Daily Egyptian Politics Editor

Racial and ethnic equality is a driving force in SIUC chancellor candidate Luis Proenza’s approach toward education.

Proenza, vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School at Purdue University, has worked to increase diversity in both the workplace and the classroom.

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Proenza, 53, will visit the SIUC campus today and Wednesday to meet with faculty, staff, administrators and students during his interview for the SIUC chancellor position. He is the second of four finalists to visit the campus.

While at Purdue, Proenza created a position that recruits minority students and helps provide them with financial aid from private individuals, businesses and organizations.

He also supports affirmative action and has spoken against California’s Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in the state.

Proenza, a native of Mexico, says racial and ethnic equity are critical to the success of an institution and a country.

Our American heritage provides everyone with the same opportunity, but we need to make sure people are having that chance, he said.

Communication is a priority for Proenza, who believes more coordinated communication between administrators and faculty improves the quality of a college.

He said faculty unionization may strain some of that communication and could cause problems with faculty-administration relationships.

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He has worked to improve conditions for graduate students at Purdue. He began a program, that provides health insurance for the graduate students.

Proenza also has been successful at pulling research money toward the universities at which he previously worked.

While at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, he garnered a $20 million contract for the school from the Polar Ice Coring Office. His drive to keep research on pace with technology landed Alaska a $25 million grant for an Arctic Region Supercomputing Center.

He has been involved in Arctic research since 1987 and has toured some research facilities located under the ice near the Arctic polar cap.

He said the facilities are somewhat similar to coal mines in design.

They are a little cleaner and a little cooler, but they give you the same sense of claustrophobia, he said.

When he is not spearheading research initiatives, improving conditions for graduate students or winning grants for Purdue, Proenza enjoys sailing with his wife Theresa. The couple owns a 44-foot boat, the Apogee, which they built together. Proenza said the idea for the project began while he was at the University of Minnesota.

When I was a graduate student, I saw some large sailing boats, and I knew that to have a boat that size and afford it, I’d have to build it myself.

I started working on it seven years after I received my graduate degree, and it took the better part of 15 years to complete.