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News Release
Dec. 18, 2006
FIESTA
FEVER: In anticipation of the upcoming Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Boise State
University’s Office of Communications has identified story ideas that would be
of interest to the community. Following is one of these stories. Feel free to
use as written, or contact the sources listed at the bottom for more
information.
BSU President Kustra: This is
a Way to Showcase the University as We Never Have before in Our History
A few days
after the nationally ranked Boise State football team finished the 2006 regular
season unbeaten and earned a berth in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Boise State
President Bob Kustra sat down with Bob Evancho, editor of FOCUS, the
university’s alumni magazine, to discuss what the Broncos’ success means to the
university beyond the scope of intercollegiate athletics.
Q: How does this football success help Boise State, image-wise and
financially?
A: There are over 400 universities like Boise State in the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities and very few of them get the
opportunity to step up on a national stage such as the Fiesta Bowl. This
opportunity allows us to promote not only the athletic program but also the rest
of the university. That’s a very large national stage, and there’s room for
every one of our eight colleges. There’s room to promote and highlight the
quality of our teaching, the scholarship of our students, and the research of
our faculty — people who have made important discoveries in areas such as
medicine and health.
In every way, Boise State has an opportunity here very few universities have.
All you have to do is look at the top 10 or top 20 universities in those
football rankings and you’ll see that they’re also among the finest
undergraduate institutions and have some of the best graduate programs in the
nation. They are also some of the finest research universities in the country.
Thanks to the momentum built by the football team, there’s no reason to believe
that we can’t stand beside these schools in the years to come. And we can
accomplish much. First, we need to keep this football program growing in
national stature as it has been doing. Second, we need to build our graduate
programs and continue to emphasize the quality of our undergraduate programs.
Third, we need to build our research faculty alongside our teaching faculty. We
also need to continue to work in tandem with our local economy and corporate
partners in discovery and invention, to improve the quality of life here in
Idaho and beyond. So in every way this is an opportunity to showcase Boise State
as we never have before in our history.
Q: Back in 2004, we were in a similar situation: an undefeated regular
season, games on ESPN, and a high-profile coach getting lots of national
attention. I remember asking you, “Is it possible to put a price tag on this?”
Now that we’ve been given a second go-round with the same phenomenon, have you
given any more thought to what this means to us financially – the infusion of
dollars that will come to Boise State because of our participation in the Fiesta
Bowl?
A: Even though everyone is focused on the few million dollars we will
supposedly take home from our appearance in the Fiesta Bowl, we’re missing the
point. If we had to pay for the marketing and the P.R. in The New York Times and
the L.A. Times and every newspaper and radio station that mentions Boise State,
we couldn’t begin to cover it in our budget and it would well exceed the $3.5
million estimated proceeds that we will take home from this. We have been given
an advantage that very few universities have. This opportunity for us to
showcase our strengths and assets is invaluable. But here’s something worth
noting: George Mason University’s president [Alan Merten] recently told me that
the [GMU] basketball team’s run to the Final Four last season has generated an
estimated $90 million in P.R. for the school since then.
Q: Who has been the most active among those who see this opportunity for
BSU to promote itself?
A: First of all, I’ve heard from our faculty. I heard from a faculty
member the other day who told me about a colleague of his at a university in the
state of New York. The professor from New York had just seen Boise State in a
local news story about the football team, and he was genuinely excited to share
that with his BSU colleague and talk more about our university.
Q: How has the football team’s success helped with the recruitment of
faculty, staff and administrators?
A: When I interview new candidates for an administrative job at Boise
State, every one of them has a knowledge and understanding of what Boise State
is, and they give us credit for figuring out how to take a mid-major university
– a comprehensive university – and catapult it among higher education’s major
players with this nationally ranked football team. All of these schools, as I
said earlier, are first-class academic and research institutions.
Q:How have your fellow presidents and administrators nationwide reacted
to you in regard to the football team and its high profile?
A: I’d have to say that my dealings with my fellow presidents, especially
my fellow WAC [Western Athletic Conference] presidents, have worked to our
advantage because they have developed an interest in our football team. Last
summer, my wife Kathy and I traveled to New Mexico for the national conference
of presidents, and we spent a lot of time at that conference talking to
presidents about the football team. They wanted to talk about how our football
team has attained the heights it has. I heard the other day from somebody that
in the inner sanctum of the University of Minnesota president’s office, the
president instructed his staff to find out how the success of the Bronco
football team has paid such dividends to the rest of our university. There seems
to be this widespread question at other universities that asks, “What’s going on
at Boise State and how can we do some of those same things?”
Q: A Big Ten school is asking how Boise State does things?
A: Yes, and that says quite a lot about Boise State when major research
universities like Minnesota want to learn from us. Of course, I want to learn
from them, and that’s the point. When we bring the quality of our university
forward, we intend to do it not only in athletics, but academics as well. And
there is no reason we can’t learn from the University of Minnesota in academics
and research just the way they’re learning from us in regard to athletics.
Q: In your estimation, is BSU doing all it can to parlay the success of
the football team and promote and highlight other areas of the university?
A: I think one of the easiest ways to do that is in faculty profiles
where you identify faculty members who we know are fans of the football program.
We do a profile of them where they talk for the first few minutes about their
enthusiasm for the football program and then the interview turns to them as a
faculty member: “So tell me what you do?” And then in the course of telling that
story, we learn that the faculty member has just published a book and the book
is now used in “X” number of universities around the country and this faculty
member is engaged in research and just received an NSF grant. And that grant is
leading the way to a new invention in electrical or computer engineering or
whatever it might be.
I think the job for us now is to link our academic quality with the quality of
the athletic program. And I’m always reminded what Coach Pete [head coach Chris
Petersen] told me, that when he is recruiting student-athletes this time of
year, he is recruiting against the Pac-10. So they have to convince a parent
living in California, Oregon or Washington that the quality of our academic
program is every bit as good as the quality of the football program and the
quality of the academic programs in the Pac-10. Now, I understand that we aren’t
going to become a Stanford overnight, but I certainly think that I can hold up
our program to Oregon State and the University of Oregon and the University of
Washington when it comes to quality of the academic offerings. On the research
side, we have some work to do to get there. But again, if we benchmark ourselves
against those teams – the teams and universities that we are competing against
in football and in the recruitment of student-athletes – we will get there.
Q: In the last couple of years you, with the assistance of our provost,
have set some ambitious goals — primarily the campus master plan and Charting
the Course, our strategic plan. How has the football team’s success and the
publicity it has generated allowed you to promote and publicize these plans?
A: First, our vision for the future at Boise State has to be validated by
our State Board of Education. The board has to believe in our plans and have
confidence in the steps we are taking to achieve those plans. Merely saying that
we aspire to become a metropolitan research university of distinction is not
going to get us there. It’s a way to start the discussion, but the next step is
providing tangible proof. The State Board wants proof that we have within our
campus community the talent and the resources and the vision to take us there.
The strategic plan – Charting the Course – is part of that proof. It’s what the
State Board of Education needs to see to place its confidence in what we’re
doing. So when we go before the board with a new Ph.D. program or a new master’s
degree, the board members see that it is a part of a carefully strategized plan
on how to better serve the region, the state of Idaho, and the nation. And if it
were not for that strategic plan, I think we would be on very weak ground
walking into board meetings and expecting its members to support our plans for
future developments.
Q: In the past, there has been some resistance to Boise State’s ascension
academically. The football team’s success has certainly helped raise our profile
in all areas. Have you seen, or do you feel, less resistance in that regard as
far as the support the university is getting statewide?
A: We think there is less resistance today than years ago, as far as what
I’ve heard of those days. The presidents of the state’s higher education
institutions have a good working relationship. That doesn’t mean we don’t
compete from time to time. Certainly, Boise State has an excellent relationship
with the State Board that’s due in large part to the outstanding staff we have
here who present on the academic and financial side. [Provost] Sona Andrews has
impressed the board with her grasp of what the future holds for Boise State and
[Vice President for Finance and Administration] Stacy Pearson reassures the
board every time she is before them that the university is in solid fiscal shape
and has a great staff to back that up.
These are very important messages to send to the board. I served as university
president in Kentucky, where the University of Louisville and the University of
Kentucky are 60 miles apart. The University of Kentucky is the land grant
institution and Louisville is the metropolitan research university. If you go in
that state today, they are going to tell you – even though they are both great
universities – that they have to spar occasionally for resources and for
programming and for definition of who they are. The same thing will continue to
happen here in Idaho from time to time, but generally speaking, I think we are
making progress in helping people understand why the University of Idaho and
Boise State University are two very different institutions. And as a
metropolitan research university, we really shouldn’t be competing with the
University of Idaho. And as a land grant, the University of Idaho really
shouldn’t be competing with us. UI should be competing with other land grants in
the region and we are going to be competing with other metropolitan research
universities in the Northwest and across the West. If we, as Idahoans, keep that
in perspective, then there is a way to grow and improve the quality of higher
public education without subtracting from one to give to the other.
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Contact: President’s Office, (208) 426-1491
Media contact: Bob Evancho, University Communications, (208) 426-1643,
bevanch@boisestate.edu
We’re proud to be the home of the undefeated, Fiesta Bowl‑bound Broncos, the
national champion student speech and debate team, and the nation's 12th‑ranked
engineering program among public, comprehensive universities.
The Office of Communications and Marketing
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Boise State University
1910 University Drive -
Boise Idaho 83725-1030
Located in Capitol Village, 2225 W. University Drive
208-426-1577
(fax)208-426-4001
email
communications@boisestate.edu
Last reviewed on
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
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