President Connie Ledoux Book joined Vice President for Student Life Jon Dooley for a Fireside Chat in the Great Hall on Monday, March 26.
Sitting by the fireplace in the Great Hall in Global Commons Monday night, President Connie Ledoux Book was asked what has surprised her since she returned to campus to become Elon University’s ninth president.
Certainly there have been new construction projects started and completed since she left for The Citadel in 2015 after 16 years as a faculty member and administrative leader at Elon. But there is something in the students that has changed as well, she said.
“I can just tell when I talk to students that there is more Elon pride, and I didn’t think that was possible,” Book said to a crowd of students, faculty and staff gathered for the discussion Monday night.
Joined by Vice President for Student Life Jon Dooley, who led the fireside chat, Book shared her hopes for the years ahead as Elon prepares to develop a new strategic plan, pursues a major fundraising campaign centered on student scholarship resources and takes steps to continue to enhance its academic offerings.
Asked by Dooley what it feels like to step into the role of president, Book said, “I have an itch to lead. I like to build. … I am more than grateful to be able to work with this community to develop the next vision of Elon.”
Several students asked Book how Elon can continue to pursue the goal of increasing diversity within the campus community, one of the aims of the university’s current strategic plan. Book said she’s seen the value diversity brings to a university community and the educational experience of its students.
“I absolutely know with every fiber that we are more effective as a diverse community,” Book said. “We can prepare you better to live in the world, and you learn more. The more we can do to advance diversity, the stronger this university will be.”
That includes ensuring the university has the financial resources to make an Elon education accessible to a broad range of students, Book said. This is a time when both public and private institutions are grappling with the cost of higher education, she added.
Elon also has to be able to offer a curriculum that attracts students with a wide range of interests, Book said. Students continue to personalize their degrees by undertaking double majors and multiple minors, Book said, and Elon should make sure it has the programs students are demanding and will serve them well after graduation. An example of how Elon has responded to that, Book noted, is the addition this fall of a four-year undergraduate degree in engineering.
“We never want to turn away a student who is a good match for Elon because we don’t have the curriculum they are seeking,” she said. “It’s essential that we continue to have a compelling curriculum and we think about how we can advance it.”
Book comes to Elon as the university’s first female president following three years as the first female provost at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. She shared with students some of the challenges she faced as she adapted to a leading role at a military college.
Not the least of those challenges was a week-long boot camp she participated in with provosts from other colleges and universities around the country. The time at boot camp included crawling through an obstacle course and an unexpectedly quick descent from a 70-foot-high rappelling tower, a moment captured on video that she shared with the crowd Monday night.
There was also the experience of performing a tandem jump from 13,000 feet with a member of the U.S. Army Parachute Team, nicknamed the Golden Knights.
“I was scared, but at the end of the day, I’d rather learn something new than to just sit still,” Book said.