Jeffrey Roberts - Goals for the College of Science

Jeff Roberts says that among the reasons he was attracted to Purdue is that it is one of the great land-grant universities. “Purdue’s mission and goals are well-aligned with both my experience and my values. I feel strongly about the importance of publicly supported higher education, and I came to appreciate during my interview just how special a place this institution occupies on the nation’s higher education landscape,” he says.

His goals for the College of Science include ensuring that all junior faculty members receive excellent mentoring; increasing support for students under-represented in the sciences; and encourage more large-scale group research efforts supported by multi-investigator grants. In addition, he says he would like to see Purdue and the College of Science interface more with two-year colleges to help ease the transition for students coming into the college from those institutions. Other needs he cites in the college include improving the research infrastructure, continuing to encourage interdisciplinary research, and increasing the college’s endowment.

As a leader, he likes to begin working with people to come up with a broad set of goals the group can agree on, and then give them latitude to do what needs to be done. “I spend a lot of time thinking about and working on ‘culture,’” he says. “The key is to strive for an environment of high collegiality, high transparency, and high expectations. Once you have those, everything else falls into place.”

Source:
Purdue Marketing & Media, Kim Medaris Delker
Chemistry Communications, Steve Scherer