Eight years ago the UA's new Chancellor David Gearhart and I sat across from each other sharing a meal and healing the rift that had developed between me as an Arkansas journalist and the University of Arkansas administration under his predecessor.
If there's a word to describe that visit for me, it would be refreshing. It was nice to communicate with a bright, engaged man who not only understood journalism (as the son of a publisher) but who had so many hopes and plans for elevating the state's flagship university.
We parted that day with a smile and a handshake. My lines of communication had been reopened with the U of A. And it came to pass that Gearhart and I developed a relationship based in mutual respect and appreciation for the job we each had to do. Plus I respected his energy, optimism and cordial manner.
Being a skeptical journalist, I also wanted to wait and see if this man could deliver what he so clearly hoped to. It's one thing for us to seek goals, yet another to achieve them.
At the time we shared that meal, Gearhart already had packed bags and set off on a listening tour across the state. His intention at these casual meetings was to learn how the UA was perceived and how it might better serve students and families. Upon returning, he was convinced the campus, its faculty, staff and volunteers would proactively embrace the concept of student service.
"I had a plan for the first 100 days that included the philosophy of 'students first,'" he told me the other day, seven weeks from retirement and a year from a professor's lectern at the UA School of Law. "The idea was built on the concept of placing immediate attention on the main reason for our existence, which was the education of our students."
That was exactly the principle we'd discussed: A land-grant university established to serve the everyday folks of Arkansas aspiring to do just that.
He was positioned to achieve the goal after coming off his role as vice chancellor for advancement, where he led the Campaign for the 21st Century that raised a record $1 billion. That, incidentally, has since climbed to over $2 billion during Gearhart's chancellorship.
The school's endowment has soared from $119 million to $920.6 million during his eight years. The amount the school holds in reserves has risen from about $2 million to $50 million.
A list of accomplishments under Gearhart's leadership went on for pages. Proven achievement versus self-serving words, for me, is the surest sign of having a true leader responsible for any business or institution.
Within that list, I was most impressed with the aspects that involved students and their achievements. Enrollment skyrocketed by 37 percent to 26,200, six-year graduation rates topped 62 percent in 2014, the highest in school history and across the state's public institutions.
Gearhart understandably smiles at those figures, along with the fact that the number of incoming students with ACT scores of 30 or above has risen 43 percent, along with a 60 percent increase in those with GPAs of at least 3.75. Diversity on campus has increased by 80 percent.
In Razorback athletics, the student-athlete grade point has climbed to a record 3.24, the 11th consecutive year above 3.0. Graduation success rates have followed, showing 200 current and former student athletes graduating in the past two academic years.
Many across America have taken note of the UA's remarkable achievements under Gearhart. The Carnegie Foundation ranks the institution along with 107 others in its highest classification for advancement of teaching. That's out of America's 4,633 accredited universities and colleges.
He's been honored for actively supporting the Latino community in our state and led the UA to become a bona fide global leader in sustainability metrics, management and practices.
And as tuition and fees at every American university have been rising relentlessly, he spearheaded the successful effort to freeze tuition in his second year as chancellor and has kept it lower than most others, thus prompting its perennial ranking as one of the nation's "best bargains" in higher education.
"We put together a bucket list of items that would help get us to prominence and help us garner the best students available," he explained.
"Renovation of the physical plant was very important. Increasing the number and quality of students so to, in effect, right-size the institution, which would help our bottom line dramatically," he said.
The days ticking away toward his July 31 retirement have been bittersweet. "As I look back, I think much of what we had on the bucket list has been accomplished and that makes me feel very good. While there's certainly much more to be done, I think our record is a good one and we've set the university on a course to become a Top 50 public institution."
I'd say he's earned the right to feel very good and we are all better off for his having served us as a genuine leader.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 06/09/2015