Prospective provost visits campus

Dr. Cyrus Reed, a candidate for the AUBG provost position met with students on April 9. Around 10 students attended the meeting which lasted for an hour and a half in the NAB Auditorium.

Reed shared some information about his academic background and working experience. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He also spent one year in the University of Cologne, Germany studying Political Science and Economy. Reed received his Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1989. He has been interested in Political Science since he went to Ghana and Zimbabwe where he stayed for several years and even worked in a gold mine for a summer. Later he was invited to Indiana, to work at the Governor's office on international development.

Reed highlighted the importance of building good relationships with other universities. He said AUBG will be enriched if it establishes partnerships with other liberal arts universities abroad, especially with the universities that offer European and Conflict resolution studies. Bulgaria's geopolitical position makes these topics actual and interesting within the framework of the region. Reed said AUBG students can benefit a lot from the ISEP program, as it allows them to pay the low tuition to AUBG and study at the universities in United States that charge as much as $45,000 a year.

He stressed the importance of keeping a high level managers at the university for a long time. "Seniors should stay on their positions between 5-7 years; you have to learn how things work - it takes long, then you decide what you have to do and then do it. It is important that the university has continuity."

A question was raised on how the quality of professors hired at AUBG can be improved. Reed's answer was that the top administration should always try to keep a good rapport with professors. "There are extraordinary situations when you have to hire professors for only one semester at the last minute. If some professors are dissatisfied, the administration should ask them what the reason is and whether it can be solved."

Reed also pointed out that he does not want to see a full-time professor at AUBG doing the same job at any other university.

"Liberal Arts education is very labor intensive. One professor is available for only small number of students and he/she should be available for consultations as well," he said. He highlighted the importance of keeping the quality of professors up. "You can have great education and lousy buildings," he said.

Reed is "a good candidate, with an impressive background and understanding of liberal arts, [who] has certainly raised the bar high," Ivaylo Vasilev, one of the students who attended the meeting, said. Vasilev said he wouldn't embrace Reed just yet, not before comparing Reed to the other candidates.