Prescription for NU 

1. Make Academics Our Top Priority

Our main goal is educating students—period.

​

The University should balance athletics and academics while ensuring that the academic mission remains at the center of the institution. Athletics can be an important part of university life, but we cannot continue to build athletic coffers while allowing academics to atrophy.

I believe NU should compete to have Nobel laureates, more Rhodes and Fulbright scholars, and White House Fellows.

​

We should:

• Increase academic support by redirecting resources toward teaching and student success.

• Support collective bargaining to recruit and retain faculty and promote fairness across our campuses.

• Create a stronger liaison between academics and athletics so the two missions reinforce one another. These are student athletes, not athlete students. 

• Ensure that donors who support academics have opportunities to participate in athletics  benefits.

• Work with our generous donor community to build an “NIL for academics” and utilize our powerful recruitment to attract and retain academic all-stars. 

• Return the athletic department to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, while keeping the NU System focused on strengthening the University's overall academic brand.

​

A strong University of Nebraska means a strong Nebraska. Our academic success directly contributes to the long-term economic and civic success of our state.

 

2. A 21st-Century University for Sustainability and Affordability 

The University was not designed for today's resource constraints, workforce demands, or technological transformation. If we designed a new university today, it would look very different from our current NU system. We need to rethink how we are organized. Our four campuses and technical ag college are competing with one another for the same students instead of collaborating with one mission to grow and propel each campus’ strengths. 

​

That means removing unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and putting resources where they have the greatest impact: with students and faculty. 

​

We should consolidate administrative structures where appropriate. For example, where multiple colleges have substantially overlapping missions, we should ask whether they truly require separate layers of deans and chairs.  We have examples of this with one College of Nursing Dean for five campuses, and one College of Engineering Dean for two campuses. 

​

We should also examine whether traditional departmental structures are always the best way to organize a modern university. Interdisciplinary schools and programs can bring together faculty and students around emerging fields and real-world problems.

 

Promotion and tenure should reward more than simply counting publications and writing research grants.  Faculty evaluation should be weighted more heavily on the full range of their contributions, including providing measurable value to students and our state. 

 

3. Make Every Student AI-Capable

Artificial intelligence is transforming the economy. Every Nebraska graduate should understand how to use AI responsibly and effectively, regardless of major. This is a “People First” philosophy where AI is a tool and not a replacement to improve outcomes.

​

We should: 

• With faculty direction, build AI literacy into the undergraduate experience so that our graduates enter the workforce prepared—not surprised—by an economy increasingly shaped by AI.

• Compete to bring world-class research capabilities to our state. Investments in fields such as quantum computing could have enormous implications for cybersecurity, business, medicine, agriculture, and economic development.

• Emphasize durable skills—communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptability—that prepare students for a lifetime of work and learning.

 

4. Expand Student Enrollment by Removing Barriers

Nebraska needs more educated workers, and the University should make it frictionless for more people to earn a degree.  With fewer high school graduating seniors across the country, we should do everything we can to keep our high school seniors close to home and to attract career-changers, full-time working parents, military veterans, and all who have a desire to learn and grow at any phase of their professional development. 

​

We should:

• Lower the cost of online courses and adopt a schedule that fits the student, not the other way around.

• Expand opportunities for nontraditional students.

• Accept community-college credits more broadly and reduce unnecessary barriers to transferring credits.

• Give academic credit for demonstrated professional knowledge and industry certifications.

​​

We should recognize that students come to the University through many different paths. A student's education does not begin when they first walk onto a university campus.

​

5. Build Stronger Ties With Nebraska Employers

The University should be relentlessly focused on preparing students for life after graduation.

​

That means building stronger relationships with Nebraska employers and understanding exactly what skills and certifications they need from tomorrow's workforce.

​

With faculty direction, we should make apprenticeships a requirement of the education experience and provide academic credit where appropriate. Career services should help administer and expand these opportunities.

​

We should regularly ask employers: What skills are we missing? What should our graduates know how to do that they don't know how to do today?

​

Then we should adjust our curriculum accordingly.

​

This is radical practicality: using the University's enormous intellectual resources to solve problems in our own backyard.

 

6. Keep Politics Out of the Classroom

A university should be a place where students encounter ideas—not a place where they are influenced what political conclusions to reach.

 

Every student should feel supported and welcome. At the same time, genuine inclusion requires an environment where people can disagree, challenge conventional wisdom, and keep open, inquisitive minds.

 

We should:

• Protect the free exchange of ideas.

• Ensure that professors facilitate debate and encourage critical thinking.

• Avoid restricting invited speakers simply because members of the University community disagree with them.

• Maintain institutional neutrality on political and international issues that do not directly affect the University's mission.

 

The University should not take its mission or directives from Washington—or from any political party.

 

Our obligation is to Nebraska, to our students, and to the pursuit of knowledge.

 

Every student should have the opportunity to succeed, and every member of the University community should be treated with dignity and respect.

 

Our academic and professional standards must remain rigorous and consistent.

 

We should:

• Build an inclusive environment in which everyone is supported, and students are held to rigorous academic standards.

• Prepare students for a competency-based world where application of skills in the workplace are paramount to professional success.

​

Nebraskans deserve to know that the doctor treating them, the engineer designing a bridge, or the professional serving their community has met the same demanding standards required of everyone else.

 

Our goals should be opportunity and not bureaucracy; excellence and not conforming mediocrity.

​

7. Protect Women's Sports

Women's athletics provides extraordinary opportunities for women to compete, lead, build confidence, and develop skills that last a lifetime. We can support fairness in women’s athletics without animus in our hearts. 

​

We should protect the integrity and fairness of women's sports while ensuring that all students are treated with dignity and respect. 

​

The University of Nebraska should be a national leader in supporting women's athletics and preserving meaningful opportunities for women to compete. 

​

Men should not be playing in women’s sports.

 

The University of Nebraska does not need to become more political. It needs to become more practical, more affordable, more academically focused, and more connected to the future.

​

We should remove bureaucracy, strengthen academics, embrace responsible innovation, expand access, connect education to Nebraska's workforce, protect academic freedom, and keep the University focused on its core mission.