Board of Trustees names Feroe CSU system acting chancellor

Monica Szakacs, News Writer-

The Connecticut State University System Board of Trustees named Louise Feroe, current senior vice president of Academic and Student Affairs, as acting chancellor Feb. 9, to succeed David Carter when his retirement begins March 1.

“That’s kind of my provost in the system, to act as the chancellor when he is gone— I’m sort of the number two,” said Feroe. “It was kind of natural for them to look to me and ask me if I wanted to do it in the interim.” 

Bernard Kavaler, assistant vice chancellor for Public Affairs, said Feroe is an experienced educator, serving as president of Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y, a multi-campus institution. 

“She is certainly someone who has a superb grasp of the needs of higher education,” said Kavaler, “and throughout her career, has been focused on student success.”

Feroe said she terminated her position as president to take on the roles of academic affairs in a larger system, because she said she is interested in those issues. The dedication, according to Feroe, puts her in a good position to keep “the trains running on time” in between chancellors.

“I think it’s really an interesting opportunity for me,” said Feroe. “I think I have a certain skill set in administration that can be helpful to the system at this time and its history, so I feel pretty good about it actually.” 

There are certainly many challenges, according to Kavaler, most of them related to the state fiscal situation which Feroe, as acting chancellor, and the four university presidents will have to collaboratively work on.

“I think that will be a successful collaboration because of the background experience and commitment that the presidents and Feroe share,” said Kavaler. 

Feroe said the challenges are the fun part of the job description. The interesting part is that the system office gets to really impact what the overall system looks like in the future, according to Feroe. She said the only reason there is a system officer for universities that get together for certain functions, is to do one of two things: provide the same level of service to students while spending less money, or somehow improve the student experience. 

Feroe provided an example of a function that was improved. The system reconstructed the registration procedure to be consistent, so students transferring with courses from one university to another have a much easier and smoother process. 

“It isn’t about governing the university,” said Feroe, “it’s about picking up some of the administrative pieces that might be able to either save money or do the service better.” 

There are goals that Feroe said she wants to continue to pursue as acting chancellor. She said one of her goals is to enable the system to continue to move forward on projects that were agreed on despite any uncertainty. One of those projects is a Voice Over Internet Protocol project that will lower the cost of telephones for everybody. Feroe’s other goal is to help guide the legislature so the decisions they make do not have unintended consequences that would make the system less capable of doing a good job with students.

“There is that whole legislative prerogative where we are trying to advocate on behalf of the universities as they consider the budget and all of the bills that come up in the beginning of a biennium,” said Feroe. 

The system is currently looking at the Blackboard system that all four universities use for distance learning, to see if they want to renew the contract with Vista or go another route. The project consists of a technical committee and an academic committee. She said the project needs to have closure and happen, because the Blackboard contract is up. 

“Some people like it and some people don’t like it, but the question of what is it we really want and is there a product out there that really meets our needs,” said Feroe, “is the important question to ask moving forward.” 

Feroe said she does not know how long she will be acting chancellor. She said it depends on the legislation that is pending now that might restructure the governance of higher education, or if that bill does not pass, which will be known by the summer, then the search committee needs to do a search for a chancellor.

“I suspect it probably won’t be less than six months and it probably won’t be more than a year,” said Feroe. “That’s just my suspicion.”