2007 University Convocation Address
Dr. Dorothy Leland
Oct. 1, 2007 Welcome to the 2007 University Convocation. This event is the traditional time for the campus community to reflect on the state of the university and to focus on themes important to its future. Thank you for being here and for the many significant contributions that you make--day after day-- to the life of this wonderful university.
I don't need to tell you that Georgia College is "on a roll" as indicated by traditional measures of institutional success.
We are attracting academically talented students -- and retaining them at one of the highest percentage rates in the University System of Georgia. Enrollments are up -- despite the fact that we are limiting admissions to the most qualified students. The simple truth is that more and more of the students we admit are choosing to enroll and stay at Georgia College.
This is a testimony to all you. It is you who have encouraged, counseled, coached and challenged our students -- you who have provided them with facilities for learning and living and with beautiful landscapes - and you who have patiently helped our students and their families to solve problems related to financial aid, tuition payment, class schedule and the many other matters that need to be navigated.
Our success is even more remarkable given some of the challenges you have faced.
Many of our stately buildings are old and some are in serious need of repair. Yet you have been inventive and have continued to find ways to deliver quality educational experiences to our students despite these shortcomings.
Over time, the dollars allocated by the state have not always been sufficient to meet many of our needs -- and yet you have stayed the course.
Success in enrolling and retaining students has created new demands on your time as we wait for funding to catch up with need, and still you have stepped up and found ways to respond to the challenge. Such actions exemplify the pride, commitment and creative spirit that have long sustained this university and shaped its character.
Last year, I organized my University Convocation talk around the theme of change - both voluntary and involuntary -- and the importance of our ongoing strategic focusing process for securing our niche as Georgia's public liberal arts university.
Today, I am pleased to report that we have made considerable progress in this effort. Again, the thanks for this good work goes to the faculty, staff, students and friends of the university who participated by offering their ideas and critical perspectives.
The strategic focusing initiative represented an effort to better position Georgia College for external recognition as an exemplary public liberal arts university.
This process sought to identify features within our core academic mission that -- with appropriate enhancement -- could serve as the pillars of distinction on which to hang our reputational hat. The process has spanned a two year time period, and included four stakeholder conferences during which faculty, staff, students and others shared ideas, critiqued proposals, and achieved consensus around our options for future development.
We looked at the Georgia College student learning experience, with particular focus on our undergraduate students. We sought aspects of this experience that centered on two key points -- those that resonant with our fundamental educational values -- and those that also have the potential to stand out as being exemplary. Our goal was to identify those features of the Georgia College student learning experience that we might realistically seek to be known for and admired.
Participants in the process sought ideas that would build on our existing strengths and reflect potential for broad university support. At the conclusion of this undertaking, two potential "pillars of distinction" emerged as the leading candidates for further planning and deliberation.
We named one of these potential pillars "learning beyond the classroom." This pillar is about providing students with robust opportunities for connecting classroom learning with real-world experience, action and application. Its educational value rests on the fact that powerful learning occurs at the intersections of theory and practice, knowledge and application, and first-hand involvement in discovery and creation.
This, no doubt, is why Georgia College already offers students significant opportunities to participate in field-based experiences, study abroad, internships, mentoring programs, faculty guided research and creative projects and service learning.
But participants in the strategic focusing process also identified some challenges associated with transforming this existing area of strength into a true pillar of institutional distinction. These challenges include uneven student participation, weak promotion and inconsistent institutional support for faculty involvement.
Our strategic focusing initiative also identified a second potential pillar for the Georgia College student learning experience. This pillar pertains to our residential college setting on the Milledgeville campus and its potential for enhancing the university's public liberal arts mission.
As participants in stakeholder conferences noted, one prominent feature of liberal arts colleges in the private sector is their robust residential college system - a system that integrates the intellectual and social life of students in a residential setting.
Participants also noted that while Georgia College has some of the best residential facilities in the state, it has not yet fully considered how to best leverage these facilities to enhance its public liberal arts mission. They urged us to consider better ways of creating links between living and learning that foster intellectual and social communities, enhance student leadership opportunities, and provide for meaningful out-of-class interactions between faculty, staff and students.
In addition to its focus on the student learning experience, the strategic focusing initiative also sought to identify a limited number of academic programs with potential for national recognition as exemplary. Each school sent forward at least one proposal for broader review and evaluation. These proposals focused on programs that already enjoy regional or national reputations for excellence -- and they recommended ways in which we might strengthen their national visibility and prestige.
So, what will we do with these results? And, what are the next steps in the process?
Since the proposals related to the undergraduate student learning experience remain at the concept or idea stage, they clearly require further development to determine what it will take to adopt them. Planning teams will work on this during the Fall Semester and present their results for broader community discussion and deliberation. In contrast, the academic program proposals already include well-considered actions for enhancing the stature of our programs and their impact.
The task now is to identify funding strategies -- including private dollars -- for implementing the targeted academic program enhancements that these proposals recommend.
We launched the strategic focusing initiative in order to address the challenges we face in strengthening our distinctive educational niche within the University System of Georgia. The initiative asked us to think together about our educational values and to elevate our aspirations as we consider areas for future focus. We wanted to identify a few features of our core educational mission with the realistic potential for being recognized by peers, future students, and funding partners as truly exemplary.
Along the way, we learned more about our colleagues from across the university and witnessed the thoughtfulness and innovation that permeates this institution. The conversations were rich, the insights often compelling, and your ability to work collaboratively with students and community stakeholders was inspiring. To all of you who participated -- thank you!
As you know, Georgia College is one of 35 institutions in the University System of Georgia, which is headed by a chancellor and governed by the Board of Regents. The University System establishes our budget, approves our mission and degree programs, creates policies that govern member colleges and universities, and engages in planning and assessment processes aimed at determining how Georgia's public colleges and universities might best meet the educational needs of Georgia.
I remind you of this because the Board of Regents recently adopted a new strategic plan for the University System of Georgia that will impact our university. Today, I also want to share with you what I know about this plan and how I think it will reflect and shape our own strategic directions.
Thanks to my friends in the Theatre Department, I've been equipped with a crystal ball to help predict our future. This crystal ball reveals a future in which University System colleges and universities will be asked to participate in a number of new initiatives that will require some rebalancing and refocusing of our efforts.
Change is in the wind, and this change will impact both our academic and institutional support areas.
Luckily, the first goal of the University System's strategic plan resonates with many of the things we value here at Georgia College. This goal is to "renew excellence in undergraduate education to meet students' 21st century needs" -- and it has several key objectives.
They include a system-wide focus on improved academic advising and also improved student retention and completion. For the past year or so, system-level committees have been at work on these topics -- looking at challenges, considering best practices, and formulating recommendations. These recommendations will be reviewed during the upcoming Board of Regents meetings in October and December.
As a result of the board's action, we can expect that University System institutions will be asked to focus more attention and resources on advising and retention initiatives.
In addition to increased data and reporting requirements, we can also expect new opportunities to compete for funding that will support improvements in our academic advising and retention programs. This is good news for Georgia College students, who will benefit from these enhancements.
The University System's goal of "renewing excellence in undergraduate education" also includes an objective related to international education and study abroad. This objective seeks to increase the number of students who participate in study abroad and provides incentives for internationalizing the major.
The system's emerging priorities in these areas will be the topic of an International Education Summit in October, and we can anticipate that recommendations consistent with our own goals will emerge from this summit, providing the Board of Regents with proposals for consideration and action. This is also good news for Georgia College and its students.
Not surprisingly, the goal of "renewing excellence in undergraduate education" also touches on the core curriculum -- which plays a critical role in the education of our undergraduate students. Its purpose is to provide students with foundational knowledge and skills thought to be essential for becoming an educated person and for more advanced study in the major.
Within the University System of Georgia, the core curriculum is structured by a framework that is common to all System institutions, which also facilitates transfer of credit between these institutions.
With respect to the core curriculum, the University System's strategic plan calls for a "restructuring of the core curriculum [framework] to focus on a common System set of competencies that reflect the knowledge and skills expected of an educated person in the 21st century."
The restructured core must remain consistent with System transferability goals while also grounding transfer in student mastery of core learning outcomes at appropriate levels of proficiency. What this means is that the revised core curriculum framework will have a stronger student performance assessment component. It will also have a stronger global component.
Faculty in particular will hear more about this since Chancellor Davis has charged me with responsibility for carrying out this component of the University System's strategic plan. This will, of course, require considerable input from faculty across the University System of Georgia.
The second goal of the University System of Georgia's new strategic plan is to "create enrollment capacity . . . to meet the needs of 100,000 additional students by 2020." This goal reflects an astonishing 40% increase in capacity over the next 12 years and will impact a number of USG institutions.
I know what you're asking yourself - "what will this mean for Georgia College?" After all, a 40% capacity increase for us would net an additional 2,000 undergraduate students over the next 12 years, and this level of growth would clearly impact the university's distinctive undergraduate mission.
Although growth numbers for Georgia College are not specified in the University System's strategic plan, my expectation is that we will continue to limit growth on our Milledgeville campus and focus instead on moderate growth at the graduate level in Macon.
The University System's strategic plan recognizes that not all institutions will play the same role in meeting System capacity goals. The plan specifies, for example, that access institutions -- such as Macon State College -- will be expected to serve significant numbers of additional students and it puts a new emphasis on distance education as a response to the state's educational needs.
This new emphasis on distance education presents an interesting challenge for Georgia College. At least at the undergraduate level, we specialize in face-to-face instruction and the hands-on involvement of faculty and staff in shaping the educational experiences of our students. On the other hand, some members of our faculty are recognized as innovative leaders in the use of technology to enhance instruction.
The University System's strategic plan calls for developing an RFP process to award "franchises" to particular institutions for specific on-line degree programs. This means the faculty at Georgia College will need to determine the extent of their involvement, which I anticipate will include some significant financial incentives.
Interestingly, one of the objectives related to the University System's capacity goal involves creating "a more robust sector of comprehensive universities and further delineating their missions within the sector."
The concept behind this objective is to take the growth burden off institutions that have reached capacity by creating more destinations of first choice for students. As noted by Chancellor Davis during his last visit to our campus, he considers Georgia College to be a model of success in this respect -- and he wants other comprehensive universities to follow our lead by developing distinctive missions and emphases.
This is also good news for Georgia College -- it indicates a clear awareness of our distinctive mission and its important role within the University System.
Another objective under the University System's capacity goal pertains to the enrollment of underserved populations -- students from economically challenged families and also of African-American and Hispanic decent. As this objective gets concretely articulated, I am hopeful that it will lend support to our own diversity goals at Georgia College.
Importantly, the University System's strategic plan also includes a goal related to establishing a need-based financial aid program. Such a program would significantly benefit our efforts to recruit and retain a student population representative of the cultural, geographic and economic diversity of our state.
The University System's third strategic goal is to increase "participation in research and economic development to the benefit of a Global Georgia."
Objectives associated with this goal include increasing incentives for federal and industry research funding, developing a plan for improving graduate education in targeted areas, and creating a system-level academic program plan for workforce development related to Georgia's strategic industries. These strategic industries are Aerospace, Agribusiness, Energy & Environmental, Healthcare & Eldercare, Life Sciences and Logistics & Transportation.
Although details related to this goal remain to be developed, there are clear links between Georgia College and the strategic industries that this goal intends to support.
Georgia College has one of the best nursing programs in the State of Georgia. We are only one of a handful of University System institutions to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental science, and our biology program is one of the fastest growing majors in the university. Additionally, we offer the University System's only masters degree in logistics management.
These linkages suggest possible future opportunities for funding related to our support for Georgia's strategic industries. Another goal of the University System's strategic plan relates to partnerships with the K-12 and technical education systems.
This goal includes objectives that the University system believes will improve the quality of K-12 education, teacher preparation, and school leaderships. Georgia College is widely recognized has having the best teacher education program in the State of Georgia, and I anticipate that our School of Education will continue to play a lead role in University System K-12 initiatives.
The final goal of the University System of Georgia Strategic Plan will impact institutional support areas of our university -- particularly the business and finance division.
This goal is to "increase efficiency, with a special focus on "back office operations." Actions under this goal include identifying "best in class standards" for performance and measuring institutional performance against these standards. There is also likely to be some regional or state level consolidation of back-office functions.
Other objectives related to this goal include energy conservation, employee training and development, and a process improvement program focused on Lean Six Sigma training for key campus managers.
In case you don't know about lean six sigma, it is a business improvement methodology popularized in the 1980s that focuses on eliminating wasted time, money and material.
The University System is pursuing these efficiency objectives in order to reduce costs so that resources can be redirected to instruction. As University System institutions seek additional state funding to meet needs, they will be expected to demonstrate internal resource re-direction as a result of back-office efficiencies.
That's the plan, and my crystal ball tells me we are in for quite a ride.
Our Chancellor is serious about the University System acting more like a system, which means that the direction of its 35 colleges and universities will increasingly be driven by System level priorities. One indication of this shift is the fact that university presidents are now being assigned significant System level projects to manage in addition to their campus management and leadership responsibilities.
Another indication of this shift is the new University System budgeting process, which places a much greater emphasis than in the past on allocating resources to meet University System strategic goals.
This means that our future success in securing state funding will be strongly linked to our ability to match up our own strategic directions with University System priorities. This is a new challenge for all University System institutions, including Georgia College.
So what does the future hold for Georgia College?
My crystal ball tells me that this future remains promising.
We will survive pressures for significant enrollment growth by focusing on the quality we bring to the undergraduate educational experience of our students by virtue of our mission, residential setting, moderate size, and relatively low student-faculty ratio.
We will leverage the results of the strategic focusing initiative to strengthen our reputation as an exemplary public liberal arts university, and we will continue to demonstrate steady improvement in the academic preparation and diversity of our incoming students. More and more of our students will participate in study abroad, undergraduate research, field experiences, service learning and internships, and our core curriculum will engage and prepare them for leaderships in a globally interconnected world.
Our retention and graduation rates will continue to climb upward, and our students will become increasingly competitive for prestigious scholarships, awards and post-baccalaureate opportunities.
My crystal ball also tells me that we will strategically grow our graduate presence in Macon, thanks to funding support from business and industry and the University System. We will become more efficient in our back-office operations by finding meaningful ways to support and reward employees who help us to achieve these efficiencies. When I ask my crystal ball whether we will be recognized as an energy efficient campus, it tells me that this is a definite possibility!
And so it goes. The University System of Georgia's Strategic Plan frames our future, and that future remains ours for the making.
My confidence is high that we are up to the challenge. Nothing in our past or present leads me toward anything but optimism for this remarkably resilient university, made so by its extraordinary faculty and staff.
To each of you, my personal thanks for making Georgia College & State University such a very special place in higher education.
Thank you.
