The Daily O’Collegian

It’s not what they can do for James Halligan; it’s what he can do for higher education.

That’s the reason big names at OSU, including Foundation President Kirk Jewell, Athletic Director Mike Holder, Vice President Gary Clark and Vice President Marlene Strathe, donated to former OSU President James Halligan’s state senate campaign.

Kirk Jewell, who has known Halligan since about 1994, said he donated because he has a “high regard” for the former university president.

“I think he will be a wonderful state senator as far as representing OSU’s best interest,” Jewell said. “So because of what I think about him personally and because I think he’d be so good at representing Oklahoma State and the initiative of legislature that would affect higher education, that’s why we (Jewell and his wife, Jan) decided to support him.”

Stillwater has donated about $50,000 dollars to Halligan’s campaign, and OSU employees and foundation members donated about $12,000 of that amount, according to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission Web site.

“I’m very pleased and happy with the support I’ve received from the university community, but the initial group that came forward and encouraged us and held a fundraiser for us was almost all from the community,” Halligan said.

Halligan is running as a Republican for state senate seat 21, which includes Stillwater, the northeast part of Perkins, Ripley and Cushing, said Karl Algren, Halligan’s campaign consultant.

Seat holder Rep. Mike Morgan is term limited and cannot run for re-election. No Democratic candidates have filed against Halligan.

Halligan said his campaign has raised about $200,000. Out of the 99 contributors to Halligan’s campaign, 52 live in Stillwater, according to http://www.ok.gov/ethics/. Tulsa has the second largest count with 11 people contributing to the campaign.

“The response has just been remarkable,” Algren said. “He’s just overwhelmingly, just genuinely liked as a person.”

Jewell, who was president of OSU’s Alumni Association during Halligan’s presidency from 1994 to 2003, had the same sentiments.

“It was a wonderful time,” Jewell said. “He is one of the most student-oriented presidents that I am aware of at OSU.”

Halligan made several changes for the students, primarily in student services.

He created “one place where they can go and do enrollment, pay the bursar, drop and add,” Jewell said. “It was all about how do we make the student experience here as easy and as meaningful as possible.”

Former congressman Wes Watkins, R-Okla., and his wife, Lou, also commended Halligan’s impact on OSU. They donated $1,000 to the campaign.

Lou said that Halligan placed a great emphasis on scholarship and student development. She said that Halligan wanted to help all students, not just the top, reach their full potential.

“We’ve had for instance two gates scholars in one year, and I think that only three other institutions in the country had two gates scholars and they were like Harvard and MIT,” Lou said.

All the donors interviewed said they were impressed by Halligan’s administrative achievements at OSU.

Mike Holder, OSU vice president for athletic programs and former OSU golf coach, was the largest contributor, donating the maximum legal amount, $5,000, to Halligan’s campaign.

Holder said he prefers to keep his political beliefs to himself but he did say that Halligan “did a good job as OSU’s president.”

“He’d be a real advocate for OSU and Payne County,” Holder said.

Marlene Strathe, former OSU provost and senior vice president, was more interested in his effect on higher educations as whole, rather than just OSU.

“Well, I think the most critical thing that is facing higher education across the state, not just OSU, is that we have to find a better way to finance our universities,” Strathe said. “State support is going down really literally across the country. We are having to raise tuition and fees. We need to find ways for universities to be more efficient but we also need to find new strategies to finance our universities.”

Strathe also said the physical health and upkeep of buildings, such as North Murray Hall, is a critical challenge universities deal with. Strathe said most universities don’t have the money.

“Our costs [for North Murray Hall] are considerably higher than had we been able to either renovate it earlier or keep it current,” Strathe said.

“So I think the maintenance of our physical facilities and just the financial health of the universities are really our most critical things,” she said. “I think [Halligan] can be very helpful with those.”

Strathe, who was listed as a housewife and not an OSU employee on the Ethics Commission data, donated $250 to Halligan’s campaign.

Gary Clark, vice president of university relations, said that a focus on education would affect not only individual universities, but also help the entire state.

Clark, who was on the board of regents that interviewed and elected Halligan as president, has known Halligan since 1994. He donated $1,000 to Halligan’s campaign.

“Jim is, what I would say, a person who not only understand the issues in higher education, I think he also understands the promise in higher education and what that can mean not only for students like you, but the state as a whole in terms of our quality of life and economic development,” Clark said. “That’s a critical part of having success in Oklahoma.”

Josh Pillow, co-chairman of OSU College Republicans and a political science junior, said that Halligan’s district encompasses three large educational institutions: OSU, Langston and Meridian Technology Center.

Halligan said career tech is one of his primary focuses.

“There are people that are just very good with their hands and can fix things,” he said. “There’s a tremendous demand now in Oklahoma for those kinds of people.”

However, Halligan hasn’t forgotten OSU. He said he has had dinner with OSU President Burns Hargis three times and is “listening very carefully.”

“People just want a good job with health insurance,” Halligan said. “They really want a hand up not a hand out. That’s really an emerging theme. Everything sort of revolves around improving our education sector.”