Virginia Sapiro describes her leadership style as transparent, open and conversational.

Sapiro, interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of five candidates for the position of provost and executive vice chancellor at Kansas University. She spoke Monday at the Dole Institute of Politics and will speak at a question-and-answer session at 1 p.m. today at the Hall Center.

Sapiro said public research universities are unique in their mission and their contribution to society.

“We are the institution that is charged with learning what we never knew before and learning how to apply that,” Sapiro said.

Sapiro said her guiding principles are that education is central to everything done in a university and that supporting excellence is the job of everyone.

Sapiro, 54, is associate vice chancellor for Teaching and Learning and the Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at Wisconsin.

Her research and teaching interests include political psychology and political behavior and gender politics.

She spoke about the need to think globally.

“Any university that wants to be great has to be global,” she said.

KU has a high number of students studying abroad, she said, but there is room to grow.

Sapiro voiced shock at the state’s lack of support for building maintenance and upkeep. A 2004 Kansas Board of Regents report said that if not addressed, the state’s maintenance backlog at universities would grow to nearly $800 million by 2014.

“I found that surprising,” Sapiro said. “It’s very unusual.”

Sapiro said she needed to study the issue more to understand why the problem exists and what would be necessary to address it.

Regarding student life, Sapiro said she supports programs such as residential learning communities, that blend students’ academic and social lives.

And she touched on the issue of accountability, saying it would be necessary to work with deans and others to institute and enforce appropriate standards and mentor new faculty.

Sapiro graduated from New York’s High School of Music and Art, made famous by the movie “Fame.”

She received a bachelor’s degree in government from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., and masters and doctoral degrees in political science from the University of Michigan. In 2002, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jeff Aube, chairman of the search committee, said the committee seeks an excellent scholar who understands the complexity of the institution and who displays a high level of integrity and fairness.

The next campus visit by a job candidate for the post is Feb. 1. KU will announce each of the candidates two days before the visit.