PRES. HARROZ: Hi, I'm Joe Harroz, President of the University of Oklahoma. I want to welcome you to our Conversations with the President. This platform gives me the chance to talk to some of the great people who make OU so special. Make sure you are subscribed to Conversations with the President, and you will be the first to know when new episodes are released. Let's get started.
Welcome back to Conversations with the President. We are now on the second of two episodes with our provosts. And if you think these were recorded on the same day, you are right, but I've taken off my tie, which I used for the first one, and so this feels fundamentally different. We are thrilled that you are back. We hope that you have subscribed to this podcast. If you haven't, we really wish you would. It would mean a lot to us, and to me personally, so thanks for considering it.
Today is the second of two provosts. It is really a two-provost series of episodes. I am here with Andre‑Denis Wright who is a dear friend just like Gary. Someone with whom I have worked for the last now over two years, and I would love for them to get to know you, Andre. Why don't you tell them, the folks that are listening, a little bit about yourself.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure, thank you, Joe. I am another Canadian. I grew up in Nova Scotia, grew up in a small community of Beachville with about 350 people, and went to university there, did my graduate training outside Toronto at the University of Guelph and then went off to Australia where I spent 12 years working at CSI Erodizoni Vaccines and working as a microbiologist and then I moved to the US in 2009.
PRES. HARROZ: Fantastic. And the reference to the second Canadian, both of our provosts were originally Canadian.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Bizarre, right?
PRES. HARROZ: It is.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Second largest country in the world by size and Gary and I went to graduate schools within 30 minutes apart from each other.
PRES. HARROZ: That is fantastic. We're lucky to have both of you. So you were in Perth Australia.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Correct. And then you came to.
PRES. HARROZ: And then you came to the US. Tell us about your journey in academia.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. When I worked at CSRO, I was working as a government scientist designing vaccines.
PRES. HARROZ: Alright. CSRO, what is that?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: It's an acronym for Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. It is the nation’s research agency in the top 1% of the world and so I was very fortunate to have a position there for almost 12 years ago, I really wanted to be in academia. I really wanted to teach. I enjoy teaching. And so we moved to the US in 2009. I was at the University of Vermont as a first‑time department chair in academia with unionized faculty and leading the department there for five and a half years, still doing research. I was then fortunate enough to go to the University of Arizona where I was the inaugural director of biomedical sciences, still doing research, and leading faculty and staff there. And then my last position, before coming here, I was Dean of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.
PRES. HARROZ: Which is their largest college.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Largest college. $200 million budget and brought in about a third of almost half of the research expenditure.
PRES. HARROZ: When you came in during the research process, we met at Benvenuti's.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: We did.
PRES. HARROZ: This is not a paid advertisement for them, but really good food. You and I were there, and I knew almost immediately you were the right person for the job. We just connected and I loved your energy, your background, and I just knew you would do special things and you really, in the last two years, are transforming the role and doing remarkable work, but a lot of folks don't know what a provost does. We have heard from our previous guest, your fellow provost and fellow former Canadian about what happens at the Health Sciences Center. Tell us what a provost does on the Norman campus.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Well, in the past two weeks it has been working with my senior vice provost and the deans making sure we had open sections and classes for our record shattering incoming class, but a lot of my time is spent looking at the 140, 170 undergraduate programs we have. Constantly looking at adding, deleting courses, program changes including experiential learning opportunities for students, looking at study abroad, study away, and also hiring faculty. And looking at strategic hirings of faculty and other administrators on campus, but really concentrating on student success.
PRES. HARROZ: So how many colleges on the Norman campus report to you?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: 16 colleges.
PRES. HARROZ: So all 16 colleges report to you. That in and of itself is a huge undertaking. You have other things that come under that, and things that might not be intuitive like the recruitment of students.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Yes.
PRES. HARROZ: So Jeff Blahnik’s operation is under you. You take 100% credit for the record shattering, as you articulated in class this year.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Every bit, yes.
PRES. HARROZ: That is what good leaders do, they just take all the credit.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Jeff Blahnik and his team has done an amazing job.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and it's really a unique time in higher education. So talk about the environment for undergraduates have changed a lot. We know that there is this paradox going on nationally where this sentiment towards higher education is a declining sentiment, but the need for higher education in our workforce has never been greater. What is it that you think is the source of this problem nationwide, and why are we countertrend? Why are we growing when so many other campuses are atrophying?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. Joe, let me tell you a quick little story. I grew up in a very small community that was established by freed and runaway slaves. I was raised by a single mother, and it was my family, my community, my mother's determination that I go to a university. Education has changed my life. My daughter will never know what it is like to go to bed hungry, go to bed without water, electricity or heat in cold Canadian winters. And so I know firsthand being a first‑generation how education can change your entire direction and outlook in how you proceed further.
Here in Oklahoma, you know, you heard from the previous provost that we have urgent needs in terms of healthcare. We have other workforce needs. We know that artificial intelligence is just now starting, and it is going to be exploding. We have concerns with cybersecurity, and so we need an educated workforce. We need education now more than ever. Even in how we approach and how we talk to different people. And so that respect and civility I think University is an excellent place where you develop and grow, and we need that to better ourselves as a society and move forward.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, it is remarkable. One of the things I'm so proud of. We talk about ‑‑ you and I talk a lot about, you know, how do we position the University, but it's not just a market share question, it's a question of why do we exist, what's our why? And just as you indicated for you and your family, it does change lives. It's not just a slogan. We do change lives every day, and when you think about why states, while the support has been declining nationwide for a while, for public research universities, we think about the three reasons state support them, right? It's so individuals have the opportunity that don't have the economic ability to change their lives, and it's so states can have greater economic prosperity. And it's also as you indicated, it's also to make sure that we have the educated citizenry to support the democracy itself.
In that record shattering class that you yourself, and you alone brought in here, the statistic I am most proud of isn't the highest GPA ever and it's not the fact that it's the greatest number of students, it's the fact that over one quarter of those students are just like you were, right? Just like my father was. The first in the history of their family to go past high school, and that's why public research universities exist. And what I love about you and your story is you don't forget that, and we see it in the eyes of the students, both when they come in their first year. We saw that a few days ago, and then we see the culmination of that at graduation. That is stunning and your contribution of that is really meaningful. What does it mean to be great in higher ed ‑‑ as you think about your leadership on the Norman campus, what is it that you think about, like what is the secret to setting records in terms of number of students, to having this class? Another big record is it's just under 40% individuals from historically underrepresented communities, right. What is ‑‑ why is this working?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: I think the secret here is our people. I think our faculty are outstanding, our staff are incredible. Oklahomans have treated my family and I amazingly well. And you hear a lot about different areas in the country where people are very friendly, very nice, having lived in the Northeast, the Northwest, and in Arizona, people here are super welcoming, super friendly. So as a super force, super credit to ‑‑ huge credit to Jeff Blahnik and his team for bringing students here, students here that they feel automatically welcomed on campus.
Even when I was looking at ‑‑ when I was back in Washington State looking at whether to come here or not, this place is a sleeping giant, and there is just so much opportunity here, and so many more things that we can do. We do an incredible, a lot of incredible things for our students and our faculty and staff and there is even much more that we can do. So it's exciting coming from the outside, coming in here, asking a lot of questions, why do we do this, why do we do that? Have you considered this? Why could we do this, and having things come together. And building up and maintaining that family focus and just making people feel welcomed and belonged.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, there is a lot of power behind feeling like you belong somewhere.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Indeed.
PRES. HARROZ: Especially, you know, you see it. We just welcomed that class, and we had all of those first‑year freshmen in the stadium, and you could just see what all of us felt on our first day of college, right. They are trying, they are excited, they are nervous, they are full of self‑doubt and they are full of optimism and ambition and angst. And I think that when you know that ‑‑ pardon me, when you know that you belong and you are wanted, it makes all of the difference in the world.
Alright, so you are now two years into this. We see all of these great numbers. What does success look like to you in the next, you know, three to four years?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Good ‑‑ great question. So still going in an upward trajectory. Significantly increasing our retention rate.
PRES. HARROZ: That is higher ed speak. What does retention rate mean?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: These are the first-year students that return and come back for a second year.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Also, making huge changes for our four‑year, five‑year, and six‑year graduation rates. You know, as a Canadian who went to school, got 3 degrees, my total student loans was $9000 US and that was just for my bachelor's degree. My master's‑degree and my PhD's were free. And so also as a father of a daughter who will be going to the University next fall, you know, it is keeping cost down, it is getting people out in a timely manner, and having fun. And getting the degrees and giving the opportunities and experiential learning that is offered to them.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and I'm smiling right now because you did not say yet that Montana, your daughter, has committed to coming to OU. So I was going through this last year. My oldest, Joseph, had not made his mind up and I had to hedge, you are now hedging, but you and I have both been engaged actively in recruiting Montana.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Correct.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and if she doesn't come, well it's not an option.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: It is not an option, that is right.
PRES. HARROZ: To me, it's so much fun to see the recruitment process through the eyes of your own ‑‑ I was going to say child, but they are not children. Your own young adult because you do see a different perspective. And I love how much it changes our conversations as we talk about how do we make the University of Oklahoma better? A lot of that comes from our own experiences with our own families and being a part of that community, which is a different perspective for us.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: I agree, yes.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and so I love those conversations. What else does success look like? We talked about the percent of students that graduate, that succeed while they are here. What are the other indicators?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Being able to recruit higher faculty, retain faculty as well as staff. And seeing increases in our study abroad, study away, more experiential learning. I think getting students access and opportunity to everything that we have to offer and seeing them succeed and graduate and move into meaningful careers, that would make me very, very happy.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, one of the things we talk about a lot is the changing nature of students. As the cost has increased, students and their families have become a lot more business minded, a lot more transactionable about what is the value for a university. And we see in our own state and across the country where over the last five years, many universities have shrunk by 20, 30%, and you know, we talk a lot about the value proposition for the University, and how we articulate that in a way. To me, in our conversations, I find it fascinating that really what we're trying to provide for the on‑ground student today, really for all students, it is very similar to what an honors program looked like 20 years ago in a lot of ways. This idea of doing study abroad, this idea of having an undergraduate research focus, and one of your priorities has been increasing undergraduate research. Will you talk about that just a little bit?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. When I was at the University of Vermont, I was still an active researcher. I had postdocs, I had PhD students. I opened my lab up to having undergraduate students in my lab. In the five and a half years that I was there, I probably had about 40 different undergraduate students go through my lab, six of them went on to publish papers as first author. Getting into vet school, many of those students that worked in, came through my lab are now my colleagues, and so that is a lot of fun. My graduate students as well. I had undergraduates working in my lab in Arizona. I didn't have too much, didn't have a lab when I was at Washington State. I was busy doing dean duties, but when I came here, one of the things that I was excited about was putting together an office for undergraduate research and create an activity, which we called Eureka. And for the last two years we have been able to give out 50 scholarships or grants of $5000 each to allow students to work in someone's lab or theater. And also, another 50 $1000 scholarships to support students working in somebody's lab.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, I mean it really does change. It's fascinating. This idea of generative AI, and how it is, without a doubt, changing everything in our society. It's fascinating. We are on two fronts right now. We think about the impact of generative AI, we think about the prospect and the near advent of quantum computing. You can't just be the same old university that existed, not just 20 years ago, but not even five years ago. And I loved your innovation around what we are doing. And so let's talk about one example, which is you both ‑‑ you are both eliminating a college and adding an entirely new school. A lot of this is to innovate around the students and their success both with the University College and the Polytech. Would you talk about your leadership and your vision for those areas?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. First, I will start with the University College. There is only a handful of universities across the country that have a University College. It is a model that a lot of schools have moved away from, and so the idea is we would have first‑year students going directly into the college of their major where they would be surrounded by other students, similar major, careers. If I take for example, journalism and I am a first-year student, I'm with other first‑year students in journalism. I'm surrounded by upperclassmen who are journalists, and faculty that are journalists, professional journalists, and academic journalists. And so, you know, I feel a sense of belonging, being in that group, and we are working with the deans to make sure that the colleges have the right courses and right things into place to make sure those students are successful.
With the Polytech Institute, you know, you mentioned about artificial intelligence, you know, it's like decades ago when the calculator came out. You know you have to embrace it and work with it. You know, same thing here. AI is not going away. We have to embrace it. We have to be able to work with it, but we also need people that can program an AI and use large data. So whenever our programs are second‑degree offering for the second year of PI is going to be artificial intelligence and software programming.
The first degree that we got approved is cybersecurity. As you know, ransomware attacks continue to increase. We are always under cyber threat, individuals with identity theft, but also institutions, businesses, and even the nation, and so preparing that new bunch of graduates that can come out, that can identify cyber threats, protect against cyber threats, detect, respond and recover is what we need in the future.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, absolutely, and it's has been fun. So next year, a year from now, we will see the ‑‑ going into University College a thing of the last 50 or so years at the university. Students will go directly into their colleges, and we will open the Polytech, and I love the Polytech because it speaks directly to the nature of students today. That is, you know, the question we get more frequently than ever is this question of if I go to college, what will I get out of it? And we have known forever, and it's totally true today, more true today than ever, and you can say things like look over the course of your lifetime, aside than being more fulfilled, you know you will earn more than 1 million or a million and a half dollars over your lifetime than if you didn’t go and earn your bachelor's‑degree.
There is a lot of folks that still say, well we know the labor market has been good, unemployment rate has been low, why wouldn't I just go ahead and take a job today and not go to school? And one of my favorite direct answers, which doesn't require the maturity to think about your career earning potential or your overall sort of value and worth of your career is this idea of pointing to the Polytech is a good example. In one year, when this is stood up, we know that there are so many jobs and so much demand. There is way more demand than there are individuals that are trained in these areas that will train you in through the Polytech, and we know that for these areas, whether it is cybersecurity or any of the areas we are looking at, that the starting salaries right now are 75 to $80,000 starting salary, and then they can work through the math very quickly that that is better than just going out and taking a job directly.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Correct.
PRES. HARROZ: And not just five years, 10 years, 30 years from now, but within just a few years. So I love that, I'm excited about it, and you hired Dr. Terry Reed and the two of you all are leading that.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: She is doing a great job. We are excited about having faculty coming on board soon, getting the next 2 degrees approved, and then we have two more degrees after that.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and we are actually hiring new professors. A lot of places are shrinking. We are an interesting place, right, in that over the last five or six years, a lot of institutions over that time period, took on so much debt and had such problems with their financials that they are contracting in lots of ways that are not healthy. We went in over the last five years, we cut over 140 million in costs, but we are now investing in remarkable ways that many places aren't. Could you talk about our investments around faculty and what we are doing?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. When I was sitting back, you know, wondering about the opportunities that provided in Oklahoma whether I would move my family here or not, I had been at three previous institutions, all had great strategic plans, all were aspirational. When I was looking at the strategic plan here, I actually thought, wow, this actually looks attainable. And so being part of a strategic plan that you can actually implement and put in place was really exciting. But my former institution had a two‑year hiring freeze. To my knowledge, there were only two institutions in the country that were still doing large numbers of faculty hires during COVID, and University of Oklahoma was one of them. And so the opportunity to come here, be part of this team, be part of a strategic plan that we can drive forward and to hire 150 additional new faculty was really, really exciting. And so as a provost coming into a new school, coming in and growing and building is really, really exciting as opposed to going into a school and having to cut things and close things down. And so it was really exciting for me to come here and for my family to come here as well.
And in the two years I have been here now, we have hired 40 additional new ‑‑ 41 additional new faculty through this process, and we will hire probably another 20 or so, 25 new faculty in this financial year.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, and I don't know how you feel about this, but to me, you know, I love the idea that we operate with financial discipline and a very clear plan. So we are not hiring these in the blind, we are not betting on something in the future. We have five to seven year budget models. We are very cautious about where we are financially, but we know that these investments are strategic and these will move the needle for our students in our state, and it's fun to be part of that and to watch you hire these individuals.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: It's been a lot of fun. And the first year I was here, we had a competitive process. Our approval rate, percentage was about one third, and so from that, we are encouraging ‑‑ we will have another round fairly soon and we will be encouraging colleges to put forward their proposals, and cross disciplinary research and strategic directions that we want to take at the university.
PRES. HARROZ: Yeah, what distinguishes a university today, the truly great universities, to me, it is synonymous with being among the research elites in the country, and we are moving aggressively into that space. We have talked about how do we achieve a ranking called AAU status, and we are driven towards that because we know that nothing stays static. And there is an increasing separation between universities that only teach, and those that are truly research intensive. You are not just the provost, you are also the senior vice president and provost. So as the Chief Academic Officer of the Norman campus, and here at the university, tell us about the research enterprise. Where is that going and how does this fit into the new hires and the direction of the university?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: The research enterprise led by Tomas Diaz de la Rubia has been making marked increases over the last couple of years in terms of research expenditures coming back into the university. Through our S (indiscernible) process, these are the additional 150 new strategic hires. We are looking at investing those hires into key areas of the university aligned with, but not only to, but aligned with the verticals. We are research verticals.
And so we are seeing more collaborations amongst people. Researchers, just over the last two years, we have hired engineers, economists, social workers, and our anthropologists to work with our oncologists in the Stephenson Cancer Center to look at detection, prevention and cures of different cancer types. So we are seeing a lot more cross disciplinary bringing together different groups of scientists. And so as a former researcher, I have been involved in those groups where we have had ‑‑ as a microbiologist, I have worked with immunologists, I've worked with nutritionists, economists as well, and we all see things differently. And being able to have that diversity of thought and coming at it. If we were just a group of microbiologists, we probably would not have had some of the solutions or the ideas that we had when we got the transitionary nature of the research.
So really promoting a strategic direction, where our strengths are and building on those critical strengths and having a better or even a closer alignment with researchers at HSC, I think that is very, very important.
PRES. HARROZ: I think the Stephenson example is such a great example. We spoke with Gary Raskob about the Stevenson Cancer Center and how impactful it is, but you're right, there are so many disciplines from the Norman campus that intersect and enhance and add to the vitality and the outcomes from Stephenson Cancer.
Let's talk about service. We always talk about teaching, research and service. What do you see is the service aspect of the university and are you seeing growth around there?
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sure. One of the things I was really pleasantly surprised by was the amount of service that is being done by faculty as well as staff. And so one of the things we have tried to do in the provost office was to increase the amount of awards that we have for service and to recognize people that are doing service that sometimes gets overlooked. And also service by people that are continually tapped on the shoulder because they will say yes, who also do service in that regard.
So we try to recognize service, we try to recognize it with awards, but also being mindful that we should be, you know, encouraging service by everybody, and not just some people that continually do it because that is what they are programmed or wired to do, but to try to make it more fair cross institution.
PRES. HARROZ: Andre, I could talk to you for the next two or three hours. We have done it plenty of times. I know that you hate praise and attention, so I am going to praise you while we are in this podcast. You have been here two years, you are fundamentally changing the university in such a positive way, and you and your family are a huge part of the community. I appreciate everything you're doing for us. I hope you know how much you are valued. And for those that are listening right now, the last two years have been remarkable, but you haven't seen anything yet. Provosts are leading us in exciting directions. We are honored to have ‑‑ while you all were just 30 minutes away in Canada, we have the two best provosts in the world out of Canada here in the US. So beyond grateful and thank you so much for joining us.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate your leadership. I've been blessed coming here. I am surrounded by fantastic people. My deans are fantastic, my associate and vice provost are fantastic, and my directors in the provost direct reports are excellent to work with. So very fortunate to work with incredibly gifted people.
PRES. HARROZ: We will just do an entire episode later on on kind of a break out of your thoughts on my leadership and how much you like it for our next podcast.
DR. ANDRE‑DENIS WRIGHT: Sounds great.
PRES. HARROZ: Thank you so much for joining us, and to all of you that are listening and watching, thank you for joining Conversations with the President. This concludes two interviews. Thank you for joining Conversations with the President, to have both of our provosts, now the Norman campus provost, Andre‑Denis Wright with us was a pure joy. Please join us again. Please subscribe and we will see you next time on Conversations with the President.
