Contact: Allison Matthews
STARKVILLE, Miss.—As Mississippi State University Provost and Executive Vice President Jerome A. “Jerry” Gilbert brings a long and successful tenure at his alma mater to a close and becomes Marshall University’s 37th president, he granted a retrospective interview about what has been accomplished and what is yet to come.
What are the highlights of your successes at MSU – those of which you are most proud?
As associate provost, I worked with MSU’s administration to get study abroad activities centralized into a single office and to establish scholarships for students who wanted to study abroad. Later as provost, I helped advocate for the inclusion of the global emphasis in the university’s strategic plan and assisted in establishing the International Institute. In the fall of 2015, MSU offered over 400 study abroad scholarships to incoming freshmen for the first time. All of this has worked to solidify MSU’s position as an emerging global institution. This impact and other examples of excellence have gone into the messages being delivered as part of MSU’s recent branding effort, and I am proud that I had a small part in advocating for that initiative. Prior to moving to the Office of the Provost, I served for eight years as a department head at MSU. While department head of agricultural and biological engineering, I developed the M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs in biomedical engineering, the only graduate biomedical engineering degrees in the state.
What areas have you addressed at MSU that still need work, and what might that look like moving forward?
I am very proud of the impact that we have made in the area of student success. With the appointment of Rodney Pearson as the coordinator for student success, we focused additional attention on increasing retention and graduation rates. While we have implemented a number of new initiatives and have seen increases in both measures of success, I think that there is still room for improvement. The ultimate intermediate goal is to achieve the metrics in the university’s strategic plan of a retention rate of 88 percent and a graduation rate of 65 percent. We will continue to investigate strategies to help more students graduate, obtain meaningful employment, and become future leaders in society.
In general, what are your plans and vision for Marshall?
My goals for Marshall are to grow the university in size and reputation. Building on my experiences at MSU in helping refine the university image and brand, I want to better tell the story of Marshall University and the value that it represents to its students and the people of West Virginia. The brand launch coordinated by MSU’s Office of Public Affairs serves as a great model on how to do it right. In addition, my experience in working closely with President Keenum has given me excellent insight into how to effectively recruit students and to gain support of alumni and external constituents. I look forward to the role of serving as a spokesperson of the university in the fundraising arena and in advocating for Marshall. My aim is to create a shared vision for the future of Marshall that will unite and inspire everyone as the university evolves.
How are MSU and Marshall alike and different in your opinion?
I think the spirit and the people of the two universities are very similar. The spirit of which I refer is a feeling of respect, collaboration, resolve and giving. It is also a feeling of family. MSU has a proud history of being a land-grant university with an important service mission, and it is committed to the best education possible for its students and to the betterment of the state. Although Marshall is not a land-grant institution, it shares many of the service goals of MSU. Similar to MSU, Marshall is important to the economic development and cultural enrichment of the community. The tenacity and work ethic of the faculty, staff and students at MSU are contributors to the excellence achieved here and are important components of the campus culture. There is a strong sense of unity among the MSU family, and I sense that at Marshall, as well. However, there is a meaningful aspect of the spirit at Marshall that is a consequence of having been through the tragedy of the 1970 plane crash. Marshall has overcome the setback of that sad event and has resolved to never forget the 75 lost lives. The unity from that tragedy is a rallying point that is reflected in the refrain “We Are Marshall.” The pride of the people of Marshall, although forged by different circumstances, reminds me very much of the pride people have in MSU.
Although MSU and Marshall are alike in many ways, they do have some differences. MSU and Marshall differ in overall size and in the spectrum of programs they offer. MSU is a larger university with about 7,000 more students than Marshall. When compared to MSU, Marshall lacks a school of architecture, school of veterinary medicine, and the agriculture and forestry programs, but Marshall has a number of programs that MSU does not offer. For instance, Marshall has a medical school and a variety of other degree programs in health-related fields such as nursing, pharmacy, public health, communication disorders and physical therapy.
What are two or three of the biggest life lessons you’ve learned while being a student, faculty member and administrator at MSU?
As a student at MSU, I learned a number of life lessons about pursuing new things and accepting challenges. I was very involved in the MSU honors program and in other campus activities. The suggestion by department head Bill Fox and the encouragement of faculty member Larry Dooley that I get involved in undergraduate research changed the course of my academic future and directed me to graduate school. I learned as a student to become involved in as many new things as possible because you never know where new experiences can lead. As a faculty member and administrator at MSU, I came to appreciate the value of collaboration and cooperation across disciplines and the various divisions of the university. I also realized over time how important it is to communicate respect for others in what you do and what you say. Listening to input from others and seeking feedback are extremely important. Most issues that I have encountered as an administrator could have been avoided with better communication.
What is your favorite memory of Mississippi State? What will you miss the most about MSU and Starkville?
My favorite memories of MSU were watching each of my three children and my future daughter-in-law graduate from MSU. I was in the faculty section or on stage as provost during each of their commencement ceremonies. I remember hugging my youngest, Caroline, as she walked across the stage and accidentally knocking the mortar board off her head.
What I will miss most about MSU and Starkville are the colleagues and friends that we have developed over the many years of living here. We arrived in Starkville in November of 1988, not knowing what the future would bring. But it was a wonderful 27 years. Leigh and I both love Starkville and MSU, and we will miss them.
What projects or programs underway at MSU do you look forward to seeing completed?
The project I look forward to seeing completed on campus is the new classroom building. It was a bit frustrating throughout the year as the project slowly progressed. Thankfully, there now seems to be good momentum in the project, and you can see changes almost on a daily basis. We put a lot of planning and thought into that building, and it is going to be beautiful. We will have a state-of-the-art teaching facility which will be one of the finest in the region.
Is there anything that has been accomplished at MSU that you hope to implement at Marshall?
I would like to take some of the MSU ideas for student success to Marshall and work to improve their retention and graduation rates. Student success will continue to be an important topic well into the future.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.