When interim President Lou Hencken held his first meeting with his vice presidents in August of 2000, he laid the basis for how decisions would be made under his watch – what’s the best decision in the interests of the university and what is in the best interests of the students.

It is that attitude and philosophy that has turned Eastern on its head, made it a better university for students as well as faculty and made a life-long veteran of student affairs a successful university president.

Through his term as interim president, Hencken pulled the campus community together after a year of bitter faculty salary negotiations and several years of decreased enrollment.

As Hencken begins to make way for Eastern’s next president, freshman applications for next year are at an all time high, the administration, faculty and staff seem to be “rowing in the same direction,” and the university’s image, both locally and nationally, is continuing to grow.

And through it all, the interim president has been able to slash the university’s budget at the state’s demand and help prepare Eastern for a financially dismal future.

“I thought this year we need to turn this whole thing around,” Hencken said about the university’s enrollment crisis. “When I walked around campus I felt (the enrollment drops) were having an effect on the psyche of the people here.”

Upon taking the President’s Office, Hencken set a goal of 250 more students for this coming academic year. To do that, he pulled resources together to hire more recruiters and made use of new publications produced under President Carol Surles.

“Now I see a whole lot of people walking around saying ‘this is good, we’re popular again.’ Well, we always were popular,” Hencken said. “It’s like there is something really special about being able to say we are closing admissions.”

Perhaps the most non-tangible change Hencken has accomplished, is the university’s new, and much needed, cooperative atmosphere.

Through the eight years Hencken served as vice president for student affairs, he said he would often witness a “silo mentality” among the vice presidents.

“I saw a lot of vice presidents looking out for what was in the best interest of their area and not necessarily what was best for the university,” he said.

So when Hencken held President’s Council meetings, he worked to get all the areas to think in terms of “the best interests of the university.”

“That is why when we got down to making the budget cuts…you had cooperation,” he said. “So that you had Jeff Cooley (vice president for business affairs) saying ‘I understand that having classes for students the second semester is more important than painting the second floor of Old Main even though it does need to be painted.”

This fiscal year, Eastern was asked to give back $2.3 million to the state because of dwindling tax revenues during a nationwide recession.

“We were able to survive the budget cuts,” he said. “And I don’t think many people on campus felt it.”

The cooperation among vice presidents and the new attitude in the President’s Office has “filtered down” to faculty, staff and students. But Hencken has also made a difference outside of Eastern’s campus.

He has made numerous trips to Springfield to talk about Eastern and inform legislators about all the benefits the university brings to the state. He also took an unprecedented trip to Washington D.C. to lobby for federal funds and promote Eastern’s work.

In addition, his Presidential Cabinet of area business and community leaders has been convening to spread the word locally about Eastern’s accomplishments and goals.

One thing is for sure, Hencken has not looked at his interim presidency as a “caretaker” position. He has continued to not only move Eastern forward, but to bring it together.

Hencken isn’t on the list of the Board of Trustee’s choices for the next president. And he won’t confirm if he had applied or not.

Regardless, Hencken and his wife, Mary Kay, are currently looking for winter homes in Clearwater Florida, South Carolina and Arizona.

“You’ll still see me around the Rec center and on campus,” he said. “But you might not recognize me cause I’ll be wearing short pants.”