Interim President Ben Allen covered issues facing the Iowa State community including campus climate and tuition increases in his first and last fall address. 

Allen, whose replacement will be chosen in less than six weeks, said this was a year marked by transition as he addressed a crowd of about 300 people in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union at 6:30 p.m.

As Iowa State seeks its 16th president after the Board of Regents recently selected a new president, Iowa resides under a new governor and the U.S. under a new president. 

“I do know this, you cannot have a passive interim president,” Allen said. “I am here to ensure we don’t lose momentum. I also hope to offer stability.” 

Following several white nationalist posters found around Ames and on campus and a Snapchat including a racial slur that caused controversy, Allen spoke to the current campus climate. 

Allen said, creating a safe, welcoming, inclusive and equitable environment for everyone is one of the most important areas of focus at Iowa State. 

“We can have the best academic programs, new state-of-the-art facilities, the most beautiful campus, which we do have,” Allen said. “But if people don’t feel comfortable…they won’t come here to study.”

A plan to resolve these issues is a campus climate survey the university is conducting.

Reginald Stewart, the vice president of diversity and inclusion, said after the event that this was the first campus climate survey being conducted since 2004. 

Stewart said progress seen today can be attributed to the 2004 survey. He said the important part now is to get community participation. 

“The most important piece with the climate survey is take the survey and encourage your classmates, your friends, your co-workers to take it because that information is critical in moving forward,” Stewart said. 

More information on the campus climate survey can be found here.

Allen also brought up the topic of tuition increase and state budget cuts as a proposed five year fixed tuition increase would result in a 7 percent in-state and a 4 percent out-of-state yearly increase for undergraduates. 

The state budget cuts toward higher education for Fiscal Year 2017 and 2018 amounted to $11.5 million. 

One of Allen’s first decisions was to not increase employee salaries for this year to make up for the decrease in state funding. Allen said he appreciates all the faculty and staff do and realizes that words can only go so far. 

Allen said his priorities when putting together the five-year plan were faculty staff retention, faculty and staff recruitment, building and maintenance and need-based financial aid. 

“The university [must] fairly and competitively compensate you [faculty and staff] for your efforts or you will go looking for other opportunities,” Allen said. 

Allen said he suspects the state will face more economic difficulty, but said this doesn’t mean they should stop fighting for more state funding.

Allen will be helping with the transition, but said the next president will be tasked with searching for a new vice president for university human resources, extension and outreach and the dean of the college of veterinary medicine.

“From one interim to another, thank you,” Allen said to the interims serving in those roles.

Lucas Goodman, junior animal ecology and environmental studies, attended the fall address and said he was moved by Allen’s speech and liked that Allen spoke to the issues. 

“I loved the fact that he actually brings up controversial issues because I feel like that is something that a lot of people in positions of power can fail to do and when that happens it eliminates transparency between that position of power and who they’re in power of,” Goodman said. 

Goodman sat around after the event hoping to speak with Allen on behalf of the Climate Reality Campus Corps ISU, which is an environmental club he is president of.

The club, which is one of many corps on college campuses across the world, has a goal of making Iowa State have 100 percent sustainable energy.

After speaking with Leath last spring, the group was given the opportunity to put a proposal together to be presented at the end of the 2018 spring semester.

Goodman was hoping to see if Allen was aware of this deal and to see if he was on board. 

Despite this being his main reason for attending, Goodman, a transfer student from Des Moines Area Community College, said he is someone who likes to attend these types of events and be involved on campus in general.

“I just enjoy knowing what’s going on, I mean, I’m relatively new to campus, I just came here last semester,” Goodman said. “I just enjoy being aware of all that’s going on on campus.” 

With Allen’s speech on reaching a portion of the student population, Goodman addressed why it might be import for students to attend these events.

“A majority of his presentation was surrounding things that affect students. Obviously he talked about staff as well, but a lot of them were literally student issues,” Goodman said.