Eastern Oregon University makes comeback with healthy enrollment, return to roots | OregonLive.com

Eastern Oregon University makes comeback with healthy enrollment, return to roots | OregonLive.com

Eastern Oregon University makes comeback with healthy enrollment, return to roots

By Richard Cockle, The Oregonian

May 16, 2010, 4:30PM

View full sizeRicahrd Cockle/The OregonianBob Davies, president of Eastern Oregon University, shares a laugh with student May May Phillip, 21, of Micronesia on the university’s La Grande campus. Phillip’s friend, Tahirih la Bolle, 19, of Taiwan is with them. The gregarious Davies, president of Eastern since July, budgets 30 minutes extra when he walks anywhere on campus to chat with staff and students he meets along the way.LA GRANDE -- When Bob Davies interviewed for the job of president ofEastern Oregon University, search committee members repeatedly asked him: "Will you ride a horse in a parade?"

They usually laughed, and he might have dismissed it as a throwaway question except the university had just emerged from a series of institutional crises. Given that and the region's frontier and rodeo heritage, he figured something important lurked under the query's surface.

"They were really asking, 'Are you going to be up in an ivory tower or engaged with the people you serve?'" said Davies, who accepted the $184,000 president's job last July.

The answer was critical because the state's smallest and most remote public university had endured a period of tumbling enrollments, a spending spree and a bitter rift between the teaching staff and former president. The Legislature even briefly contemplated closing down the university.

But Eastern Oregon has made a striking comeback by rediscovering its roots, drawing its biggest freshman class this year and slashing expenses to once again meet a state-required budget reserve.

"It just seems things are a lot calmer on campus," said Mary Mata , a 37-year-old Eastern senior who graduates next month with majors in rangeland management and ecology. "We have a more realistic president,