斯蒂芬·米. 约旦

As president, he transformed 密歇根州立大学丹佛 into what it is today. Learn the secret of his success.

Ask anyone in the 密歇根州立大学丹佛 community and they’ll tell you the same thing — 斯蒂芬·米. 约旦、Ph值.D., has radically transformed the University.

在约旦, Metropolitan State College of 丹佛 was an undergraduate institution doing good work, but one that was barely recognized by people outside of metro 丹佛.

In the 10 years 约旦 has served as president, Metropolitan State University of 丹佛 has grown in size and stature, adding new buildings and graduate degrees, while also developing a national reputation for courageous leadership and innovative, 相关的教育.

他成功的秘诀?

“我的球队，”乔丹说. “当我来到这里的时候, there were 22 vacant leadership positions, so I had the opportunity to put together a team, people who were and are committed to the vision we are trying to create. They might have different ideas about how to do it, but they all have been dedicated to transforming the lives of our students.”

无论如何, 约旦 and his team have done a remarkable job, as evidenced by an ever-growing list of accomplishments. Among the most notable of those are achieving university status, the addition of graduate programs and the creation of a nonresident tuition rate, which evened the playing field for undocumented students and heralded the ultimate passage of the ASSET bill.

约旦 also has guided the University through a time of immense physical growth, most of which has come as a result of groundbreaking public-private partnerships. The Hotel and Hospitality Learning Center and the Regency Athletic Complex were constructed with support from strategic partners in local industry. The forthcoming Aerospace and Engineering Sciences Building, 另一个值得注意的例子, is set to come on line in 2017.

‌For his part, 约旦 points to a less visible achievement as the one that makes him most proud.‌

“I knew we would need to rebuild and grow the faculty if we wanted better results in terms of retention and graduation,他说. “So we laid out a plan and made an investment in doing that. 这并不总是那么容易, but since I arrived we have hired more than 200 tenured or tenured-track faculty members. The result has been an increased number of graduates every year, totaling nearly 63 percent over 10 years. That is almost 1,400 more degrees granted this year than 10 years ago.”

约旦 gets to witness those results firsthand at commencement each semester. He finds great joy standing on the stage, shaking each graduate’s hand and watching the expressions on their faces. There is a wide range of emotions, but the common denominator is pride. And it is a reminder for 约旦 about the transformative power of an 密歇根州立大学丹佛 education.

‌As the University’s 50th anniversary year gets underway, 约旦 is hopeful that the institution can honor its past, while continuing to embrace the future.

“We should never lose sight of the reason we were created,他说. “政府. 罗默, who led the fight to start a new kind of institution, said he wanted this to be a place for scrappy kids who wouldn’t go to college otherwise. That should always be the driving force of our mission, 但同时, we need to be even better at our work. We need to continue to improve our graduation and retention rates to prove to the country that our students are capable of being successful, so we can be a model in higher education.”

With 约旦 at the helm, 密歇根州立大学丹佛 seems poised to do just that.