In an email sent to the university community Feb. 23, university President Suzanne Shipley announced that two vice presidents were stepping down.
“During the past few months, I have worked closely with the President’s Cabinet to shape the university’s strategic initiatives, many of which require a commitment of five to seven years of effort by cabinet members,” Shipley said. “As this planning has progressed, two vice presidents have suggested that their plans for retirement do not align well with the timeline for achieving many of these goals, and they have subsequently communicated to me their plans to retire from their positions at the end of this academic year, August 31, 2016.”
Howard Farrell, vice president of university advancement and public affairs, will retire after 29 years at MSU and Robert Clark, vice president of administration and institutional effectiveness, will return to teaching effective fall 2016.
“This was just a good time. Shipley has a long range commitment at this point in my career. I can’t make the commitment she needs. I’m going here one of these days,” Clark said.
Clark was thinking heavily on retiring and what his exit strategy should be, but he decided to go back to teaching. This is not the first time that Clark has been teaching. He has taught a class every fall since he became a member of administration.
“There’s some exhilaration. It’s feel good experience. I really do miss teaching and I feel like I have never been completely out of the classroom,” said Clark.
Clark will go back to teaching in the fall of 2016. He will be teaching sociology of the family and human sexuality with Emily LaBeff, which they developed 25 years ago. They have taught it every fall.
“I feel like it’s going to be different going back to the classroom full-time, instead of teaching just part-time,” said Clark.
Clark started at MSU in 1973 teaching full-time, while getting involved with the undergraduate student’s research, same as what the administration is doing with EURECA right now.
“I always enjoyed that. I’ve seen these students go off and excel really well in life. I think that’s what the best part about teaching is about,”said Clark.
Beginning in March, Shipley will launch a search for Dr. Farrell’s replacement as vice president for advancement and public affairs.
“Significant experience in creating and implementing a successful, comprehensive fundraising campaign will be desired,” Shipley said in the email.
Farrell said, “After 29 years of accomplishing good things, and with Dr. Keith Lamb, vice president of student affairs and enrollment management, overseeing the development of the university, I felt that the university was in good hands.”
Former university President Louis J. Rodriguez hired Farrell in 1972, serving as dean of men, assistant dean of students and, in 1989, as vice president for student and administrative services. The MSU Annual Fund was developed under his leadership in 2003 and more than $3.6 million has been contributed through the fund since that time. Various reports had him listed as a candidate for the university’s presidency last year.
“My favorite thing working at MSU was the students. These are some of the finest students of the nation. I feel that they can compete on national level, against any college. The faculty and staff were second to none,” said Farrell.
Howard has had multiple achievement while his tenure here at MSU, but his favorite achievement was creating a fundraiser arm for the university for advancement and developments that didn’t exist before he got here.
“Alumni have done a great deal of contributing money to this university. I honestly do not know where we would be with out them,” Farrell said.
Farrell said he will miss the colleagues that he worked with during the last 29 years, a group he described as one of dedicated men and women that have done an incredible job with limited staff.
Shipley said Clark’s position will be eliminated with duties transferred directly to her, to the vice president for academic affairs, or to the vice president for business affairs and finance. Reporting for MSU Cycling has not yet been determined. Clark return to the department of sociology as a full-time professor effective with the fall 2016 semester, having started in the classroom almost 43 years ago.
Vice Presidents Step Down
In an email sent to the university community Feb. 23, 2015, university President Suzanne Shipley announced that two vice presidents were stepping down – Howard Farrell, vice president of university advancement and public affairs, will retire after 29 years at MSU and Robert Clark, vice president of administration and institutional effectiveness, will return to teaching effective fall 2016.
