President Maimon Talks with Carol Marin at City Club of Chicago

The City Club of Chicago invited GSU President Elaine Maimon to be interviewed on December 3, by veteran journalist Carol Marin. They discussed Dr. Maimon’s book, Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation, as well as hot topics and trends in higher education.

Marin asked Dr. Maimon about preparing students for careers vs. jobs, the backlash against humanities majors, and the role of adjunct professors in higher education.

On the topic of need-based versus merit-based scholarships, President Maimon said that both are important. Illinois must work on ways to reach students who now leave the state (going elsewhere) as well as students who are qualified for higher education and go nowhere. For the last three years, according to National Education Clearing House, 34% of those students admitted by Governors State as fully qualified wound up going nowhere—not out of state, not to private universities, not to community colleges. In other words, GSU’s biggest competitor is nowhere, representing a serious loss of human capital for the state.

Listen to Dr. Maimon’s full answer beginning at 14:40: