I would get the offer to come here And it's a place that is ready for transformation ready for growth a lot of energy And I get this entrepreneurial spirit that that the place has and that's what you have to have to to go through the Cultural change the strategy and all the steps that have worked in the in the other place I new Roger Williams For many years because Narragansett is my favorite fishing spot And I used to put my boat in Allen's Harbor if you don't know where it is We could be doing constant the airport there constant and and East Greenwich Bay and has spent many many wonderful hours Here and there in front of the campus and of course I knew Roger Williams because it is an up-and-coming school beautiful school great great great mix of offerings and and that and the logo of the University of the world needs now sort of Reassured me that this is a place that I want to spend my career so We're looking forward both Haydee my partner and Fletcher to join the Roger Williams family We're planning on living at the house across the street and make it the home where all of you would be welcome I love to cook and although you have an ex John has an excellent chef I already had him over for dinner at my house to demonstrate my cooking abilities And I think he may accept me being his chef at some occasion So we will we have planned To work together on some on some food events at the house And I'm gonna bring all my gadgets and everything when I finally move here And actually I'll do it in a way so you can you can come and see them and it's something to see This is an obsession. I'm telling you with the cooking stuff and in closing if you wonder what happened to the little girl That started all that because she sort of reshaped my whole career. Of course. She won first prize at the science fair that year and Needless to say and And the wonderful thing that happened is the subsequent four or five years girls won first prize girls Never used to win the science fair at that school. It was a boys thing and but Jen open The eyes of a lot of the younger girls So Jen went to the regional high school She graduated near the top of her class and then she went to Haverford College in Pennsylvania great liberal arts school she studied biology and in history and then she went to Tanzania and She went to Tanzania and she studied her own foundation to fund raise and design and build science laboratories for children in Tanzania and It's great story and it doesn't end there so about six or seven years ago About that She left Tanzania and the foundation is still going because they hit me for money every year. So So so she went to Stanford she finished her PhD at Stanford and now she's a ten year ten year tenure track faculty Member at the University of Minnesota. So it was a great ending. So that's my story I'll be happy to take questions you may have and I guess you can use the mic I think that's a line up or if there are any questions Don't be afraid Hello, my name is Colin Hirschlag. I'm the president of the sustainability club here on campus Pursuing eco-friendly and self-sustaining actions and initiatives on campus is something that I hold in deep value And I want to know if you also prioritize these values and are willing to support things such as self-sustaining Agriculture and other environmentally friendly projects here on campus. Sure. You want to answer? great, so Yes, and but I have some ideas, but still I want to do and I'll tell you a little bit about what I'm planning to do The next six months here But let me ask you as directly the answer directly your question Anything we can do for our living on campus that can be done in a responsible way environmentally we will do as far as curriculum and programs a research The next six months we're gonna have a number of listening sessions and we're along with staff students and faculty for both campuses and I'm planning on doing that in two different rounds first round talk to everybody listening to what their dreams and aspirations are and At the second the second round after I have heard it once then I can pick common threads and go and discuss them back So this is gonna take about six months to do it. We're gonna we're starting now And we're gonna hopefully finish this whole process by the end of the of the calendar year as part of this process And part of the listening I want to hear what the real opportunities are to position Roger Williams as a leader in an area of sustainability now Everybody that would almost every university has something to do sustainability. So we have to find something that is really unique My gut feeling is and before talking and we're gonna I want to make sure it is it is true That the biggest strength that we have because of where we are and current programs to be in the coastal sustainability and and and so I Think the way we live here should be done in a sustainable and responsible way That's one thing but when you look at academic scholarship and teaching that could be a unique area again because of location because of marine law programs the excellent marine biology Programs and and you have architecture, but you're located here I mean the only elements of the engineering school are here to do something like that But I'm not saying this will be the area because first that's not something I'll decide by myself It will be signed collectively But that's a gut feeling that that that could be an opportunity in the sustainability area I'm Kiki Jacobs director of athletics inter murals and recreation. I appreciate really what you've said in the enthusiasm You have for Roger Williams. Where do you see athletics fit into Roger Williams the curriculum and the community? Although I don't look it. I have done a lot of athletics And Just to give you a little bit of my background on that I was a In Athens College was sort of following the American system That's the school. I went K-12 and I had three varsity letters and I was in the track team I was the youngest that run the marathon. They were the marathon marathon Athens in Greece I was I'm a sailor. I was in swimming team and So I've done a lot of a lot of sports So I love a lot of sports and when I was a tafts actually tafts had the program Which is very cool that you could take half courses in different sports So I became a lifeguard and I took three course on fencing, which was very cool And karate and things like that. So sports have been personally have been a big part of my of my life More of the past life that the current life And I think there is the sports and athletics and It should be an essential part of everybody in especially in the college college years Also athletics build a tremendous school spirit, which is significant and I would like to See how we can help to boost this but also bring the alarms closer to this and I think athletics could be a part of it We don't have a football team that's usually the rah-rah-rah, but that's fine We have a lot of other very very cool things to do and and I'm looking forward to learning more about the athletics program and and and be a Spectator at different events and so that's sort of where I stand Boy, the University College people are much more inquisitive yesterday Couldn't stop them from asking questions Oh, yeah, yeah, and one of the first question I have is can I have a selfie with you and somebody came and took a nice selfie with me It's probably all over Facebook now Okay, what if there are any not other questions I'm thrilled to be here and looking forward to get to know you and and becoming a Member of the Roger Williams family. Thank you so much