By INGRID MALDONADO
Dr. Steven Maier will be the new vice president for academic affairs starting in July.
Maier will step into this position following Dr. James Bell, who will be retiring after this spring semester.
Maier is a first-generation student who aspired to be a teacher.
He grew up in New York and got his undergrad in physics and teaching at St. Lawrence University in New York.
From there he went to Oklahoma State University and got his master’s degree in physics.
Once he started working at NWOSU, he started his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D) from the University of Oklahoma.
“I really just saw myself as a high school teacher, and I don’t say ‘just’ as a negative thing, I mean that’s what I wanted to be,” Maier said.
Maier explained he didn’t see himself going into administration, and how he only wanted to teach because he loves science and liked the idea of teaching because he had teachers who promoted that career.
He said his career progressed differently as he started as an instructor of physics, then became a professor, then chair to a dean.
In a span of 27 years and a half, he’s collected experience, tried to remain humble and go through the process, Maier said.
“I want to maintain the continuity, I want to maintain the integrity and just make sure that I uphold the standards that they’ve set,” Maier said.
Maier explained he wants to do this job as well as people who have been in this position in the past, like Bell, Dr. Bo Hannaford and Dr. Steve Lohmann.
This job will be new and different, and there’s going to be a learning curve, he said.
Maier said one of Northwestern’s academic strengths are the programs it has.
He said Northwestern has many programs that people in the state and beyond the state are aware of.
While going through the Chicago airport, Maier said he started a conversation with someone about their daughter who is completing a nursing degree at Chicago State University and then recommended her Northwestern’s Doctorate Nursing Program which is available online.
“I think we have programs that are marketable to Oklahoma students for sure, and we want Oklahoma students but we also have reach,” Maier said. “We have faculty with national and international experiences and we have that reach here in rural Oklahoma.”
Maier brought up an enrollment cliff, which is a decline in students attending college.
He said while this is affecting Oklahoma, it is affecting the East and West Coast more extensively.
Due to this, he explained that recruiting new students has been a significant challenge recently.
“We’ve got the retention and the enrollment form, we have chairs and we have faculty and we have administration that are working together to recruit students and to retain students,” Maier said. “That’s a challenge we are overcoming.”
While there are some challenges, Maier said they are accomplishing significant benchmarks.
One of them being maintaining a steady increase in enrollment, he said.
Although it is not a huge increase, it has been increasing steadily.
Another accomplishment was no tuition increase in four years, he said.
“All of this in the time where the economy isn’t the best, but we kept the tuition the same, and while that was happening, the enrollment was increasing,” Maier said. “So, we’re accomplishing great things.”
When talking about the programs, Maier explained there is a lot of what Northwestern can do with what it has to offer.
While Northwestern does not have a microbiology major, one of Northwestern’s graduate students went to be the lead microbiologist for NASA, he said.
“It’s not that we have to have a specific program to find success for our students to go and do great things and very specialized fields,” Maier said.
Maier said one of the things that motivated him to go into teaching was to have an impact.
He explained he was excited to be a part of students’ lives and have an impact on them.
Then when he had the opportunity to serve as chair, he was excited to have an impact on the department’s program and as dean an impact on multiple protocols, he said.
“I’m excited to be working with faculty, and the university as a whole, excited to see what the future holds,” Maier said. “Again, just looking to continue on the great things that have already taken place here.”