Published: August 16, 2008 11:56 pm            

Ready to lead

• After a summer of contemplation, Burns Hargis decided his background had prepared him to be president of OSU

Burns Hargis said at first applying for the highest job at his alma mater didn’t even cross his mind.

Hargis said he told Oklahoma State University he did not want to be on the search committee to find the replacement for David Schmidly when the school’s president resigned in February to take over at the University of New Mexico.

After being on the committee that recommended Schmidly for the OSU job, Hargis didn’t want to go through that process again.

But he said as the questions about his interest in the presidency continued, he considered his own interest.

“I naturally began to think, ‘Golly, could I do that job?’” Hargis said. “That was really the question. The question was more, ‘Am I the right fit? Do I have the right background? Do I have the right experience for this job? Or do I just want a different job?’ I had a great job as vice chairman of the Bank of Oklahoma.

“As I thought through it all over the course of the summer, I really decided I probably do have a good background for a modern university president. The experiences I’ve had in law and in business and fundraising (and) politics. I thought maybe I’ve been preparing for this all my life and didn’t know it.”

The former member of the Board of Regents is the second OSU alumnus to be the school’s president and officially began work March 10.

He said he sees three main components to the job. First is managing the university’s billion-dollar operation. Second, he helps raise funds and resources for the school. Third, he said he needs to promote the school to faculty, students, donors, alumni and “the nation, really.”

“We need for the world to know as much as we do about how great the university is,” added the man with an accounting degree from OSU and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma.

He was a Republican candidate for governor in 1990 and a conservative voice on the political TV show “Flashpoint” and said his new job is political.

“People say run government like a business or run the university like a business,” Hargis said. “Well, it’s not a business. It requires collaboration and cooperation and consensus. That requires listening and exploring ideas and you can’t just be omnipotent. You have to persuade.”

His message of collaboration and cooperation extends to the Stillwater community and even Stillwater Public Schools as well.

He said it is important for OSU and SPS to work together because the university cannot produce quality graduates if the students are not properly educated when they are younger.

“What we have to do is take our entire menu of educational assets, which starts in early childhood and goes all the way through our Ph.D. and M.D. programs, and we have to make it seamless,” Hargis said. “We have to all be working together so the product we are handing the next level is ready to be dealt with.”

He added he does not believe in the “silo mentality” that he is only responsible for students while they are at OSU — which, he admits, has sometimes been the university’s philosophy.

Hargis has quick answers for both the worst and best parts of his job — the hectic schedule for the former and the students for the latter.

“I say we’re in the dream business,” he said. “Our job is to help these students achieve their dreams. If we can help them find their passion, they will have a great life and bring a lot of value to themselves and their state, families and all the rest. I always say don’t let money trump your passion. Doing what you like to do is worth a lot of money.”

To those who think booster Boone Pickens has too much authority at the school, Hargis responds with a laugh.

“(Pickens) is a great American and he has done an enormous amount for countless organizations of people,” Hargis said. “All in the world he wants for this university is the best. He loves this university. To suggest he is micromanaging everything that goes on belies any investigation at all.

“Between the Pickens Plan and running one of the biggest hedge funds in the universe, he really doesn’t have time to worry about the details.

“He will talk about overall strategy. The idea that you have access to that kind of mind and experience is pretty special.”

Hargis said he hopes to do the job “as long as I’m effective.”

He ended with a statement for the university and community.

“I want us to think big, dream big,” Hargis said. “I want us to get to the point where we believe anything is possible and we’re all willing to roll up our sleeves and do our part to make it happen. We won’t always succeed. We will trip, we’ll stumble. If we just keep plugging, there are great times ahead.”

        

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