{"id":97950,"date":"2018-09-10T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-colleges-new-president-launches-a-listening-tour\/"},"modified":"2018-09-10T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T11:00:00","slug":"fort-lewis-colleges-new-president-launches-a-listening-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-colleges-new-president-launches-a-listening-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College\u2019s new president launches a listening tour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus meets with students, faculty and staff during a \u201cChit Chat\u201d on Friday at El Centro de Muchos Colores in the Student Union at the college. Stritikus has been on the job for about five weeks. He has spent most of that time listening and seeking feedback from those on campus.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tom Stritikus is beginning his tenure as president of Fort Lewis College playing to a strength: listening.<\/p>\n

Stritikus is in the middle of a listening tour during his first weeks on campus.<\/p>\n

He credits four years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation<\/a> with helping him become a better listener.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Gates Foundation, we weren\u2019t doing the work. We were helping people do the work with funding. I learned to ask questions about what people are capable of doing, and working to figure out how we could help them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The people Stritikus said he has learned the most from were all listeners, who helped \u201cpeople they worked with get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cIf I could do that, I\u2019d be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

His all-ears modus operandi appears to be a practiced discipline; even as a candidate for the position as president, he first sought feedback from an audience at public meet-and-greets before he fielded questions from gathered students, faculty and staff members.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus meets with students, faculty and staff during a \u201cChit Chat\u201d on Friday at El Centro de Muchos Colores in the Student Union. ++<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Stritikus said he is not focused on looking back after FLC<\/a> went through more than $4 million in budget cuts for the current academic year.<\/p>\n

But he credits the work of the staff, faculty and former President Dene Thomas with what, at least at this moment, appears to be a reversal of nine years of declining enrollment that led to the budget cuts.<\/p>\n

Unofficial enrollment is pegged at 3,278 students for fall 2018, an increase of 242 students from the college\u2019s projections. Official enrollment numbers are made on the 11th day of the fall semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came from a lot of hard work from recruitment and admissions and people reaching out to make school visits. We had faculty members calling prospective parents,\u201d Stritikus said.<\/p>\n

He said the school has revamped its visitors program and the kind of experience potential students and their families have when they visit FLC.<\/p>\n

The campus nestled in the San Juan Mountains and the work being done to keep it in top shape will continue to be a great aid, he said, and the more visitors the school can bring in, the better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people see the campus, it sells itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One move Stritikus has taken incorporates the school\u2019s setting and its core mission. It now has a new motto: The crossroads of education and adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot to celebrate and market here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Fort
Fort Lewis College President Tom Stritikus meets with students, faculty and staff during a \u201cChit Chat\u201d on Friday at El Centro de Muchos Colores in the Student Union. Addressing declining enrollment will be an early challenge Stritikus must tackle.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At new student orientation last month, he talked with parents of an Oklahoma student who were stunned by the beauty of the campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they were also impressed by how welcoming the community has been,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re building a community where students know they belong and that honors their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stritikus said his first three weeks at FLC and the efforts made to reverse the enrollment declines showed him that the school has a great faculty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re dedicated to teaching and learning,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re building relationships like no other in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, with students back on campus, Stritikus said he is revitalized and re-energized to pursue the school\u2019s mission to provide them the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive when they leave Durango.<\/p>\n

The budget, which is looking better, he notes, is not \u201cout of the woods\u201d yet, but he also sees the budget as a tool, not the core function of a college.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, we care about student success. We\u2019ll take a look at budget decisions through that lens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When tough decisions have to be made, Stritikus said, \u201cBuilding trust is an important part of what a leader needs to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

If forced into the tough decisions like the ones FLC had to make last year, Stritikus said he would base his decisions on a process based on \u201chonesty, transparency and understanding the varied perspectives on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA leader has to be in touch with the culture, and ensure people feel valued and trusted to be their most effective selves at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A debate on many campuses about tension between a competition for resources by liberal arts and science, technology and engineering strikes Stritikus as a false dichotomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a friction,\u201d he said. \u201cA university is a place to get students to think, read and write critically, and you can do that through a range of disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school ultimately needs to be relevant to the community, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA school should look at the programs that students want to do and what the needs of the community are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vicki Phillips, who hired Stritikus at the Gates Foundation, said she was impressed that the College of Education at University of Washington<\/a>, where Stritikus served as dean, was a hands-on institution and active out in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were out in schools doing innovative things and helping teachers directly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It was no accident Stritikus sought out an institution that has a tuition waiver for Native American students, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was deliberate in looking for a spot where he could forward a mission of equity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Tom Stritikus\u2019 background<\/h4>\n

Tom Stritikus, Fort Lewis College\u2019s new president, came to the school after serving as deputy director of education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
\n He also served as dean of the University of Washington College of Education, which he led through a budget crisis. Under his direction, the College of Education\u2019s annual budget grew from $48 million to $84 million.
\n Stritikus is a first-generation college graduate, earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1993.
\n He holds a doctorate in Education in Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of California-Berkeley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stritikus: \u2018We have a lot to celebrate and market here\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[132,13,2077],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-profiles"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97950"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}