(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in an occasional series of interviews with the state’s new wave of higher education leaders.)
Bryant University President Ross Gittell was trained as an economist, so it’s no surprise that he keeps a close eye on metrics such as “return on investment” – or to be more precise, “return on education investment.”
It’s one of the ways he assesses student success, and he’s proud that Bryant has in recent years ranked among the top 2% of U.S. colleges in that category, based on debt and earnings after graduation, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education.
Gittell took the helm at Bryant in July 2020 following the retirement of longtime school president Ronald K. Machtley, and he’s laser-focused on student success, just as he was when he served for a decade as chancellor of the Community College System of New Hampshire.
What was it like to step into your position during the COVID-19 pandemic? How did this timing influence your priorities and how you interact with the university community? That was hard because we had to do a lot of the introducing virtually and with masks on. Much as we got good at reading each other’s eyes, and virtual worked as far as knowing names … it delayed my knowing people. I got to know a wide range of people on the leadership team very well, but not students, or a broad range of the faculty and staff, as I am now.
What attracted you to working in higher education, and how does your background as an economist influence you in this role? My mother was a college professor, so I was always familiar with the life of a faculty person. She loved what she did, and she worked hard. And my father was a certified public accountant, so the accounting background, but he also taught accounting at [Queens College]. I was more of a jock, let’s say, a basketball player when I was in high school. But then I went to the University of Chicago as an undergraduate, I became much more passionate about my own education and was really excited about learning, being challenged and being exposed to different views.
As an administrator, you get to try to help the institution move forward, help faculty do their important work, and help interact with students to help inspire and support them.
You held the chancellor position in New Hampshire for almost a decade. What prompted you to move on to lead Bryant? I am very interested in helping higher education become increasingly even more relevant than it is, to open up opportunities for a broad range of the population, and to do it in a way that’s relevant for our economic success as a state, as a region and as a nation. Bryant has a proven history of doing that, and an openness to change and to innovative leadership.
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TOP BULLDOG: Bryant University President Ross Gittell in the Koffler Rotunda on campus. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
In what ways has your previous background as chancellor of a state community college system influenced your approach to leading a private, four-year university? My focus as chancellor of the Community College System was really to promote student success through the alignments of the academic programs and the support of students to the needs of the economy. Over that decade, we had increased retention rates, increased graduation rates and increased student success, as measured by labor market outcomes, and a lot was positioning the programs and the student support towards that successful path for students. That CEO experience as chancellor of a community college, combined with being a management professor and being a business school faculty [at the University of New Hampshire], I think prepared me well for my role in Bryant University, where the majority of our students are business majors and we’re very focused on student success.
Your predecessor, Ron Machtley, oversaw a close connection between China and Bryant, which included establishing a Bryant campus in China and a Confucius Institute, which the university opted to discontinue. How is that relationship evolving while there are tensions between the two countries? The U.S. and China are having a very challenging, very concerning period, but you can’t ignore China, and it has to be part of a global mindset, a global education here. We don’t have a Confucius Institute here anymore, but we continue to have students from China here and, well after COVID concerns are over, will have our students have opportunities in China.
The [Bryant campus in China] is a fully accredited program there. It’s a very focused program on accounting, and it’s a pretty stable enrollment, but there aren’t as many students transferring to our institution here in Smithfield or going onto graduate programs here. So it’s in a stable period during this challenging time.
Machtley led the university for nearly 25 years. What challenges or opportunities do you think come with following a president who served such a long tenure? In President Machtley’s tenure, he took this institution to a much stronger position. It went from Bryant College to Bryant University, which included adding lots of liberal arts programs, adding to the physical campus significantly. … It’s a very dynamic situation, and we’re not saying that what we’re doing is enhancing what we’ve done foundationally in the past to meet the new challenges of the future. I’m trained as an economist; a lot of my work has been with hiring strategy in alignment with the labor market, economic opportunities and needs, and that’s very relevant, but we talk about needs, and it’s also the needs of young people, the needs of our alumni.
What are some of your short- and long-term priorities as Bryant’s president? The very short-term priorities are continuing to maintain the strong community here. The challenges still remain in a COVID context. Think of having a community with about 3,500 18- to 24-year-olds who are at a critical point in their lives, a challenging time in our economy and society. That’s something we manage every day and have to be attentive to, and we want to continuously ensure that our academic programming and campus experience is relevant to the times … part of that is connecting students to do community service projects in Providence, Central Falls, other parts of the state.
Recently, Bryant has been nationally recognized for its digital marketing and international business programs. What has growth been like for these programs? There’s strong student interest in both those programs. Digital marketing is an emerging area, and the student interest has really grown rapidly in the past couple years because the whole marketing profession and the needs of marketing professionals across all industries has changed to more of a digital platform. So our graduates are very knowledgeable, very skilled in the latest digital marketing techniques.
International business has been a longer-standing program of rising national rank, a top-10 program nationally. Students recognize that the economy is increasingly global – even small businesses are operating internationally, and they’re very attracted to graduates of international business programs.
What are the most popular majors at Bryant? Have any programs seen a decline in recent years? Our largest major is finance, and finance has been a long-standing program. … Accounting is the second-largest major, very popular. On the arts and sciences side, our strongest programs are actuarial math, applied mathematics, communications, psychology and pre-law. In all those areas, our median earnings for our graduates are in the top 10% nationally, and one reason for that is all our students who major in arts and sciences have to minor in business.
There are some areas where, because of declining labor market opportunities or declining interest in students, there will be a decline, but then sometimes that recovers. We’re not seeing any strong long-term trends, but more sort of cyclical trends in certain areas.
How did the pandemic affect enrollment, and has enrollment rebounded since this initial hit? What affected us with enrollment [last year] was we weren’t able to have visitors come to campus, come to open houses … so that resulted in a decline in applications and a decline in enrollment for the entering freshman class this year. We see that as temporary. We’re already back to near-record levels with campus visits, we had an open house [last fall] … with well over 200 students in one day. Our applications are up, our visits are up, inquiries are up. Our campus shows very well and we’re a residential college, so we were affected with our freshman entering class, but indicators are that we’ll recover that this year.
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COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS: Bryant University President Ross Gittell says one of his priorities is to maintain the strong community at the school, part of which involves connecting students to community service projects. / COURTESY BRYANT UNIVERSITY[/caption]
What were the biggest COVID-19-related impacts on the university, and how are you addressing them? We had to put the health of our students, faculty and staff at the very top of our list, and that required a lot of attention and additional resources to manage the campus during that time period. We had over 140,000 COVID tests, we required students to test weekly, we required our faculty and staff to test. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to allow visitors on campus because we were trying to maintain that safe campus, so that was a negative impact on our freshman enrollment last year.
Of these COVID-19 impacts, in what areas has the university rebounded, and where has recovery been slower? The life on campus has recovered very well this year. Last year, we had a lot of restrictions. This year, I mentioned the open house, which brought a lot of people to campus from outside. We’ve had homecoming, which we didn’t have last year, we had Family and Friends Weekend. We’ve had football games, the stadium full. … The campus is alive again, and students are feeling very good. But we’re still doing the things we have to do to maintain the health and safety of the campus. We require vaccinations, and the whole campus is at a 97% vaccination rate, so that helped us have a low incidence of COVID this year.
What’s increasingly important for being real-world ready is not only that the [academic curriculum] is current and relevant for industries, but also that students have some practical, hands-on experience applying what they’re learning in the classroom to a real situation, so we’re enhancing our experiential learning.
How would you characterize Bryant’s national and statewide reputation? What would you like to maintain or change regarding this perception? It’s improving, and I want to maintain that improvement. … The thing is to stay relevant, and we want to increasingly focus on those 21st-century skills, and that intersection of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics], business and the liberal arts. Right now, we have three-fourths of our students coming from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and our national rankings suggest we should have students from those states and beyond, so we’re increasing our efforts to try to enhance that knowledge about Bryant beyond the New England region.
How is the university addressing rising college costs for students? One area that is very, very important is their return on investment. Our students, their earnings upon graduation average about $60,000. Those results for our students are well documented. Our average debt is below the median in our high-performing programs, and our outcomes are well above the median, the top 10%.
What do you think makes Bryant stand out from other Rhode Island colleges and universities?
The career outcomes, the top 2% ranking [for return on education investment, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education]. The very strong community, our unique curriculum, and the business with the liberal arts with the STEM, and that focus on 21st-century skills and the outcomes from those skills. We’re not an urban campus, but we’re very close to Providence, with regular bus service, free buses to Providence. We have a very supportive, beautiful campus and facilities here for students, and our students take advantage of that.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Voghel@PBN.com.