Editor’s note: Last of three profiles of candidates for president of Missouri State University. Richard “Biff” Williams was profiled Feb. 11. John Jasinski was profiled Feb. 22. Follow all of our coverage of the search here.
Wherever Roger J. Thompson works in higher education, enrollment soon increases.
Thompson, 57, appears to have found the secret sauce in attracting and retaining undergraduate students who year after year not only are more diverse as a group, but also more academically capable.
Thompson is a self-described “people person” with a love of sports. He once dreamed of being a sports broadcaster.
He has been vice president for Student Services and Enrollment Management at the University of Oregon since 2016. He has been at the university since 2010.
In 13 of the past 14 years, Thompson led efforts at Oregon to set records for entering class size in the fall, academic quality, diversity and net revenue.
He said in a December 2022 Youtube interview:
“We're the only school in the state offering guaranteed tuition. So when you begin at the University of Oregon, we guarantee (tuition) is not going to go up in five years. Hopefully, you're going to graduate in four years, but we'll hold it constant for five years.”
Thompson is one of three candidates to become Missouri State University’s next president. Clif Smart, MSU president since 2011, will step down at the end of the semester.
Former Oregon prez sings praises
Michael Schill worked with Thompson for seven years. Schill was president of the University of Oregon 2015 to 2022. He left to become president of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
“If you're thinking about what are some of the skills you want a president to have: One is the ability to engender trust. One is the ability to engage with students. Another is the ability to find resources for the university. Another is the ability to manage a complex organization. And Roger did all those things exceedingly well,” Schill said in a Feb. 22 phone interview.
“(Thompson) has a way of connecting with people, which is just extraordinary,” Schill said. “He has just a wonderfully open personality. He's genuine. Parents and students alike responded to him well.”
The two other finalists for the Missouri State presidency are John Jasinski and Richard “Biff” Williams.
Jasinski, 61, has been MSU provost since 2022. He was president of Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville 2009-2022.
Williams, 52, in January resigned as president at Utah Tech University in St. George after nearly 10 years in the top position. Williams also is one of five finalists to become the next president of New Mexico State University.
Williams did his public visits at MSU (West Plains and Springfield) on Feb. 14-15. He is scheduled to appear at public forums at New Mexico State on Feb. 27.
All three MSU finalists initially agreed to be interviewed by the Hauxeda, but were then discouraged from doing so by MSU and canceled.
Without being able to talk to the candidates, writing a profile of Thompson is even more difficult than writing profiles of Williams and Jasinski. That's because Thompson has never been a college or university president, and as a result, less has been written about him.
Meet the candidate
Roger Thompson will be involved in public sessions:
- On the MSU West Plains campus on Feb. 28 for an open forum from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Fowler Lecture Hall in Looney Hall, followed by a reception in the parlor of Kellett Hall 2:45-3:45 p.m.
- On Feb. 29 at the Plaster Student Union Theater on the Springfield campus from 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Also, since he's never been a college president, input from the faculty Senate, for example, has less value.
The Hauxeda reached out to to several people who know Thompson, including two who work with him, Only Schill replied.
Much of this story is based on public videos in which Thompson is interviewed.
Thompson's duties were expanded at Oregon
There's more than meets the eye when looking at Thompson, Schill said.
Thompson's accomplishments in enrollment are significant and impressive, Schill said. Thompson worked similar wonders at his two prior places of employment: the University of Alabama and Indiana University.
Indiana University released a statement when Thompson was hired there in 2006. It said:
“At Alabama, Thompson put in place new recruitment strategies that increased the size of the freshman class from 2,654 to 3,756 over three years, while at the same time increasing the diversity and the average grade-point-average and ACT score of entering freshmen.”
In addition, according to Schill, Thompson's duties broadened at the University of Oregon.
related story
Ten things to know from the resume of Roger Thompson
Here are 10 accomplishments the Hauxeda gleaned from the 20-page curriculum vitae (resume) of Roger Thompson.
“I expanded his role significantly during my tenure,” Schill said. “He started as primarily enrollment management. Sort of the admissions office, the registrar's office and financial aid. And then I added a whole different set of duties for him, which included things like our health center, which included mental health, which obviously is very important.
“The enterprise that did health care at Oregon at the time was not a well-functioning group, and he moved in, hired a new director and really made it hum. And it became a really, really good, well-managed part of the university.”
Thompson is effective with donors, Schill said.
“He also did quite a bit of fundraising for our program called Pathway Oregon, which was a first-generation scholarship program[...] He helped raise a tremendous amount of money and really wasn't in charge of running that program. I saw him in action with alumni, with donors, and he's just wonderful.”
Thompson has overseen the construction of new student housing on the Oregon campus. It's called the $220 million Housing Transformation Plan. He also oversaw the $18 million expansion and renovation of the Student Health and Counseling Center.
“He has a very broad portfolio of responsibility at Oregon, much broader than you would think of if you were thinking enrollment management,” Schill said. “All of those things make him a really neat and terrific choice for president.”
A ‘voice of calm' during presidential churn
Another consideration, Schill said, is that there have been eight University of Oregon presidents since Thompson started working there — four full-time presidents, including Schill, and four interims.
“My predecessor was fired and the predecessor before that was fired,” Schill said. “That is a difficult position for any administrator to live through when you have a constant churn in your bosses. Roger is a consummate professional and he worked his way through that.
“He was an incredibly loyal ally of mine, in the administration, and was a voice of reason and a voice of calm. What it tells you in part is that he's able to work for people of different styles, who have different objectives, and he's able to be successful in each one of these undertakings.”
Thompson since 2015 has been a board member of the Oregon Special Olympics and on Feb. 10, posted photos of his polar plunge into the Willamette River. More than $70,000 was raised.
Schill was asked if Thompson ever cajoled him into taking the polar plunge.
“He knew better,” he said.
Knows his sports, often quoting coaches and athletes
Thompson was born in Richmond, California, near Oakland. His father was a banker. Thompson grew up an Oakland Raiders fan (the football team moved to Los Angeles in 1982, moved back to Oakland in 1994 and moved to Las Vegas in 2020) and when he speaks publicly, he often quotes athletes and coaches.
For example, there's this one from legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “Don't confuse activity with achievement.”
As a boy, Thompson moved with his family to Hillsboro, Oregon, which is close to Portland and 110 miles from Eugene, home of the main campus of the University of Oregon.
After high school, Thompson set off to California State University in Long Beach, where he earned a bachelor's degree in broadcasting. He thought he might become a sports broadcaster.
Thompson's broadcasting skills — from the richness of his voice to his overall ease when before a microphone — are evident in the various videos of him being interviewed.
His only apparent connection to Missouri, in looking at his 20-page curriculum vitae, or resume, is that he received a master's degree in college-student-personnel- administration from the University of Central Missouri, in Warrensburg. He worked there as a graduate student in student affairs from June 1988 to May 1989.
He received a doctoral degree in higher education policy and administration from the University of Southern California.
Story continues below.
MORE ON THE MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT SEARCH
Never been a president, but oversees a university-sized budget
Thompson is the only one of the three MSU presidential candidates who has never been a college president. Nevertheless, he has overseen a budget and staff that rivals the size of many colleges and universities.
He is responsible for 1,900 employees and an operating and scholarship budget of more than $250 million.
For comparative purposes, Northwest Missouri State University (in its entirety), where Jasinski served, has about 750 employees and an operating budget of $108 million, said university spokesperson Mark Hornickel.
Utah Tech (in its entirety), where Williams served, has about 1,945 employees and an operating budget of $173 million, said Jyl Hall, university spokesperson.
MSU (in its entirety) this year has an operating budget of $309.5 million and in 2022 had 3,750 employees on its Missouri campuses.
The award Thompson most treasures
Thompson has said one of the proudest moments in his career was receiving the Robert Vance Award while at the University of Alabama. Vance was a federal appellate judge in Alabama. As a lawyer, he was instrumental in the 1960s in ushering in civil rights for Black people in Alabama.
Vance was assassinated Dec. 16, 1989, when he opened a package at home that contained a bomb. Two days later, a bomb in a package sent via mail killed Robert E. Robinson, a civil rights lawyer in Savannah, Georgia.
Walter Leroy Moody Jr. was convicted of both murders; he died via lethal injection at an Alabama prison in 2018 at age 83.
In one interview, Thompson explained why he took the job at the University of Alabama, where he was promoted to associate vice president for enrollment management in 2003. He started at the university in 1998.
“The reason I went was because the president of the university wanted it to be the No. 1 school for enrolling African Americans. We were kind of dead last in the Southeast when I got there. That was a hard challenge because that's the place where George Wallace stood in the door and said ‘you're not coming in.'”
Specifically, in a famous photo, former Gov. Wallace banned entry to two Black students: Vivian Malone and James Hood. The June 11, 1963, photo captures the moment when Wallace blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Thompson said he met Malone at the University of Alabama and asked for her help in getting more Black students to enroll there. She obliged, he said.
While at Alabama, according to Thompson's resume, the institution set records for total enrollment, entering freshman class size, academic quality and diversity, including a growth in Black enrollment of nearly 50 percent.
Malone died in 2005.
Leadership starts with drive and energy
In that same interview, Thompson explained what leadership means to him.
It starts with drive and energy, he said.
“If you can't get fired up and do your job as the leader nobody else is going to be excited,” Thompson said.
“We have an admissions team of recruiters that go out to high schools and meet with students and parents. I decided one year that I was going to visit 150 high schools. Our team members that are paid to do this fulltime typically go to about 60 or 70.
“I wanted us to be more engaged. To sort of up our game a little bit. … And I wanted that unfiltered feedback from the people I was meeting with.
“Everybody wants to be part of something bigger,” he said. “That's human nature. It's up to the leader to convey what that ‘something bigger' is.
“A leader with no followers is just a guy taking a walk,” he said.
