Provost Coward to retire, Cockett will take reins
On Oct. 2, USU President Stan Albrecht announced Provost Raymond Coward will retire at the end of the school year and dean of the College of Agriculture Noelle Cockett will take his place.
Cockett said USU was quite apathetic before Coward took the position of provost. She served as interim provost for 11 months before Coward moved to Logan.
Coward has given USU intentions, Cockett said.
“I’m just one of thousands of people here trying to make this a better university, and it’s all for the students,” Coward said. “It’s why we’re here, it’s why we work so hard,”
In Albrecht’s letter to the faculty, he summarized some of the things that Coward helped develop during his past 7 years as provost. He helped create new academic units including the Caine College of Arts, the School of Applied Sciences, Technology, and Education and the School of Veterinary Medicine, among others.
Coward has also helped create the administrative structure and the necessary policies to support the current state-wide system, according to the letter.
“Not everyone can pick up, move to Logan, and be with us for four years, so we have to take these educational opportunities out to them,” Coward said.
Coward and the deans created the New Faculty Academy, a program to help new professors develop the skill they need to provide a high quality education.
Coward said when a school has high quality faculty, it attracts high quality students. In turn, when high quality faculty and high quality students get together, it produces high quality alumni.
“If they are better in the classroom, then students will have a better experience in the classroom,” he said.
In the letter, Albrecht said Coward helped him make difficult decisions about budget cuts during the hard economic times.
“I think I was most proud about how the university came through that hard time,” Coward said. “We’re still strong. It didn’t bring us to our knees.”
Coward said Albrecht is above and beyond what any other university president has been that he has served under.
“His enthusiasm is genuine,” Coward said. “What you see in Albrecht is the real deal. He is that way behind closed doors, in front of thousands of people, in front 25,000 people. It’s just the way he is.”<
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Cockett said she looks forward to working with Albrecht.
“He has an innate feeling about the right things to do,” she said.
She said it will be an honor to work with such a phenomenal president.
Coward said Albrecht came from a ranch in Colorado, and college transformed his life. Coward shares a similar experience. He came from city on the East Coast, but college changed his life too. He said he has spent his whole life, except two years, on a college campus since he was 18 years old.
“My dad was plumber, my mom was a cashier, neither one of them had high school degrees, let alone a college degrees,” he said. “All four of us kids finished college – two of us became Ph.D.s and became university professors.”
Most recently, Coward came from Penn State, where he served as the dean of the College of Health and Human Development. He was an endowed professor there.
He said he never imagined himself as provost of a university.
“Life is a journey,” Coward said. “It doesn’t always go to a straight place, and you have to open to those opportunities.”
He got a bachelors degree in science, but after an undergrad project he decided it wasn’t what he really wanted to do. He went back to college to get a master’s degree in special education.
“College opens up your eyes and gives you experiences that you haven’t had before,” he said. “It stretches you to think about difficult issues, and out of that comes a strong adult that can contribute to society.”
From college, Coward went to work in a mental hospital in New Jersey. Although he said he felt like he was doing his best, he felt that he didn’t have enough training to really help the children he worked with. He went back to college to get a Ph.D., where a door opened up to him to become a professor, which eventually led to the provost position.
Cockett will take Coward’s place July 1, 2013. She is the vice president for the University Extension office and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, in addition to dean of the College of Agriculture.
When she worked as the interim provost in 2005, before Coward came to USU, Cockett said the experience was an eye-opener.
“This time it won’t quite surprising,” she said. “I have a little more confidence and awareness.”
Since becoming the dean of the College of Agriculture almost a decade ago, she has seen the enrollment double. The college also added many new p
rograms.
“I feel really good about the college,” Cockett said. “It’s strong and vibrant.”
Cockett said she wants to keep the momentum going here at USU. She describes herself as a facilitator. She is open to ideas, and often asks, “What is the end goal?” when ideas are presented to her. She does her best to help the individual meet that goal.
“I want to everybody to love being at USU,” she said.
Cockett said there is still a lot of conversation going on about how the vacancies will be filled after she leaves to fill the provost position, but until then the provost is still Coward, who is dedicated to providing opportunities to students.
Coward said students are why he gets up every morning and loves what he does.
“We are so blessed with thousands of young people that are truly committed to their education, who are decent young people that this country can be proud of,” he said.
– katrimw@gmail.com