Cogswell’s new provost just can’t stay in retirement

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, July 10, 2005

EVERETT – One week after recently taking the provost’s job at Henry Cogswell College, Henry Walbesser sat alone eating lunch at a crowded local restaurant.

A man came up and asked to share the table with him, and a conversation started about where they worked.

The man looked quizzical when Walbesser mentioned his work place.

Michael V. Martina / The Herald Henry Walbesser is the new provost at Henry Cogswell College in Everett.

“Oh, I know,” he said. “That’s the cosmetology school.”

Walbesser laughs recalling the situation, noting it wasn’t as bad as the person who could see the college’s main building through a window across the street and asked, “Where is that?”

Raising the profile of the private engineering, computer science, digital arts and business college in downtown Everett is one of Walbesser’s chief challenges, while he overseas academic needs as provost and a $4.4 million budget as chief operating officer.

And this at age 70 after retiring three times already.

An old friend brought him into this venture.

College President Homer Garcia and Walbesser met at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, when Walbesser became a dean at the Baptist college in 1992. Garcia was a professor, and Walbesser encouraged him to pursue college administration.

It took a year or two of convincing, but Garcia finally went through with it and, in February 2004, was selected to lead Cogswell.

Since then, Garcia has been trying to establish the college’s presence in the area. And he asked his old friend to join him.

After a year and a half of talking, Walbesser agreed.

“He trusts me. It’s a mutual respect,” he said.

The mathematician, whose eyes light up more over proving numbers than parsing them, nevertheless is eager to put ideas into action. Among his goals are organizing a formal and active alumni group and starting a capital campaign that taps donors with deep pockets.

The college also is in a position to help city and county leaders tap new markets, such as the computer gaming industry, Walbesser said.

He also has hopes to start what he calls a “Grade 13” program, a kind of mathematical boot camp for the factorial phobic who are going into college programs where math skills are central. The college has applied for grants to two organizations to start a pilot.

Walbesser has a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Maryland, where he also was a professor, dean and provost in his 33 years there. Before that, he taught at the University of Texas at Austin for two years.

Most recently, he was a computer science professor at Baylor. He was dean there from 1992 until 1995, when he was demoted for publicly criticizing the college president, who has since been ousted.

In the last year, he also worked on a project for the Department of Defense, “called ‘The Room’ for reasons I can’t tell you,” he said, chuckling at the title.

He and his wife, Diane, moved into an Everett condominium in March, though they are also keeping their house in Waco.

“Eventually we’ll go back there,” Walbesser said, “when I retire a fourth time.”

Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.