By Kevin Lopez
The Grand Rapids Community College Faculty Association held the fourth provost candidate forum on Thursday, May 25 to hear candidate John Fields give a presentation on why he should be selected. This was the final of four forums being held to decide which candidate will take the role.
Fields currently serves as Executive Vice President of Learning & Student Success at Blue Mountain Community College in Oregon. In his bio on the GRCC website, Fields is described, as a collaborative leader with a track record of success that has helped students and staff alike.
In his presentation, Fields wanted to hammer that point home saying that he wanted to work with everyone by “reaching across the aisle.”
Fields said it’s important to maximize time with the students who enroll.
“We have to develop our talent, from the time we bring them on till they leave our institution,” he said. “I cross boundaries… I do not believe in staying in my office and only working with my staff. Everything we do is about teaching and learning and that is our entire college … we have to talk with other stakeholders that maybe we normally don’t and if I’m doing that, then other people will see that I’m serious when working with others.”
Fields also wanted to stress that he’s not the “best” candidate, but the “right” candidate for GRCC.
“I am a proactive and engaged partner with stakeholders,” Fields said. “I am future oriented, so that we can meet our current and prospective learners and community needs. I want to nurture a culture that embraces continuous improvement and uses data so that we are both data rich and well informed. I have deep respect for shared governance because I truly believe that during a vigorous debate we need different voices at the table and amplifying minority voices to make our mission value better for our students.”
Fields, who was limited to 20 minutes for his initial presentation, didn’t get a chance to finish his last few slides before moving on to the question and answer portion of the forum.
The first question he was asked was, “With an ever changing academic environment, which was only intensified by the pandemic, how would you reestablish or create a sense of institutional belonging for both students and faculty?”
“We must have concrete actions backing up our work,” Fields said. “If we just say that ‘we are a welcoming environment for every student, faculty, and staff no matter what, welcome, come to us,’ when those students get here, is that the reality on the ground? So we need to make sure that everything we are doing is creating the safe environment and that they belong and again that they feel it and know it.”
After answering the questions candidates were asked at all the forums, he was then given the opportunity to answer questions from those in the audience. One faculty member asked Fields about the violence in schools, what he can do to encourage safety in the classrooms.
“How often do we practice it (safety), how often do we plan it, god forbid some event happens right now, does everyone know what to do? Where to go? What it means? How should we react?,” Fields said. “That is a piece we have to have in place, just like in K-12 we do fire drills, we do different kind of drills to build muscle memory, we don’t really do that in higher education… and I think we have to do that. We have to make sure that people know the plan.”
The Collegiate was able to talk to Fields after the forum and asked him how he would like to connect with students.
“I want the students to know, one of the things I (want to) push is equity,” Fields said. “I believe there is an equity issue.”
That was the final of four provost forums and a new provost is expected to be appointed in the coming weeks. The Collegiate will continue to follow the proceedings.
