A day with President Chapman
A look at the daily routine of the ‘big man on campus’
President Joseph Chapman is a well-known face around campus.
However, many students, staff and faculty may not know his daily routine at NDSU.
Every morning, Chapman gets up and walks to his office in Old Main.
He has two secretaries, Cathy Backer and Barb Pederson, who inform him of meetings for the day and personal appearances.
For Chapman, Wednesday was a day like any other.
He started his day meeting with Steve Bergeson, senior writer/news coordinator for NDSU, to write a press release about the Gateway Football Conference.
Chapman explained to Bergeson the importance of the conference for NDSU and provided a bit of background for the press release.
After the brief meeting, Chapman visited the Alumni Center for the new employee orientation.
Chapman said he enjoys the opportunity to talk with new employees.
“Some of them are the ‘front-line’ for NDSU,” Chapman said. “They are the people that parents and student talk to and see all the time.”
Chapman said he thinks it is important for those “front-line” people to have pride in NDSU because the pride is apparent to the people they help.
Another point he portrayed to the new employees is that “students are paramount.”
Without students, there would be no NDSU, he said.
“Everyone – staff, students and faculty – are partners in the institution,” Chapman said. “We were created to serve the people.”
After his introduction, Chapman took the new employees around the campus on a bus tour.
To continually show his support for NDSU, Chapman talks with people, gives tours and holds meetings.
Some of the goals Chapman made for NDSU when he first started was to “be an institution of more than 12,000 students, make renovations, have more doctoral and graduate programs and have more research at NDSU.”
All of the goals he set have been accomplished.
“Now we are just going to continue to grow and maintain our successes,” Chapman said.
According to The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, as cited on the NDSU Web site, “Chapman’s tenure at NDSU has been distinguished by a record of unprecedented successes in research, student life, curriculum, faculty pay and Division I sports.”
President Chapman came to NDSU in 1999.
Before coming to NDSU, Chapman served as senior vice president and provost at Montana State University, Bozeman, where he also served as a professor of biology, according to the NDSU Web site.
Last March, President Chapman was a candidate for the University of Wyoming’s presidency but withdrew after students held a “Don’t Go Joe” rally in the Memorial Union March 27, 2006.