New CSU President Amy Parsons hopes to strengthen university's land-grant mission
Amy Parsons’ long journey with Colorado State University took another important step Wednesday, when she received the mace in a ceremonial transfer of leadership prior to delivering her first Fall Address as president.
The one-time undergraduate student, intern and later attorney in the General Counsel’s office, vice president for university operations and vice chancellor of the CSU System spoke of the importance of upholding and strengthening the land-grant mission upon which CSU was founded in 1870 — of continuing to provide access to “any person with the desire and will to achieve a degree,” as the Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862 proclaimed.
She noted that CSU is in an even better position to serve that mission now than it was then, with a better understanding of what that means to Native Americans and people from all cultural, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
She proudly noted that the incoming class this fall is the most racially diverse and includes the highest number of first-generation students ever.
“When President Lincoln and Sen. Morrill conceived of the Land Grant Act, they imagined a great democratization of education and the revolutionary idea that any person with the desire and will to achieve a degree should have access to an excellent university,” Parsons said, while standing on the steps of the administration building on CSU’s historic Oval, where more than 1,500 people were gathered.
“This was to be a mighty tool to build a country torn apart by war and to strengthen the economy, unify the community and build our competitiveness in the world.
“Is that mission not every bit as important today as it was in our founding? Are we not better even better equipped today to carry out the new work of the founding?”
She went on to note the recent acknowledgement that the land upon which CSU was built was seized from the Native Americans who called it home, a fact leaders at the time did not recognize.
Yet a famous Navajo chief, Manuelito, a contemporary of Lincoln who was living a very different life, also saw education as a key to improving the lives of his people.
A few days before his death in 1893, he told a relative: “My grandchild, education is the ladder. Tell your people to take it,” according to a history of the Navajo people found on the Dine College website.
“They’re both speaking to the power of education and the power of access to education,” Parsons said. “How do we now, a century and a half later, take their vision and all of the history between them and us and look ahead to create a new renaissance of a land-grant mission. The work is critical. While we are not in a civil war, as in Lincoln’s day, we are in a time of deep political polarization and increasing social division.
“What is our role here? It is not merely to sit on the sideline and to comment and critique. Our role is to step firmly forward and into that fire, to reaffirm that land-grant universities remain our greatest and most powerful tool in modeling reconciliation and progress.”
Parsons was constantly reminded of CSU’s land-grant mission while serving in administrative roles under Tony Frank, the former CSU president and current chancellor of the CSU system.
It’s a mission that she’s tried to uphold, she said, through recent efforts to keep tuition increases below the limit authorized by the state legislature and waiving undergraduate admission fees for all Colorado residents.
It's one she hopes will be strengthened further by the university’s thematic Year of Democracy, an initiative that was already in place when she took office last February that she’s proud to be a part of. Programs and speakers will focus on bringing people together on both sides of the political divide to solve problems and move forward.
More: Parsons' priorities: CSU president focuses on student value, building cabinet in new year
For Parsons, who earned her undergraduate degree from CSU in political science and counts former professor Bob Lawrence among her close friends and a lifelong mentor, it’s a good fit.
“It’s hard to think of a lot of things that are going to matter more to our future than figuring out how to work together to solve problems,” Frank said.
Parsons has done her part to increase democracy on campus, too, students said.
She met last spring with current Associated Students of CSU President Nick DeSalvo and his predecessor, Rob Long, to discuss their concerns about rising tuition rates and told them it was OK to fight them. She understood, DeSalvo said, in a way many university presidents wouldn’t, that they were just doing their job representing the student body.
Parsons is also far more visible and accessible than her predecessor, Joyce McConnell, ever was, and more in tune with the student body, DeSalvo said.
“President McConnell, she didn’t get out in front of students much,” he said. “Amy is everywhere. She goes to events. She shows up, she gets to know students and students actually look forward to seeing her. I think she’s done a really good job connecting to the community and connecting to the students.
“She realizes what this job is all about.”
Probably because she’s been around the university for so long in so many different roles.
She briefly broke down in tears at the end of her address Wednesday while thanking her father, Bob Monger, who was sitting in the front row alongside Parsons’ husband, Jeff, and her daughter, who just began her sophomore year CSU, for sending her to the university in the first place.
“I told her when she went to CSU, I said, ‘You’re going to love CSU,’ “ said Monger, who lives in Cheyenne, where Parsons was raised. “And she certainly has. I didn’t know she’d love it quite this much.”
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado State's new president hopes to strengthen land-grant mission
