Chancellor finalist Justin Schwartz takes questions from students at a public forum on Thursday, April 4, 2024. (Henry Larson/CU Independent)
The solo finalist for the University of Colorado Boulder chancellor search, Dr. Justin Schwartz, made his first public appearance as the finalist for the position on Thursday at the University Memorial Center.
Schwartz, currently provost and executive vice president at Pennsylvania State University, spoke at three open forums for faculty, staff and students. He’s the latest in a growing list of senior university leaders announced as finalists without competitors.
Dozens of people attended the in-person events, while hundreds more watched online. Schwartz, who is set to replace longtime Chancellor Philip DiStefano, said he had two goals for his tenure at CU Boulder.
Schwartz said he wanted to help the campus and humanity “survive and thrive.” He repeated that phrase throughout three hours of question-and-answer sessions.
Early Thursday morning, the presumptive chancellor began by speaking with faculty members in the Glenn Miller Ballroom. About 40 people attended the meeting in person, with 140 watching online.
“The worst thing we can do is have students come, accrue debt and not get a degree,” Schwartz said during the forum.
Several faculty asked about Schwartz’s plans to further diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Schwartz said embracing DEI is important, and his goal for Boulder is to become a “guiding light for the rest of the country” for similar programs.
He added that he wanted to spend more time graduating than recruiting students from diverse backgrounds.
Chancellor finalist Justin Schwartz takes questions from faculty at a public forum on Thursday, April 4, 2024. (Kiara DeMare/CU Independent)
Many faculty and staff members raised concerns about better pay for university employees. Emily Harrington, the associate chair for undergraduate students for the English department, said a quarter of their staff are adjunct professors and retention is low because of the low wages.
“We’ve lost lots of good teachers. This isn’t a sustainable way to live,” Harrington said at the forum.
Schwartz said he would look into the issue further and that his general approach to solving similar problems was “to bring together a group of people who come at it from different perspectives.”
“Most of the best ideas won’t come from me, they’ll come to me,” he added.
Several people asked Schwartz about his commitment to sustainability. He said he embraced a multi-disciplinary approach to climate issues.
“There’s no discipline on campus that doesn’t have an important role in advancing a sustainable world,” Schwartz said. “And that’s one of the beauties of a large public university is that we bring the full spectrum of human intellectual thought into our disciplines, to the challenges and opportunities that we face as a species.”
The student forum was sparsely attended, at least in person, in comparison to the faculty and staff events. About 20 people listened to the finalist as he echoed many talking points from earlier in the day.
Schwartz mentioned that every group he had spoken with that day, including in several meetings not accessible to the public, brought up diversity and environmental issues.
One CU Boulder student, Yehuda HaLevi, asked Schwartz about an increase in reported antisemitism on campus.
“Antisemitism should have no home on a university campus,” he said. “And I would extend that to anti-Blackness, anti-Latino, Latina attitudes [and] anti-Muslim attitudes. There’s just no place for it.”
State law requires that any finalist for public university chancellor be announced two weeks before that person is formally appointed. Last year, DiStefano, the university’s current chancellor, said he would stay in his position until a search for his replacement had concluded.
“I don’t know Justin well, but he brings a wealth of experience as a professor, researcher, dean and provost. I’m pleased we have a strong academic as the finalist for the chancellor’s position,” DiStefano told the Boulder Faculty Assembly on Friday, according to CU Boulder Today.
Those wishing to submit feedback on Schwartz can do so through a survey managed by the firm that assisted the university system during its search. The survey is open until 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Contact CU Independent Special Investigations Editor Henry Larson at henry.larson@colorado.edu.
Contact CU Managing Editor Kiara DeMare at kiara.demare@colorado.edu.
