Road leads Rogerson to UALR; chancellor-position finalist envisions school, city in tandem

Andrew Rogerson, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs, Sonoma State (California State University System)
Andrew Rogerson, Ph.D., provost and vice president of academic affairs, Sonoma State (California State University System)

Editor's note: Second of three profiles on the finalists for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock chancellor's position.

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. -- The Bodega Highway leads from Sebastopol to the sea, past an effigy of Alfred Hitchcock in front of the Bodega General Store and an occasional redheaded turkey vulture standing in the road.


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It was here that Hitchcock filmed The Birds in 1963.

And it's along this rural, two-lane highway that Andrew Rogerson often rides his red Ducati Panigale motorcycle when he needs to see the Pacific Ocean.

"It's therapeutic," he said.

Rogerson, the provost at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, in the heart of California wine country, is a finalist for the chancellor's job at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

He is scheduled to be in Little Rock today and Thursday to meet with University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt, trustees of the UA System and others on the UALR campus. It's his first trip to Arkansas.

The UA System is searching nationally for someone to succeed Joel Anderson, 74, who is retiring from his $219,406-a-year job in June after 13 years as chancellor.

Rogerson is one of three finalists for the job. The other two are Mark Rudin, vice president for research and economic development at Boise State University; and Cheryl Lovell, special adviser to the chancellor and to the chief academic officer of the Colorado State University System.

Making an impact

Rogerson, 63, said the job is perfect for him. After five years as a provost, he's looking for a job opportunity where he can stay for 10 years and make an impact not only on a university but on the city where it's located. Citing the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, of which UALR is a member, Rogerson said a university should be "of the city, not just in the city."

"You need a chancellor who's going to go out there and link with the community," he said. "The university should be looking for opportunities to do projects that the city needs."

Education has moved beyond the traditional lecture halls of the past, Rogerson said.

"Students can get information so much faster from the Web," he said.

Rogerson is an advocate for project-based learning and "creative experiences" for students, such as internships.

Rogerson described himself as an "academic entrepreneur."

"I think I have a clear understanding of how the world of education in the next 10 years will be nothing like the world of education in the last 10 years," he said. "This means universities will have to change, and I can be that agent of change. ... There's no other entity other than religion that has resisted change so successfully over the last 500 years as universities."

Rogerson said he has helped make Sonoma State a destination campus, and he would like to do the same for UALR.

"My ultimate dream is to make Little Rock a destination campus for Arkansas, the nation and beyond," he said.

Sonoma State is a public school that's part of the California State University System, which includes 23 campuses.

Since Rogerson arrived at Sonoma State in 2011, the number of undergraduate students enrolled there has increased by 1,225 -- from 7,390 in the fall of 2010 to 8,615 in the fall of 2015. At the same time, the grade point average of entering freshmen has increased from 3.16 to 3.24 on a 4.0 scale.

At Sonoma State, 59 percent of entering freshmen graduate within six years, which is the national average. At UALR, the six-year graduation rate is about 23 percent.

Rogerson reconnected Sonoma State with the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Sonoma State is the only member from California.

"That refocused our attention on the importance of a liberal arts education in today's world," he said. "We are a comprehensive university with many professional programs. ... But we teach in the liberal arts and sciences tradition."

That's also what UALR does, which is why the prospect of being chancellor there is exciting, Rogerson said.

Clive and Cohen

Born and raised in Scotland, Rogerson still retains his accent and his love for European cars and motorcycles.

He often commutes to work on the 2014 Ducati. Rogerson also has a gray 2014 Yamaha VMAX motorcycle, a silver 2008 Mercedes AMG SLK55 roadster and a vermilion red 1978 MGB nicknamed "Clive."

Embedded in his love of motoring is a sense of self-reliance.

When Rogerson got his first car at age 17 -- a used 1965 Austin Mini -- his father wouldn't let him drive it until they had disassembled the engine and put it back together, replacing any parts that were worn out, so Rogerson would know how the engine worked.

"He instilled in me the idea that I could do anything in life," Rogerson said. "It gave me a sense of confidence that has followed me through life."

Rogerson is a microbiologist who loves to paint. Two of his paintings hang on his office wall. His heroes include the painter David Hockney and the singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen.

While he professes a budding love for classical music, Rogerson's wife, Janessa, is quick to note that her husband has seen Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd in concert.

Janessa Rogerson is also in Arkansas this week. She is a development officer for Sonoma State's Green Music Center, which is a focal point for the arts in the northern San Francisco Bay Area. The Green Music Center presents classical, contemporary, jazz, chamber and world music artists in concert in the 1,400-seat Weill Hall and the 240-seat Schroeder Hall.

Arkansas connection

Janessa Rogerson has Arkansas roots. Her grandparents, Garland and Lily Bean, were from Plumerville in Conway County, where they operated a store. Her parents met at Arkansas State Teachers College, which is now the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. Janessa Rogerson still has aunts and uncles in Conway and Morrilton.

She remembers coming to Arkansas as a child to visit relatives.

"I can hear my grandma calling out 'store, Daddy' to my grandpa when a customer came walking or driving up," she said. "It was always a big treat to be there with him as my mom rarely allowed us to have soda pop or candy, and when we were there with my grandparents, it was literally like a kid in a candy store. Soda every day. Plus picking fresh corn, churning butter, picking and stringing green beans. Watching my grandfather mix fresh butter and sorghum molasses together to slather on hot, fresh cornbread.

"To a kid from California, these were exotic experiences, as were feeding the chickens, pigs and cows. My family roots are a deep part of my life. Knowing my grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousins, and their sweet care for us, even though we were on the West Coast, was a huge support and comfort. We had no family in California. Arkansas means family to me. ... As a child, it seemed a place of magical destiny."

The Rogersons met in 2013 at Joseph Phelps Vineyard, which is on the Bodega Highway. They married two years later. It was the third marriage for Andrew Rogerson. Janessa was a widow. Her husband died of leukemia in 2007. Andrew had one adult child, and Janessa had three.

"He is the kindest man you'll ever know, and the most brilliant," Janessa Rogerson said of her current husband.

Zoe Rogerson, 26, said all of the kids thought she was cool when her father would drop her off at camp on one of his motorcycles.

Sexy accents

Ruben Arminana, the president of Sonoma State University, also had praise for the provost.

"He has the temperament, the intellect and the dedication to students that would make him a superb chancellor," said Arminana (pronounced armen-yana). "I think he will bring enormous recognition to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the students will really benefit."

Arminana said Rogerson is especially good at matching undergraduate students with "research and scholarly opportunities." He said the Rogersons have been exceptional fundraisers for Sonoma State.

Andrew Rogerson's official title also includes vice president of academic affairs. He makes $220,000 a year at Sonoma State.

While provost generally means a university's academic leader, Arminana noted that provost can also mean someone who oversees a prison.

"One of the things a provost would do was bring order to an unruly crowd," he said, comparing academics to inmates. "And by tradition, the academy is an unruly group of people."

As second in command of a university, the provost oversees the office of academic affairs and all academic aspects of the university, Arminana said.

"The deans of the different schools report to the provost," he said. "The provost acts as president when the president is absent from the university."

Arminana, who was born in Cuba, said he had the sexiest accent on campus until Rogerson arrived in 2011.

Arminana has a vermilion red 1977 MGB that is identical to the one Rogerson has, and they often park the cars side by side in a campus parking lot. The two men have offices in Adlai Stevenson Hall, a brutalistic gray building that clashes with the lush greenery of the 269-acre campus.

Arminana is retiring at the end of June after serving as president of Sonoma State since 1992. He's the longest-serving president in the California State University System. Judy K. Sakaki was named in January to succeed him. She's vice president of student affairs in the president's office at the University of California System.

Rogerson said he didn't apply for the president's job at Sonoma State because it's time for a change. In February, he sold his house near Sebastopol and moved into a rental house in Santa Rosa, 9 miles north of Rohnert Park, anticipating a permanent move in the near future.

Titles are a bit different between the California State University System and the UA system, which has a president over the entire system and a chancellor over each campus. In the California State System, it's the other way around.

Jake Mackenzie, the vice mayor of Rohnert Park, said he's a "huge fan" of Rogerson.

"I've had the opportunity to work with him in matters of science and the community, and he's been a breath of fresh air," Mackenzie said. "He has made a huge effort to reach out from the campus to the surrounding communities, particularly in the area of water policy."

With California in a drought, it's important to have cooperation and an exchange of information between scientists and policymakers who deal with water supply and water quality, Mackenzie said. He retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after 30 years as a pesticide regulator.

Harry Potteresque

Rogerson attended The High School of Glasgow, which he compared to something out of a Harry Potter movie. It was founded as the Choir School of Glasgow Cathedral around 1124. In that school, it was compulsory for boys to play rugby, so Rogerson did.

At a young age, Rogerson was torn between art and science. He wanted to be a painter, but his parents had invested in his education, and he thought the return on their investment might be greater if he went into science, so he did that as well.

Rogerson's father managed a company that rented tanker cars on trains. His mother was a housewife who did occasional secretarial work.

Rogerson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1975 from Paisley College of Technology in Scotland and a doctorate in protozoan ecology in 1979 from the University of Stirling in Scotland.

Several times, Rogerson moved back and forth between Europe and North America working as a researcher and teacher.

He did research at the University of Toronto and Atlantic Research Laboratory of the National Research Council of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Then he went back to England, where he worked on the collection of algae and protozoa cultures at Windermere Laboratory.

In 1988, Rogerson began his first stint in the U.S. as a research associate at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

But the next year, he was back in Scotland, where he taught for several years at the University Marine Biological Station Millport.

Rogerson returned to the United States in 1996 and taught for two years at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City.

From there, he went to Florida, where he worked for the next eight years at the Oceanographic Center-Nova Southeastern University in Florida. There, he worked his way from associate professor to professor to associate dean.

Rogerson moved to West Virginia in 2006 to serve as dean of the college of science and a professor of biology at Marshall University.

In 2008, he moved back to California to be dean of the college of science and mathematics and a professor of biology at California State University in Fresno.

From there, he moved to Sonoma State in 2011 to be provost.

During his career as a microbiologist, Rogerson has published 130 research papers.

Rogerson and Lovell, who is currently with the Colorado State University System, are also finalists to be chancellor at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Rogerson went there for interviews in late April. Four people are still under consideration for that job. A timeline on the Southern Illinois website shows that the university board will select its new leader this month.

"If you're at all any good, you should be in other searches," Rogerson said.

He said he could live anywhere and be happy.

While the Bodega Highway doesn't go through Arkansas, the Pig Trail goes through the Ozark Mountains. It may not lead to the sea, but it would be a therapeutic drive all the same.

Metro on 05/11/2016

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