Page 29 - BusinessWest September 14 2020

Education
Writing the Next Chapter
Robert Johnson Takes the Helm at WNEU
BAy George O’Brien
t least once, and perhaps twice, Robert Johnson strongly considered removing himself from the mix as a search com-
mittee narrowed the field of candi- dates to succeed Anthony Caprio as president of Western New England University (WNEU) in Springfield.
It was early spring, and the COVID- 19 pandemic was presenting every institution of higher learning, including UMass-Dartmouth, which he served as chancellor, with a laundry list of stern — and, in some cases, unprecedented — challenges.
“The business model for higher ed was going to change regardless — I think, by 2025, given demographics and a whole host of other things, colleges and universities were going to have to figure out how to do business differently. I think COVID, overnight, expedited that.”
Johnson told BusinessWest that the campus needed his full attention and that it might be time to call a halt to his quest for the WNEU job. But he “hung in there,” as he put it, and for the same reason that he eventually decided to pursue the position after at least twice telling a persistent recruiter that he wasn’t really interested.
“We are at an inflection point in higher education,” said Johnson, who arrived on the campus on Aug. 15, just a few weeks before students arrived for the fall semester. “Western New England has a good balance of the lib- eral arts and the professional schools, along with the law school, that puts it in a unique position to write the next
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