Presidential perspective: Questions with Farish

The Hawks' Herald sat down with President Donald Farish during the week before his inau­guration, discussing his views on Roger Williams University from the presidential perspective. The following is the transcription of President Farish's thoughts on the direction in which the University should head, RWU's relationship with Bristol, student drinking, and why he keeps a Buzz Light­year figurine prominently dis­played in his office.

TheHawks' Herald: So far, as president, what have been your proudest accomplishments?

Donald Farish: That's an in­teresting question, but I don't think about it in terms of pride. That becomes a little bit too much ‘it's all about me.' So I'm begging off that question a little bit. And I haven't really accom­plished very much of anything so far. I mean I've initiated a few things, so I think that when I look at it from an accomplish­ment standpoint, I've started the dialogue with the campus community and especially the faculty about what it is that we can develop as a shared vision of our collective future – where we want to be in 10 years and how are we going to get there. And that to me has been all along a very high priority because I think that you have to have that as kind of an organizing prin­ciple because otherwise people are just doing their own thing. Well, a lot of people are doing pretty wonderful things here but it's not as coordinated as it could be. So we're not really improving the overall reputa­tion of the campus as much as we might if we were telling the world, ‘This is what we're doing. Watch us move.'

HH: What have been some of the challenges that you've faced, that you have worked or are currently working to overcome as President.

DF: Well I think first of all I will say in all honesty and truth­fulness that everything I've seen so far has exceeded my expec­tations. It hasn't been that I've come up against something that made me say, ‘Oh my god, where did that come from and why didn't I know about it?' There have been specific details that I wasn't necessarily aware of, but they weren't deal break­ers in any sense – nothing of any magnitude.

HH: Something that has been talked about in the past is that the University and Bristol resi­dents have often been at odds on certain things, whether it's students living off campus or what not. Do you foresee changes in that relationship that the university community could look forward to?

DF: I don't even know that it's as much as change, but it's cer­tainly a focus for us. I think that it's important that we maintain good relationships with the Bristol community because we're a part of that community. And not just form a public re­lations standpoint, although I think that that's important sometimes. But in other words, it's not just a matter of hop­ing people don't dislike us too much. It's more a case of saying there are positive things that we contribute to the community and we need to focus on those and remind people of the ben­efits that have come from our presence, and at the same time acknowledge that there are li­abilities that occur.

The analogy that I use all the time is that if you're living in a resort community, you are by definition going to be living in the presence of tourists, and ev­ery resort community waits for the tourists to go away so they can have their town back. But, however grudgingly, they real­ize that they wouldn't have the community they have but for the presence of the tourists.

HH: One of the things that students would be curious about is how often they'll see you. Can they look forward to seeing you in the Commons or seeing you walking around campus?

DF: Yeah, I'm over in the Commons pretty often and they certainly can see me over there.

I've been to a couple of soccer games. I've been to a couple of musical and theater events over at the Barn. My point is that I really want to be visible on the campus. I don't want people to see me and wonder who the heck I am.