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The State of the University, Fall 2001
September 12, 2001
Introduction
With some of you, I have joked about "spanning the summer," that I would be the first president since 1996 to serve two successive Septembers. Well, we did it. In fact, I have now served longer than any of my four immediate predecessors. So, thank you for the welcome, the response, and the hard work.
This is my first "encore." In French, encore means "again," and is often used to demand a repetition. In Italian, we see "ancora"or altra volta ("another time"). In most cases, the request is not for more of the same score, but for another round by the performer. And so it is that I think of this Fall as "my first encore." I am here again, but that does not mean we will repeat what we did last year. All that is now a foundation for the future, just as this year will add another layer of experience and accomplishment so that we can reach still higher.
I enter this Fall even more enthusiastic and idealistic than I did last year. I not only can imagine a future different from the past; I now can see it taking shape. So, this is how Adelphi looks to me, how the "engaged" university is beginning to blossom again. I say "again" because this is Adelphi's encore as well, as it - through you, through all of us - demonstrates in so many ways why it is important to society.
Reflections on the Past Year
Last year, we started by enumerating and clarifying a set of principles for decision-making, examining our assumptions and our strengths and weaknesses, considering alternative courses of action and strategies, and developing plans and projections, school by school, for program improvements, staffing, enrollments, and finances. We also updated our facilities master plan and began to define our priorities for fundraising. The single document we developed, to which all had a chance to contribute, was approved by the Board in February and is on reserve in the Library.
Even before the Board accepted the plan, the vice presidents and I began monitoring our progress with each other and with larger groups. We started the Campus Planning Committee, which includes some eighteen (18) faculty from all academic units, where each month we discuss progress toward goals for enrollment, program improvement, staffing, and a balanced budget.
I said we needed to achieve fiscal stability with academic integrity. Well, it looks as if we are on target. Not only are enrollments of new students up - 11% for freshman, 17% for transfers, and 22% for graduate students - but it looks as if we will meet our budgeted enrollment for the year, assuming we meet Spring enrollment goals. I hope we do so for many reasons, including the fact that to reach 4700 FTE enrollment means we will send special lump sum checks equal to 1% of salary, or almost $80,000, to 237 members of the staff.
But enrollment is not our only goal. Quality is even more important. So, I am delighted to report that this year, with results in from 50% of Nursing graduates, every one (100%) has passed the (NCLEX-RN) State Licensure exam. Only a few semesters ago, the pass rate was below 20%. Then it climbed to 60% -plus. Now, so far, 100%.
We find a comparable experience in Education. Four years ago, our graduates scored an average of 79% on State Exams, in large part because of low pass rates in Manhattan. Now, Manhattan graduates score over 80% and Garden City graduates have climbed even higher, to 95%.
We are seeing similar changes in program quality, and we hope in results, in Business, Psychology, and Social Work. Psychology received the maximum seven-year reaccreditation a year ago; Business is on track in its application for accreditation; and Social Work is preparing for its reaccreditation next year.
The College of Arts and Sciences has seen enrollments swell, and programs that were considered fragile a year ago now seem much more vital.
While our greatest satisfaction might come from sharing these successes with colleagues and trustees, and knowing we are moving in the right direction, I must admit to a certain degree of satisfaction when we know that our progress is noticed by others. For example, did you know that we have moved up in the "U.S. News and World Report" rankings? Now, I am as cynical about these ratings as the next person, but I do know that prospective students and their families read them, and that some donors and many philanthropic foundations refer to them in considering requests for grant support. So, to be in the same "National University" category as Temple, Northeastern, The New School University, Polytechnic, Arizona State, and the University of Cincinnati is not at all "shabby." Next, we will climb higher, with improvements in academic reputation, graduation rates, percentage of full-time faculty, and alumni giving, areas we must work on anyway.
During the past year we hired a new Provost and added to the responsibilities of deans, negotiated four contracts with our unions, saw great success by our student athletes in and out of class, quadrupled our student lockers to 108, from 24, and increased our student lounge space by 70% to 4233 square feet. You will recall that I learned about our paucity of lockers and lounge space when I was enrolled in our Freshman Fore course last Fall and heard a freshman student talk about her Volvo as the place she went between classes. We have not finished addressing her concern, but we have made headway.
I also traveled the country to meet with alumni individually and in groups, and met with "Newsday" editors on numerous occasions. We also created the "Adelphi Prize for Leadership" to be awarded to high school juniors from Garden City. It was a busy, productive, and exhilarating year.
But there is more. Faculty have received many forms of recognition. For example, of many plaudits I could underscore, consider these few. Professor Carol Rhodes has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Education. Professors Paul Moravec and Angelo Mussolino of Music have won ASCAPlus Standard Awards. In Biology, three faculty members were nominated for "Professor of the Year"; faculty authored twenty-nine (29) scientific publications during the year; and four students made presentations at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Furthermore, Professor Frank Augustyn was honored in Montreal and Marsha Darling prepared and edited on oral history of our living legends, Ruth Harley and Mildred Montag.
Finally, for now, the theatre program was awarded a chapter of Alpha Psi Omega, the national dramatic society. These are but a few of the success stories I have heard from the deans. Now, we have to do more to publicize this good news.
Goals for Now and Later
To help in spreading the news about such achievements, we hired Epoch 5, Long Island's premier public relations firm, and Halstead Communications, a specialist in higher education media nationwide. We also appointed a new advertising firm, Mezzina-Brown. Recently, we hired a new Director of Public Relations, Petra Ludwig, who will start October 1. With this team, I believe we will gain the public recognition you deserve. In fact, I am convinced of it because of an imaginative partnership we are preparing to launch with "Newsday."
Our goals, of course, involve more than "pr." We can only promote that which we believe in, that which we believe is of high quality. To do otherwise would be to violate one of our principles: First program quality, then program promotion.
Programs are based on people. Our plans may be expressed in terms of numbers- Freshman, transfers, masters, doctoral, post-doctoral, searches completed or underway, ratio's, or balance sheets - but our plans are based on people.
Last year we added new people at all levels. Four new trustees; a new Provost; four new deans; and 18 new faculty. Another 33 new faculty were added this Fall. In fact, some one-third of the faculty is new since 1997. If we add in the number of continuing faculty who have participated in professional development, we have a substantially "renewed" professoriate. This year we are still looking for a Vice President for University Advancement; we are looking for a successor to Dean Gene Neely to serve as our new Dean of Libraries/Chief Information Officer; and we will be searching for another 32 new faculty.
The faculty searches will be based on enrollment progress and will be designed to meet our goals for quality, to meet enrollment demand, and to enhance program offerings. The searches give us another opportunity: we can increase the diversity of our faculty in order to enhance our students' environment for learning. While skin color alone is not the major criterion for diversity, it is an important indicator. I believe that diversity in its several dimensions is important to promote. We have that obligation and that chance.
Our opportunities to recruit and retain faculty, students, and staff are strengthened by an active cultural calendar and the many other ways in which the campus exhibits its strengths as an intellectual community. We have endowments for this purpose; we have budgets for lectures, drama, dance, music, art exhibits, and other stimulating cultural activities. I am grateful that Professor Jacob Wisse has agreed to chair our newly formed cultural affairs committee so that we can make the most of our opportunities. Next, let's host a series of faculty talks based on their sabbatical projects. We need to learn from each other, and this would be a wonderful way to pursue that goal.
During the year we will build on activities started last year in ways that are not quite an encore, but are more like a new motif.
We will continue our development, with leadership by Dean Kathleen Bond, of a strategy for health and human services, including program development, grant funding, scholarship, the health indicators project, and perhaps a poll on the quality of life. With guidance by Professor Angelarakis, we will continue development of our international initiatives, including lectures, film and drama on our theme of "global perspectives on ecology and disease," as well as special UN exhibits and presentations by UN diplomats and NGO leaders.
I trust we also will make progress on our development of a signature freshman year program, at least in part built on our notion of three clusters of courses: ecology, culture, and ethics. Our community college partners are excited by this idea. Now we must turn excitement into action.
The need for a new residence hall was indicated last year and is even more evident this year. With a larger group of even more talented freshman, demand for housing has exceeded our supply. While we do not plan to increase the number of new freshmen, and must meet our enrollment targets by enrolling more adult and graduate students, we do need this new residence hall if we are to meet our goals. Designs are underway for a 179-bed hall just west of the library - between the library and the President's House.
Next, we are seeking one or more architects to design a new recreation center - general purpose building at the site of the tennis courts, just east of the University Center, and to design the refurbishment of Woodruff Hall , our historic gymnasium. The new building will be for performance - dance, lectures, volleyball, basketball, etc. - and Woodruff will become an instructional building. Along the way, we will design an addition to Olmsted, expanding our capacities in the arts.
These projects, as you know, are among our primary priorities for fundraising. We need to raise funds for these facilities, faculty development, and student scholarships, so we can reduce the amount of tuition we discount.
With these goals for fundraising, you might imagine that we will add more alumni to the Board of Trustees, and we will. We are searching for trustees who represent diversity in its several dimensions as well as significant accomplishments in the areas of strategic importance to us. These areas include education at all levels, social work, health, information technology, the arts, and sciences as well as business and, of course, philanthropy.
Another area in which we plan to make significant progress is in information technology and management for teaching and learning. Dean Neely's decision to become University Archivist gives us a chance to search for a Dean of Library who also can be the Chief Information Officer. This combined role is not new in higher education and we have been learning how it works at other institutions.
During the search for a new Dean/CIO, a search being led by Professor Penny Bealle with the help of a search consultant, Angela Henry, I have learned even more about our Librarians.
I hope you know how superb our Library is. I will illustrate a few examples of strength in order to illuminate the overall capabilities. For example, Library faculty teach in the Library Instruction Program, including the Freshman Orientation Seminar (our FORE classes); faculty serve as advisers for undecided freshmen and sophomores; and the Library provides outreach services to area high school students and to the summer international high school program.
Furthermore, our Library Faculty have some unique resources. Professor Gloria Roberson works with the Toni Morrison Society and is compiling an electronic glossary of the novelist's characters; Professor Elayne Gardstein works in Special Collections and has helped Professor Barbara Fishkin use the William Hone Special Collection of 19th century political etchings in her journalism classes. (You can see the etchings on the Hone Collection website.) The Special Collections provide access to books, journals, and electronic resources.
But Special Collections are, well, special. The core of our Library is service in support of the Adelphi curriculum and faculty scholarship in all its forms: pedagogy, integration, application and discovery. Thus, Professor Sondra Barbakoff supports the Curriculum Materials Center and Professor Victor Oliva seeks new ways to provide access to government documents.
In the past I have spoken glowingly about our Information Technology (IT) staff, and its work in support of instruction, scholarship, and administration. All I said must now be redoubled, as they did remarkable work this summer in a short amount of time. Of course, a project the library faculty and IT staff share is our Information Commons. It is in use everytime I bring a visitor to see it.
In case you do not know, I should report that our head of IT, Henry Saltiel, is taking a year's leave of absence to serve as Acting Vice President for Information Technology at LaGuardia Community College. Fortunately, we have excellent back-up leadership so Henry can engage in the proverbial "win-win-win." This is a great opportunity for professional growth for Henry, an opportunity that will enhance his ability to serve Adelphi when he returns. Henry will solve a problem for our partner, LaGuardia Community College, and our new Dean of Libraries/Chief Information Officer will have an opportunity to shape his or her leadership team. Thank you, Henry, for all you have done, and, I hope, will do for Adelphi in the future.
Our Special Opportunities
Just as we are allowing a special opportunity for Henry, and have provided professional growth opportunities for nearly all faculty, we as a university have special opportunities. We have talented faculty and staff who serve the university with imagination, energy, and commitment. We have 6,700 students here to learn; we have 70,000 alumni with whom we can form a life-long learning link; and we have communities and employers in need of well-prepared citizens as well as teachers, scientists, managers, and other professionals. This is a perfect equation, balanced on both sides, just as soon as we step forward.
Just think, we have School Advisory Boards with members ready to help us forge partnerships. We have agreements in place or under development with Cold Spring Harbor Labs, North Shore-LIJ, Parker Rehabilitation, Winthrop, IBM, and Symbol Technologies, among others, to develop joint activities. Polytechnic University, New York Law School, and LaGuardia, Nassau, and Suffolk Community Colleges are also partners in our mission.
In addition, regional school principals and superintendents, together with the National Executive Service Corps, are working with our Deans of Business and Education to develop new initiatives to assist in the continued development of school leaders. Dean Bond of Nursing and I are working with the Universities Liaison Group of the United Nation's World Health Organization (WHO) to develop student internships, faculty exchanges, and a colloquium on the ethical issues related to the distribution of health care resulting from new advances in the life sciences. The opportunities are numerous.
With all these opportunities off-campus, we should not divert our attention from the occasions for improvement and development on campus. One such opportunity is the new Honor Code proposed by Provost Welsh, which is to be developed by a group of students, faculty, and staff this Fall. It is appropriate to focus attention on the need for integrity in our role as students, just as we do the same regarding our roles as faculty and administrators.
Conclusion
I have called for Adelphi to be the "engaged" university, engaging faculty and students together on campus and with community groups off-campus, and engaging members of the broader community in our activities - classes, lectures, seminars, drama, art exhibits, dance, and other events - on campus. The engaged university is not a distant tower or a lonely island; it is an active participant in preparing citizens who are professionals and in contributing to the intellectual and cultural life of the community.
Someone who exemplified this spirit of engagement was Carol Sabino, our long-time colleague who died this past Spring. This is the first September without Carol in 31 years. The new garden with benches and a bird feeder outside Levermore Hall, dedicated to her, are symbolic in many ways: they are a reminder to us of Carol's beliefs and the high standards that we can achieve in terms of aspiration, commitment, enthusiasm, and integrity. We have a long way to go but the path is clear. A better future is taking shape.
So, Carol, this encore is for you.
Thank you.
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Mailing Address
Adelphi University
Office of the President
Levermore Hall, Room 100
1 South Avenue
P.O. BOX 701
Garden City, NY 11530-0701
Office Phone
516.877.3838
Office Fax
516.877.3845
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