San Diego State’s president of the past 15 years, Dr. Stephen L. Weber, remembers a psychology experiment based around ring toss. The experiment, which meant to analyze achievement motivation and risk-taking probability, found that individuals matched their distance from the peg with their perceived ability to successfully throw the ring around it.
Then, as their accuracy improved, they tended to move farther from the peg, implying that with increased skill comes increased aspirations.
The experiment has been instrumental in shaping the way Weber has spent his time as SDSU’s seventh president.
He explained the illustration amounts to try avoiding failure, but, “You want to take some chances.”
Early last semester, Weber officially announced he would be retiring from SDSU at the end of this school year and said the current semester is crucial in preparing the university for the transition to a new president.
“It’s really important for universities, just like other organizations, to get a fresh start with new leadership and one of the inevitable problems that I have is that my vision of SDSU was largely formed 15 years ago,” Weber said.
At the beginning of his SDSU career in 1996, in a similarly rough budgetary time for the school, Weber implemented a “Shared Vision” program to converse with faculty, staff, students, alumni and the community concerning SDSU’s top priorities. These included improved academic excellence, stewardship of resources, and internationalization of the campus, which he hopes the next president will engage in as well.
“The concept of shared governance at San Diego State University has truly been made a reality because of the respect, collaborative nature and values both Dr. Weber and Mrs. Weber have instilled amongst the campus community,” Associated Students President Grant Mack said.
With Weber’s leadership, the university has remained the nation’s top small research school for the past four years, has seen a 74.2 percent increase in graduation rates and established the first Veteran’s Center on a California State University campus, according to SDSU News Center.
The Campanile Foundation, created as an auxiliary philanthropic fundraiser for SDSU in 1999, has raised more than $600 million in private donations since its inception, and was achieved in large part because of the efforts of Weber, the foundation’s chairman Christopher “Kit” Sickels said.
“Something that is absolutely incredible to me and I don’t think many people know, is that the president and Mrs. Weber have personally given over $1 million, and I don’t know if you know what a president of a university gets paid, but you’re talking about many years of his 100 percent salary,” Sickels said. “When you go to talk to someone about raising a major gift and you’re able to say the president has given over $1 million, it’s just a wonderful thing they have done that is extraordinarily different.”
Weber described an Aztec for life, which he enthusiastically considers himself to be, as one who, “continues to be involved, looks for ways to be of assistance to students and new graduates as they are coming out of the university, and who continues to hold on to and enjoy some of the friendships and associations established while on campus.”
Selection processes of the new president are under way by an appointed board of CSU trustees and campus advisory officers, but Weber himself is not involved in the decision that will be announced early next May.
When asked what his plans for retirement were, Weber said, “That’s hard to answer. It would be like if you were in high school asking, ‘what do you plan to do as a college freshman?’ but you haven’t been a college freshman, so you don’t really know.”
Weber said he does know that he plans to retire to his home in Maine with his wife this summer, followed by a few months of travelling and a return to San Diego next spring, all the while hoping to accomplish some writing and enjoying hobbies such as woodworking and gardening.
