ISU presidential finalist Benjamin Houlton takes tough questions from campus

AMES — In taking questions from the campus-based audience Wednesday during a public forum, Iowa State University presidential finalist Benjamin Houlton fielded one referencing the recent firing of an ISU employee for comments she posted on social media about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

“Two months ago, an employee was terminated for something that she said on Facebook,” the questioner said. “The president was ordered by the Board of Regents, after receiving a letter from the governor, to investigate this. If you received an order from the Board of Regents to terminate an employee for something that they posted on Facebook, what would your response be?”

Before he could answer the question, ISU associate teaching professor Meghan Gillette — who was moderating the forum as co-chair of the ISU presidential search committee — interjected and reworded the question.

“What has been your relationship when working with your board of trustees?” she asked Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where he also holds rank as an ecology and evolutionary biology professor.

“I have a lot of experience working with boards,” Houlton said. “I have my own advisory council board of trustees. I also work with the state.

“In terms of social media, it's a complicated landscape,” he said. “I will just give you my opinion. I can't comment on your case. But I don't think that it's appropriate for individuals to say certain things on social media that are hateful — let's say violent.”

Conceding some speech is protected, Houlton said, “If there's a true threat, an obscenity … there are areas where it is not legal to engage in that kind of speech. So that kind of speech, I would definitely make sure — because it's not legally protected — that it is dealt with.”

Houlton also took a question about the generational decline in state support for Iowa’s public universities — which in the 1980s received 77 percent of their general education funding from state appropriations and 21 percent from tuition.

Today, those percentages have seesawed — with tuition accounting for 67 percent of general education funding and appropriations making up 28 percent.

“What is your opinion of flat funding from the state when we try to achieve so many wonderful things here at the university?” ISU engineering professor Steve Martin asked. “How do we do that in an era when we're basically flat funded by the state?”

Houlton said the issue is common across higher education in the United States, including at Cornell, which is a private university but receives some money from the state for certain colleges, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

“Institutions have to develop significant philanthropy for scholarships, endowed professorships as a fundamental piece of an institution,” he said. “And that is something I have a track record of doing.”

Houlton said his college at Cornell went from $30 million a year of financial aid to $48 million per year of financial aid.

“We also went from 7 percent of our faculty having an endowed professorship to 15 percent,” he said. “So these are doable things. And working with the foundation would be critical to figuring this out."

He also pointed to efficiency.

“That doesn't mean people losing jobs,” he said. “It means working more efficiently across an organization, because we do have to figure out ways to cut costs.”

To kick off the question and answer portion of the forum, ISU political science professor Karen Kedrowski — co-director of the new regents-imposed Center for Cyclone Civics and director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics — asked Houlton, “What is the role of higher education in supporting and strengthening American democracy?”

In part, Houlton said, it’s continuing to grant broad access to higher education — serving Iowa State’s formative land-grant mission. But he also said basic civics education is becoming more important at the collegiate level.

“I've heard various viewpoints like, it should be in high school,” he said. “But more and more we're seeing students come into Cornell who have a very poor understanding of the checks and balances, how it even works. How do you draft legislation? Where does the money come from? What’s the power of the purse? What's the executive branch?

“And so I'm glad to hear that you're engaging in civics, because I do think that is an area that every student should probably be engaged in — to just get a basic understanding of how the United States government works,” he said. “Everybody should have a baseline, and that baseline has been lost.”

During Houlton’s presentation, he shared six pillars of priorities for the campus should he get the job — including recruiting world-class talent, tapping artificial intelligence for translational research, and “uncommon partnerships for the common good.”

“I'm a big believer in uncommon partnerships for the common good … propelling Iowa on a world stage,” he said. “So not only is this about cooperative extension — and you have such an outstanding extension system — but a focus on every person, every county. And how can we frame the cooperative extension environment into all elements of translation and as an ecosystem that's operating on behalf of the citizens of Iowa?”

Other pillars included excellence in business operations and staff and student enrollment, entrepreneurship and market readiness — including implementing three-year degrees.

His final pillar centered on “Cyclone pride” — including athletics and the CyTown project underway across the athletics campus.

“I'm just blown away,” he said. “I see this as a critical element. This is a land grant in action. Our athletics bring us into the living room of all of society. There's evidence that when teams do really well, applications go way up … I’m so excited to support that.”

In wrapping his talk, Houlton committed himself to “collaborative strategic planning” engaging all aspects of the campus — including faculty, staff, students, the provost, deans, vice provost, vice presidents, Cyclone Athletics, the Board of Regents and “the communities we serve.”

Houlton is one of two finalists to succeed ISU President Wendy Wintersteen. The other, David Cook of North Dakota State University, will participate in a public forum Thursday on campus.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com