IOWA CITY Iowa
Sally Mason just wants to listen.
It sounds like a simple task for a woman just installed as the University of Iowa’s newest president. But Mason believes hearing from the university community is as critical as anything else she can do to find success in Iowa City.
“I want to learn what’s happening here, what has happened here, and what people’s dreams are for here,” Mason said during a recent interview with the Associated Press in her campus office.
Sitting next to vases of bright yellow roses gifts from new friends at Iowa and old ones at Purdue University, where she served as a provost for six years Mason preached the virtues of due diligence.
She will take her time laying out specific plans for Iowa. There is no rush, she says, and in any case she wants to use her first months in office to talk with the school’s many stakeholders. Discussing a broad agenda without a better grasp on the university’s culture would be a mistake, she said.
“A lot of this … is having conversations and listening to people and sorting through some of the messages that I’ll receive before I sit down and try to plot out a very specific agenda,” Mason said.
