This week, University of Northern Iowa President William Ruud announced that he will be leaving UNI this summer to become president of Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio.
On this news buzz edition of River to River, Ben Kieffer sits down with Ruud to find out why he is leaving Iowa, just three years after he interviewed for the position, when he implied that this would be his last job.
"The opportunity to go to Marietta College is a great opportunity for me at this point in time in my career," says Ruud.
"The faculty and staff recruited me heavily. I want to get away from saying smaller, and somehow saying smaller is different. It's a class institution. It's quality. It's a great place for me to go and do a lot of the things that I've done here at the University of Northern Iowa in terms of increasing enrollment and raising dollars and funds."
They also discuss whether the Regents not voting to extend his contract has anything to do with his exit, as well as his accomplishments over the last few years and the challenges still facing UNI.
Other segments featured this hour include an interview with IPR's Clay Masters, who looked into various aspects of the water quality debate in Iowa, a conversation with psychologist Marcus Credé whose study on theimpact of grit on student performancewill be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, an interview with Dean Borg on a falsely reported hate crime in Iowa City, as well as an update on Bakken pipeline developments with Brian Morelli, reporter for The Gazette.
