Mitchell: What interested you in the position at Illinois? Why did you want to come here?

Aiken: Illinois is a great research university, as I knew from my years at
Michigan and at Wisconsin. [Aiken earned master's and doctoral degrees 
from the University of Michigan and for 21 years was on the faculty of the
University of Wisconsin at Madison.] So to have the possibility of being 
entrusted with a leadership role in such an outstanding institution was an
opportunity I just could not resist. It has a very distinguished faculty 
and has some wonderful programs. 

M: Still, there are many challenges facing great research universities 
today and the UI is no exception. Where does a person in your position 
begin?
 
A: I think the challenge today, given the fiscal circumstances of higher 
education in general, is: How does one protect the excellence of a great 
research university? How does one begin to address the new problems that 
have emerged within our society and on our campuses? I think one of the 
great challenges that we face is to create a climate that provides a 
positive learning experience or learning opportunity for all students.

M: Everyone seems to agree that universities must open their doors wider 
to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student and faculty populations.
So far, however, this base-broadening has resulted in some unresolved 
conflict, as not everyone agrees with approaches and processes. How can we
make it all work?

A: I can't give you a formula. I think one has to sit down and work with 
the students, work with the faculty and the staff, and find out what the 
unresolved issues are and try to find equitable solutions. Basically, the
problem is that our students come from a wide range of economic and ethnic
and social circumstances. For many students who come to a college campus 
today, it is the first time they have encountered such diversity. That 
places an enormous burden on the institution to provide opportunities for
them to learn what their responsibilities are within a diverse community.


M: How - specifically - can we make the environment here at Illinois more
responsive to the needs of all?

A: I think Illinois has done amazingly well at bringing in the best and 
the brightest students. When you bring in the best and the brightest 
minority students, they will want to work with outstanding faculty, 
including minority faculty. They aren't the only ones who can provide role
models, but they are important. 

The problem is that the American professoriate falls woefully short in 
terms of the proportion of faculty who are minority, compared to the 
population in general. Only 3 percent, for example, of all faculty in the
United States are African-American, where the population is 12 or 13 
percent. There simply are not enough PhDs out there to provide sufficient
numbers for the needs. That means that every university must work not only
to bring in diverse undergraduates, but also to help address the faculty 
shortfall by bringing in graduate students from diverse circumstances. 
That's not going to solve the problem in the short run, but if all 
universities were doing that, it would help.

M: It may be too early, but are you working on any particular strategic 
plans for the campus? What areas will you focus attention on initially?

A: One of the things I hope we will be doing as a community is engaging in
a long-range planning process that builds on all of the excellent work 
that has already occurred and fills in the pieces that need to be looked 
at in greater depth. The goal of this would be the development of a 
statement of the kind of goals we want to achieve by the end of the 
decade, by the year 2000. That statement should be one that grows out of 
extensive conversations and deliberations within and among the faculty, 
staff and student body.

One of the other things I would like to do is to look at the freshman-year
experience - the entire experience - in the classrooms, in the residence 
halls, in their social life. I think the freshman year really does set a 
tone for the way a student feels about an institution in the succeeding 
years. That freshman year probably is a bit more challenging for students
because they're new to the campus, they're in a very unfamiliar set of 
circumstances, they're having to learn about what is expected of them in 
college, they're having to make choices. It is important to ask ourselves,
"Have we provided the best, optimal first year? Have we created a social 
context in which students not only have an opportunity to learn, but also
have good support systems? Do they have the encouragement they need? Do 
they have enough help in making the transition from high school into a 
fundamentally different type of educational experience?"

M: Your predecessor was very concerned about finding better ways to 
communicate more directly with the faculty and staff, to encourage 
dialogue between the administration and other segments of the campus. Will
you continue that effort?

A: I feel very strongly that one of my responsibilities is to communicate
as broadly as possible. Universities are enormously complex institutions,
and communication is often very difficult because of that complexity. But
any great university must have a sufficient number of mechanisms in place
so the issues facing the institution - and the proposed solutions - are 
widely shared and understood by members of the community, and members of 
the community must have meaningful opportunities to come in and make 
suggestions. Obviously, various processes exist to achieve that - through
the administrative structure, through the campus senate. Media such as 
Inside Illinois are very important as well, because as