We sat down with President Bill Ruud and asked how he saw our alma mater and what we might expect in the future.

What pleases you the most being here?

The people. I feel as though I’m welcome. The university is in great shape. We have good programs. We have good facilities. We have lots of places to go and lots of things we can build upon. Those are really the things that please me most.

What was most unexpected about becoming president?

I don’t think it totally surprised me, but it’s being the president. It takes getting used to the fact the buck stops right here.

So you have to be very careful. You are blessed and gifted with power you have to use very wisely. You can, for example, say, “I want this sandwich upside down on a piece of wood and I need it in five minutes.” And somebody is probably going to bring it to you. That takes a getting used to. It surprised me a little bit. I’ve decided to use it judiciously; use it wisely; use it carefully. Use it on behalf of the team; not yourself.

Were there any real fears you had to come to grips with in assuming the presidency?

I don’t think there were any real fears. You’re always fearful you’re not going to do the best by the institution.

I think you are a little scared. Have I had all the experience I need to be president? And the answer, like any other job, is no. There are always one or two things you face for the first time as president. In my case I am very fortunate I have a good background and good experience. I want to make sure I get the best information so I’m able to make good decisions for the institution.

Your first 120 days were spent learning about the university, are you finished with that process?

Ninety-five percent. There are a few people I still need to meet with. I’m finished with my one-on-ones with the entire Council of Trustees. I’ve had meetings with members of the chancellor’s staff and the Board of Governors. I’ve met with all the academic departments, finance administration, student affairs. I still have some folks in the foundation to meet. But I’ve really got a very good, although rapid, overview.

As you learned about Shippensburg University, was there anything that stood out or struck you as special?

The biggest thing I noticed, almost across the board, from students, faculty, staff, and the community—People love this university. And I don’t mean they just like it. They love it. It’s evidenced by their commitment to the institution and their longevity. That indicator tells me there’s commitment. That the things we need to do will be embraced.

It’s a pleasant surprise and a huge advantage for the institution because it will allow us to change. So even though we don’t want to change, the love, the commitment, the honesty, and the candor, are really an advantage.

You spoke quite candidly about wanting us to be the best in the system and one of the best, if not the best, regional university. What will get us there?

I think one of the best things I’ve done in the six months is really look, listen, wait, and set down what makes sense to be a process. I went out and heard what everybody had to say. We had a president’s cabinet meeting. We formulated where we want to be in five years. We formulated what we want to do over the next eighteen to twenty-four months in terms of getting us there.

On top of that, we are updating our facilities master plan. We’re in the process of a provost search. We’re going to be in the search process for a dean for the College of Education and Human Services and a vice president of finance and administration search. All of that will be done by this time next year. That puts into place a reconfirmation of what we need to do, where we need to go. How can we implement our strategy and have the budget dollars follow that strategy and not the other way around?

We’ve got a brand new recreation facility. It is absolutely gorgeous, 62,000 square feet, that’s hopefully going to be on line early next semester. We’ve got suggestions to upgrade our library facilities which is critical. We’ve got suggestions to upgrade our athletic facilities. Athletics is as important a window on the world for the university as is the Luhrs Center. Basically we are talking about building a whole new set of residence halls. Ours are 50 years old. We’ve talked about getting in more programmatic areas—the whole health/healthcare management/nursing area. And the increasingly important STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

We need to make sure we are serving this central valley. “I want to own the H to H corridor (Hagerstown to Harrisburg).”

The Board of Governors has encouraged us to reexamine our non-resident tuition differential policies, especially as a border school, to get more out-of-state students. We need to increase the number of international students we have. I think we can increase our profile and diversity by changing our non-resident tuition policy.

We need to be very aggressive, without being obnoxious, in getting out and telling and selling the Shippensburg story. It’s a great place to live. It’s a great place to work. It’s a great place to learn.

You put all those pieces together and that’s what makes Ship a really great place. As part of telling the story, you’ll be hearing and seeing more Ship words: Leadership. Scholarship. Partnership. Flagship. Entrepreneurship. Friendship. All are very important and make Shippensburg more special than it already is.

How do you see your role in accomplishing this?

One of the realities is I can’t do it all by myself. You have an idea. You get more information. You go forward. It’s clearly a team effort. I just happen to be the guy at the head of the line who puts his arms around all the people and moves them forward.

The important thing is the president has to embrace and spread the vision. Remind people, periodically, what the vision is. I’m part cheerleader, part president, part leader, part visionary, part regular guy. I have to always be thinking two, three, four years out in front of us. To remind us, “Hey… we’re going this direction.”

Occasionally you fall down, I’m the guy who picks you up, and dusts you off.

You always have to celebrate success. If a success feels like failure, no one wants to go forward. So celebrate success.

What’s your management style and how is that different from your leadership style?

My leadership style is I surround myself with folks a little bit brighter than I am, especially in their discipline. When things go well, it’s their fault. When things go poorly, it’s me who has to step up. I want every manager/ leader to do the same thing.

I take great pains to let people do their jobs. I want people to do their thing and learn from it. Then we can talk.

I love to smile. But more importantly I’d love to smile if everyone on our staff got to the level they wanted to reach. We provided the training, the development, the managerial guidance, the programming, the education that allowed them to get the most they could out of their life and their world.

Ship is a really good place. And I hope my management style is one where the atmosphere, the environment, are so comfortable people excel at whatever their pace. Then I’ll have been successful. The more each person, each manager, and each group excels the better the whole institution is doing.

If you feel good about your job, you’re going to go the extra mile. If that can be my imprint, I’m happy.

What’s the best time of day for you?

Probably 5–5:30 in the morning. I find I really enjoy Saturday and Sunday mornings. Walking with Judy and BJ. As I’m coming off surgery a big therapy for hip replacement is walking. So the more I walk, the better I feel. I know in order to feel good and maintain energy, I have to exercise.

I have to adjust to what’s good for other people too. A good time for students is between 10:30 and midnight. So I’ll visit the student union at 10:30, go to the residence halls and talk to the RDs and RAs. I did a little tour with the police from midnight to 3 o’clock in morning.

I have to prepare for all those times. It’s easier said than done and you want to be selfish. But I have a policy. If somebody needs to see me I’ll come in early, I’ll stay late. And if you need to see me today, I’ll make that happen.

Where I think I have an up on everyone else is getting things done early in the morning. As a kid, if I needed to do extra prep for a test, or project, or sports, 4:30, 5 o’clock in the morning. When I was in the army, we got up at 4:30–oh dark thirty–in the morning. That’s my time.

Is not having children an advantage or disadvantage for you?

Neither. I have a great family. I married into, now for 31 years, a huge Italian family with lots of age groups. In some ways, I suppose, my children, have always been the students. I’ve had the luxury of living with 18 to 23 year olds who never get any older. I get them when they’re 18. Mom and dad took care of them, sanded them off pretty good. We form them a little bit and at the age of 22 or 23 gloriously send them off. These 18-23 year olds have kept me young.

At age 55 with 30 + years of experience, I still feel ready to go every day. You have no choice living and working at a college or university, not to get up to speed. I’m going through all the initials now in text messaging. Students tell me they’re doing podcasts. “Oh, Dr. Ruud, you’ve got to have a blog.”

I will add, I think it’s important for us in universities to periodically go back to the six grader. I have always found six graders to be wonderful benchmarks of where we’re going. When you were in sixth grade, you were at the top, “I’m in the sixth grade and I’m king of the elementary school. I know everything about kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades. You cannot tell me anything.” You’re 12-years old going on 13, that magic but scary age. The reality is in six short years, half again your life, you’re a college freshman. Sixth graders are willing to express their opinion in no uncertain terms. I gave a speech about 10 years ago to a group of sixth graders. I was bragging on the Internet and on how important computers are. And this wise young man in the back row raised his hand, and says, “So how’s come you don’t have a computer in everybody’s room?” And I said, “That’s a great question young man.” It’s a great check.

It’s a scary thing. With college students, you kind of convince them it’s a good idea. And they say, “Okay, let’s go.” When? “Right now.” They want to build the dorms tomorrow. Do they care if we have the money for it? Nope, just have the dorms. Is the rec center okay? The rec center is so good we want to add-on to the student union. Really? Oh yeah, we need a bigger student union. You know you’ve got to pay for that. Yep, and we want it built right now.

Without students Shippensburg University would be boring. In good and bad ways, we would not be challenged everyday. That’s good for us. We think students aren’t paying attention, but they are. They’re looking, even if their eyes are shut in class. Their shut eyes are a statement—Do something, get me excited. Those children, who are paying attention, make my world wonderful.

You mentioned getting students and others excited about Ship. How do you see us generating that excitement?

We’ve got to remind ourselves we are not the only ones who can excite people to come here. We need to get that 24-year old in graduate school at Penn State to go out and say, “You know what? I had a great experience at Shippensburg University. So can you.” We need to reach out, especially and initially, and motivate those under ten-year alumni. We need to reach out more to the town of Shippensburg and let the community know we are a great place.

I talk about the Miracle on 34th Street recruiting model. Sometimes we have to tell them we don’t have something. I think if we’re honest and say, ”You know we don’t have aeronautical engineering. We’ve got good physics, good chemistry, good biology. You can go into pre-engineering and do this. But the best place for you might be Emory Riddle or the Air Force Academy.” That’s going to come back. I really believe if you treat people right they remember it. They’ll remember you were willing for them to succeed somewhere else. That’s how I think you recruit students.

Customer service. Customer service internally and externally. This is where you check your attitude at the door. You’re here to take care of everyone who walks in the door. The more pleasant, the more honest the experiences they have – we’re going to have a reputation as the place that takes care of people.

Expectations of students, faculty, staff, everyone are constantly going up. If something is practiced somewhere else, they’re going to call us on it. We’ve even talked about going back to where people can call in and talk to a live person. I must say I’m leaning in that direction.

We need to just maximize the telling and selling of the story. People, internally and externally, need to be conversant with what we have, what we offer, what it’s all about. Make people aware Ship’s a great place. And there’s enough knowledge about programs, events, and activities that keep people excited.

It sounds as if you expect everyone here to be good ambassadors for Ship.

Absolutely. And they’re happy to do it. They’re satisfied and happy about the commitment and their job here. They’re pleased we trust them. That goes back to my statement: the more positive environment I can create, the more folks are apt to help others. That goes back to internal customer service. We’ve got to treat people off the street and people inside as equal. In fact, we’ve got to treat each other better. We treat everyone off the street A, we treat everyone inside A+. We have to think that way.

I want every employee of this university to be able to say, “It might be a tough day today, but I’m excited to come to work.” People will look at us and say, “I want to work there. I want to go to school there. I want to teach there.”

Tom Peters in Search for Excellence says if you provide common, ordinary, garden variety, everyday customer service, you won’t have to spend any money on marketing because you’ll be in a market all by yourself. That’s what I want.

I heard you asked for a master key and Lance Bryson at the physical plant told you no. So do you mind if people disagree with you?

Absolutely not. If I can’t maximize the information, I can’t get an accurate scope of what is going on and I can’t make good decisions. Don’t just disagree. Raise your concerns. Bring an answer with you. Bring a solution. I think this is one of the few places left where we can have that discussion. If you can’t have the discussion, you’re not going to get the best answers. I love to engage people. I want people to have their two cents worth.

I love this story. In a small community, a tractor-trailer gets stuck in an underpass. Of course, all the brilliant people are out there trying to figure it out. They’ve got equipment, They try this. They try that. Nothing works. Watching it all is an eight-year-old kid sharing an ice cream cone with his dog. As people go by, he keeps trying to get their attention. “Hey mister.” Finally one snaps, “What kid?” “Why don’t you let the air out of the tires?” They let the air out and sure enough, truck drives right out and off they go. That’s the perspective I want to make sure I get.

In gathering information about Shippensburg did you see anything you thought needed to be redirected to better suit where Shippensburg is going or where it needs to go?

I appreciate the question. The broader answer is absolutely. There are things we need to do. Is student housing here good? Is it better than some of the stuff they’ve got at Penn State? Yeah. Do we need to seriously consider scraping and rebuilding our housing? Absolutely. Does that mean we tear everything down? Maybe not. Maybe some are reconfigurable, maybe some we just want to retain. The planning process is helping me with that. I don’t think initially I discovered how important a wooden basketball court was for athletics. Or how important reconfiguring a classroom building was to the academic community. Or how important it was to have a place like the academic success program on the first floor of the library instead of the basement. So those are some things I noticed.

When posed with a list of small projects, I always ask why? This has to be an on-going activity. It’s just reminding you and reminding me, are you passionate about it? Are you convinced? If I ask why are we doing that, it doesn’t mean I won’t do it. It does mean I want to be sure you believe this is a good idea.
There are all kinds of things I noticed that I didn’t think about. Things like making Stewart Hall the alumni center, or making the Rife House the police department.

In light of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, what was your first reaction and what did you learn or take away from the experience?

First reaction: Sadness. I see the whole sadness. Sadness for the institution, sadness for the families of the victims, sadness for the individual, who somehow got to this point in his life, and his family. You almost immediately click into how do we make sure we protect our place? Then two days later we have this suspicious package on campus.

We had this suspicious package and some people questioned should we have done anything differently? But reality is in all the steps along the way. The good news is everybody’s alive. And I feel good about that.

The challenge is, that in general, tragic events do not recur exactly like the previous ones. They don’t recur in the same form and fashion either. What it taught me, as we went through the analysis, is we are fortunate and need to learn as much as we can.

I also learned, the immediate reaction was technology. “If we had text messaging, it would have helped.” Maybe if we don’t think about the 20 to 25 percent who leave their cell phones sit somewhere. The magic solution to Virginia Tech is not text messaging. We are introducing a text-messaging system on campus in the fall, but we have to do some back-to-the-future thinking. We might need a megaphone. What do we do when the power goes out? What if… radios, computers, or cell phones are not options? We have to have a plan where we can cover the campus.

There was an article in the New York Times by President Trachtenberg. Basically he’s being sued for intervening early in a situation and notifying the parents, violating privacy rights. His editorial says, I’d rather be sued than have this young man dead. I would subscribe to that. There are a lot of Virginia Tech type events where the sadness is the individual chooses to take their own life. I think people would be saddened by the number of students who decide for whatever reason that life isn’t worth it anymore.

Tragedy is unpredictable. So you’ve got to have all your systems in place, and we continually have to check our systems. We talk to each other. We practice. We ask. We let other people take charge. And periodically, without scaring people, we need to have drills. We volunteer to be a disaster drill for the fire department and we learn.

I pray to god Virginia Tech does not happen again. I worry that it will. I am not prepared to make this a closed campus. I am not about to make this Shippensburg Airport. We’ve got to be cautious, we’ve got to be smart, we’ve got to be wise, we’ve got to be preventative, we’ve got to be reactive. Hopefully we take care events before they happen.

Is this the first time you lived on campus as an administrator?

That’s a good question. Yes, as an administrator. Is this the first time I lived on campus in what I call a managerial role, no. My wife and I were house parents for a fraternity house when I was in graduate school at the University of Nebraska.

Other than the obvious on call 24/7, what else is there about living on campus?

Number One—It’s fabulous. I am blessed. I’ve got a 5,000 square foot home with a three-car garage, a big double oven Viking stove with twelve burners in the kitchen, two refrigerators, a dining room that seats sixteen, a fire alarm, a panic button, an alarm system. I open the door at three in the morning and before I shut it, the police are there.

We need to share. The first floor is Ship’s family floor. We’re going to host Monday night football games, World Series games, final four basketball games. We’re going host some backyard stuff as you’ll see in the fall.

Next year is the 100th anniversary of the Martin House. I haven’t worked out details but we need to celebrate that.

Another thing people understand is, Judy and I have to make sure we get away, because you are on 24/7. I want people to know we’re real people, because we are. We’re normal. We’re regular. We do sit out in the back yard and eat dinner and that’s fine. But we are in a public setting, so people do notice.

Living on campus has other little joys. We have our neighbor, Martha Eastep whose husband Chester was a professor here. Martha comes over here, we go over there. Martha’s 93, but looks 65 – just a joy as a neighbor. We’re within walking distance of downtown. Even after hip surgery, it is only a ten minute walk.

We very much enjoy the Martin House. At times it’s a little overwhelming. We’ve got six bedrooms and three bathrooms. We have 1,000 square feet on the third floor. It’s not the new home structure with the lofts and the open stairways. It’s the old, thick walled 100-year-old home that was meant to be sturdy. It’s a well built home that’s going to be here a while. We love it. We enjoy it.

And there are no ghosts in the Martin House.

What would you like our readers to know about you?

I’m a farm kid from North Dakota who was fortunate to have a bunch of education. I have 33 years experience in higher education. It doesn’t make me better than, it just makes me different from everyone else’s experiences. And I really believe that. I work for the university and the folks there, and work with the administration at Harrisburg.

I have big heart. I’m compassionate. I love to laugh. I love life, my life. I like to have fun. I’m very much in love with my wife. I like to engage myself. It’s pretty hard to embarrass me. I have a fabulous family. I love chocolate. I said I was going to grow up and eat Oreos and drink Coca Cola, and I do. I love an occasional glass of wine. I love an occasional cold beer. There probably isn’t a food I don’t like to eat.

I don’t usually get angry. I get incident disappointed. I want to constructively criticize. I’m not in a business of communitively punishing. In 33 years I never had a student who didn’t earn their F. I’ve never had an employee who didn’t earn my discussion with them about seeking another opportunity. I am a big second, third chance person.

One of my favorite generals, Omar Bradley, was always identified as the soldiers’ general. I would like that to be me. I’m the faculty’s president, the staff members’ president, the students’ president. I’m all about you. Without you, I don’t have a job. People need to know that’s for real. It’s not a painted façade. Everyday, I wake up happy. I am happy. I do want people to get 15-20 percent pay raises. I do want people to speak up and express their opinion. It’s not phony. It’s not a gimmick. It’s me. It’s what I’m all about.

Thank you.