By snoadmin
Provost candidate Nabil Ibrahim addressed faculty and staff during an open forum in the Karl Anatol Center Wednesday. Ibrahim said he plans to bring ideas from other universities he has worked with and apply them to Cal State Long Beach.
He was the associate vice president for graduate studies & research/chief research officer at San Jose State University. Ibrahim is currently the vice chancellor/chief academic officer at Purdue University Calumet.
Ibrahim said he would like to make the university a highly competitive environment and increase scarce resources and funds, which are short-term goals he accomplished at Purdue University Calumet.
“I would like to do what I did at Purdue Calumet,” Ibrahim said. “I want to make Cal State Long Beach the engine that drives the community.”
Ibrahim also said CSULB needs focus, pride in the quality of education, successful students, a well-developed staff, innovation and economic development, and a relationship with the city and community to become a successful institution.
“We can do this by making the university and the community distinctive. It can be truly the metropolitan university of Southern California,” Ibrahim said.
He gave his definition of leadership to the audience.
“Leadership qualities are learned,” Ibrahim said. “Leaders show examples and lead by examples and share a vision that everybody agrees on to provide success to the university. A good leader needs followers and a lot of people to believe in the same goals.”
One thing Ibrahim said he is not accustomed to from his experience at Purdue University Calumet are athletics. But according to his Ibrahim, athletics are a great way to attract and retain young people to the university. He said athletics are important to CSULB because it is a commuter school.
Obtaining grants is a big concern for CSULB and Ibrahim presented ideas of receiving and obtaining grants and contracts. According to Ibrahim, during his five-year tenure at San Jose State he increased the grants and contracts from $28 million to $40 million. This was due to the faculty development and involvement, which he highly supports.
Ibrahim said he is a believer of “one size does not fit all.” He said he likes to see the balance at the departmental level to support faculty scholarly learning and to create an environment for faculty to become successful.
Because Long Beach and CSULB are diverse, Ibrahim also said the study abroad program is important to successful student development within the community, as well as in the workforce.
“The students will run into other cultures and this will facilitate their growth,” Ibrahim said.
Ibrahim defined student success as “looking at the ultimate goal of enhancing student graduation, enhancing retention rates and placing students in exciting and successful jobs.”
Many of the problems surrounding collegiate student success are found from the lack of education developed through K-12. Ibrahim said student success is important to us, and it starts in grades K-12.
Karen Gould, another candidate for provost, will speak to faculty and staff from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 24 in the Karl Anatol Center, located on the first floor of the Academic Affairs Building next to the University Library.
