Mike Driscoll
Hometown
Montague, MI
Education
Michigan State University (BS 1983, MS 1985, PhD 1988)
Family
Late wife Becky, daughter Katie, son Greg, dog Bert
Hobbies
My newest hobby is playing the ukulele. I started that at the beginning of the year, because I wanted to learn something new and spend a little more time with music again, which was important to Becky and me throughout our lives together. I am six or seven months in. I keep one here in my office for lunchtime practice.
Favorite place to eat in Indiana
My kitchen. Over the pandemic, I learned how to make a good pie crust. And I learned how to do ribs, and they’re so good. I like to grill stuff, too.
Favorite TV show
I don’t watch much live TV other than the Pirates and the Steelers. I stream some stuff. Right now, I’m watching Murdoch Mysteries.
Person who has had the biggest influence on you
I’ve been so fortunate to have so many people who have had a big influence on me that I can’t name just one. My parents are important, for sure. Family is important. But the great people I’ve worked with and the great students I have worked with have been important to me. There are just so many of them that I feel blessed.
Mike Driscoll is not a university president by design. Far from it.
When he was a kid, he wanted to grow up to be an architect. Then in high school, he took an interest in engineering and computers, so he went off to college to be an electrical engineer. But as it often does, life took another turn, and Driscoll ended up with a PhD and began teaching and doing research at the college level.
But then his desire to help led him down a different path.
“There were problems in my department that no one was willing to solve,” he said. “And so I said, ‘We’ve got to fix this; we have to do something.’ And then I figured out that I could get stuff done and solve problems in that realm. And then people kept asking me to do that. And then that became a transition into more administrative and leadership positions.”
After serving at Portland State University as a faculty member and later an administrator, and then at the University of Alaska Anchorage as executive vice chancellor and provost, Driscoll came to 亚色影库 in 2012 and is the school’s second-longest-tenured president since it became Indiana State Teachers College in 1927.
One of the things he’s known for is the bow ties he wears most days when he’s on campus. He lost track of how many he has, but it’s an ever-growing collection that began around the same time as his career as 亚色影库’s president.
Here’s more about Mike Driscoll:
So . . . what’s up with the bow tie?
What’s up with the bow tie? In the fall of 2011, I was bored with just wearing ties, and I told Becky that maybe I needed to learn how to tie a bow tie. So, at Christmas 2011, I received two bow ties as a gift from Becky. And with a lot of cursing, I learned how to tie them. Back then, we were singing in about five Christmas services, and I wore one at all the services. That was, I think, the first time I wore a real bow tie.
That was six months before I came here. So after I interviewed on campus in November of 2011, I said, “Well, I’m going to be a university president; why not wear a bow tie?’ I wore one when I visited in March of 2012, and Francisco [professor Francisco Alarcón] said I was OK, so it’s been bow ties ever since.
What does a normal day look like for you?
I wake up at 6:00 a.m. I look at email first thing and deal with Bert. I read stuff while I’m having breakfast, and then it’s a mix of things the rest of the day. I’m probably still working over dinner reading stuff, unless I have a meeting, and then I might get to relax, or I might work out in the evening. In the middle, my day is meeting with all sorts of different people. It can get pretty busy during a typical day with just lots of interactions with people. It’s hard to say what a typical day is.
What makes a good day for you?
When I get to have pie [laughs].
I never get everything done on my to-do list—ever, in my entire life. It will never happen in this job. And so anytime I can get to something that’s important in terms of making students’ lives better or community life better, then I feel good about it. When you can actually engage with somebody or push an initiative ahead or make a plan that you know is going to make a difference in people’s lives and, hence, in the world, that’s a good day. Just one small progress step on that can make it a great day.
Generally speaking, what should students do if they need help?
They should reach out to their navigator, and if it’s about academic stuff in class, talk to their faculty member. You don’t need to worry, and you don’t need to write the president because you’re concerned about what’s going on in a class. Talk to the person who’s teaching the class. They care about you and want you to succeed.
What is the best advice anyone’s ever given you?
So, I have three rules for living, two of them I learned from other people. The first one is that there are no shortcuts in a rectilinear coordinate system, attributed to Herman J. Migliore, a colleague of mine at Portland State. Most people don’t know what that means. But if you’re in the grid of Manhattan, you can’t cut kitty-corner. You've got to take the route to get there. What that means is there are no shortcuts in the rules.
The second one is to never give up altitude unnecessarily. That’s from John McHugh, another faculty colleague, who’s also a pilot. It’s really good for when you’re in a leadership position, but I think it’s good in a lot of other things, too.
The third one is never pass up the opportunity to pee. I’ll attribute that to me.
I have lots of advice all over the place, but I’ve had those three rules for 25 years.