By Justin Diemert
On-line Forty-Niner
 
His day was hectic and full of meetings, budget talks and conference calls. Any other person in this position would find it hard to smile through it all, but he looks at the next day as another chance to help the students as provost at Cal State Long Beach.
 
Gary Reichard became provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs of the university on July 1, 2002 when the nationwide search ended for a new provost finding the best candidate already working for CSULB. He was formerly the associate vice president for academic affairs, which helps manage areas of academic personnel, planning and assessment. Reichard began his CSULB career in 1994 and all students have truly felt his presence.
 
“He’s doing a great job at setting an agenda for academic affairs,” Associate Vice President of Instructional Programs, Keith Polakoff said. “[Reichard] is very good at getting people to stay on task.”
 
He refers the university as a well-oiled machine that currently is running well. Reichard’s biggest concern is to meet the student’s ultimate needs. The growing enrollment issue has him meeting frequently discussing how to plan for the expected 36,000 students expected for next fall and if we can wisely take more students. His other greatest concerns involve increasing and perfecting academic technology, graduate studies, international education and external support.
 
“We’re giving the cutting edge technology to the students and not to the teachers,” Reichard said, “We are reorganizing the system for technological reasons.”
 
As part of adapting the university to the changing technology students will have the opportunity to take advantage of a new system which will allow students to register online, check class availability and view transcripts. Reichard has worked closely with Janet Foster, project coordinator for the online system, on creating an organized way of putting the information and services students most need in an accessible format.
 
The master’s degree has become increasingly important for professionals in today’s workforce seeking jobs. Cal State Long Beach will continue to offer quality graduate programs by placing an emphasis on programs that work and rethink programs that need reform. International education is part of the reform for some programs that appear outdated.
 
“There is no excuse for any school to graduate students with out a sense of environment,” Richard said, “We want to enable as many students as possible to be able to have a global experience, Long Beach is a global city and we need to reflect that in our programs.”
 
Reichard describes his position as more of a human resources job and claims it’s critically important to build strong relationships and work through boundaries. He finds the right, qualified person for the particular job and lets them loose. Reichard wants to make quality appointments to the positions, wants people who will bring ideas forward and who can be collaborative.
 
“You must have smart people around you who have a grassroots understanding of curriculum with a sense of creativity,” Reichard said. “It’s more about orchestration of people and policies than anything.”
 
Early in his career at Cal State Long Beach Reichard faced negative press concerning accusations surrounding the administration and its discrimination of women and minority teachers. The California Federation of Teachers pointed out that an average male professor earns $68,934 and the average female earns $66,824.
 
Reichard responded to the accusations by telling the On-line Forty-Niner, “I see nothing that would indicate discrimination against women.” This occurred in early July of 2000, before Reichard became provost.
 
In his time in Florida, Reichard also faced the problem all universities face these days, students taking longer to graduate. He was the utmost advocate for making a difference in the length it took a student to finish college in Florida.

“So many of my upper division students are taking longer to graduate,” Reichard said to the Sun -Sentinel as FAU’s dean of undergraduate studies.
 
Reichard was the dean for undergraduate studies at Florida Atlantic University before he came to Cal State Long Beach. He had also been a professor, chair of the history department and the acting dean of Schmidt College at FAU. Before his days in Florida he was an associate vice chancellor of the University of Maryland collegiate system. He has been the director of honors program at University of Delaware for five years and was also the chair of the history department at Ohio State University.
 
“[Reichard] started at the same time I did, he was extremely popular with faculty and students on campus,” Armando Contreras said, executive assistant to the president. “He brought a big philosophical change to the academic affairs side of the university.”
 
He came to Cal State Long Beach extremely qualified as an administrator as well as an instructor. Reichard began his collegiate career at the College of Wooster where he received his bachelor’s degree and also started teaching. It was not enough for Reichard so he set off to Vanderbilt University where he received his master’s degree and then went on to Cornell University for his Ph.D. Completing his work at Cornell required Reichard to compose a dissertation. His lengthy 394-page research was published in 1971 and focused on the reaffirmation of republicanism, which went into detail of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the eighty-third congress.

 He believes in putting faculty in front of staff and operating expenses because he would rather cut staff than professors who have classes to teach. The university plans to cut 4% of student assistants on campus to help absorb some costs, but Reichard admits they help more than any other group of employees on the payroll.
 
Reichard is a unique individual who believes in the greater good of the university. He has a clear vision of what level “The Beach” should be at in five years, but the only thing holding him back would be the current budget crisis. He is a man of experience and wisdom through which he brings to his current position here at Long Beach.
 
“I plan to stay at Long Beach for as long as they will allow me, this is a great job,” Reichard said. “We are the model of what all CSU campuses are supposed to be.”  

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