His father was Pupi Campo, a famous bandleader. He was also a Cuban immigrant who arrived in the country with only the $20 in his pocket. His mother was Betty Clooney (George Clooney’s aunt) who was a successful entertainer herself. He was a first generation Cuban-American born and raised in Miami, Florida, who ended up teaching English at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, then becoming President of Regent University in Virginia, and then now has been the named Ashland University’s newest president.

“When I say I took a rather circuitous route to higher education that’s certainly true,”

Carlos Campo said with a laugh. 

Campo was announced as AU’s newest president on April first, and was in Ashland shopping for a home Tuesday with his wife, Karen.

“We’re not planning to rent a condo ten miles from campus,” Campo said. “We want to be invested in the community, and we know that a home is just part of that, but we know that we really believe that that’s part and parcel to who we are as people.”

Campo most recently served as Regent University’s president from August 2010 until September 2013 when he resigned suddenly. The details are not fully known, and both sides have agreed to keep in that way.

Regardless, Campo intends on being at AU long-term.

“I wish I could predict the future as well as others can,” he said. “But I will say this: we are here for the long term. That’s the way we’re thinking. When we talk to others about stability in this place, it begins with us.”

Stability is something Campo wants to emphasize as he begins his time as president.

“I think folks have been talking about where will we be in five to ten years, will we even be around, those sorts of dialogues,” Campo said. “I hope will end today. I think those things are things of the past. There’s no question there’s great stability here. We’ve been here for a long time and we plan to be here a long time in the future.”

For Campo, the past can be defined by what he has termed the “deficit narrative.”

“I think there has been a deficit narrative on this campus for too long,” he said, “And it’s hard when people lose their positions, when so much of the discussion is about dollars and cents you lose your focus. So our hope is to eliminate the deficit narrative and really talk about the incredible resources we do have on campus.”

Those resources start with the people here at AU.

“We have incredible students on this campus,” he said, “We have great faculty on this campus. We are going to celebrate what we have in terms of human resources and other resources on this campus, and we believe that there is a tremendous future for Ashland.”

Even with Campo’s “brutal optimism,” as he calls it, he is aware there are some real challenges facing Ashland.

“Schools only have certain amount of revenue streams that are available to them,” he said, “And there are only certain places that can be cut. So we have to look to be efficient, to look at every dollar and not say that there are any sacred cows at Ashland or anywhere else, and really understand that what’s most important is that we’re not going to sacrifice the quality of what happens here; the interaction that happens to students is really what to me is most sacred. Everything else can fall away.”

Campo does believe, though, that AU’s quality can be translated into online programs.

“I really think it’s about translating that Ashland ethos into a different delivery mode. Not every delivery mode is right for every student but how do we take that Ashland accent on the individual and make it true online,” he said, “Students will quickly tell you in an online environment they feel that they’ve been abandoned, that the material has been posted, they can’t reach their instructor. I don’t hear that from Ashland students here that are face to face… it’s not less than it’s just different than.”

That could include a role for MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses.

“I think there are some terrific MOOCs out there,” he said, “and I may think there’s a place for that in some curricular choices. I don’t know that they will work for primary programs here at Ashland… so I think it’ll be interesting to see if MOOCs make sense for Ashland but I think at this point its pretty premature to see them being a central part of who we are.”

Identifying who we are is another challenge Campo wants to take on. Identity and race relations have been a major national dialogue for some time now, and he wants Ashland to have a role in that conversation.

“We’re not going to pretend that we are someone that we are not but that we want to learn,” Campo said, “we are not coming to this conversation with any prejudice.”

Campo also emphasized something Ashland is not often recognized for-its diversity.

“I think when we look at Ashland’s diversity, if we look simply at demographic diversity, we might say that,” he said “but I think Ashland is far more diverse than we give ourselves credit for, just in terms of student body, what they’ve experienced, what they’ve lived through. They have experiences that inner-city kids can’t talk about as well that are important to who are as a nation.”

With all of these different elements to his presidency, Campo is excited to be at AU.

“I believe that higher ed has become so homogenous in these days that it’s rare to find a place that’s different, that really has a focus on the individual,” he said. “This idea of faculty-student interaction is really important and the idea that we’re not just training robots for work, but really shaping individuals for life, and I think those things are really attractive to me.”

Campo will take over as president on June 1, starting what he hopes will be a time of flourishing. However, he knows he needs support and information from the entire AU community to make that possible.

“I can’t help lead this institution if I really don’t know where the student body is, where the leadership is, alumni are, and so I really do encourage people to not just hear about an open door policy,” he said. “I said to the administrative team earlier that I have a dotted line to every single person on campus starting June 1. I hope that folks will sense that dotted line to me as well.”