Third Times a Charm?

After previous rounds of interviews for the vacant president position, Haskell is now on its third round of candidates. Candidates Wayne Johnson, Phd. Neil Wayne, Trottier, Phd., and Craig A. Morroquín, Phd. addressed the Haskell community with presentations on “Why I Want to be President of Haskell.”

Johnson’s speech focused on his image of transparency that he would bring to Haskell. As a Haskell alumni, he appealed to his loyalty and family connections to the Haskell community. Johnson answers the question of “Why I want to be president,” with “Why wouldn’t I want to be?” He ascribes this to an entire career devoted to Indian education, and as a leader of the highest level he wants to give back to the community and culture that helped shape him and strengthen his Indian-ness.

Trottier, an Education Specialist with 30 years of education experience, presented himself as a collaborative leader. His slides on leadership illustrated the importance of leadership as a servant-leader role and how collaboration is essential for the inclusion of students in the vision of Haskell. Trottier leans on his connections to Haskell and to other areas of Indian Country to help work towards Haskell’s benefit. He cites a colleague that makes $15,000 / day providing strategic planning for schools as a one connection to leverage towards improving Haskell. As president and past[1] football player, Trottier would like to treat athletics with the same importance as academics and bring football back to Haskell.

The final Candidate, Morroquín, came with a different level of preparedness and a plan. He not only touched on his background in Indian Education, but provided slides with a 90 day and a 5 year plan. His presentation highlighted his background as a statistician, practitioner, and researcher by providing a breakdown of his work and how it applies to the statistics of Haskell compared to other TCU’s. Morroquín aims to fill all vacancies, improve branding, hire a title IX coordinator, and create an electronic enrollment system within the first 90 days, and by 2025 would like to increase enrollment by 100%, increase degree completion by 50%, and increase full-time faculty appointments by 25%.

While the candidates were posed the question of why they want to be president, the real question for Haskell is if this third round the charm?