Jones reveals high hopes for A&M-C

Dr. Dan Jones, the sole candidate to be the eleventh president of Texas A&M University-Commerce, visited the campus last week.A variety of forums were held to allow students, faculty, staff, alumni and community leaders the opportunity to meet Jones and learn more about him and his plans for the university.”The entire university is a learning environment, and that includes the interactions that they have with faculty and staff,” Jones said. “Our dedication to their success will affect the way they experience the university.”He plans to set an example for faculty and staff by interacting with students on a daily basis in different ways, such as eating meals in the main cafeteria, meeting with student organizations and making himself available to students. In addition to questions from participants in the forums on everything from athletics to libraries and instructional technology, Jones was also asked to tackle the issue of competing with community colleges. He stated that we could not because of their price and convenience. Our focus, however, should be more on partnering with those community colleges to make sure that the playing field class-wise is level that will make the transition easier for transfer students.Jones spoke about the challenges he feels he will face as he steps into the presidential seat. The greatest challenge he feels will be that of finding the right resources. “Most of the time we end up passing off the cost of higher education to the students,” he said.He said that he plans to look for other resources in addition to students and the legislature to fund the University and its projects such as grants and philanthropists. Other challenges he thinks he will face include the many questions about the University’s mission and identity, both internally and externally. “Unless you’ve got a clear sense of who you are and why you’re here, you don’t know what to work toward,” Jones said. “The strengths of this university continue to be its location, its heritage, and its traditions. It also has great outreach programs and campuses. The addition of those may have caused some issues with identity, but I think we just need to say that this is where the University is founded, and this is where it has its roots, and we’re going to extend its mission to those other locations.” In the next three to five years, Jones said that he plans to continue the physical transformation of the campus Dr. McFarland, the current president of A&M-Commerce, began and to find a few programs that can be A&M-Commerce’s “signature efforts.” He also finds that continued dedication to enrollment growth must be a priority, as well as freshman retention. “We have to have high but attainable admissions standards to attract the students who will work hard and pay a lot of attention to them in a personal way,” Jones said. “The way to get excellence is to expect excellence. If we expect it, the students will deliver.”Jones finished by praising McFarland saying, “He has done so much to bring this university to a level to pass it on for someone else to capitalize on his successes and bring it into its next level of excellence. I am honored to be that person.”