Increasing Professional Competitiveness: An Interview with Dr. Marc Johnson, the President of University of Nevada. Discussion centers on increasing professional competitiveness for faculty and students.
1. Question (Tara):
What are some key ways that college students, college graduates, and young professionals can better prepare themselves to stand out from the large applicant pool of professional competitors?
Response (Marc):
The first way for students to stand out is to be at the top of their classes. By working hard from day one in their subject area, a student will gain the knowledge to be a leader in that field. Internships, service learning, and building practical experience will also help develop a strong resume. Building academic and professional relationships with faculty and administration will provide strong references.
2. Question/Response Video:
Question:
As higher education’s capitalistic transformation continues to create challenges for economically struggling institutions to attract top faculty, how can Higher Education entice and retain nationally recognized faculty and administrators in times of limited resources?
Response:
It is important for any businesses to focus on their best product lines. Keeping the size and quality of strong departments while strengthening specialized units or discipline areas that consistently attract student enrollment and produce research will keep universities competitive in a budget short environment. The national reputation of institutional units or specific academic disciplines will attract top faculty. They will want to build their professional success at your university. Maintaining a national reputation in at least a few fields of study will draw in nationally recognized faculty to the institution.
3. Question:
What are the most helpful experiences, skills, strategies, degrees, or qualifications that helped you get to where you are today, that other professionals can practice for themselves?
Response:
After earning the necessary degrees, a variety of professional experiences can be very helpful to build leadership qualities. I am a researcher, scholar, teacher, and administrator and that all took time, patience, commitment, and hard work. It is good to pace yourself and work upwards through the ranks. It is also important to be contributing and helping others. By giving and helping, you improving your industry while you build professional skills. Soon, others will begin to ask you to lead in positions of your specialty because of your commitment and service.
Tara Madden-Dent, Ph.D. 
Keep up the great work, Tara. You are serving as a great role model for your students. Bret
My question is how are we trying to find money for the budget in order to keep or get back some of the employees that were let go due to budget cuts? Also, what are we doing with the budget to insure that no more employees need to be let go? I understand that the students who have been affected by the cuts in departments and programs have had the chance to switch to a similar degree that closely relates to their previous degree, but is there a possibility in the future to bring those programs back? What further budget cuts might necessarily need to be made? Is the University looking into ways to keep from having to make budget cuts or to keep the budget cuts minimal? Finally, if the University is to be run like a business, in what ways is the University going to bring in more revenue?
I definitely felt that Dr. Marc Johnson had some great advice to give to students in terms of how they can better themselves as professionals in their given fields. One issue that I had deals with the first question that was asked. Dr. Marc Johnson states that students need to become involved and be at the top of their class, which of course makes sense. Then he states that students should be involved in internships and getting practical experience. I do understand that students do need to get experience, but how is that possible when the majority of professions won’t even look at a student who has no experience in that certain field? How can someone get the experience when those same students can not even get a job in their chosen profession because they don’t have the necessary experience that is necessary? As a student that used to be a nursing major, I was constantly looking for jobs in the nursing field, even entry level positions, just to get that experience and exposure just to make sure that nursing was what I wanted to do. However, it seemed almost impossible to get hired because I’ve never worked in a hospital setting. This somewhat discouraged me from wanting to pursue nursing, but of course there were other circumstances.
Another issue that I had deals with the second question that was asked. When Dr. Marc Johnson mentions that the university tends to keep the stronger departments and strengthen the specialized units. I find this to be true, but why should we even cut any departments of education if there is any possibility that a student may want to pursue that certain major? It seems as if every field has been getting cuts, which would be contradictory to what the university claims, which is making education the first priority. If education was our top priority, then why are we taking away all of these programs that students are enrolled in and forcing them to change majors because those programs aren’t being funded anymore? Yet, we put more effort into funding our sports programs and other areas that don’t concern education. If education is our priority, then stop cutting all of these programs. If not, we should switch our priorities then. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but that’s why I would love to gain more information on these subjects.