University of Northern Iowa Today


Current Issue	UNIToday Archives	Submit Class Notes	Alumni Home

The Students First Presidency

Koob Photo

Robert Koob
BA/chemistry, University of Northern Iowa 1962
PhD/chemistry, University of Kansas, 1967
Eighth president/first graduate to become its president
Served from 1995-2006
Hometown: Hawarden, Iowa
Wife Yvonne, seven children, 11 grandchildren

Perhaps Robert Koob’s greatest legacy to the University of Northern Iowa can be summed in two words: “Students First.”

When he first arrived on campus as UNI’s eighth president, he said he was amazed by the sense of community, commitment and success of the students. “But we didn’t talk about our values explicitly,” said Koob who retired as president in May but is taking a one-year leave from UNI. “We couldn’t give a shorthand version of what it is we thought we were about.”

That changed, following values-based strategic planning and the formal implementation of a “Students First” mentality. “Everyone who visits here now is amazed that we all know who we are and exactly what we're about,” he said. “We can tell them we care about our students and want them to succeed. It's our culture to make sure students have that kind of success; that they feel welcome and that we want them to learn, to feel stimulated, to have a great social experience. And that's everywhere. You hear it from the students, the faculty and the staff. Everyone seems to be on the same page.

“I don’t’ think we’ve changed so much but we understand who we are and we can say it. I think an important accomplishment in this particular term has been that self-understanding, that self-expression, the ability to say it.”

Koob made it a point to work closely with student government and student organizations and accepted almost every invitation a student group made to meet with him. “I had a strong belief that student government and student activities are important learning opportunities, so I tried to shift this toward giving them more responsibility.”

Koob said he noticed early in his tenure that the UNI campus seemed willing to try new things, to give them a chance. “Not every idea I’ve had has been a good one, but enough of them have that we’ve seen a significant amount of change over time, but change that we’ve agreed to do together. I would like to have seen us with a new student information system. We don’t have it yet, but we’re moving along. I don’t have any regrets about things I desperately wanted to have happen that did not. Everything’s underway. That’s one of the reasons I felt comfortable coming into this retirement scenario.”

Extraordinary campus growth did occur under his watch, including the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, the Freeburg Early Childhood Program, the Center for Multicultural Education and the soon-to-open McLeod Center, as well as expansions to the McCollum Science Hall, Lang Hall and Maucker Union.

“I didn’t come in here saying, ‘We have to reform (everything), because it was in good shape. Generally, I wanted to let those things that were going well, continue to go well. Our physical plant is gorgeous—that was Deno’s (Constantine Curris) legacy. So I continued to participate in bringing resources to campus to add to this physical plant. If you look around, the amount of building over the last 10 years has been enormous.”

Another Koob legacy was garnering recognition and acceptance for UNI both within the community and in the state. “It's very important to articulate who we are in the context of our community and the state. We serve a broader community. We’ve helped our community come together and we are recognized in the state of Iowa as the truly Iowa university – the one with the most Iowa-rich student body, the fewest out-of-state students. I intentionally involved the university with the broader community. It's a part of raising consciousness that this is okay; it’s part of our job; we’re here to help these communities grow.”

He personally helped that growth through his involvement in many community organizations; include Cedar Valley’s Promise, Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and the Waterloo Development Corporation. He also served on numerous state and national boards, such as the Institute for Tomorrow’s Workforce, Biosciences Alliance of Iowa and the Iowa Business Council. He’s been honored with many awards, including the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Award from the Eastern Iowa chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals for outstanding charitable service and the 2003 Cedar Falls Representative Citizen of the Year and has been inducted into the 2002 Cedar Valley Business Hall of Fame.

“The institution, as it ages, gets richer and becomes more complex. One of the things I tried to do as president was to figure out which layers ought to be added. Community involvement was one of them. It seemed that universities want to be an integral part of their communities. Because I looked at things that seemed to need to be done to increase that complexity, the richness of the university, that was, frankly, one of those pieces that had remained undone through several generations of presidents,” he said. “On the other hand, we have a lot of good attention being paid to the students and a lot of good quality programs.”

Another important milestone that Koob says he didn’t do personally, but that he feels good about the fact it occurred on his watch, was the retirement of so many faculty and their replacements with many high-quality people committed to the students. “In just the last five years, we have replaced 150 faculty. That generational shift was very important – to create an atmosphere where our “Students First” culture could be transmitted forward to the next generation of employees here at UNI.

“Even in difficult budget times, we were able to maintain a sense of community, a sense of mutual support and I think our younger employees are just as committed to the culture of UNI as are our more senior employees. That's a big accomplishment.”

While Koob dealt with financial struggles throughout much of his presidency, he worked hard to find the funds to keep the institution’s forward momentum. He continued to give the university a voice and earned the respect of legislators, Regents, taxpayers and numerous other constituent groups throughout the state. For the past several years he donated his salary increases to the UNI Foundation and is taking an unpaid leave from the university rather than burden it with his salary.

"UNI has a unique role as a state and regional university, dedicated to ensuring those who may be intimidated by larger institutions or whatever the reason, have an opportunity to get a first-rate education at an affordable rate.

“I really see us serving a broad region as we move into the future. The challenge for us is there’s less will for public education and we may have to do things that otherwise we wouldn’t have done to finance this service. Hence, the emphasis on private fundraising and the “Students First” campaign and its successors. We’ve added a Sponsored Programs office to facilitate obtaining grants and we are doing more aggressive out-of-state recruiting, all to diversify our funding stream so that we can continue to provide service to a public that seems less willing to pay for it.”

After “Students First” and placing the university’s needs ahead of his own, his new role is spending more time with his wife and family. He and Yvonne have moved back to their California home, where they’ll fix up the house and he’ll take a welcome break from the demands of the past 11 years. With seven children and 11 grandchildren in Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Northern California and Hawaii, they also plan on doing some traveling.

“There were all kinds of obligations connected to this role, but the real joy, the thing that I’ll miss the most is the energy of just being on the campus.”