University President Ted Carter Jr. visited The Lantern’s newsroom Wednesday to discuss some of Ohio State’s most pressing issues, including university space standards, the unfilled vice president and provost positions, his recent raise and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Space standards 

Following a sharp increase in on-campus political activism last year due to the war in Gaza, Carter and Melissa Shivers, senior vice president of Student Life, issued two separate university-wide emails regarding space rules  — now known as “space standards” — days before the April 25 pro-Palestine protest which resulted in 36 arrests, 16 of whom were students.

In light of Aug. 26’s on-campus Christian baptism ceremony — at which the organizing group outstayed its space reservation and zero arrests took place — there has been some confusion regarding how specific provisions of the space standards, which were updated over the summer, are applied to different events.

When asked if violating the standards’ “Tents and Temporary Structures” section results in harsher consequences for student activists in comparison to other sections, Carter said the April 25 protests only ended in arrests because of “a planned attempt and a clear statement to violate [Ohio State’s] campus space rules.” 

“At the end of the day, as we saw in many campuses across the country, once those encampments started and grew, there was no way to ensure the safety of those people that were there, and I did not want to see that happen,” Carter said. 

Carter said violations of multiple, separate sections of the space standards within an event do “not necessarily” compound to warrant a harsher response; however, if “somebody breaks the rules and there’s a real violation, particularly if it’s [a rule] opposed to some sort of safety or an attempt to incite violence,” then those instances will be reviewed by the university. 

Vice president and provost positions 

In a conversation Carter had with The Lantern in April, he mentioned the university was “weeks away” from making a decision about the vice president and provost positions, currently held in the interim by Karla Zadnik. Yet, no decision has been made to permanently fill the position.

Carter said the university has been conducting interviews, and “sometimes being a little bit patient will get you the best answer.” Within 30 days, Carter said the university will be making an announcement regarding the positions. 

Carter’s recent raise and bonus

On Aug. 22, Carter received a 3.5% raise — or $38,500 — from the Board of Trustees, along with a bonus of $164,368, according to previous Lantern reporting. These additions bump up Carter’s annual salary to about $1.3 million from his previous base salary of $1.1 million, situating him among the top ranks of Big Ten presidents. He also surpassed former university President Kristina Johnson’s salary, which was $1.19 million in 2022, according to previous Lantern reporting. 

“The first thing I want them to know is I didn’t ask for that,” Carter said. “So that’s my first reaction. The second is, this is what’s in my contract. So, they have to review my contract.”

Carter said the board has to consider what his “peers are doing,” and the performance measure in his contract allows for 30% on his base. 

“It’s a little humbling for me because I didn’t come here for the money,” Carter said. “I [came] here for the mission. I’m somebody that served in uniform for 38 years, so it wasn’t like I made a lot of money most of my life. And it is a little embarrassing, personally, to have to read that in the paper, but, you know, I live a very public life now. So, I know there’s critics out there, and I understand that those are big numbers, and I get that.”

Carter also said he donated “a fair bit of money” back to the university and is a regular contributor.

Senate Bills 83 and 117

Ohio Senate Bill 83, if passed, would eliminate requirements for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — or DEI — training and courses for students, faculty and staff, according to previous Lantern reporting. 

In early May, a letter was published via Instagram that contained signatures from 34 student organizations, all demanding Carter’s and Ohio State’s Office of Government Affairs’ formal response to seven questions regarding the bill. These questions revolved around on-campus DEI protections. 

Carter said diversity “is something that is important to all of us.”

“I think it’s important that everybody can see themselves being here, that they feel comfortable here, they feel safe here, that they know we have the resources to take care of them here,” Carter said. “And at the end of the day, it’s really about student success.”

Carter said he has spent time talking to members of the Ohio General Assembly and has been involved in the conversation around the bill. He testified on behalf of the university in front of the Ohio Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee about the bill and budget issues May 8. 

“I wanted to make sure they understood what we mean when we’re talking about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” Carter said. “A lot of people have a tendency to just go right to thinking about the color of somebody’s skin. Yes, that’s a part of it, of course, but it’s so much more. And ultimately, the power of what it means to be a diverse campus, to be working in a group that’s looking to work either towards a common goal, is about how we embrace the diversity of thought, and I’m proud of [the fact] I think we have a lot of that here at Ohio State, so we’re going to continue to cultivate that and embrace those concepts.”

Carter said the bill has not moved, which is something he feels has been “forgotten.”

“[The bill] didn’t make its way through, and we, as a Board of Trustees, as a university, had already expressed where we felt on that, and nor did we endorse Senate Bill 83,” Carter said. “There will probably be some other version of it written at some point, and all I’ve asked to do is be engaged in conversation, and where I want to make sure is they’re not asking us to do something that either, A, we’re already doing, or something that’s going to create another layer of bureaucracy for some sort of administrative review that doesn’t necessarily help us with our mission.”

Senate Bill 117, which was passed in last year’s state operating budget, created an intellectual diversity center at Ohio State, along with other public Ohio universities. 

Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) — who cosponsored Senate Bill 117 — offered special commentary on the bill’s purpose and goals on Ohio State’s website. 

“Leftist ideology has a monopoly on most college campuses that is squashing intellectual diversity and punishing wrong-think and anti-woke dogma,” Cirino stated.

Ohio State has been allocated $5 million every fiscal year for the operation of its intellectual diversity center, which has been dubbed the Salmon P. Chase Center. Carter said he likes the idea that the center will be a place that “can understand better the tenets of civics, the tenants of free speech [and] the tenants of having a conversation on both sides.”

“It’s just getting started,” Carter said. “We haven’t really fully stood it up yet. We haven’t brought any programs to it, but we are moving along with that, and it’ll be an institute that I’m very excited about. I think our students will also be excited about the opportunity to attend classes for that institute.”

10-year plan 

In a previous Q&A with the Lantern, Carter mentioned that around his 100-day mark, he would have a written plan documenting his “three-to-five-to-10-” year plan outlining his vision for the university’s direction. 

By his 100-day mark in April, no plan was released to the public. During a separate conversation with the Lantern in April, Carter said he would have the plan ready for release “probably sometime in the fall.”

Wednesday, Carter shared that since the start of his term in August 2023, he had been in “listen-and-learn mode.” Now, Carter said he is in “action mode” and beginning to put together a “strategy for the future of Ohio State.”

While Carter did not elaborate on what specific details would be included in this future plan, he said Ohio State will be releasing a university-wide email Thursday that includes a plan “going all the way to 2035 centered around the simple idea of, ‘How do we become the higher education institution for the nation?’”

“This is not the Ted Carter plan, this is The Ohio State University plan,” Carter said. 

Carter said the plan comes after engaging with “about 1,000 people who have been invited from all different constituencies” to share “things they value” and tell Carter’s administration what it should care about going forward. 

“We’re well underway in putting this thing together,” Carter said. 

 

This article was updated at 2:43 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12 to include a more accurate description of how the university’s space standards — formerly space rules — were communicated to campus April 22 and 23.