Friday, March 29th, 2024
Categories
Featured News News

State-Of-The-University

Fall Convocation was held on August 30 at Millersville University, and President John Anderson presented his state-of-the University address.

Members of the Strategic Planning Commission gathered recently with President Anderson at Tanger House. The commission includes: Dr. Jeff Adams, Dr. Thomas Bell, Dr. Ana Borger-Greco, Victor Capecce, Dr. Richard Clark, Nathan Claycomb, Dr. Shaun Cook, Dr. Jill Craven, Melanie DeSantis, Dr. Victor DeSantis,, Dr. Dennis Downey, Dr. Jim Fenwick, Dr. Robert Frick, Dr. Laurie Hanich, Brian Hazlett, Dwight Horsey, Janet Kacskos, Carol Kirsch, Veronica Longenecker, Jennifer Mariacher, Hiram Martinez, Deb Miller, Justin Miller, Rita Miller, Dr. Rebecca Mowrey, Dr. Marilyn Parrish, Michelle Perez, Dr. Aaron Porter, Dr. Lisa Shibley, David Thompson and Brielle Valle.

Fall Convocation was held on August 30 at Millersville University, and President John Anderson delivered his state-of-the-University address, which is presented in its entirety below. You can watch a video of the president’s Convocation address at  http://youtu.be/dnbT1YRNZko

Drs. Victor DeSantis and Laurie Hanich are the co-chairs of the Strategic Planning Commission.  Watch their discussion at http://youtu.be/XvE5-RXkDqg.

View the Fall 2013 Convocation Program PDF.

Additional information on the Strategic Planning Commission can be found at the Strategic Planning webpage.

Challenge, Opportunity and Renewal:

Strategically Planning for a Brighter Future

Good afternoon.  I want to add my warm welcome to faculty, staff, students, trustees and other guests who are gathered here today as we put a spotlight on the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year. Vivien and I wish to express our great appreciation to the members of our community, on campus and off, who have been so kind and supportive to us since our arrival in April.  We are delighted to be here, and I am genuinely excited to be Millersville University’s president.

As I look ahead, I believe this will be a pivotal year for MU; one of challenge, opportunity and renewal.

The Challenge

Higher education is being bombarded with questions that challenge the long-accepted primacy of our role in providing access to affordable, quality, educational opportunities.  We all know that a post-secondary education will be essential in supporting our competitive economic and leadership position in the world.  The higher education community has not turned a deaf ear toward the criticism that has been leveled by policy makers and shapers. In the past eight years the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, AASCU, has empaneled two important work groups of national public higher education leaders in direct response to the public-confidence issue in higher education.

In 2005 AASCU’s Commission on Public University Renewal published a report “Renewing the Promise, the Public’s Universities in a Transforming World.” This June AASCU’s Task Force on Making Public Higher Education a State Priority published a report “Creating a New Compact Between States and Public Higher Education.”  The heart and soul of both reports is recognition of the challenge we face in addressing policy makers, and the general public’s, misperceptions regarding higher education – our efficiency, effectiveness and value as an enterprise and our poor reputation as change-adverse organizations.

Dr. Muriel Howard, AASCU President, has accepted the invitation to be the keynote speaker at my inauguration in October.  I suspect she will have much to say about the most recent report and the “Grand Paradox” it notes public higher education must solve.  The report defines the “Grand Paradox” as the perplexing contradiction of many state lawmaker’s strong rhetorical support of public higher education and accompanying belief in our central role in creating a better future, contrasted with the lack of a political will, albeit in the throes of structural budget deficits, to provide sufficient financial support for the very institutions that are critical to creating that better future.  I have recently experienced this “Grand Paradox” at MU, with vocal support from government leaders with whom I have interacted as to this university’s performance and then the lack of overall state and tuition support needed to serve our students well.  These, along with other issues outlined in my recent budget message to the university community, have necessitated making some very difficult decisions this summer.

Many are the voices calling for change within higher education.  I believe our best hope for a positive outcome rests with our own creativity in rethinking higher education.  In a book discussed by the Transformation Advisory Council’s General Education Action Idea Teamentitled We’re Losing Our Minds, Rethinking American Higher Education, Richard Keeling and Richard Hersh state the hard truth that the necessary rethinking will be neither easy nor incremental.  Keeling and Hersh pointedly note that we need to question everything we do; all of our, quote, “assumptions, principles, priorities, values, organizational structures, reward systems, and usual and customary practices…” end quote. To my thinking, these authors are neither alarmists nor doomsayers; they are realists.

What is called for is a critical self-examination of our value as a public university.  Keeling and Hersh postulate that the real concern in this rethinking of higher education should focus on the value-added aspects of our enterprise.  Instead of asking if higher education costs too much, Keeling and Hersh pose the following questions as the salient points of inquiry:

1        Does the quality and quantity of learning by students justify the cost?

2     Are students leaving college prepared for the challenges of the twenty-first century?

3    Will the public and society at large benefit from their investments in our institutions of higher education?

We should all be prepared to answer these questions with credibility.

The answers we discover for the questions we develop and examine will emerge from the university-wide strategic planning process that we are about to embark upon and a critical self-examination of our programs, policies, practices, and structures.  This is how we will turn the challenge that confronts us into an opportunity to redefine and revalidate who we are, what we need to be, and what we will become to meet the needs of our students, the region, the Commonwealth, the nation, and the global community.

The Opportunity

Out of all the challenges we face emerge opportunities – this is what I find exciting!  And, the good news is that we do not have to start from the beginning.  We are fortunate to have recently completed our Middle States accreditation, and the Middle States inquiry approach is fresh in our experience.  We have also completed an ambitious transformation inquiry process, initiated under President McNairy, and the final reports of the Transformation Advisory Council’s ten Action Idea Teams are due September 16.  The reports, along with an executive summary highlighting the outcomes of the transformation initiative, will be posted to our website for the university’s reference, guidance and use.  Will members of the Transformation Advisory Council and Action Idea Team leaders here today please stand to be acknowledged?  Thank you for the important work you have done.  I want you to know that the recommendations advanced through the Action Idea Team reports will aid the Strategic Planning Steering Committee’s work.

The best news is, when we have completed this self-examination the university will have produced a new Strategic Plan with an updated mission, a new vision, a delineation and affirmation of our core institutional values, as well as new goals and the strategies to achieve those goals.  This plan will serve as the roadmap for where we want to go as a nationally-recognized, comprehensive, public university and how we want to get to that desired place.  The plan, initially for at least the next three years, will be structured so that the university will have the opportunity to annually review and revise goals and objectives as appropriate.  The plan will also be the vehicle for our continuing work to address the recommendations of the 2010 Middle States visitation team and our collective efforts to improve university-wide planning, assessment, and resource allocation processes.

Before I delve more deeply into the details of the strategic planning process, I think it is important to speak to the principles that will guide strategic planning at MU. First, the planning process must be framed through the perspectives of the students and constituents we serve.  The process will be inclusive and observe shared governance practices while ensuring that the responsibility for action plans remain with the division, unit or department that is accountable and responsible for meeting goals and expected outcomes.  The executive leadership will be responsible for the implementation and monitoring of the strategic plan.  Current policies, programs, practices and resources will be reviewed in context of how they meet and are aligned with a revisited university mission and vision, and the goals and core values embraced within.  Communication must be frequent, consistent and clear.

The plan will be evaluated annually with strategies and action plans revised and/or updated as needed in response to the evaluation.  Finally, although the strategic planning process will encompass a holistic view of the university to help us address the challenges and opportunities we face today and in the future, the primary focus of our planning process must be strategic enrollment management because of our significant dependence upon tuition as a primary revenue resource.

As you may know, we soon will be conducting campus interviews for a founding vice president for a Division of Enrollment Management.  The new vice president and the new division structure will help guide the implementation of the plan aspects focusing on student recruitment, identifying new markets, reconsidering the mix of students we serve, and enhancing student retention.  The Strategic Planning Steering Committee will provide valuable assistance to the new vice president in identifying the best answers to questions about our size, quality, diversity and inclusion, and distinction.

Now I would like to provide some details on the preparation that has taken place for the Strategic Planning initiative and the process moving forward. Last spring I asked Drs. Laurie Hanich and Victor DeSantis to serve as co-chairs of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and Dr. Lisa Shibley to coordinate the process.

To help the Steering Committee successfully launch the initiative, the summer months were used to align critical issues that emerged from the year-long enrollment management environmental scan with those from the April Strategic Enrollment Management mini-retreat.  Work during the summer months also focused on the logistics of the planning process – finalizing the student membership and external community members of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and outlining a tentative timeline.  Laurie, Victor and Lisa have done an exceptional job!

The Strategic Planning Steering Committee – composed of appointed and elected faculty, staff, alumni, trustee members, and students – is in place to begin the work of crafting proposals on mission, vision, values, goals, and strategies for the administration’s consideration.  Will the members of the Strategic Planning Steering committee here today please stand to be recognized?  I thank you for taking on this important assignment and responsibility.

We envision an ambitious timeline for the planning process.  To help meet this aggressive timeline the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will rely on Working Groups to develop draft language for the mission, vision, core values, goals, and strategies during the Fall Semester.  Early in 2014 the Steering Committee will seek additional input from you, your staff or faculty colleagues, and other members of the university community on the draft planning document.  The Steering Committee will consider how best to harmonize and integrate this input into a revised plan that will be presented to Cabinet by the end of March 2014, and ultimately submitted to the Council of Trustees for endorsement at their June 2014 meeting.

There are a myriad of potential questions that the working groups and steering committee can consider. As an example, I can imagine – and hope! – that some might include:

1     What strategies, beyond the creation of an Enrollment Management Division, present the best opportunities for countering the decline in the traditional high school graduate market that has been our mainstay?

2     How might we increase the yield within this group while maintaining, or even improving, the general academic profile of that entering class of students?  At the same time, how do we fulfill our obligation of access for the more vulnerable, less well-prepared high school graduates coming from historically underrepresented populations who will be an increasingly larger proportion of high school graduates nationally?

3     In what new student markets should we invest?

4      The adult student market is the fastest growing segment in higher education.  Do the degree completers and post baccalaureates that need career-oriented updates and/or changes, for example, present the best opportunity for growth?

5     To what extent should we expand our enrollment of international students, and what support structures would we need to assure success?

6     We are very close to the borders of three states.  How aggressive should we be in recruiting students from out of state?

7     Should, and if so how, do online course options and online programs, either totally online or through some combination of online, weekend, or other hybrid mix of on/off-campus programming, add to overall enrollment stability and yet remain congruent with our mission?

8     We have entered into a brave new world where students will increasingly seek a multi-university educational pathway.

9       How do we ensure that pathway leads to, and through, Millersville University?

10    What about academic program review and development?

11    Will our current academic program offerings meet the future needs of our society?

12    How do we assure that we remain true to the liberal arts mission of the university as we adapt to rapidly changing needs of our students, businesses, and industries?

13    How will we support our faculty in transitioning to new pedagogies that our students are expecting – using finger-tip technology?

14   What can further distinguish Millersville University from our competitors – publics, including PASSHE; privates; for-profits; online providers; and, yes, even corporate in-house initiatives?

15   How can we improve our distinctiveness through our wonderful civic engagement initiatives?

16   We are about to become a signatory to the President’s Climate Commitment; will this and other green and sustainability commitments be another marker of distinction and provide a competitive edge in addition to being an environmentally responsible institution?

17   What untapped possibilities does the Marine Science Consortium facility – soon to be renamed the Chincoteague Bay Field Station – present for Millersville University to expand unique, signature, off-campus, residential semester-away programs that build institutional identity and reputation beyond our immediate, traditional service areas?

18   While we significantly exceed national retention and graduation rates for students overall and for historically underrepresented students, we cannot be satisfied.

19   What can be done to increase graduation rates among all students and, in particular, narrow the gap in graduation rates for minority students?

And these are only a few examples of the many critically important questions that will engage and challenge the Steering Committee and the working groups that will help it in its crucial task.  It will be up to the Steering Committee and the working groups to develop the most important questions to which we need answers and to propose strategies for achieving the goals that will sustain our place as a premier, comprehensive, nationally-recognized, public university.  The pathway we will have to travel will sometimes be difficult, and we will sometimes feel uncomfortable along the way; but this is a necessary task that I believe will lead to renewal and a bright future for Millersville University.

Renewal

I cannot overstress that the expected outcome from this process will be far more than a planning document to guide strategic planning and resource allocation.  The ultimate outcome is to drive institutional renewal by turning daunting, but surmountable, challenges into opportunities.  The university’s renewal will grow out of the organic process that unfolds as we work as an engaged community to find answers to the questions we must address in the immediacy of the 2013-14 academic year and through the strategies that we deploy, some during this academic year and more in the ensuing years.

Our collective labor and resolve will confirm the authenticity of the assertion that Millersville University is a high-quality comprehensive public university, and that our students’ experiences are distinguishable from those at other universities.  The initiatives we undertake through this new strategic plan will secure our position as a “destination university” and an “institution of choice.”  We will emerge confidently from the exploration upon which we embark, secure in a commonly-held understanding of where we currently stand, with a vision for where we want to go, a plan for how we want to get there, and a process for assessing how well we are doing.  It might not be exactly clear where we are headed just yet- – however, by the end of this process it will be very clear.

This is our time, to bravely embrace the promise of a bright future for Millersville University and the generations of students who look to us to provide the thoughtful leadership and careful stewardship that is our privilege and obligation.  I ask that you join me in this endeavor.  Together we can chart a plan that builds on a tradition of excellence; that provides necessary pathways to reshape our programs, identity and presence in the Commonwealth, the nation and yes, globally; and, ultimately, that secures our future as a “destination university.”

I look forward to working alongside you as we chart our new course.  Thank you.

Now, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the co-chairs of our Strategic Planning Committee – Drs. Laurie Hanich and Victor DeSantis.

Leave a Reply