Q&A: Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse speaks on goals, COVID-19, tenure

Kelly Damphousse stepped into his role as the 10th president of Texas State University on July 1 and recently spoke with the American-Statesman about why he applied for the job, his goals for the university and his plans for the fall semester. 

Damphousse was the chancellor and CEO of Arkansas State University. He replaced Denise Trauth, who retired after leading Texas State for 20 years.

He outlined his goals to elevate the research profile of the university, help it achieve an R1 designation (for universities with high research activity) and keep its focus on student success. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you apply to become president of Texas State University?

I love this state, and my wife, Beth, grew up here. I really came of age in Texas. This is my fourth time moving to Texas, and so I keep coming back. Our daughter lives in Austin, and so it was a chance to get closer. Family was part of it, but really, it was the quality of the university. 

It's the 25th-largest university in the country as far as undergraduate population goes and one of the most diverse universities in the country. The types of students that it attracts, students that remind me a lot of myself, such as first-generation college students, Pell-eligible students, and people who are coming from challenging academic, family and economic backgrounds. The fact that places like Texas State University change people's lives attracted me to this place. 

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I was really intrigued by the support that Texas has given to higher education. You don't see that very often in other states; the state is withdrawing support from higher education. But in Texas, they're actually investing in higher education. And the professed goal of the state and the governor, the Legislature and board of regents for schools like Texas State to elevate its research profile, not just expand the number of students you have coming in but actually change the composition of what you're doing, was also intriguing.

What are some goals you want to accomplish as the new Texas State president?

I think it's very clear to me the state wants this university to keep moving forward in this research portfolio. I was at an R1 Research Institution at the University of Oklahoma. I went to graduate school at Texas A&M, so I know what that looks like. When you make those changes, I want to keep in mind that we don't want to lose the things that we think are very valuable about Texas State. Our students tell us that they feel like this campus is family. They feel like they've got a really close relationship with our faculty and staff. Even though there are a lot of students here, they feel like they belong here, and we don't want to lose that.

The second thing will be focusing on student success. The university has done a great job in growing the student population. When we think about getting more students to apply to Texas State, we also have to pay attention to the fact that we have an obligation to those students and their parents to make sure their students are successful here. Success doesn't just mean passing classes. It means being retained to the second and third year, persisting through their degree program, graduating from Texas State and then not moving back home with their parents but entering the workforce and becoming producing citizens.

With about a month until classes start, what, if anything, is Texas State doing to deal with COVID-19? 

I think every university administrator, every campus leader, keeps thinking this fall will become the post COVID era. We thought that in 2020. We certainly thought that in 2021. And we definitely thought at the end of the spring semester that fall 2022 would be the post-COVID era. I think we're just having to become resigned to the fact that COVID will be with us for a while, but it's not just COVID. There are other infectious diseases. There's influenza. There's measles, mumps and so on that we always pay attention to.

We have a strategy we used in fall ‘21 and spring ‘22 that will be pretty similar to what we're going to do in fall ‘22. We've got tools we didn't have before — having vaccines, having a lot of testing capacity and having treatments. So for us, we'll be messaging a lot about the importance of getting vaccinated and the importance of doing what we can to keep each other safe, such as easy access to testing.

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I'm really concerned about the learning loss that's happened over time, especially in high schools, but even on our campus where people are taking classes online. While there's a place and a time for online education, when your entire experience is online, there is a possibility of people not learning at the same level as if they were in person in a classroom learning from their peers. So we think that being in person is the best way to learn, and we'll do everything we can to keep that going so we don't have to revert to 100% remote learning, because we think that while that works, it's not ideal for learning.

What are your thoughts on the state of campus safety at Texas State, and will the university be doing anything — either temporarily or permanently — to address security on campus in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting?

One of the things that we feel compelled to do is make sure that our campus understands about the safety on our campus and that we have a university police department that's filled with certified officers whose job is to make our campus safe. And then if something does happen, they'll be responding in a timely manner. We do have a very rapid response procedure in place. 

The second thing is to make sure that people know about incidents that take place on campus. It's really important for us to relieve the anxiety that comes with uncertainty. So you may hear a rumor about something that causes anxiety, but if you hear from the university, here's what happened, here's how we responded, here are the consequences, and here's how we will change things in the future to deal with this, that relieves some of the anxiety. We want to make sure that our faculty, staff and students are aware of things that are taking place on campus as well as the steps we're taking to keep them safe. 

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I'm often asked what keeps me awake at night as the leader of a university campus, and I think some people would say it's probably enrollment pressures or it's probably the budget. But for me, it's always the safety of our faculty, staff and students. And that has been particularly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, waking up every day worrying about what I can do next to keep people safer. But we also have to recognize that there are external threats that we have almost no control over except for making sure we're prepared. 

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said earlier this year that he plans to propose a bill to eliminate tenure for new hires at Texas public universities. What are your thoughts on tenure and whether it's important at Texas State? 

Tenure was created to grant faculty the freedom to engage in research and to teach in the way they think is most appropriate, and we call that academic freedom. I think what has happened over the years is that people have felt that the freedom that tenure was granting was the freedom to do anything. And that's really not what tenure is about. It's about teaching, and it's about research and to make sure people have the freedom to do that. 

Academic freedom, and the tenure that comes along with it, ensures that faculty feel comfortable to engage in things. And sometimes we're engaging in tough conversations that people might not engage in if they didn't have tenure, but things that are very important to discuss and teach about. And so for us, tenure is one of the main foundations of the American academic system that allows us to attract faculty that come to our university.

I went through that process myself. I was hired as an assistant professor, and after six years of proving myself, I was granted tenure. And I didn't act differently because I had tenure. It just didn't change too much of what I was doing. But if I was going to engage in some difficult conversations, or do research in areas that might not be popular, I felt like I had the safety to do that. I wouldn't lose my job because I was studying something that someone thought was unpopular. As far as the proposed legislation itself, I don't think it's my place to take a position on legislation. My job is to make sure that legislators, when they're making those decisions, understand the impact the Legislature and legislation can have.