Suffolk University welcomes new Provost, Rick Oches, to the community as he transitions into his first semester as the senior vice president of academic affairs for undergraduate programs since the announcement of his hiring June 20.
Prior to his career at Suffolk, Oches worked at a number of other institutions including the University of Minnesota, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, University of South Florida and Bentley University.
Though his 16 years at Bentley kept him in the Boston area, Oches said that prior to taking the business school’s faculty position he had been looking for something to bring him back to New England, and Suffolk is now only further digging his roots into Massachusetts.
Originally from Middletown, Ohio, Oches started off his academic career as an undergraduate engineering major at Purdue University in Indiana where he eventually found his love for geology and overall passion for science.
“I was just always out hiking, wandering in the woods, picking up rocks and identifying minerals and fossils,” said Oches, “And so that major found me as much as me finding it.”
After completing his bachelors, he made the move from Indiana to Massachusetts where he completed a masters and Ph.D. in Geology at UMass Amherst.
“That’s where I fell in love with New England,” said Oches.
One of Oches’ biggest goals in all his positions and institutions was to bring science to all majors, especially in a digestible fashion for non-science, technology, engineering or mathematics students.
At his first faculty position at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Oches got to pivot his focus from research and graduate students to honors undergraduates instead.
“I started working with the undergraduate honors college there and really got excited about working with honors students,” said Oches. “But especially because I was teaching the science of climate to non-science majors through the honors program. I was really enjoying that and so I wanted to broaden my work with non-scientists, teaching science to non-scientists, helping them understand why understanding the process of scientific discovery was necessary for anybody, not just science majors.”
Through the networking of a friend Oches found a position at Bentley where he could work on exploring and teaching future business leaders about environmental and sustainability issues as business opportunities. He built his way up to department chair in the sciences and then dean of arts and sciences.
Through his work in sustainability, he kept running into Suffolk grads who were running state agencies or working in local government. The Suffolk name was popping up everywhere and Oches was interested in getting more involved.
“I’ve always been aware of Suffolk, you can’t really be in the Metro Boston region and not know about Suffolk,” said Oches. “Suffolk graduates are everywhere and that really struck me.”
When the provost position became available, Oches saw it as an opportunity.
“It was a great chance to connect with an institution that’s really, really connected broadly with the Greater Boston region, New England, nationally and internationally,” said Oches.
As provost, Oches acts as the chief academic officer for Suffolk, working closely with deans, faculty and administration to create academic programs to best serve the needs of the students and provide tools for success in their future careers.
Oches explained that part of his job is to also ensure that the programs offered are balanced and not too narrow, so that students can get that first job but are also prepared to accelerate and ready to engage in the job market and their communities.
“The curriculum is really intended to prepare you for life as well as a career and the job of provost is to ensure that we’re creating that curriculum or creating those academic experiences, ensuring that they are successful so that you’re successful,” said Oches.
Oches said he hopes to become more involved in the Suffolk community as he introduces himself to clubs and organizations..
“A big goal this semester is just getting to know the community, learning the Suffolk traditions, understanding the processes of curriculum design and faculty governments which is always really important at a university to respect and honor within the customs of the institution,” said Oches.
In addition to raising awareness on sustainability and the importance of science across majors, Oches also has AI on his radar for integration into all studies.
“Every student is going to need to know how to use AI in some form and in the workplace so how do we weave that through the whole curriculum not just ‘well you take an AI class over here and then you go on and do your other courses over there,’ but it needs to be a tool integrated in most of what you do academically,” Oches said.
