With vast experience in teaching and administrative roles, Cora Bagley Marrett is excited about the possibility of becoming the next president of Iowa State.Marrett is the second candidate in the presidential search to visit the ISU campus. While holding the position of senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and provost for the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Marrett has been an asset to the campus, said Chancellor David Scott.Scott said Marrett has been committed to the university’s “triple mission” of teaching, research and outreach.”She has been an outstanding administrator here and has really brought a lot of national attention to the university,” Scott said.Over the past three years, Scott said Marrett has enhanced the grant activity at the university by “encouraging people to be more competitive and energetic in bringing outside funds.”As a strong proponent of the missions of a land-grant university, Marrett has been “instrumental in organizing conferences that bring important administrators, opinion makers and leaders to shape an important agenda for the future,” Scott said.Robert Connolly, associate vice president for communications, said Marrett’s natural charm and style has enabled her to form positive relationships with students.”She has a natural, easy rapport with students, and students seem to like her as well,” he said. “She’s very at ease with them and treats them as more colleagues than a hierarchical relationship.”These qualities make Marrett a “fine academic officer,” Connolly said.”Certainly she is a significant academic talent, which is why we recruited her to come to UMass and why we’ve been impressed with her performance here,” he said.Jim Eltringham, Student Government Association speaker of the senate, said he credits Marrett in maintaining diversity on campus.”It was a difficult thing to de-prioritize race in admissions and still come up with numbers in ethnic and racial backgrounds,” he said.Because of Marrett’s work with her department and the task forces she created, Eltringham, senior in journalism, said a court decision did not cause minority numbers to dwindle.In another controversial issue, Eltringham said Marrett was behind the elimination of the small but successful Consumer Studies Department. He said the decision, based on the dwindling faculty, caused a stir on campus because of the success of program graduates and the demand for job placement in consumer studies.Although some may not have agreed with her decision, Eltringham said he admired her for answering, rather than dodging, important questions.”If she makes a decision, she has the courage and conviction to stand by it,” he said.Connolly said Marrett has been “prominently mentioned” for both the interim chancellor and permanent chancellor positions at UMass after Scott retires in June.Scott said he was not surprised when Marrett informed him of her decision to seek the position of ISU president a month ago.Marrett has been approached by several universities regarding presidency, Scott said, because she has made a name for herself as both a “national and international player.””Cora’s ready to be a president, and she will be soon,” he said. “Whatever institution hires her is going to look back [with] pride having hired her. We’re lucky to have had her here for three years.”Marrett’s resume includes 23 years on the University of Wisconsin, Madison faculty, four years as an assistant director of the National Science Foundation, faculty appointments at Western Michigan University and the University of North Carolina and appointments on various national committees.”In an area where the priority is state schools, I think she will really flourish,” Eltringham said. “She takes the mission of a state university very seriously, and I think she’s really keen on making this an academic powerhouse to provide that excellence within the reach of people who normally wouldn’t be able to go to a private schools.”