Provost candidate discusses academic entrepreneurship during forum

February 18, 2016 | Events, UToday
By Meghan Cunningham



The third of four finalists for the position of provost and executive vice president for academic affairs held open forums Wednesday to engage with The University of Toledo faculty, staff and students.

Dr. Donald Siegel, dean of the School of Business at the University of Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), talked about the need for a university to have an entrepreneurial spirit and to capitalize on faculty strengths to move the institution forward during each of his forums on Main Campus and Health Science Campus.

Siegel

Siegel

“The provost should be a representative of the faculty. The provost is the chief academic officer,” he said. “And I love to sell what faculty do. That’s what I do as a dean. I go out and I say — if I’m talking to a donor or talking to a legislator or I’m talking to someone at a federal agency — we have a faculty member who does this, how can we make this happen? That means we need to understand and appreciate what you do because you are the important source of human capital in this organization.”

Siegel stressed the importance of promoting collaboration through incentives and a rewarding culture in order to support academic entrepreneurship, which is his academic discipline, and to generate synergies across campus in teaching, service and research. He also talked about his experience with successful alumni and community engagement and philanthropy as a means of securing additional resources.

Siegel answered questions about how he would promote teamwork, addressing public perceptions of the value of a college degree, and the provost’s role in growing enrollment.

He joined the University of Albany, SUNY, in 2008. He previously had served on the faculty of the University of California at Riverside, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Nottingham University Business School, Arizona State University West and SUNY-Stony Brook. Prior to joining higher education, Siegel was a securities analyst for Singleton Associates and research economics for the National Bureau of Economic Research.

He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia College and a master’s degree and PhD in business economics from Columbia University.

For more information about the provost search and upcoming candidate forums, visit utoledo.edu/offices/provost/provostsearch.

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