State Senator F. Ann Millner of Utah didn’t plan to become a university president or hold political office, but now she has done both. In an unusual transition, the former president of Weber State University, in Utah, is now a Republican state senator. Higher education must continue to evolve, she says, and the right policy levers can support that in appropriate ways.
Born in Kentucky and raised in Tennessee by Depression-era parents, Millner witnessed the diversity of American higher education by studying or working, sometimes simultaneously, at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson University, Texas State University (then Southwest Texas State), Gwynedd Mercy University (when it was still a college), and Brigham Young University. A focus on continuing education made her a nontraditional presidential candidate, and on the campaign trail, a college presidency wasn’t always an asset. But she zeros in on students and constituents, education and economic development.
In 2016, Millner’s second year in the Utah Senate, she sponsored the Strategic Workforce Investments bill to align higher education and industry through stackable credentials. Technical colleges, public universities, and K-12 systems in partnership have submitted budget proposals through the legislative process, resulting in nearly 20 programs today. Along the way, Millner says, she changed the mind of a fellow senator who thought she would be “a patsy for higher education.”
Millner recently spoke with The Chronicle about her unusual path, why voters were skeptical of her as a candidate, and what educators and lawmakers misunderstand about each other.
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Did you know you wanted to become a university president?
No. My focus has always been, in every role I’ve had, to try to do the best job that I could. And then opportunities seem to open up. I had been at Weber State University for 20 years, and I was the vice president for university relations when the president decided to leave. People started saying, Do you want to think about this?
We had not had, in the system of higher education in Utah, a woman president of a university. And I hadn’t come through the academic side, but through continuing education and university relations and advancement. And the system had not hired an internal president in like 20 years. So I kind of felt, This is a long shot. But if you never apply, you can’t get the job. I thought maybe it would help someone else who came along after me.
But you were selected, and you said you wanted to do the job for about a decade. Why?
I set a goal of eight to 10 years feeling like that period of time is long enough to make a meaningful contribution, but not so long that the institution’s not benefiting from new thinking and ideas.
A former college president running as a Republican surprised people. They wondered, Aren’t university presidents all liberals?
When I hired vice presidents, I would say, I want a five-year commitment, because I think it takes that long to learn the institution, to understand what’s possible, to set goals and accomplish them.
How did you decide to run for office?
I had built good relationships. I understood the process. When over half of your budget is funded by the legislature, it’s very important to work with them.
The senator who was representing my district decided he wasn’t going to run for another term, and I got lots of calls. People said, You could make a meaningful contribution really quickly. And I decided to do it.
It was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t have real campaign experience. I had a lot to learn.
Like what?
Faculty, staff, alumni — I knew the kinds of things they were interested in hearing. I had to learn what my constituents wanted to hear and how deep they wanted to go into issues. As a candidate, you have to explain fairly complex issues in a very short amount of time. You really have to hone your message so that you communicate the key points in a minute or two. And then if people want to know more, they ask you specific questions.
I knew lots of people in the region, but I really had to increase my ability to communicate with an even broader constituency all across my district. It’s being able to say, Who’s my audience? And how do I make sure my message is addressing the issues they’re most concerned about? It’s easy for us to get, Here’s what important to me. What we have to focus on is what’s important to the group we’re speaking with.
Another issue was that a former college president running as a Republican surprised people. They wondered, Aren’t university presidents all liberals? I had to help people understand that that’s not true. What people sometimes hear is the headline stuff, not the richness of the discussions that go on on campuses. I got to a point where I just started by saying, Everyone says you’re a former university president, you must be a liberal. Let me tell you that I’m a conservative.
You’ve said that higher education now is in an interesting time. What do you mean?
Even the best system of higher education will have to evolve in a changing environment. What we see with technology, with the capabilities of artificial intelligence, with the broadband ability to move data and information, to store that, to make it accessible, to provide really broad platforms of learning — how do we incorporate that to meet the needs of students and communities? That’s going to change exponentially. We’re going to see companies and industries and organizations requiring people to be able to function at much higher levels of problem solving and critical thinking and knowing how to access and analyze information. It’s incumbent upon us to recognize that world and prepare students to live in that world.
Where do tensions arise between institutions and states in making change?
Different ideas. Systems have ideas, and legislators and governors have ideas, and they might not be the same ideas. It’s also direction and pace. How fast and at what cost.
This is an old example, but let’s take common course numbering and people feeling like it was time for us as a state to make sure courses transferred across the system. Legislators were hearing from their constituents, I take these courses from one institution, I go to the other institution, and they’re making me repeat the same courses. And legislators said, These are our public institutions, why can’t we solve this? There was the natural concern by institutions about their role in decision-making. And finally, based on the pressure from the legislature, the system stepped up and said, OK we’re going to bring everybody together, and we’re going to find a way.
Frankly, that’s how the system works sometimes. The fact that there was some external influence helped to overcome the inertia of making that change.
What do state legislators misunderstand about higher education?
They don’t understand the culture of higher education and how things get done. When you work in higher education, you learn that you have to engage people, that the process is important: understanding a problem or an opportunity, bringing good data to it, being able to think about best practices, alternative options, and moving people toward consensus. I call that spending your time on the front end. You’re investing in the process to bring people along with you, so there’s broader acceptance about the direction and what you’re going to do.
Oftentimes legislators are business and industry people. It’s much more of a top-down process: We’re going to do this. But still we have to spend a lot of time working through concerns, etc. That’s spending time on the back end.
What do college leaders misunderstand about their state legislators?
We understand the great value of our institutions and our impact on people’s lives and local communities because we do that work every day, and we’re deeply embedded and committed to it. What we don’t always do as well as we need to is share the stories and the impact. And find ways to very transparently communicate how we’re using the dollars, and that we’re willing to be accountable for our outcomes.
Sometimes what we want to say is, Trust us, and that’s not what legislators want to hear. They’re accountable to their constituents. They can’t just say to their constituents, Trust us. They have to be able to communicate results and cost-effective use of funds. And they have to feel like they have the answers to those questions, because they’re held accountable.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sara Lipka edits coverage of campus life and other topics. Follow her on Twitter @chronsara, or email her at sara.lipka@chronicle.com.
