VP candidate a team player

Delta College continues to search for a Vice President for the Instruction and Learning Services. One of the four candidates is Stephen L. Strom, a professor from Anchorage, Alaska.

Strom is a professor of Aerospace Studies as well as an Associate Dean of Extended Studies and Workforce at the University of Alaska Anchorage. One of his accomplishments was his 21-year-long service in the United States Air Force. He retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Strom began the session by addressing what he wants to do for Delta College in the future if he is elected.

“I believe in collaborating,” Strom said. “Listening, building consensuses of support, making ethical decisions, and fostering a sense of community—all this requires a team effort.”

Strom continued to explain the expanse of this ‘team’ that he is looking to be a part of and how it is not limited to staff inside the offices. Rather, the staff and faculty play an integral part in Delta College.

“To accomplish the mission of a college,” Strom said, “the community, the staff, administrators, board members and community and industry partners must all work together seamlessly towards a common vision.”

One of Strom’s main focuses was defining ‘diversity’. As he briefly examined the written definition, he concluded that the description found in the dictionary had only scratched the surface of what ‘diversity’ really is. Strom divided the definition into four different categories: ‘Personal’, ‘Internal’, ‘External’ and ‘Organizational’.

“The ‘personal’ dimension is our personalities,” Strom said. “It includes likes and dislikes, values and beliefs—this dimension is shaped early in our lives.”

The ‘internal’ dimension, according to Strom, represents characteristics that create divisions between and among people, such as race, ethnicity, age and gender. The ‘external’ dimension includes traits that can change throughout someone’s life.

Finally, the ‘organizational’ dimension of diversity, as Strom termed, is found in work-study or a community college like Delta, and includes management status, senior working, work location, function level or classification in work content or field.

One of Strom’s final messages was made specifically to the Delta staff. Rather than viewing an occupation simply for what it is, whether it’s teaching courses or counseling students, he urged the faculty to view their positions as opportunities to increase what he believed should be every college’s goal: college completion.12