President Albrecht opens office to students
USU President Stan Albrecht will hold office hours on most Wednesday afternoons to meet with students one-on-one.
Albrecht has been the president of USU since 2003 and says having an open-door policy with students is something he has always wanted to do. He said he feels presidents can sometimes get so involved with their responsibilities as university presidents that they can forget why they are made a president in the first place.
“I think sometimes because presidents get so involved in fund raising and dealing with legislators and traveling to Washington and doing all of the things that presidents do, that it is easy to get isolated from the primary reasons that we are here, which is to serve our students,” Albrecht said.
As president, Albrecht said he gets many opportunities to be around students in groups, including inviting groups over to his house for activities and attending events around campus. But something he said he missed was one-on-one time with students, which he said is important to “take their pulse” and really get a feel of what is happening on campus.
“As a faculty member I always had office hours,” Albrecht said. “Why not have office hours as president? The difference is instead of having office hours for a class of 20 I get to have office hours for a student body of 20,000. So the numbers are a little bit different.”
Albrecht said he is open to all types of meetings. If students have problems with something on campus, he said he would love to listen, as well as if students just need advice about their lives. Although Albrecht said he is willing to listen to anything, he said he hopes he doesn’t get too many complaints about parking because it is a “perennial complaint” at universities and not something that can be completely resolved.
“I think it is really important that we find ways to get the student to the right place,” Albrecht said. “In most instances I am not going to be the problem solver. The important thing is going to say this is an issue that we need to get to our advising center or this is an issue that we need to get to vice president (Gary) Chambers or one of the academic deans. What I will do is lend a listening ear and then try and get the students to someone who really can help them.”
Albrecht said he realizes every student has a choice and didn’t have to come to USU. He said he wants to get a student perspective because he feels students are the most important part of the university.
“Wherever I go, the primary topic I talk about is our students – the quality of the students who come here and the life changing experiences they will have,” Albrecht said. “I am a first generation student, my mom and dad never had the opportunity to get an education and yet they valued it enough that despite limited economic means they wanted to make sure that I had that, so I think I care a lot.”
If he could change one thing about USU, Albrecht said it would be to ensure that every student has a “true university experience.” If students would stay in Logan on the weekends and get involved by going to sporting and other campus events and service projects, Albrecht said more students would come away changed by their experiences.
Throughout the typical day of being an university president, Albrecht said he deals with a whole range of situations, including donors, parents and personnel. Between all those things, he said he is kept pretty busy.
“We do lots of events at the home with students and donors so there aren’t many evenings where you can go home and put on your pajamas and have a peanut butter sandwich,” Albrecht said. “Sometimes it would be fun to do that but it is the best job in the world and to do it at Utah State makes it even more so.”
Students wanting to schedule a meeting with Albrecht can call 797-7172 for an appointment.
–debrajoy.h@aggiemail.usu.edu