Q&A with University of Southern Indiana President Ronald Rochon
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On March 9, the University of Southern Indiana women’s basketball team won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament for the first time. The championship was a result of the university’s reclassification from NCAA Division II to Division I in 2022.
In September 2023, USI saw an overall enrollment increase for the first time in more than a decade. First-time, full-time freshmen enrollment rose by 2.6% over 2022, and a peak of 1,854 students enrolled in graduate programs.
Ronald Rochon, president at USI since 2018, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the Division I reclassification, the enrollment increase and his distinction as a 2023 IBJ Media Indiana 250 honoree.
You became provost at USI in 2010. Tell me about your introduction to the area.
I wasn’t very familiar with the University of Southern Indiana at that time. One of my colleagues, a mentor from South Dakota, was president at Black Hills State [University]. She had indicated that as I aspired to become a university president, provost was an important post for me to complete. But she also said where [I was provost] was even more important.
She knew Linda Bennett, who was the president [at USI] at the time, and told me I needed to connect with this woman and apply for this job. She said, “Ron, if the two of you meet, chemistry will occur in the most amazing and healthy ways.” I met Dr. Bennett during the interview process. When I left, I called my wife, and I remember asking her to pray for this opportunity. That’s how much I resonated with Dr. Bennett, and it just felt so incredibly good.
I was excited about becoming a part of this community working in southwest Indiana and serving the University of Southern Indiana, its students, faculty and staff. It was absolutely amazing. I held that job for eight years. That’s a bit long sometimes for a provost, but it worked out for me. I was able to contribute, but I gained much more than I was ever able to give.
Talk about your experience since becoming USI’s president in 2018.
It’s been exciting. We have seen amazing development with this institution. I was able to inherit what I would call really good bones. I’m the fourth president of this university, and each of my predecessors has done an amazing job at being great stewards of resources, executing healthy practices, seeing students matriculate and successfully identifying strong faculty through our academic deans.
I inherited such a strong foundational institution as president, and so my job has been a heavy lift in ways in which all presidents work. You’re busy. It’s demanding. You have to be in all places at all times, finding ways in which you can raise the level of the platform that focuses on student success, working with the commission and the statehouse on metrics for the public institutions, making sure that we are in the green for our ongoing funding.
I have been so fortunate to have a faculty and staff all across this campus that believe in students. We are an institution. We call ourselves the campus of choice. We call ourselves home. And we remain focused on student resiliency and success at this institution.
We believe that when you receive a letter of acceptance to the University of Southern Indiana, we are partnering with you and your family to make sure that you come here, commit yourself, remain disciplined and engage in the work that is put before you within your major. That you’re going to walk across that stage and make your family proud and serve this great state, the region, the nation and the globe in a very healthy way. That’s our mantra. That’s who we are.
USI recorded its first overall enrollment increase in over a decade last fall. Tell me about that milestone.
There have been amazing challenges within the Midwest with regard to student attendance. Our numbers of students who are graduating from high school and who are deciding to go to college are decreasing.
So we have been focusing on a couple of variables over the last half dozen years. That’s the retention of our existing students, our continuing students within our majors, making sure that students are coming in and not leaving with debt without that degree. That has been an important focal point for our university. We have worked hard at looking at first-time, full-time candidates, and we have been blessed to see that number raised this past semester.
It’s been exciting to see more and more students identifying USI as a campus of choice and also as one of their first campuses among all the ones that they qualify for. Our first-time, full-time average GPA exceeded a 3.3 GPA, which speaks to the quality of students who are attending this institution.
We all want quality candidates coming to our institutions because we want them to be successful and we want them to be challenging as well. Not only be challenged, but be challenging. We want this democracy to flourish, and the only way that happens is when you have students who are engaged in their studies and understand the significance of their gifts and contributions.
What other successes have you experienced during your tenure as president?
The infrastructure is ongoing. It’s just a beautiful place. Brick and mortar, absolutely gorgeous. State-of-the-art facilities.
I was in our dental hygiene facility looking at our students who are providing services to our community members, looking at the radiology component we have available, looking at the molding processing plant within that laboratory. I was in the dietetics laboratory with some students and some faculty members, speaking to them about their experiences.
I went to a science education class meeting with several students, listening to what they’re doing to enhance state-of-the-art best practices when it comes to pedagogical practices. The art of teaching, keeping students engaged, keeping them excited and keeping them in a place where they understand what we do with middle school and high school kids who are transitioning to higher education.
Another exciting piece … we have now converted to [NCAA] Division I athletics. We’re in our second year. We’ve had conference champions in Division I across sports within the [Ohio Valley Conference]. So getting people excited about seeing USI on ESPN+ and every single sporting activity has been nothing but exciting. We’ve been on ESPNU, which is a nationally televised opportunity. People are talking about USI in ways they never have before.
Tell me more about USI’s reclassification from NCAA Division II to Division I a few years ago.
Converting to Division I has been a heavy lift. Without question, there are a lot of standards that you have to meet. We are currently on a probationary period for four years. We’re in year two right now. That’s going extremely well. We’re meeting all requirements. Our first report was stellar. The response from the NCAA was very positive as well. I don’t anticipate that to change when we submit this year’s report.
It’s going to impact our enrollment and brand. More broadly, it brings greater pride to the alums. When they can say, “This is my campus that’s on television,” competing against Duke or Michigan State, it says something. It makes folks feel like we’ve grown so incredibly well. People are really understanding where the southwest corner [of Indiana] is located and just how special it is.
What challenges have you faced as USI’s president?
One of the greatest challenges I’m facing right now that concerns me is this ongoing discussion about the value proposition of higher education. I am walking up that hill with great confidence to anybody I come in contact with to talk to them about the transformational opportunity that higher education provides.
If you look at my life, I’m a first-generation college attendee. My parents didn’t go to college. So leaving my mom and dad’s house and going to Tuskegee University was a scary moment for our family. We didn’t know what to expect. My parents were not able to equip me with the jargon or language of higher education or even the culture.
Tuskegee prepared me for the University of Illinois, for graduate school, my master’s and my Ph.D. It transformed my life. Tuskegee and Illinois opened doors for me that would have never opened. I sit here today as president.
I believe in higher education at all levels and what it can do for individuals, families, communities, our nation and the globe. Having access to faculty members who are going to teach you to not only understand their craft and their research but also understand what your desire is and how you can create new knowledge, new policies, new relationships. How you can enhance our democracy.
The solar eclipse is less than a month away. Tell me about USI’s Solarpalooza event.
We’ve been preparing for this for nearly two years. There will be thousands of individuals on this campus. We are praying for beautiful weather that day.
Not only does it highlight our geology department and our physicists who are working hard—Dr. Kent Scheller, who’s been leading this whole initiative—but it brings all these people from this community to this special place on the planet where we will be able to see this eclipse like no other place across the globe.
What’s the state of higher education, and what does the future hold for USI?
The future for USI is bright, and one of the reasons it’s so bright is because of our relationship with our state legislative body. These are members who believe in higher education. They believe in the public funding of higher education. They believe in holding us accountable. They believe in [USI’s] president bringing relevant, fact-based and data-driven narratives to their attention about how we’re serving the state.
Higher education in general—and USI in particular—is really primed for continued growth, continued outreach and continued impact in positive ways for the state of Indiana. I’m excited and proud of our faculty and staff who remain wedded to our mission and to our goals.
As upside down as the world is right now, I remain excited and optimistic about our young people across the state who are coming to universities and colleges to produce amazing scholarship, but also their ability to ask questions, their sincere desire to improve relationships, their ability to create greater outreach, their greater ability to listen to others. This is what USI is responsible for. This is where we’re going.
What does it mean to you to be named an Indiana 250 honoree?
As honored as I am, it’s deceptive because it’s really about so many other people. There are faculty and staff and students and community members. I have a family who is responsible for the work that I do. Because of all of these groups of individuals who are working each and every day to engage our university, the university president is recognized. So I accept this honor on behalf of all of us.
Anything else you’d like to add?
As much as I am honored to work with the faculty and staff, it is a greater honor to serve our students. That’s what drives me. This institution is open because of students who are interested in coming here to learn, develop and enhance themselves, to serve others.
For me, this is all about service. It’s all about uplifting. It’s all about making sure that other people who have not been afforded this opportunity, they too are respected. They too have an opportunity. They too have a voice. They too are safe. They too are whole.