President Lambert delivers opening of school address

That point led a half hour address to faculty and staff who gathered inside Alumni Gym for Lambert’s annual message.

He also spoke of the growth of the campus itself and the status of several construction projects, the university’s push for diversity and global engagement in an era when graduates must possess “intercultural competence” in a globalized economy, and planned partnerships with the Alamance Burlington School System as plans for a public high school on Elon’s campus take shape for fall 2012.

“This is a great university,” Lambert said, “and we are no longer the country’s ‘best-kept secret.’”

Lambert’s Aug. 22 address kicked off Planning Week 2011 for faculty and staff as they prepare for the 2011-2012 academic year. Excerpts from the president’s opening workshop address are below:

Leo M. Lambert
Opening of School Address
Monday, August 22, 2011
Alumni Memorial Gymnasium

ADMISSIONS AND FINANCIAL AID

We are very proud of the Class of 2015—1427 strong and of excellent quality, with an average GPA of 3.90 and an average SAT of 1831. This is the biggest and best class in Elon history. 

I offer a word of sincere thanks to every person in this room who helped recruit and shape this wonderful class. I use the word “shape” carefully, because admissions—and we all—have many goals to achieve to create a truly special class. I think of the goals as overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. We’re competing for top students for our Honors and Fellows programs and going toe-to-toe with top institutions for them. We’re searching for greater diversity on many fronts, including socio-economic and international. And, increasingly, most families considering private colleges and universities are feeling very pressed by the lingering effects of a weak economy and the disappearance of home equity.

The result is that we are competing on financial aid packages like never before—perhaps the biggest circle in the diagram. While applications for the Class of 2014 were at an all time high, we saw our application numbers drop a bit for the Class of 2015. I suspect the reasons for this are many, including that applicants who are very far below our admissions standards today are applying less frequently. The biggest reason for the slight dip, I think, is the economy.

Remember that protecting our price advantage is one of the eight pillars of our strategic plan, The Elon Commitment, and achieving this goal is going to require ever higher levels of creativity and planning to remain competitive.

Talking about financial aid these days makes me feel like Sisyphus. While we are making so much progress institutionally on endowment-funded and institutionally funded aid, we are going backward in government support. This summer, the State of North Carolina reduced the North Carolina Legislative Tuition grant for North Carolina families, and the program will receive another cut next year when it is combined with the Contractual Scholarship program into a new, need-based program. This is another impact that will affect North Carolina lower- and middle-income families considering Elon.

Given the state of affairs in Washington, D.C., I cannot help but be concerned about the long-term prospects for Pell grants, although every college president in the country will be fighting for their protection. I was also deeply saddened by the decision of the legislature to phase out the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program—the model for all of the fellows programs at Elon. Elon is going to have a Teaching Fellows program, however, funded by our own resources and open to all applicants, because it is simply too important to lose.
 
So, what’s the upshot of all this news?

When the Board of Trustees executive committee convenes next month, and the university budget committee later in the semester, student financial aid must be at the top of our priorities. It’s that simple and clear. One small step we’ve already taken is to announce a higher student worker wage and expanded job opportunities at Elon, and I believe this student work program should be expanded much further in terms of the number of meaningful work opportunities we offer to students at Elon. Let me end this section on admissions on an optimistic note. Elon is in an enviable position, with an abundance of applications, campus visits at an all-time high, and most important, a very supportive campus culture. We just need to continue to pay careful attention to the many challenges in the external environment.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH ALAMANCE-BURLINGTON SCHOOLS

This is a year in which I hope we will take another important step in our collaborative relationship with the Alamance Burlington School District. In recent years, we have made important new contributions by assisting with the implementation of the SPLASH! Spanish-language immersion program in four elementary schools. The Elon Academy is a point of pride for the University—keeping scores of bright young people on the road to college—and we are reaping the benefit of enrolling some of those wonderful young people from the county here at Elon. All of this is on top of the regular and important contributions the School of Education makes year after year.

Next year at this time, I hope we will have a public high school—University High School—on our campus, enrolling between 100 and 120 students when fully operational. My hope is that the school will serve students from all six county high schools who are ready for academic challenge and aspire to do college-level work while in high school. The general game plan is that ninth and tenth grades will be self contained, and these students will be challenged primarily by AP and honors classes. …A similar high school exists on the campus of Guilford College, and it is ranked as one of the top 20 high schools in the country. Alamance County should aspire to host one of the top high schools in the country as well.

DEVELOPMENT OF ELON’S CAMPUS

We’ll all need a scorecard to keep up with the physical changes taking place in every corner of the campus.

• Our Elon Commitment strategic goal of creating a premier residential campus is well under way.
Why is this important? Simple. Strong residential communities foster academic success.

This fall, three new buildings in the Colonnades complex and five new Greek houses in the Loy Center open, replacing the beds lost by the demolition of Story Center. We’re proud of the geothermal heating and cooling of Colonnades buildings, part of our ongoing sustainability efforts.

• The former Story Center site will host the new dining addition to Moseley Center, opening in January 2013.
• The Station at Mill Point is under way on the former fire station fields, and the entire village-style complex will be ready for the opening of school one year from today. These beds will replace those lost in Harper Center, which will be demolished after one more year of use.

Following the demolition of Harper Center, we’ll begin construction of the Global Residential Neighborhood, adding 600 new beds to campus. This will be a major update to our campus residential facilities, integrating classrooms and faculty offices, the Isabella Cannon Centre, study and gathering spaces, faculty in-residence apartments, and much more to integrate living and learning. I believe that the residential campus initiative will be as important to shaping Elon’s culture as the Phi Beta Kappa initiative was in the previous strategic plan.

• The Elon Town Center has opened with new quarters for our Barnes & Noble-operated bookstore
• We have been fortunate to receive several major gifts from parents to create a wonderful new Student Professional Development Center in Moseley in the space vacated by the bookstore. Construction will take place this fall with an early 2012 completion date anticipated. Searches for the executive director of employer relations and a second employer relations position focused in the Love School of Business are now under way.

• We’ll break ground for the multi-faith center—the Numen-Lumen Pavilion—this fall. Timber from oaks that were removed as part of site preparation is being dried for furniture for this very special building.
• The first phase of the Francis Center will open in January 2012, providing new quarters for the School of Health Sciences and labs for exercise and sport science. There are many ideas on the table for future uses of the remainder of the Francis Center, including student recreation, library and archive storage, a technology center, and a larger black box theatre.
• And, we’re eagerly anticipating a 17,000 sq. ft. expansion of undergraduate sciences in the basement of the McMichael Science Center once physical therapy is relocated.

DiVERSITY AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

This is a year in which an important conversation will continue with regard to the diversity and global engagement goal in our strategic plan. Let me reflect for a moment on why this goal is so important and why we all need to be a part of its realization.

We are preparing our students for success in a global society. In our students’ lifetimes, they will interact with different peoples of the earth—of different nationalities, of different faith traditions, of different cultural backgrounds, of different races, of different languages—more than any other generation of U.S. citizens. In two words, what we are striving for is intercultural competence—so that our students can understand, appreciate, and negotiate these differences. This is an essential 21st century skill set. If we are to be academically excellent, we must do this well.

I am indebted to the work of Professor Brooke Barnett in serving as a convener of this very important conversation at Elon, one that includes many voices committed to making Elon a more welcoming, accepting, and vibrant environment for learning. We now have an active presidential diversity council. Brooke has kept diversity and global engagement front and center on my senior staff agenda. A strategic plan for diversity and global engagement has been drafted, which will be brought forward to the university community for discussion this fall. My main message to you about the agenda of global engagement and diversity is that this is an area in which Elon could play a national leadership role.

Here are just two areas in which we could excel:

• First, I think we can build a domestic study-away program that is as powerful and defining an Elon experience as our international study program. Students should be exposed to so much more of the cultural richness of this country, as well the crises of poverty, illiteracy, and lack of access to the basic needs of life that can be found in every state of our nation.
• Second, I think we can be leaders in the multifaith conversations taking place in this country. Elon is proudly participating, along with 250 other colleges and universities, in the White House community service and interfaith challenge.

And, if we proceed correctly, our new multifaith center, the Numen-Lumen pavilion, will not be just another empty worship space on a college campus, but a vibrant forum for learning, sharing, and celebration. I ask each of you to study the draft strategic plan for diversity and global engagement and then to own a piece of it, because it is going to take everyone in this room to pull off such an ambitious agenda.

MILESTONES

Let me now reflect briefly on a number of campus milestones. We congratulate the School of Law for receiving full approval by the American Bar Association this past summer. The faculty and staff of the law school now turn their attention to membership in the American Association of Law Schools and hosting an important national conference on law and leadership this spring.

And speaking of graduate and professional education, it is good to see faculty hiring for the physician assistant program under way under the leadership of Director Mark Archabault. The doctor of physical therapy program will welcome the largest class ever in January, so their expanded quarters will be put to immediate use.

Two of Gerald Whittington’s staff members, Chuck Gantos, director of campus safety and police, and Neil Bromilow, director of construction management, will retire at the end of this year. Chuck has worked tirelessly to keep us all safe and secure, and Neil has presided over his office during an unprecedented building boom at Elon, with most every project coming in on time and on budget. For those who recall the delayed opening of Belk Library, Neil still displays a nervous tick anytime anyone uses the term “Canadian windows.” Gentlemen, thank you for your decades of service.
 
We are excited to welcome Ann Flaherty as director of the office of leadership and professional development. The creation of Ann’s office relates to the Elon Commitment goal of supporting a world-class faculty and staff, and she will focus on helping employees make professional development a key aspect of their continuing journey at Elon. I am also pleased to announce this morning that the university’s new Staff Council has been formed, representing all levels of staff at Elon, to make recommendations to me about issues concerning staff and to create the best possible communications with staff across campus.

EVER ELON CAMPAIGN

Let me conclude this morning with an update on the Ever Elon campaign, which will end this fall. In October 2008—in the depth of the financial crisis—the campus community gathered to go public with the largest campaign goal in the history of our institution—$100 million. As we now approach the end of this historic campaign, we find ourselves again surrounded by great economic uncertainty.

The good news then is the good news now—that the Elon community is strong, vibrant, and supportive. I have often said that Elon is on the cusp of becoming a university of national distinction. While we continue to drive toward assuming our place on the national stage, I am convinced private philanthropy will be critical to that ascension. It is clear, too, that campaigns can transform institutions.

As we begin the new academic year, I would like us all to reflect on the impact that the Ever Elon campaign—a campaign many of you participated in generously—has had on this institution:

• We’ve raised over $56 million for endowment, more than $26 million for annual support, and nearly $14 million for capital priorities. Approximately 20 percent of the campaign goal has been achieved through planned gifts, gifts which will have a great impact on our future.
• We’ve added 180 new scholarship endowments to support students.
• Over $2.5 million in endowment for the Elon Academy has been received.
• Over $5 million in faculty support—including professorships in business and law, an emerging scholar professorship in Jewish Studies, as well as faculty development funds
• We’ve built Lindner Hall, Alumni Field House, funded Phase I of the Alumni Gym/Robertson Court renovation, refurbished Latham Park, built the Worsley golf center on South campus, nearly finished fundraising for the Numen-Lumen Pavilion, and secured new investments in career services, both in capital dollars and in program endowment.

Campaigns, however, are not just about numbers—as important as they are. They are about people. Here are just three examples we will be celebrating this fall as the campaign concludes:

• Think about the Susan Scholars, endowed by Furman and Susan Moseley through a historic $5 million gift, to support young women of promise. Already, this gift has opened Elon’s gates to 15 young women.
• The Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership—endowed by Elon Trustee Ed Doherty and his wife Joan—entrepreneurs themselves who have seen both good times and bad in the restaurant business. This program, created just a few years ago, was recently ranked #19 in the nation by Bloomsberg.
• The Kerrii Anderson challenge, matching annual gifts five to one, has helped inspire young alumni to take philanthropic responsibility for their alma mater, which is so important to our future.

So, as we begin this new year together, I hope you are inspired, as am I, that there are thousands of alumni, parents, and friends of Elon who believe in your work and the work you do each day in transforming the lives of young people—engaging their minds, preparing them for leadership, and creating global citizens.