A word with Idaho State University President Arthur Vailas

Arthur Vailas, the president of Idaho State University, grew up the oldest of five boys in Manchester, N.H. His parents, Greek immigrants who struggled with English, made it clear to their sons that they were expected to be high academic achievers, and all five have been.

Vailas draws from those experiences when he talks about how Idahoans can improve the state’s education system and increase their own standard of living. It has to start at home, he says, with parents genuinely believing that education is important, and passing that belief on to their children.

Vailas is a biomedical researcher who has worked in academia all of his career, often closely with business. He served as vice president for research and intellectual property management for the University of Houston, and vice chancellor for research for the University of Houston system. He joined ISU as president in 2006.

ISU is set apart from others in the state by its location, in Pocatello, and by its emphasis on the health sciences. ISU awards an array of doctorates in areas including engineering and applied science, biology, nuclear science and engineering, applied physics, several areas of pharmacy, counseling, nursing, and education. It also has a medical residency program for physicians in training.

Idaho Business Review spent some time with Vailas when he was in Boise to deliver ISU’s budget presentation to state lawmakers in late January. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

For businesses, the most pressing issue in education is workforce preparation. What is ISU doing to respond to concerns that graduates’ skills don’t match the available jobs?

What we hear from the business community is about increased credentialing. You hear a lot about people earning certificates for certain skills, and people saying that there should be more associate degrees, and community college. Professional-technical education does a very good job with that, and we have a college of technology within ISU, and many of the folks who have worked in these businesses become faculty for these programs.

But for a lot of things, the degree requirements are increasing, so I don’t agree with the general statement that you don’t need the degree. We find the opposite. People need to be a little more detailed about what they are saying. We have a big center on energy because we’re near the Idaho National Laboratory, and the energy industry, for example, has a higher level of degree requirements for many jobs.

In fact, most of the university is dedicated to another level of skills, 34 percent of our degree programs are in health professions, and they all want bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and even doctorates. With most of these health fields, such as nursing, a bachelor’s wasn’t required before. And now it is.

If we’re going to recruit technology companies to Idaho, we’re going to need more people with bachelor’s degrees or better.

Apprenticeships are being widely discussed these days.  Is ISU doing anything in this area?

We have a program called Career Path Internship Program where the student is mentored by a business within the institution, or by someone in the private sector. So the student gets a real-life experience based on their academic interest, and they see the relevance of what they are learning.

So when you finish Idaho State University, you not only get a credential but you also have somewhat of a portfolio, and that’s more attractive to an employer. It’s like an apprenticeship. It’s kind of interesting that we’re going back to a system used a couple hundred years ago.

Employers also say college graduates need more training in soft skills. What is ISU doing to address this?

In the Career Path Internship Program, our students are mentored by people with business experience. By the time they finish their education, they have had experience in the company and they learn what’s required in terms of people skills.

The liberal arts have a place in this. The University of Texas did a 10-year survey and found that of the liberal arts majors within that decade, a lot of them will end up in management positions.

Companies are looking for the communication skills. There’s a huge value in liberal arts, probably not right after you get out of school, but later on. I really don’t like the idea of focusing on just STEM; that’s all you hear about. I worry about producing the individual who can socialize, who can have an integrated vision, who is able to think independently and be an outstanding communicator. Liberal arts graduates bring quite a bit of value to the table in the business world. Everybody should get a pretty good liberal arts exposure, you should have a very good, flexible platform.

Is education headed in the right direction in Idaho?

I see it being positive but we still have a long way to go.

I think you’ll see an improvement in our K-12 school system, which has a huge effect on all of us. The biggest problem in education is cultural. People don’t value education to the extent they should.

How do you change that?

A lot of it is by asking, “How are you going to make a living?” It goes down to the family unit and the constant promotion of education. My parents never got an education, but boy did they talk about education. They said, “We don’t want you to be like us; we want you to have a future. And for that you need to go to school and you need to learn skills.”

They said, “You need to think about yourself 40 years from now, and how you see the world. You can’t survive like we did, barely surviving.” We need to have that cultural commitment. We went to school with the attitude that you need to learn how to compete, and that was reinforced at home.