“Tell us a little about your style.”

Brief pause.

“You expect consistency in a provost?”

Laughter.

“Well, I’d like a little creativity.”

Nancy Barrett, candidate for the vice president for Academic Affairs and provost at Iowa State and current provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of Alabama, introduced herself and fielded questions from a full crowd of administrators and professors in the Pioneer Room on Wednesday afternoon.

Richard Martin, professor and chairman of biomedical sciences in veterinary medicine, asked Barrett about her “style” of interaction with people and university issues.

“I like to avoid setting up zero-sum games,” Barrett said. “If you can set up win-win situations, it’s much better. Creativity is finding those situations.”

Among the zero-sum situations Barrett wishes to avoid is pitting current faculty funding against future minority faculty. She spoke extensively of her experience in finding new sources of funding for minority faculty at Alabama, amid budget cuts and a business college that insisted no minority faculty were available for hire.

She said there are four now.

In her introductory speech, Barrett addressed several controversies in higher education, including the increasing need for remedial courses, an impending faculty shortage and the continuing rift between teaching and research at universities.

“Despite the fact that they go hand in hand, there’s still a debate,” Barrett said. She wants to ensure teaching excellence is rewarded and research stays relevant.

Susan Yager, associate director for The Center for Teaching Excellence, asked Barrett about the role of the humanities in a university of science and technology.

“It’s important to me in a university like this that people realize that humanities are for everyone and accessible to everyone,” Barrett said.

At Alabama, she said, they thought freshmen were not exposed to critical thinking, so the university instituted “Freshman Seminars” taught by faculty members to small groups.

“Too often in large lectures halls, [freshmen are] learning material they learned in high school in a very passive way,” Barrett said.

She also proposed the creation of a humanities center for Iowa State.

Barrett draws upon her experience as an economist to promote economic development within universities, calling it an “interdisciplinary activity.”

Barrett has been provost at two universities — Alabama and Western Michigan University.

An online copy of Barrett’s r‚sum‚ can be found at www.adminsearch.iastate.edu/vpaap/vita/Barrett.pdf.