The new big man on campus

You're likely to find him strolling through campus, asking students how they're doing and practicing his made-up degree in MBWA—management by walking around. The new interim chancellor of UC Denver, Dr. Jerry Wartgow, describes his job as being the CEO of campus, which basically means he's in a lot of heavy meetings all day. With budget cuts and an accreditation review on the horizon, Wartgow gave an hour of his time to do one of the things he likes best, talk with students.

The Advocate: Are you excited to have this job

Chancellor Wartgow: Yes I am because I have a long history in Denver and on the Auraria campus. I started down here [as executive director of the Auraria Higher Education center] when the original science building was being built. So to be able to sit here and look out and see a very beautiful campus—it's very rewarding.

A: So you've been working with students for a really long time

CW: I've been working with students within different perspectives. I've failed retirement three times. After retiring from working with the Colorado Community College of Denver, I became superintendent with Denver Public Schools. For almost five years, I worked with high school students and got their perspectives on their futures and going on to college. After retiring from there, I spent the year as Dean at the University of Denver. And now I am the interim chancellor. I know. [laughs] I can't retire. I'm pathetic.

But I've seen the education enterprise from all these different perspectives, which is very helpful to have sat in the seats that everybody else is sitting in and understanding how complex this is.

A: Why do you think education is important.

CW: Everybody has his own story. It's important for me because I came from a family where my dad didn't go to school at all, and my mother graduated from high school, but nobody went to college. We lived on a small farm—no indoor plumbing for the first six years.

Because of education I met my wife and had a family. So I have a personal experience for what education can provide through broadening experiences.

What we all know is that education is so deeply entwined in the future success of the nation, from the very premise that, to have a successful democracy, you have to have an educated citizenry.

But we also know that poverty, healthcare, and education are intertwined. If we solve poverty, we can solve education [or vice versa]. I think that we have to be part of the solution for most of the problems facing the country, but while knowing that we can't solve them by ourselves. We are just going to have to get across these lines and work with all of the other social-governmental organizations to have a united front in solving these very difficult problems we are facing right now.

A: In regards to problems, what are the things that worry you most about the educational system

CW: I think we've done a wonderful job of extending access to education over the years...While we have access to education, the question now is what quality? I think we are losing ground, and have lost ground, and there's no easy solution.

I worry about that, being able to maintain the quality that has helped this country be number one in the world, but hopefully I'm in a position to help address it.

A: What do you like most about students?

CW: This is a good week to ask me this. The enthusiasm. The excitement. I was down helping the kids move into the [Campus] villages. They're there with their parents and their families. What I like most is the energy and the creativity that's out there. I think that's just the positive excitement. You can talk to a lot of people that are very negative about a lot of things. Students, they can get cynical I guess.

A: Yeah, but that happens in winter

CW: Yeah, but right now it's really fun. I was walking across the campus today and it was hustle bustle, so you gotta love it.

A: Where did you go to school

CW: I went to University of Wisconsin for my undergraduate in Mathematics. Then I did some graduate work in California. I went to the University of Hawaii, in Honolulu [sarcastically] because of the quality of the educational program.

A: Yes, the quality of tropical beaches.

CW: [laughs] That had something to do with it. Then I got my PhD in Managed Business and Higher Education from the University of Denver. That is what brought me to Colorado.

A: Why did you decide to pursue this sort of career? What led you to this? Because it's not something that most people are like, let me be a chancellor

CW: I started off being a mathematician, but I didn't have a lot of money, so student loans were necessary. This was a long, long time ago when Sputnik was going up, and there was a Space Race. The U.S. was worried that we were lagging behind the Russians, so you could get scholarships for being a math major. So I became a math major. Then when I graduated, if you became a teacher they forgave the student loans. Then, I ended up as Dean of students at the international school of Bangkok in Thailand.

Then I came back and somehow got off into higher education and have had a long career in it. Which has been a great career. I've loved it.

Wartgow continued to speak of his passion for international education, his support of the arts, and his embarrassment at making a makeshift finger splint from a Popsicle stick and a Spiderman band-aid, right before a meeting with the deans at the Anschutz medical campus.

With his open-door policy for students, Wartgow is ready to meet with anyone and hopes, at the very least, students will say hi to him as he practices his MBWA  campus.