SUNY Oswego inaugurates a new president Friday. Dr. Peter Nwosu becomes the 11th president of the university since its founding in 1861.
WRVO's Jessica Cain talked with Dr. Nwosu about a number of topics, including his journey to Oswego from his home country of Nigeria, his plan to double the number of awards the university gives out each year, and more.
For more information on the inauguration, click here.
(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity)
Jessica Cain: First, I would just like to talk a little bit about you and your background. You're originally from Nigeria. Talk a little bit about what encouraged you to come to the United States.
Peter Nwosu: I came to this country decades ago, more than three decades ago. One of the very few fortunate ones at a time to leave my country to come here to continue my education. I ended up at Towson State University, which is part of the University of Maryland system. And then from there, I went to Howard University to pursue doctoral work at the institution. And then suddenly, when you are an immigrant student in a new country, it's always challenging to figure out whether you want to stay at the end of your studies, or whether to return back to your country to help in terms of development work in your society. And it was a struggle for me, as it is for many, many new immigrants in a society. At the time as an international student, it wasn't particularly clear in my head that I wanted to stay, because I simply came to have an education. But something happened along the way that then moved me to make the decision to stay in the United States. And it was the experiences I had in my various classrooms. Wonderful staff, wonderful faculty members. We saw promise in a young man came from his country that had had, years before, been ravaged by a civil war that lasted for 30 months, more than 1 million people lost their lives. And so here was I, and suddenly the war had ended and the country was working back to rebuild itself. And the government was doing all it can to do so. But it was also a period of constant military intervention in Nigeria’s civil society. And so some of those things factored into the final decision to stay. So it was a paper I had done for a class at Howard University. And that paper, I had encouragement from my faculty. You know, Bill Starosta…I remember those names like they were yesterday, you know, who said that you should submit it for a conference I did to the organization at the time. That was the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The paper was selected for presentation, but also was selected as the best student research paper for that year. And then at end of it, there was a business meeting, it was a convening in Washington. D.C. You get your name called, you get a certificate, then you get this $100 they give you. And there was a woman in the audience, Shirley Biagi who asked for a tea with me at the end of the meeting. And from there, life changed. She asked me to come to Sacramento to present the paper, which I did. And from there, it was really an opportunity. I didn't really know this initially, they were trying to recruit me. My final year, the doctoral program. And eventually, I did say yes to that offer. It took three months to say yes to an offer. And then landed a position as assistant professor that allowed me to develop a program in an area that was very new at that time, intercultural communication, and really built that program at Cal State Sacramento. So that began that journey, that extraordinary journey that has brought me here. And I would tell this story that I came in a pair of shoes that you will see in my office. Those shoes don't define me. There's simply explained the long journey that we all make when we leave our homes, our students make when they leave their homes to find food in another place. They adopt and they become contributing members of the community. That has been what has shaped me, a very important value for me as I engage and lead this wonderful institution.
JC: What did your journey teach you about the value of education?
PN: That if it wasn't for that education, I probably…I know for sure I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be having this conversation. Probably will be something else. But what education does as it's been consistent for me, is that it helps transform life for many of us, it helps transform lives. But what it also does is that it ignites possibilities, endless possibilities about discovery, which I share with our students and our community and our faculty members across the board that education does, you know, shine this wonderful light. You know, it's OK with me that I can do this. But each one of those steps really changes you, increases upward mobility, certainly. But also each one of us is positioned to contribute with the skills, the talent needs to help advance our communities, our region economically, and strengthen our democratic experiment, a very, very vital part of what makes us who we are as American citizens. And so that's something that is very, very dear to me.
JC: You've had a very impressive career in the field of education, spending time in California, Atlanta, New York City. Why Oswego? Why SUNY Oswego?
PN: Great question. Many folks don't know that I grew up as a small boy in this small village in my country, and I think I started life in a big city, really. I joked with one of the members of our college council during the interview process. When he asked a question, he said to me, ‘This is not the Bronx.’ I said, ‘No, I know, but I wasn't born in the Bronx either.’ So this has been a lovely place, and I'm glad that I made the choice to apply in the first place. When the search firm approached me and I haven't had a single regret.
JC: So your first impressions, you come to see what you saw.
PN: Lovely lake! I know it's a beautiful campus by the lake. But even more importantly, the quality of the academic experience, the quality of the faculty, the quality of the students who come to us, and you can see that. But also what is so key is what was handed over to us as a legacy from our founder Edward Austin Sheldon about the Oswego method. I know it's what most folks refer to, that every student who goes through this place has a hands-on experience. And you see that through and through in the experience of our students. That's why they make the choice to come here. And I engage students all the time. I say, ‘Why did you leave New York to come here?’ They tell me the same thing: ‘Well, I had a teacher who studied there.’ So, it's not just one-offs, but that's been a consistent theme. I met earlier today with students who are ambassadors with our university foundation board, and they come from multiple backgrounds, many of them in business, but they're learning from our foundation board members how to invest, how to manage money in addition to the experience that they haven't in the classroom. So we create these spaces with the support of alumni, folks who graduated here that are doing very well, exceptionally well, as well, that create these opportunities for our students. I'll say this final piece as well to that question. Every one of our students, 99% of them as a data will show up, you know, said in the high nineties when they graduate, they find a job or they go to grad school. You know, I can't think of schools, many schools that have that kind of placement rate. And employers are seeking those students. And when they graduate, they either here in New York State, another 35% in central New York. So there's something about this institution that attracts students, attracts faculty, but also attracts an administrator to want to come to this institution. So I'm very pleased to be here.
JC: As we're seeing those success numbers. We're already seeing enrollment go down at many colleges across the country, and your big initiative is Vision 4040, a very ambitious initiative. Can you talk about the goal of that and how you're going to implement that when so many colleges and universities are seeing enrollment decreasing?
PN: An excellent question. I took a careful look at the data and the role of this university and its context on its history in the region over the last 160-plus years of its existence. And yes, it is an experience…that role is one that was begun the 164 years by Sheldon when he founded the institution. It was one student at a time two, three, four. But ten presidents, 11th one later, this university has grown and each president has worked to advance that promise to have a more educated region. And so when I came in as president, I began to work with the Cabinet and you know, stakeholders. Mind you, right before COVID, we were graduating 20,000 students that decade, 2000 students plus every year. And then COVID came, and most institutions were impacted by the enrollment cliff. And certainly, there's been that challenge across the country, particularly in the Northeast Corridor. We looked at all of that data. But what we also have here are opportunities, economic opportunities, for growth that other regions of the country don't necessarily have. As you very well know, we have Micron Technology, which is working to make this place, along with the federal government, with the Biden administration signing the Science and CHIPS Act that was passed by Congress. Turning central New York into a semiconductor corridor. That is an opportunity that not many parts of the country have. And so Micron itself is investing $100 billion in our region. And certainly that particular investment over the course of the next 20 years will generate 50,000 new jobs. And there are many other industries that are also emerging in our space. If you look here in Oswego, for example, we have the Port Authority. I met with the CEO of the Port Authority, who was a graduate of our own institution, by the way, and he took on this Port Authority ten years ago and it was a $60 million entity. Today, it's half a billion dollars. He told me he needs workers. And interestingly, the areas where he's talked about needing workers are areas where we have opportunities here in supply chain management, which we call operations management. I can go on and on and on in terms of the reasons, but we also looked at the data in terms of the educational attainment rate in the county and in central New York. And it became very clear to us that if you look at that data, only 9% of young people age 18 to 24 have a college education and so part of Vision 4040 is really to change that picture, to work toward a more educated region that will meet the talent needs of the region as a result of these investments that are happening around us. National Grid is another one that’s investing $4 billion that will provide the region with 8,600 new jobs. So you've heard me say we are a region on the move, you know, but if we don't prepare our students to take those opportunities, then of course we have failed in that role. Now what is Vision 4040? It is really to double that 20,000 pre-COVID to 40,000, another 20,000 by the year 2040. We're talking about 15 years. And so if you look at it, this is really 4000 students graduated annually, but it's not automatic. We have to build the enrollment pipelines, which we are doing. We have an excellent enrollment management team and we're seeing some positive numbers. Our graduate enrollment is also up. We invited a company to help us do an analysis of academic programs, which they have completed, identifying where the opportunities are. We’re investing in those areas, working with our faculty. When I leave here today, I have a meeting with the chemistry department. I'm engaging faculty on the wonderful things that we need to do to close the gap. We're not just talking about degree productivity, we're also talking about certificates. Areas where there are needs. Not everybody wants to go to college and get a degree. Not everyone who has a degree wants to sit back and do nothing. Sometimes they want a certificate to add on to what they're trying to do. And so Vision 4040 is very encompassing. I encourage people to go online on the President's web page and read the 18-page document. It lays down the strong case and also identifies where we have pipelines, including international students. That is really my background. And I work I'm working with Josh, who is our associate provost for international education to further expand opportunities, but also create more opportunities for our students to study abroad. So there's a lot of work, you know.
JC: Yes, I read the document. It is very comprehensive and I realize there is a lot of growth coming to this area. What do you think will really help SUNY Oswego stand out among all these other schools that are trying to take advantage of this?
PN: Wonderful, excellent question. And so part of what we have been doing, we also brought that company to help us take a look at our brand perception. And so there were studies done last fall to look at internal perceptions of our…who we are. Our faculty, staff and students. Who do they think we are? And then said, look, we did the same thing with folks in the Tri-State area of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Karen Crowe is our vice president for marketing and communication and her team have looked at that data, and they now have presented a plan of fact this year, that plan with the president's council about how we move forward over the next three years and invest in resources, almost $1,000,000 initially in terms of this work. So that then will allow us to be in a position to tell our story as a hometown university is what I call this, hometown university, with a regional and global outlook where wonderful things are happening here. But we also want to tell those stories to be able to attract those students who may not know what we offer here. Excellent program in atmospheric science. Look at where we are. Look at our recent designation of Lake Ontario as a National Marine Sanctuary. There's opportunity there for research. We have an excellent, excellent Rice Creek Field Research Station, 400 acres of land. Not many people know of that. So we got to tell a better story of the wonderful work going on. We have just launched the Great Lakes Institute, which is another one to study climate science and the work surrounding that. We have an excellent, highly-ranked business program here, and we have a series of engineering programs that some people know we do, some don't know we do.
JC: So there are any misconceptions about SUNY Oswego now that you're looking into public perception?
PN: Part of the work that our team is doing is to really work towards a common perception about who we are, that people have different ideas about the institution. The data shows, that report is by way online. What I've tried to do is as we do this work we share with the campus community, we've been pretty transparent, and I think that's really helped to move the needle in terms of the direction. We're not just talking about things. We're actually doing some things and invest in resources to help move the needle. I am very, very confident that over time, we will continue to see progress along this path. It's not a one-day race. That's why Vision 4040 is spread over 15 years and the campus community and our stakeholders and others are really committed to this important work.
JC: You talked about the pipelines going into the school, but also a big part of that getting to that Vision 4040 is graduation and can you talk about the ACE program and what SUNY Oswego is doing as far as that?
PN: I am so thankful to the [SUNY} Chancellor [John King] and to Donna [Lindeman] who is leading this work. She's a senior vice chancellor for student success at the System Office. The ACE program is really a program that Donna brought from is the nationally ranked program she brought from CUNY. I walk with her very closely with at Lehman College and implementing that program, and we saw significant improvements in recruitment, but also retention and graduation. That's what we are. She and I talked about this. We will selected as one of the institutions to really implement this. And Cory [Bezek], our chief enrollment officer, has been doing fabulous work moving this. We have the highest number 275 students. There’s another school that is at 220. But SUNY Oswego has the largest number of student intake, so it provides wraparound support services for students. There's a designated advisor to the program, a course selection support along the way and around the way so that they're making progress. Transportation, books, tuition, you name that. And we've also had support from another entity that's provided additional funding for us as well. And so this is an excellent program that complements what we're trying to do with enrollment. I will also mention on the transfer space, because you talked about pipeline and we have also strengthened our collaboration with our three feeder schools, community colleges. The presidents of those institutions and I have met at our campus in Syracuse and here. And then we had a wonderful meeting, all of our presidents and our lead folks. And so we're zeroing in on a select programs with high transferring students where we're strengthening articulation agreements so that when students come here from OCC or from Jefferson or Cayuga [Community College], they are not staying longer than two years in their program, or if they come from Monroe Community College or any other college. I met with that student this morning before I came here from transfer from Monroe Community College. Students are very happy when they come here. So they also participate in the ACE program as well. So it's a wonderful program all in all.
JC: Okay, one more question then I'll let you go. You've been on campus for about a year now, but your official inauguration is right around the corner. What does that mean to you, this inauguration, all the events surrounding it?
PN: I feel like I've been at the university for ten years given the amount of work that's going on. I am excited about the opportunity. Everywhere that I've gone people are excited. The community, when I meet with community leaders and I'm very present as you as you see. And so this will be another event. The last time we had this was under my wonderful predecessor, President [Deborah] Stanley. We had lunch a few weeks ago. And that was 28 years ago we had an inauguration on campus. So the community is excited. It's a celebration, and I have my family here from all over that have already arrived from out of the country and other states to witness it. And so it's a joyous occasion. And who would have thought, you know, that this young man who came from his country years ago will be here as president of this wonderful institution? And I say only in this country, only in America will that happen. And this community has been extremely welcoming, from the mayor, the former mayor, from all of the folks I've met. This has been exciting and our community of faculty and staff and students have been extremely welcoming.
