No Growth Without Change- Interview with David Silva

April 21, 2015 By: Lauren  Vinciguerra 

Red Skies had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with David Silva, the new provost and academic vice president of Salem State. During this interview, Mr. Silva discussed his position, his many passions, and his hopes for the university.

In your own words, can you describe the position of provost? DS: The provost at a university is the chief academic officer, so the primary responsibility of the provost is to ensure that the academic endeavors on campus run smoothly, that they are appropriate to the mission, that students and faculty who are my primary constituents are getting what they need and they are interacting in meaningful ways.

I work very closely with the other vice presidents. It takes all of us to make sure the school runs, ensuring that the programs are the best quality possible, that we are hiring qualified faculty, and that the academic needs of the students are being met.

You’re from Medford, but you spent more than 20 years at the University of Texas. What led you to Texas? DS: The job, pure and simple led me to Texas. I am a linguist by training and the year that I was best poised to be on the job market in my subfield of linguistics, there were three tenure track jobs in the country. It’s a very small discipline. I vied for those positions and I was tapped to become an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.

I never imagined that I would live in Texas, but I was open to the idea. I had experience living in Korea as a grad student and my parents are immigrants so this notion of ‘you move where you need to’ is kind of part of my DNA. I was [in Texas] for over 21 years.

Texas was very good to me. It really prepared me to take on the job here at Salem State.

You mentioned that you studied linguistics for your graduate degree. Is that the area that you’re most passionate about? How you always been interested in language? DS: Academically, yes. I’ve always loved language and been interested in language. My research intrigues me constantly because language is one of these human capacities that we all take for granted. However, very few people invest time and effort to understand how it really works. How do people really use the language, not only to express thoughts and feelings, but also to create and maintain social relationships? A lot of the work that I do is the intersection of the minute details and pronunciation and what those details say about a person.

One of my favorite things about linguistics is when people communicate, it’s all potential data.

Since you spent so much time in Texas, are you excited about being back in Massachusetts? DS: I am. I was flabbergasted though when we pulled up in my parents’ driveway and I got out of the car. I was stunned by how much snow there was. I wasn’t expecting quite that much.

I was not looking to leave my previous job. I was very happy. I felt very productive. When the opportunity at Salem State came up, I looked at it and for me, it made sense to consider it. It was a promotion since I had been a vice provost. It was at an institution that was smaller and I was craving something smaller.

The University of Texas is an emerging research powerhouse. I think I have a respectable research record, but my real passion is trying to focus on teaching and mentoring students, bringing scholarship and teaching together and given the nature of Salem State, both historically and today, it seemed like a really good fit.

If this same job had been in Arkansas or Michigan, I wouldn’t have applied for it. If I was going to leave Texas and make a big move like this then I wanted it to be in a place where I felt supported. I would be closer to my mom and dad who still live in Medford, my grandmother who lives in Somerville, and my brother who lives in Marlboro. It was great to be able to come back home.   

What plans does Salem State have to enhance student learning and academia? DS: I would be dishonest to say that I have an agenda. Right not my primary task is to get a sense of how this place works, to understand its strengths, to understand maybe some of its weaknesses, and to collaborate with others to make it better.

With that said, there are things I see on campus that have terrific promise that I think we might want to do more of and some of that has to do with experiential learning.

Given the university’s longtime commitment to teaching, you have people out there who are doing field placements and student teaching and I think that has always been part of what the school is about. I believe that there are opportunities for everybody but they are not equalized. It is becoming clearer to me that it is not enough for students to take their classes. People really want to apply what they’ve learned. Students want to know that what they’re learning is valuable.

Salem State is going through a lot of changes in terms of expansion and redevelopment. How do you think this will benefit students? DS: There can be no growth without change. If we are going to grow, define growth however you will, we need to grow in quality, to grow in reputation, and to grow in impact. In order to grow in these ways, we have to change.

Change is not easy. It’s especially hard in a place where there’s been long tradition of being stable. Some of these changes are disconcerting for a lot of people. Change can be okay, change can be really good, but it is a prerequisite to be able to grow.

I see all of the ongoing developments as new opportunities. We have a lot of strengths that people don’t recognize. I think we’re sometimes too much of a secret to people.

There is a lot going on and granted there are a lot of headaches. Not to minimize it, but these developments are necessary.

Contributor’s note: Lauren Vinciguerra is senior who will be presenting her thesis, an online magazine about women in music, this May.