The Tombstone Epitaph sat down with Shockey to discuss the goals and challenges facing UA South.

Q: How do you plan to build stronger collaborations between the UA main campus and branch campus programs?

A: I come from the main campus. I understand how it thinks, to some extent. I understand the way things get accomplished there and, frankly, I understand the way a lot of people have – for the past five or 10 years — perceived of UA South. I think knowing all of that and coming down here and advocating for UA South is different than people who don't understand the main campus culture and main campus bureaucracy.

I know the people here have been very concerned that someone from the main campus would come down and try to ... make them an arm of the main campus. And we do want to have stronger connections. We do want the faculty to be more secure, to have academic connections to the main campus departments that they might not easily be able to develop while they're down here, so that professors in psychology at UA South would have access to a greater extent to professors in psychology on main campus for their intellectual growth and development for ... a more seamless transference of courses in both directions. We're just not there yet. Some of the courses here are different from the courses on main campus. It doesn't mean they're better or worse, but they're different.

Q: What are the challenges unique to Cochise County, where higher education may not be a priority for many?

A: It's very difficult because of space and location and finances. ... There may be educational issues as well. I know, coming from main campus, we have issues with many, many students making the transition to university-level coursework based in part on mathematics. ... It's my understanding that similar problems exist in Southern Arizona where you may have someone who's been out of school for 10 years so they have 10 years-worth of forgetting their math or forgetting a language or letting their technical writing skills atrophy.

... One of the things we're looking at is ways to maintain the lower rate of tuition that exists at UA South because it is cheaper to go here than it is main, but it's not free. So we're looking at ways to build up the pool of available scholarships and aid programs to try to remove that barrier.

Q: Do you foresee changing curricular offerings here?

A: Oh, absolutely! Changing means adding. We need to take advantage of opportunities that exist and opportunities present themselves in any number of ways. We currently have very strong elementary education programs here, in Pima County, and in Nogales as well. The people involved in those programs keep hearing there's a similar need for secondary education. So there's a process afoot to figure out the curriculum for a secondary education program and run that through the system as well. ... Undergraduate programs related to educational technology may launch into a master's program in educational technology and, over time, it's conceivable the mission of UA South could change enough that we turn into a program that offers PhDs. I leave nothing off the table. ...

There are also people here and at main campus talking ... about an intelligence degree program that would affiliate with some of the individuals posted at Fort Huachuca.

Q: How are state budget woes affecting UA South?

A: UA South, like every other administrative unit, has sustained cuts over the last several years. If you walk around our campus, you will see empty offices. You will see staff performing the jobs of two or three people. The funding to do things as we've done them in the past doesn't exist. We have to re-evaluate the way we do business. It's not getting cheaper to produce a degree; we're just getting less money from the state to do it. ... We've been active on our own to seek funding to support the educational mission. We've partnered with Cochise College in the past on a [federal] Title V grant to help improve the way we provide education to the Hispanic community. We've been declared a Hispanic serving institution so we can go after funding on our own or partner with others.

Q: What are you hearing from students and faculty?

A: Much like main campus, this has been a very stressful place for the last six months to a year. And I've seen that on main campus as the [university's] transformation led to a great deal of opportunity and uncertainty at the same time. And down here? Being isolated, being off many people's radar screens? They felt like they might be closed, they felt there might be a hostile takeover. ... So I walk in and I'm trying to meet everyone I possibly can, being as honest as I possibly can. I truly have UA South's best interests at heart. ... It's going to take some time for that level of trust to be built.

Q: Is there a sense that the university is committed to UA South, now that they've named you to this position?

A: I certainly have that sense. I believe – and I've been saying this over and over again — that UA South has a very significant place in the future of higher education in southern Arizona. The state of Arizona wants to increase opportunities outside of the major metropolitan areas. They want to create another tier of education, not tier in quality terms but tier in cost terms. There's no reason that every student who simply wants a college degree and to get a job out of that college degree needs to spend the money to support the research infrastructure that exists on main campus. And to the extent that we can determine the kinds of degree programs that are not as cost-intensive ... then we're going to benefit the state. And the legislature wants it and the Board of Regents is passionate about it. So I think, frankly, the time is now. No one's going to stand in our way.

Q: How will you keep UA South on the radar of campus administrators?

A: We are part of the Outreach College and the University needs as a whole to expand its student population; it's more or less a mandate from the Board of Regents. The goal for UA is to increase its student population by 10,000 by 2020. Main campus is full. They can't add 10,000 students ..., so it's UA South and this whole outreach perspective that's going to drive the "10K by 2020" proposal. So we have to be on their radar screen to accomplish that. And that is as much programmatic as it is political.

UA South at a glance

• The Arizona Board of Regents voted unanimously to designate the Sierra Vista campus as an official branch campus of the University of Arizona in 1995.

• UA South as locations in Douglas, Nogales and Tucson at the UA Science and Technology Park and on the campus of Pima Community College East.

• UA South serves 1,000 full- and part-time students in 19 programs ranging from teacher education to computer science.

• Details: www.uas.arizona.edu

Source: University Communications