Open dialogue a priority for vice provost candidate

Portland State students and some administrators met with Vicky Triponey yesterday, one of two possible candidates for PSU’s vice provost for student affairs position who are visiting campus this week.

Triponey, who previously served as Pennsylvania State University’s vice president before going on sabbatical last Sept., said she wants to crate an open dialogue on campus–something she wants to continue as PSU vice provost.

“I think my job is to be chief student advisor. I have to be pushing and prodding on your behalf,” said Triponey, who against the idea of “plague” universities that keep themselves isolated.

Triponey was the target of criticism at Penn State by various groups, including an advocacy group called the Safeguard of State, which started a blog called the “Vickey Triponey Timeline of Terror.” Triponey also received some heat when The Daily Collegian, the school’s student-run newspaper, reported that she planned to cut off funds for the Penn State’s college radio station.

“What I inherited was that they were using university money to bail out the radio station,” Triponey said.

Triponey said she had to explain that the radio station must be funded by student fees, rather than by tuition dollars, because an agreement to use tuition dollars ended when she took office as Penn State’s vice president for student affairs, she said.

Nick Walden Poublon, the university affairs director of PSU, asked Triponey about other controversy she was involved in at the university, including a concern that she tried to restructure the Penn State student government.

Triponey said that the results of two campus-wide polls about the effectiveness of Penn State’s student government showed that the student body did not like the current system and found it ineffective. Student government leaders came up with a proposal for a new kind of student government, which Triponey helped pitch to the university president.

However, Triponey said she did not dictate the contents of the new proposal. The minority number of students who did not feel student government needed change, many of whom were involved with the Collegian, began spreading false information, she said.

“It’s all wrong,” Triponey said.

Associated Students of Portland State University (ASPSU) president Rudy Soto said one issue that needs to be addressed at PSU is that many university administrators are held by interim positions.

“Almost all of our supervisors are interims,” Soto said.

Triponey said that if selected, she would make creating a “sustained impact” on the university a priority–making sure that the lines of communication between student leaders and university administrators were kept open.

She said she has involved herself in and created new organizations, as well as involved students in dispute resolution processes to address these kinds of issues in the past.

If selected, Triponey said she would want to find and utilize the right “mechanisms” for communication between students and administrators.

Overall, Triponey was drawn to PSU because a sense of the understanding students seem to have for each other, she said.

“People respect each other,” Triponey said of PSU students. “I’m sensing something different in the underlying values of Portland State. There is a warmth, there is a sense of caring for each other.”

Jackie Balzer, the second vice provost candidate, will meet with students Thursday, March 6, from 11 a.m. to noon. in room 333 of Smith Memorial Student Union.