Margaret E. Winters told staff, faculty and Student Senate members during her interview that she was “excited” to be one of the final candidates for the position of vice president for academic affairs.

“I look at myself in the mirror on weekends and I think I’ve never left school,” Winters said. She is currently the interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and research at Southern Illinois University.

Winters said that since assuming her role at Southern, she continues to teach one class a year and still conducts academic research.

“My whole administration background is based on the centrality and importance of the university mission,” Winters said.

Winters continued to describe her views on what the mission of higher education is.

“We prepare students for the rest of their lives; we are not just a professional trade school. We are more than that. We teach students the ways of dealing with the world and how to be successful in that world. We teach them how to learn,” Winters said.

Winters described her beliefs about online education.

“I believe both the dangers and rewards have been exaggerated,” Winters said. “It isn’t something that should be gone into lightly.”

Winters said Southern and Eastern have taken similar approaches to online education, and there might be some advantage to that.

“We get to look around and see what has failed,” Winters said. “It is not going to be the answer to anyone’s tuition problem.”

Another commonality Southern has with Eastern is a unionized faculty.

“(The faculty and administration) went through about 10 years of poor communication and sometimes a complete lack of communication,” Winters said, referring to the tensions between Southern’s faculty and administration that led to the unionization about five years ago.

Winters said there was a lot of neglect of the faculty and their concerns were not being completely listened to.

Winters said that she respects the fact that there is a union.

However, she said its creation does add an “extra level of structure” and it “seems a pity to add another structure” to the over-bureaucratic form of the higher education system.

Winters also said the addition of the union “takes away a certain flexibility.”

“It is a growing relationship,” Winters said about the relationship between the union and administration at Southern. “You have to give it time to grow.”

Concerning the location of Information Technology Services, Winters said at SIU she is used to its location under administrative affairs (business affairs).

“It is traditionally torn on a university campus,” Winters said.

Winters said the “instructional support” and “advisement program” aspect logically tend to fall under academic affairs, but the “purchasing and payroll” aspect tend to fall under business affairs.

“From the academic end, it has been too much a business

entity for a long time,” Winters said. “It can go either way for reporting lines, but people who are affected need to have a voice in it.”

Winters listed one of her strengths as really liking to meet people.

As to her weaknesses, Winters said she doesn’t make “instant” decisions and dislikes conflict.

In all, Winters has worked at Southern for 22 years, working her way up from assistant professor of foreign languages in 1978. She began her career shortly after receiving her doctorate in romance linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Two more candidates for the office of vice president for academic affairs are scheduled for on-campus interviews.

David A. Young, current dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at University of Missouri, will be on campus April 6, and Blair M. Lord, current vice provost for academic affairs at University of Rhode Island, will be on campus April 11.

The search committee, comprised of appointed faculty, staff and students and chaired by Bonnie Irwin, will recommend three individuals to Eastern President Carol Surles, who will make the final decision.