Douglas Fiore describes himself as a reluctant leader, a description confirmed by his unorthodox promotion to interim provost for this upcoming academic year. After taking over as Dean of the Dwight Schar College of Education in June, he found himself accepting the interim provost position, a decision he struggled to make. 

“[The provost] position was going to be vacated and our new interim president needed an interim provost,” he said. “I did not nominate myself because I really wanted to be the Dean of the College of Education… It took a lot of deliberate thought, deliberate conversation with my family and friends and a lot of prayer to figure out whether or not I really felt like I could serve the institution more in this role.”

This is not to say Fiore is unprepared. He had spent five years as an assistant provost at Virginia State University before going through a yearlong fellowship program with the American Council on Education, which Fiore described as “the premier training ground for leaders in higher education.”

After completing the program and returning to VSU for another year, he began thinking about his next career move.

“It came time to decide what’s the next job. I said, ‘I really want to be the dean of a College of Education’ because my academic background is in education,” he said. “I was an educational administration faculty member, I’d written textbooks and taught for many years in that discipline and, even though I was working as an associate provost, I had never had the experience of actually leading the college. I wanted that level of experience.”

Fiore interviewed at institutions across the country of all shapes and sizes, but felt there was something intriguing about AU. The Dean position was open after the previous Dean, James Van Keuren, retired.

“I love the size, the mission, the faith based orientation that we have, our history…I came here with tremendous excitement about being Dean of the College of Education,” Fiore said.

He quickly became immersed in the role, meeting with prospective students, incoming freshmen and current faculty members to ensure a successful academic year. He had begun organizing a student advisory committee comprised of students of all grade levels across the various majors housed in the College of Education. 

Now in his new position, he, along with interim President William Crothers, face the task of improving AU’s financial viability.

“On the one hand, one of my goals is to serve President Crothers as we use his experience to guide the ship,” he said. “Having said that, as the person respon sible for the academic enterprise which, by my estimation, is the most significant reason all of us are here, I see some great academic strengths in this institution that we cannot lose.”

Fiore was particularly impressed with AU’s blend of a high-quality liberal arts tradition combined with the work done in the professional colleges.

“Those two things exist in harmony in this institution and they have to continue to exist in harmony. We can’t sell one or give one away. We have to hold fast on that,” he said. 

However, Fiore understands changes will have to be made this year.

“There’s a financial situation in this institution that’s just not sustainable,” he said. “I think everyone in the institution is aware that things are going to need to change. Maybe some things are going to be shrunk, maybe resources are going to have to be allocated towards a particular program or set of programs and away from others… I know that we need to change the model to become financially viable and I know that if we do it in an open way, where all stakeholders are included in the conversation, we’ve got a lot of smart people here who are going to do it correctly.”

Fiore’s recent arrival to AU should help him make these necessary cuts objectively.

“Anytime you make a cut its going to upset people, it’s going to hurt people, and that’s one of the hardest things as a leader to do,” he said. “As long as you make that cut because what you’re doing is providing resources to another area that needs it, it helps mitigate the pain a little. Certainly, it helps me wake up in the morning excited about my job in the morning. I don’t have any preconceived notion about where we need to cut, how much we need to cut, how we need to cut.”

Much of his work as provost will be ensuring the academic affairs follow the vision statement recently adopted by the Board of Trustees, ensuring Ashland will remain true to its roots during this transitional time.

“Ashland University, from its beginning, has been steeped in a strong liberal arts and Christian faith tradition. There is always room to add and expand to those additions, but when you ask who is Ashland University, what is Ashland University, we are not going to do a 180 and abandon any of those traditions,” he said. 

Bringing the academic vision in line with the overall vision statement will go a long way to bringing Fiore’s hopes of a unified student body to fruition.

“You may be an Accounting major, you may be an Early Childhood major, you may be whatever major. Be proud of that, feel your affinity to that college and to that department’s faculty, but remember you’re an Ashland university student. Feel affinity to the whole university,” he said.

Despite the tumultuous summer, Fiore is excited to take on the challenges of this year.

“What’s been wonderful about this summer is that I came here in love with this University and that’s only been strengthened,” he said. “I don’t feel tired. I don’t feel confused. I feel like, even though nobody would have scripted it this way, it all happened the way, it was supposed to happen and I’m supposed to be sitting in this seat, so I feel great.”