Q&A: Ohio University President Hugh Sherman talks pandemic, experience, legacy
As Ohio University moves further into its first relatively normal semester since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio U President Hugh Sherman sat down with The New Political to discuss the pandemic, his past in the private sector, the College of Business and his legacy as President.
TNP: Could you tell me more about the Appalachian scholarship you and your wife set up after you left the College of Business?
SHERMAN: My wife grew up in upstate New York, and she had a single parent. The only way she was able to go to college was because of a scholarship. When Nikki (Sherman) and I moved here, we (became) very involved in the community and the region. We got to know different families that lived in the region and had several opportunities to help a couple kids who were friends with my son, who in some ways came from troubled families in the Appalachian region. They had no example in their family of someone going to college, so they just didn’t think it was possible. We tried to help several of them. It was something that we saw that there was a real need for, so something we wanted to do was set up a scholarship that can try to help provide funding for deserving students in this region.
TNP: When does the scholarship go into effect?
SHERMAN: I am not sure. I mean, there is money in it. Not only did we (the Shermans) put dollars in, but one of the things that was really touching for me was when I stepped down from being dean, the people on my Executive Advisory Board did matching dollars. So there’s probably close to $200,000 in there now. I know they are spending money that was already generated by January of this year. So they will offer it for September of next year. We’ll pick students that are from the region that are first generation students.
TNP: What role does your wife play in your administration?
SHERMAN: Fortunately for me, she’s a big supporter. I don’t know if this is of interest or not, but she always wanted me to be a president. She was upset with me because I had the opportunity to go (be president) like eight years ago, and I did not want to. I felt like there were still things that I hadn’t done in my college that I wanted to finish up, and because I enjoy all my colleagues and friends in town, we chose not to. So now she’s saying, ‘I told you so.’
TNP: You have previously talked about how you want to equal out the budget. How does your background in business and work within the College of Business equip you to deal with Ohio U’s budget issues?
SHERMAN: We were able to double the size of the college. When I first became dean, it was about 1,800 students and it’s (now) 3,800 students. Our focus on student success and helping students be successful at whatever they wanted to do was key to that growth and allowed us to stabilize the budget for the College of Business. I think we can do the same thing at the university. The program I think has real importance is the (OHIO) Guarantee+. It helps students from the time that they enter to (provide them with) an academic advisor who helps them to get graduated in four years and not make mistakes. And a career advisor who helps them to start to decide what they are passionate about, and then make sure that they are getting, not only the classes, but also the experiences while they’re here to do whatever it is they want. That program is already in place and it's been expanded this fall to include most of the programs around the university.
TNP: What does your background in business bring to your time as president? What do you take from your time in the private sector and your time in the College of Business and bring to your new position?
SHERMAN: I would suggest that in the business environment, people are more developed as leaders and managers. From the day you enter a corporation, your function is to be a manager, and you are given training and development to be a leader and to be a manager. In university environments across the country, people come in as faculty members, first and foremost. I become a faculty member and do my research. Then I got through the promotion process, I’m an associate and then I become a professor. That takes 12-15 years. Then, I decide I want to become an administrator. In a corporation, I’m 25 (years old) and I’m being developed as a leader. When I’m in a university environment, it could likely be 40 (years). Back in the corporation, I was mentored and developed, put on special programs, given different kinds of responsibilities to build out my capabilities. If I would have failed, that probably would have ended the career at that point, but you are given those kinds of opportunities. Higher education does not think about management development and leadership development the same way. I would suggest that all higher education is behind. I would suggest I had that benefit, having mentors and leadership development at an early age and being given wide responsibilities.
TNP: Is leadership development and management development something you want to bring to your administration? Is it something you want to put an emphasis on for students at Ohio U to develop throughout your presidency?
SHERMAN: It’s students, and it’s also leadership. When I talk to leaders, people that I work with, I’m asking them to give me a talent development plan for your group. I want them to start thinking about who their outstanding people are so that they can start to develop. In the business school, we made that a foundational part of the educational experience of their students. That was one of the first things we did, and we were able to lock in a donor to help us. We created the Bob Walter Strategic Leadership Center. Then, that developed to not only develop some select leadership programs, but also bring leadership training into the classrooms in different areas. It also brought in major national leaders that we could bring in for the students. I would suggest that it was really successful. The reason it was successful was because we recruited incredible people, Tim and Tammy Reynolds, to run the Walter Center. Tim Reynolds is an alum and a Senior Vice President for Whirlpool, and Whirlpool was listed as one of the top 20 corporations in the world for talent management. He was responsible for talent management, and his wife was the HR Director for North America. Can you imagine a better group of people to help us to train our own students and get them to be successful when they enter the workforce?
TNP: Is Ohio U prepared to deal with the rise of students needing COVID-19 rapid testing, isolation housing and quarantine housing?
SHERMAN: There is a state-wide unavailability or lower availability of rapid testing. That’s an issue, and we do have availability of other testing, so it's like a day later before we get the results. The problem is by having it take longer, then there’s more opportunity for somebody with the delta variant to have infected other people. This is a nationwide issue that we all know. There are different medical predictions on what is going to happen. The thing that is most effective is that everyone gets vaccinated. The delta variant is really contagious, and my personal feeling is that it is going to be hard for people who are not vaccinated to not get delta. The good thing is, we don’t have any students that are in the hospital, as of (Sept. 7). We still know that younger people are not getting severely sick. It's not the same situation as if I get it.
TNP: After last week’s announcement that Ohio U is mandating the vaccine, what would you say to an Ohio U student or faculty member who is hesitant against getting the vaccine?
SHERMAN: Everyone has their own beliefs, values and so forth. I can’t address those. From a medical standpoint, I have gotten vaccinations all my life. I just believe, from a medical standpoint, it is important to get the vaccination. I really hope people do it.
TNP: What is Ohio U doing to ensure the safety of students, faculty and the Athens community with this new rise in COVID-19 cases?
SHERMAN: We’re still trying to get everybody vaccinated, we are still doing contact tracing and we are still doing the quarantine. It's just that due to the rise, things are backed up in the system. It may take an hour to get a campus liaison to call you back with the COVID-19 quick response team. They’re trying to hire some more people. We have a compact with health officials, with the mayor, with O’Bleness Hospital and with Holzer. We are working with all of them to make sure that we have the capacity and are doing everything that we can to try to provide for our faculty, staff and students, and keep the whole community safe. We have been working at it as a community. Everybody interacts not just with us as a university community, but also with the people who live in our community. We have been trying to treat it as a countywide organized effort … Outside of the campus and town, there’s more hesitancy about getting vaccinated … We have, also, been working with county officials to increase the number of vaccination sites surrounding the area and so forth. It has been really cooperative with Jack Pepper, the Athens City-County Health Department Administrator. We have calls every week and work through what we can next with the mayor and Safety Director. It’s a really good working relationship.
TNP: What would be a reason for our classes to get moved from in-person to online or if there was a reason to get sent home?
SHERMAN: It’s an interesting issue because there was that conversation a year ago. I think we are in a different position today. A year ago, we did not have an approved vaccine. Today, we have an approved vaccine, and we have got 85% of our faculty vaccinated and 77% of on-campus students are vaccinated. From my standpoint, it's a really different situation. I cannot currently, at this point in time, envision a situation where we go wholly online or send some students home.
TNP: I was curious what you hope your relationship with the students to be and if you plan on being a really present figure on campus?
SHERMAN: I plan on being a very present figure. I really enjoy it. That’s what I think our purpose is. So I want to be a model of that kind of behavior, that our students come first and I want to know them.
TNP: What do you hope that your legacy will be as president?
SHERMAN: I get the most joy out of student success. So I would be upset if that was not recognized, that that was how I made every decision on that principle. How does this affect the students and student success, and then make those investments and make those choices. If people did not recognize that, I would be disappointed.
Emily Crebs contributed to this report.
