Kustra on his 15-year career heading Boise State: ‘Job of a lifetime’
Retiring Boise State University President Bob Kustra, in his final budget presentation to lawmakers today, said heading the state’s largest university for the last 15 years has been “a job of a lifetime.” Kustra is the former elected lieutenant governor of Illinois; served in both the state House and Senate there; served as the chairman of that state’s Board of Education; and was president of Eastern Kentucky University before he came to Idaho.
He thanked lawmakers who have “just made this job so interesting and so rewarding in many ways – I just want to thank you for making this the best job of my life.”
Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee members returned the compliment. “Dr. Kustra, thank you for your vision,” said Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, JFAC co-chair. “You’ve really given a lot to BSU and to the state of Idaho. We appreciate your service.”
Rep. Phylis King, D-Boise, said Kustra has “taken your university from a good university to a great university. I want to thank you for all your service and the great job you do.”
Kustra’s budget presentation was a spirited one, highlighting numerous successes at Boise State. He opened with this recent quote from former longtime Hewlett-Packard head Meg Whitman at a recent global innovation summit hosted by ATT, who said, “You can go to places like Boise, Idaho, where at Boise State, the top 40 or 50 kids in engineering at Boise State are just as good as they are at Stanford or MIT or CalTech.”
Kustra said that kind of praise is “a testament to many years of hard work and devotion that we have focused on here at Boise State as we set out to be leaders in preparing students for the complicated and high-tech workplace of the future.”
BSU’s new computer science program has nearly tripled its number of graduates since 2013, Kustra reported, and 90 percent of those graduates got jobs in Idaho. First-year retention in that program has grown from 50 percent to 85 percent, and university-wide, BSU’s first-year retention rate – the percentage of freshmen who come back as sophomores – has reached 80 percent, above the national average and the highest level among Idaho state higher-ed institutions.
Boise State also welcomed its largest first-year class in history this year, for the second year in a row; and set a university record for the number of graduates each academic year for the 9th straight year. It also surpassed $50 million in research grants and contracts.
In recent years, the college has solved bottlenecks that prevented some students from getting the classes they needed to graduate in four years; and launched a new “beyond the major” program focused on offering certificates, badges and other “validations of skills and competencies beyond the major.”
“The major is great, but some students put so much emphasis on the major that they miss getting those skills and competencies that the employer is asking for in a first job interview,” Kustra told lawmakers. “It might be nothing more than a Microsoft certificate.” Another example: A Harvard Business School certificate that enables a liberal arts major to show he or she has mastered business skills.
Asked about whether the creation of the College of Western Idaho has drawn students away from Boise State, Kustra said, “That’s my favorite topic right there.” He recalled how when he arrived in Idaho, Boise was the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a community college. Boise State joined with numerous interests in the Treasure Valley to push for the new college – including Gov. Butch Otter – even though some at the college feared it “would cost us students.”
“As it turns out, it’s been the greatest thing for this valley,” Kustra said. “What they’ve done there in a short period of time, growing thousands of students in enrollment – it’s been a remarkable achievement.”
“I can’t say enough for the role that CWI has played in Idaho’s educational progress,” Kustra said. “As far as we’re concerned, we have such a great relationship now that a student can leave sophomore year at CWI and come right into Boise State, and it’s as seamless as it can be.” He added, “Of course, the courses students take have something to do with this. But we couldn’t be prouder of our partner over at the College of Western Idaho. We think it has enhanced and benefited in so many ways the culture and the opportunities at Boise State.”
Like all college presidents who have addressed legislative budget writers so far, Kustra praised the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, for which Otter has recommended a $5 million boost next year, to bring the fund to a total of $15 million a year.
He also called Otter’s idea of allowing up to $3 million of the fund to be used for “adult completers” – adults returning to college to finish their degrees – “a great idea,” saying, “I think it’s important to give adults the opportunity to come back.” But he also said the idea should be tried out, and then evaluated. “Then we’ll know effective it could be,” he said.
Kustra said Idaho will need to draw adults back into college to meet its goal of having 60 percent of its residents age 25 to 35 hold some type of educational degree or certificate beyond high school. “The fact is, we’re not going to get to 60 percent solely by the number of 17-year-olds who decide they’re going on to college,” he said.
BSU has a program called Boise State X, he said, that’s reaching out to employers to assist employees who want to work on completing their degrees, on or off the job. “We have educational pathways that are very, very special in this regard,” he said, “online, multi-disciplinary degrees that give students the flexibility to finish their degrees while taking care of a family, while working. It’s a great program.”
BSU submitted several budget requests for next year that Gov. Otter didn’t recommend funding. They include a shift in some personnel costs from dedicated to general funds, to lessen the cost to the university of covering state-directed employee salary increases; a $2.2 million “Public Service Initiative” through the School of Public Service that included a data and research lab and 16 new employees; and a Career Readiness and Success initiative, at $2.6 million, that would have added 27 employees, including 18 career specialists and nine faculty.
“We are truly excited about becoming a national model for how we deal with students who are moving through the undergraduate experience,” Kustra told lawmakers. “Historically, a student chooses a major, and at senior year, walks into a career counselor’s office and says, ‘Line me up with an interview.’ … Now we’re starting from the first year.”
Students who arrive on campus will be greeted not only by their adviser for classes, but also by their career counselor, he said. Coupled with that effort will be the “beyond the major” push. “We want to make that student employable,” Kustra said. He said higher education hasn’t traditionally put enough emphasis on “what role do we have in making sure this student is not going to be underemployed or not employed at all once graduated. … We’re ahead of the game at Boise State, and this line item was really going to kick this off, really kick it off.” But even without it, he said, “We’re going to continue working on it. It’s going to take longer.”
