GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) - Incoming University of North Dakota President Robert Kelley is talking about ``superclusters' within the school, cooperative programs with North Dakota State, and more of a UND presence in high schools.
Kelley, who takes over as UND president in July, met Thursday with members of the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corp. Afterward, he said he plans an aggressive marketing program to raise enrollment, and would like UND to have a stronger link with North Dakota high schools.
``If there's a bright science student in a Wahpeton high school, I'd love to have that student engaged in undergraduate research and then graduate research,' Kelley said. ``Once you've got a student turned on, they'll stay with that professor and finish that program.'
Kelley's suggestion for increased cooperation between UND's Energy and Environmental Research Center and the school's Center of Excellence for biomedical research drew a skeptical reaction from EERC Director Gerald Groenewold. He said the EERC gets most of its money from the private sector, which supplied about 85 percent of the center's contracts last year.
``We're not an academic enterprise ? we live in such different worlds,' Groenewold said.
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On another issue, Kelley said he believes recent racially-charged incidents at UND are being fully investigated. They include a sorority party with an Indian theme, and racial slurs drawn in dorms.
``Many of those behaviors are unacceptable in a research university environment,' Kelley said.
Kelley, who currently is the dean of health sciences at the University of Wyoming, said he and his wife, Marcia, hope to take a brief vacation before he takes over at UND.
