Spring Break
Candidate focuses on research mission, future of URI students during open forum
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: News
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"We need to educate students for careers that do not exist, based on knowledge that has not been discovered, and technologies that have not been developed," Dooley said to a crowd of roughly 100 in the Memorial Union Ballroom.
Dooley is the provost and chief academic officer at Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont., and former chemistry department chairman at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
Dooley was introduced as being known for his ability to fundraise effectively for university research missions. At Montana State, he was able to turn a research budget of almost nothing to roughly $100 million over the last nine years, according to an article in the Providence Journal.
"A research mission is so critical because it is on the creative cutting edge of the modern land grant university," Dooley said.
Dooley said the ability to "push the discovery of knowledge" could be attained through working together as a community and by creating research opportunities for the students.
"The community is like a body," Dooley said. "We don't all have the same function, we don't all do the same things and we have to respect all of the roles. We have to think of ourselves as a body of parts of one whole."
Many of the questions directed toward Dooley involved economic issues. Whether it was the affordability of the tuition at URI, appropriations for research money, grant writing and fundraisers, or the lack of state funding, Dooley approached each question similarly.
Dooley said URI needs to enlist students as allies to show the state the difference their investment is making.
To better the economic state of the university, Dooley said more partnerships with the private sector are necessary in addition to strengthening alumni ties and continuing to write grants to keep fundraising progressing.
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