Phillip Conn, Eastern’s second of three finalists in the search for a new president, fielded questions about collective bargaining, fund raising and his experience in a faculty open session interview Thursday.

Conn, the vice president for special programs at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, described Eastern’s alumni as a willing but unmined resource.

“Eastern has a large group of alumni who I know are enthusiastic and are relatively untapped,” Conn said.

Another way to secure funding for Eastern is to make it stand out, Conn said.

“You have to have that elevated positive visibility to attract followers,” he said.

Teaching is the center of a university, Conn said, and because of that, he supports faculty compensation. Conn said he didn’t have much experience in collective bargaining, but has studied it.

In a later interview, Conn discussed the strength of his work at Tennessee-Martin, despite controversy with faculty and dealing with the death of his wife of 28 years.

“When you look at what we did in two years while I was chancellor at Martin it was phenomenal,” he said. “We revitalized a campus life there which had gone flat.”

Martin was going through some changes at that time, which Conn said “takes much more work communicating than when things are status quo. I have learned that getting into a mode of progress makes great communication systems highly important.”

Conn also said it is difficult to make changes that will not be controversial or upset someone.

“Change for the better is painful when you’re learning new approaches,” he said. “I just tried to respond in a positive way to things that were beyond my control.”

While at Tennessee-Martin a dean had called for Conn’s resignation, and a faculty senate chair at the university said Conn had issues with listening to faculty.

However, Conn said the dean was mad over changes that were being made to the dean’s college and he said he interacted regularly with the faculty senate.