Robert Nelsen, a rodeo cowboy from Montana who started his career working in the hay fields, will retire in July 2023 after more than four decades in higher education and eight years as Sacramento State University’s eighth president. Nelsen recently spent an hour unfolding his  journey for a class of newswriting students.

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INSIDER: How much has your personal experience and educational background shaped the imperatives that you have been promoting for the benefit of Sacramento State University students?

NELSEN: First off, I talk to the students to see what the students want … the students wanted us to acknowledge the diversity. They wanted us to double the number of scholarships that were available for them. That’s where philanthropy came in. … They wanted a caring campus, … when Stephon Clark was killed (in Sacramento), and knowing what it did to our community and what it meant, I knew that we needed to do more out in the community … we needed to be out there and actively involved. And we needed to do more than just go out there and paint a few houses. We needed to take the clinics out there. We needed to do everything. That’s where all of the anchor stuff came from. The brand new one this year is Wellness … that came directly from the faculty … because they really believe that we need wellness in our classrooms … not just our curriculum, but in extracurricular activities. We need it everywhere we can put it.

INSIDER: In your tenure as the president of Sacramento State University, what do you consider to be your most notable achievement?

NELSEN: When I chose to come here, I was looking for a place that was a turnaround job … I love Sac State. I love it because of its potential, but also because it was so willing to change. … I wanted to actually be part of change, to be the change.

When I came on campus in a secret shop because I had a bunch of offers, seeing the diversity … made me decide I want to be here because this is the future of the United States. This is the future of our world and our graduation rates sucked! I said that in the first days I was here to The New York Times. The New York Times picked it up and quoted me exactly with that. Our graduation (rates) sucked! … But we turned it around … we have gone from 8% to 30.8% (graduating in four years), which is a miraculous number to be able to come up that high.

The Finish in Four program that we’ve had here, that’s pushed (students) … (if you take) 15 credits every semester … you graduate in four years. How much money do you think that has saved our students that they would have had to take out in loans or spend in the last five years? Literally $440 million that our students would have had to have taken out in loans or pony up in some way, or the parents who would have had to pay, but that’s how much it saved by them graduating, plus, they’re in the economy and they’re earning money on top of that.

INSIDER: Were there any goals or objectives that you had hoped to achieve during your presidency at Sac State, but were unable to accomplish?

NELSEN: I wanted to see more innovative degree programs, and I have not been able to get as many innovative degree programs as I would like to see. Whether it’s in cybersecurity, whether it’s in forensics, whether it’s … in social media … more of those programs that are actual degree programs. I would have liked to have seen a stronger arts and technology program done here, but I didn’t have the funds to be able to support an arts and technology program.

I really wish that we had an arena here … not just for basketball, someplace where we can have large speaker series, someplace where we can have … big events take place. And I was never able to get any traction whatsoever in the community to build that.

INSIDER: What would your heart-to-heart advice or words of wisdom be to the future president of Sacramento State University?

NELSEN: My first words of wisdom is to listen to the students. We are here because of the students. We are here to teach them. Academics is absolutely the most important part of what we do with the faculty and what the faculty do in the teaching. But we are here for the students, and we have to not just be student-centered, we need to be student ready. We need to meet the students where they are instead of asking them to meet where we are.

I would ask (the new president) to concentrate on being student ready and being really cognizant of what the students need to be successful. We cannot back off on the graduation initiative. I expect within three years we will be close to 50% of our students will be graduating (in four years) … so, stick to the program, stay to it, but listen to the students. Let the heart lead you to where you need to go, and you’ll be good.

INSIDER: What are your future plans once you leave your office at Sacramento State University?

NELSEN: I’m not a person who knows how to relax … I do not want to retire; my wife is making me retire. She’s going to let me keep working, and she said if somebody is going to fight — and there needs to be a fight in Texas — let’s go back and fight. I want to go back and … work on immigration reform. I will be right where the border is, where people are crossing there in McAllen and Brownsville.

When the first wave of immigrants came across … from Venezuela and everything else, I had over 1,000 of my students there every day helping them bathe, get clothes, get help. We had pro-bono lawyers there. We had all of that. That’s all gone. And to rebuild that infrastructure is what I want to do. So NO! I’m not going to rest.

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Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.