Howard J. Ishiyama, Ph.D., Newly appointed Vice President of Academic Affairs, talks about taking La Roche to the next level.

"By the end of the semester, I know that I will have offered them interesting takes or innovative approaches," said Ishiyama, chair of the Division of Administration and Management at La Roche College and chair of the Human Resources Management Department. "I like hearing from students that I have opened a door for them - a new idea, a new way of doing their job, a new concept."

Ishiyama will now be applying his inventive nature to a new challenge, one that takes him out of the classroom and puts him on a larger playing field in the La Roche community. In May of this year, La Roche College President Monsignor William Kerr appointed Ishiyama to the post of vice president of academic affairs.

"Howard understands education," said Monsignor Kerr. "He's not interested in mediocrity. He is only interested in doing things that are first class. He is committed to excellence."

The son of first-generation Japanese-Americans, Ishiyama grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in an environment that encouraged learning. His father was a psychologist who wrote and published more than 50 articles and books.

"He had a scholarly approach to life," said Ishiyama, whose father also served as an adjunct professor at a number of schools, including Case Western Reserve University. The elder Ishiyama was a pioneer in the field of music therapy, focusing on the subject for his doctoral dissertation. He worked tirelessly with a catatonic patient suffering from schizophrenia, hoping music would help the woman break through and connect with the outside world.

"After a long period of time working with her, she came out of her catatonia to the point where she was carrying on conversations with people," said Ishiyama.

The quest for knowledge took Ishiyama to Bowling Green State University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in psychology. "I knew from the first semester of my freshman year in college that I wanted to be a teacher," said Ishiyama. " I greatly enjoyed the interaction with my professors."

Ishiyama went on to earn an M.P.A in public administration and a Ph.D. in public policy and management, both from Ohio State University. Following college, he worked as a human resources consultant for a number of governmental and educational organizations. He also worked closely with former Illinois governor Jim Edgar, who asked Ishiyama to evaluate new human resources practices in several state agencies. Ishiyama joined the La Roche community in 1995 as an adjunct professor of human resources management.

"As a management scholar, I have never advocated autocracy or anything close to it. It's always been participative structures and collaboration. I will bring those same concepts to my new position," said Ishiyama. "There are so many constituencies that I must work through - faculty, administrative staff, students and alumni. This position is at the nexus of those groups. It requires someone with strong diplomatic skills, someone who understands how to work with a variety of constituencies to find common ground."

In many ways, Ishiyama's new job mirrors the mission of the College at this moment in history.

"The charge I have given Howard is to help us realize our potential," said Monsignor Kerr. "I want us to be an international institution that has a global faculty and a curriculum that meets the needs of our American and international students."

Ishiyama believes one of the ways to realize that goal is to establish learning communities on campus. The College could designate a residence hall that would house a program exclusively targeted to delivering an international learning experience. The faculty could develop special curriculum for this group of students.

"We would recruit only the best domestic and international students. They would live together. We would have educational programming brought to them. Perhaps we could have a Saturday program on the conflict in the Middle East," said Ishiyama. "The goal is to make the time that these students spend at La Roche the best educational experience they have ever had, one in which they are required to exist in a multicultural environment at home and in class."

Ishiyama also wants to begin augmenting the College's academic reputation. He believes the College's impending reorganization into schools will help achieve that aim. The schools will replace the current academic divisions and will be headed by deans instead of division chairpersons.

"Deans can create relationships with external organizations with much more credibility," said Ishiyama, who noted that deans would be full-time administrators. "They'll be freed up to do more strategic thinking, to do something innovative on and off campus. As a full-time faculty member or division chair, you do not have that authority. When you create a position that allows people to be creative and have a modicum of authority to make it happen, then you have the fuel for change and progression."

When he was a young boy, Ishiyama remembers his parents telling him about their confinement in relocation centers in California during World War II. As the father of two young children, Ishiyama believes in the mission of education, and he is convinced that the drive to create a global community at La Roche can only serve to further that mission.

"I really see the role of an educator as someone who can shape society," said Ishiyama. "I see the professor as a potential change agent."