Southern
Fall 2004 Kickoff – Part II - The State of
Wednesday, 18 August 2004
President Lisa A. Rossbacher
I. Introduction: Where have we been?…………….……..….1
II. The State of the University…………………………………..3
III. Where we are going………………………………..…………8
IV. Our message………………………………………………….13
V. Next steps……………………………………………………..14
My original plan this morning was to start with three questions: Where are we now, where are we going, and how will we get there?
After reading all the feedback cards you gave me yesterday, however, I have to start with reviewing the “where have we been” part of this discussion.
The list of “most important accomplishments” that you all identified from the last five years was amazing. There were 236 specific items that were identified, and some of you pointed out items that should have been on my list and weren’t. My list didn’t include some major achievements like starting the University Honors Program, the new major in International Studies: Global Technology, and faculty research grants in Computer Science. Some of you identified accomplishments that may have been implied in what I described, but which I didn’t list as a specific item, such as increased enrollment, the overall shift to more residential housing, a stronger sense of place, and improved services from Information Technology.
Thank you all for your contributions.
We’re going to put out three issues of Polytechnic Progress that have a complete summary of the responses you all provided to my questions, so you can all see the full spectrum of the responses. (These are accessible at the following URL: http://www.spsu.edu/irpa/poly_progress/index.html)
But for now, let me share with you the top five accomplishments from the last five years that you all identified. It’s interesting to note that, for all three questions, there was a clear grouping into the top five responses.
In terms of our achievements over the last five years, you listed the following as the top five accomplishments in moving this University forward:
1. New buildings and renovations of existing buildings
2. Increased visibility
3. New academic programs
4. Increased student housing on campus
5. Reorganization
These accomplishments have certainly had an impact on our visibility, enrollment, collaboration, and quality of our academic programs.
This summary is a review of where we are now for some of us – and an introduction to others. Remember that nearly half the staff members on campus have been here less than five years…and more than a quarter of the full-time faculty have joined our University community in the last five years.
We are building on the past – and that past is a vital contributor to where we are now.
Let me start out with a metaphor that is a useful way to look at our past, our present, and our future.
Nebular hypothesis
Immanuel Kant developed
a concept called the nebular hypothesis, and his theory was given scientific
form by P. S. Laplace at the end of the 18th century. This theory assumed that the Solar System
started out as a nebula -- a hot, slowly rotating mass of gas and dust -- which
gradually cooled and contracted, the rotation becoming more rapid, in turn
giving the nebula a flattened, disk-like shape.
In this model
for the formation of our Solar System, as the cloud contracts, the nebula spins
faster, and material accretes in the middle…eventually becoming concentrated
enough that fusion begins (giving birth to the sun). At the same time, rings of gas and dust
became separated from the outer part of the disk, creating a series of rings.
Out of the material of each ring a great ball of matter was formed, which by
contracting eventually became a planet. (Since the 18th century, we’ve
realized there are problems with the theory in terms of the angular momentum in
our Solar System, but the model is still useful for our purposes.)
Here’s another
way of looking at this contraction process: You’re all familiar with the phenomenon of an
ice skater who, as she spins, pulls her arms in close to her body – and spins
faster as a result. You can also see
this in divers who are doing flips. The
tighter their tuck, the faster they rotate.
The same thing happens in a nebula – the more tightly the cloud of
material contracts into the center, the faster it rotates.
This is what
happens to a solar system. On an even
larger scale, galaxies follow the same evolution.
This
University, like every new endeavor, started out like a nebula -- a cloud of
relatively unrelated entities, sort of generally moving in the same direction,
but slowly, and not in a concentrated way.
Energy was being conserved, but not created.
As I outlined in
my “retrospective” remarks yesterday, each year we have contracted our
University nebula. We’ve become more focused
and more aligned with our mission; we
are more concentrated on our goals.
We’ve picked up speed.
Let me
describe some of the areas in which we’re moving right now, as we start the new
academic year.
Our overall enrollment for this fall looks like it will be up slightly – at this point, graduate enrollment looks like it will be down slightly and undergraduate enrollments are expected to be up a little, with a small net increase.
Our preliminary estimates indicate that SAT scores for our entering freshmen are up about 1%, to about 1119. We won’t know for another month or so how this compares with other campuses in the University System, but the trend is in the right direction. There are 31 campuses that would love to catch up with us, and several that have this as an explicit goal, so I’m hoping we can retain our #3 ranking in the University system.
Last Friday, we received the certificates of occupancy for the new University Courtyard apartments. This was an incredibly well-managed construction project, completed in even less time than our highly aggressive schedule called for. The apartments were built even faster than we could advertise and lease all of them. At this time, there are still some vacancies available.
Following an idea that came from one of our Foundation Board members, we’re going to take advantage of this opportunity to move forward on additional renovation of the residence halls. The original plans called for housing students in both Norton and Howell Halls this year, and then closing Howell next summer (just as we closed Norton Hall this summer) for renovations. Because we have some flexibility with space right now, the construction company is going to give us a substantial rebate on the cost of the project to be able to go ahead and do the renovations in Howell now, rather than have to come back next summer. So freshmen – who had signed up to live in Howell Hall – will be housed in the Courtyard apartments during fall semester, to allow the renovations in the residence halls to be completed nine months ahead of schedule. We expect to move the freshmen back into the residence halls in January as we continue to lease the Courtyard apartments for spring semester.
I’d like to reiterate what you’ve already heard about the new apartments in the University Courtyard – they are gorgeous. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the model apartment, I encourage you to do so. It will be a great living and learning environment for our students.
We have a new Dean of Engineering Technology and Management,
Dr.
We have a number of other new members of the University community who have joined us recently, and I know they will be introduced at divisional and departmental meetings over the next week. This University has always benefited from a good combination of both continuing and new members, and we certainly appreciate everyone who has joined us recently.
We also have several critical vacancies for which searches are either in process or are just about to start:
Executive Director for Advancement (screening underway now)
Vice President for Academic Affairs
A comptroller
A director of housing
A director of facilities management
And a number of other positions
You’ll all be hearing more about these as the search processes move to the campus interview stage.
Space issues continue to be a concern here at Southern
Polytechnic. We spent a considerable
amount of time in the last academic year trying to address our immediate space
needs through the acquisition of the
Thus, as we work on developing new facilities, we will continue to find other ways to address our space needs. These efforts will include adjustments of space allocations between programs with growing enrollment and shrinking enrollment and ensuring more effective use of available space. Some classrooms and labs must be dedicated for specific purposes, but we have to think of all our facilities as University space -- not personal, not departmental, not school owned. We need to collaborate to make the best possible use of the space we have.
An additional challenge is that we have been asked by the
University System to help identify ways to provide additional educational
opportunities to Cobb County and the region by providing space that can serve
students seeking two-year college experiences.
In a partnership with
Competition
Labs/Building E Renovation
The Competition Labs project will replace the old manufactured structures
behind the Civil Engineering Building with a modern, prefabricated metal
building. The floor space of 7,500 square feet will house labs for the concrete
canoe, aerial robotics, supermileage vehicle, formula car, steel bridge, IEEE
robot/submarine, and composite materials teams. The interior spaces have been
designed with input from these groups to meet the needs of each competition
team. In addition, the existing parking lot and driveway will be repaved.
Building E Renovation will upgrade fire alarms, add card access, replace the
boiler, and provide emergency power generation. These enhancements will improve
safety and security, as well as provide consistent building heating. I am also pleased to note that some of our
alumni are bidding on these projects.
The design for both areas has been completed and the drawings are out for
bid. Bid openings are scheduled for
August 17. By August 31, the contract is expected to be issued, and
construction is expected to take six to eight months.
Campus Infrastructure
This project is well underway and has coordinated well with our privatized housing project to replace overhead utility lines with underground cable. Construction is approximately 20% complete and should be finished by November 30, 2004.
Recreation and
This building experienced considerable wind damage from storms during the last
week of July. Fortunately, the Board of Regents had already contracted with
companies to respond immediately to such a disaster and to take immediate
actions to limit further damage. The rapid response provided was amazing. By
midnight, Parker Young Construction, Facilities Maintenance & Services,
University Police, Student Services, and Recreational Sports all had personnel
on site assisting in the recovery effort.
Right now, we are waiting for the insurance adjusters to process the
engineering analysis of the damage.
Building D Hydronics
As most of you know, the
Mathematics and
On June 8, 2004, the Board of Regents voted to add this building to their
five-year capital outlay list. This will
position SPSU for funding in about five years, depending upon availability of
funds. This year we will begin the Board
of Regents five-year readiness process that precedes construction.
This building will provide about 110,000 square feet of replacement space for
the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mathematics Departments. The space usage will be approximately 60%
laboratory and 40% classroom and office space, which meets our academic mission
of providing functional and modern facilities. In accordance with the approved SPSU physical
master plan, this building will be built on the site of an existing classroom/lab
building, (Building I). When Math and
the ECET departments move into the new building, the existing ECET building (F)
will be demolished to be ready for Phase II of this project, which will be a
science addition to the building to house Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
The next step in our capital outlay plan is to demolish Building
D (which currently houses the Mathematics Department) and construct a “
In spite of the budget cuts we dealt with last year, we started this academic year with slightly more in our budget than we had last year. This is due primarily to our enrollment growth and the projected impact of the 5% tuition increase that was approved by the Board of Regents for this year. You’ll remember that our state appropriation is based on the enrollment two years prior, so we are just now seeing the financial impact of enrollment growth in the 2002-03 academic year.
Salary increases that were approved by the Board of Regents will be effective in January.
There are still uncertainties about the budget for the current year. State revenues are running behind the projections on which the state budget was based, and we may be asked to trim back from where we thought we were starting the year. There is much we don’t know yet, and I don’t want anyone to panic. I can assure you that, if there are additional cuts, we will deal with them as we have the ones in the past: keeping the University community informed, protecting instruction as much as possible, remembering the importance of the people who make up this University community, and continuing the focus we emphasized last year, on creating and investing resources.
In our nebular model for the University, we are continuing to concentrate on our goals, on our mission, and on our vision. And the vision for the future is to become so focused, so successful at developing our core, that we start generating energy. That we reach the state of fusion. Let me talk a little about what this will look like.
The feedback I received from you yesterday, about the vision for the future, listing the single most important characteristic of the University five years from now, was, frankly, more focused than I had dared hope. We are starting to accrete our vision into a couple of key areas. Almost 60% of all the responses are covered in the top five items that you listed as the single most important characteristic of SPSU’s vision for the future:
The future and where we are headed as a University are the most important topics I want to talk about today. I want to ask you to think about the big picture for a few minutes. Indeed, think on a galactic scale.
Everything I’m about to say is something I have said before, but never all at one time, in one place, to this audience.
Almost everything I’m about to say has been reinforced by the feedback I received from you yesterday.
This is important. This is the answer to the question about our vision for the University and our future.
I see a future with two major characteristics of SPSU:
- we graduate engineers with a social conscience,
o who understand the relationship between science, engineering, technology, and society
o who can make informed and responsible decisions
o who can apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems
- we graduate non-engineers with an understanding of technology
o who can make informed and responsible decisions
o who can apply their knowledge to solve real-world problems
Everyone – everyone - on campus has a role in making this happen.
I see a University whose curriculum includes both
engineering technology and selected traditional engineering programs to serve
the needs of the State of
I see a University with an outstanding faculty who incorporate their own practical experience and disciplinary knowledge into their teaching.
I see a University that provides strong support for faculty teaching, scholarship, and professional development.
I see a University that teaches predominantly in small classroom and laboratory settings, with a few large classes that make the smaller classes possible – as well as supporting reassigned time for faculty to engage in scholarship and professional development.
I see a University that prepares its graduates with both technological and intellectual skills, so that they are prepared for both their first and the last jobs in their professional careers.
I see a University that uses technology to teach technology – and to run all of its daily operations, with strong and dependable campus-wide support from the Information Technology division.
I see a University that maintains strong relationships with partners in business and industry, so that the curriculum provides students with the knowledge they need for the workplace.
I see a University that has a steady pattern of enrollment growth every year, with a steady increase in the SAT scores for entering freshmen as well.
I see a University that has retention and graduation goals for every department; every one of these goals is higher than the average for the University System of Georgia, and these goals are met every year.
I see a University that celebrates its diverse student, faculty, and staff populations, who all contribute to the intellectual, cultural, and social life on campus.
I see a University that has a steady increase in the number of women students – and an annual increase in the representation of women on the full-time faculty as well.
I see a University that has a vibrant campus life, with a broad range of activities morning, noon, and night, evenings and weekends, including community involvement, making the campus so attractive that we have a waiting list for SPSU students to live in on-campus housing.
I see a University that has a strong intramural program and multiple sporting opportunities for intercollegiate competition for both men and women – all of whom are students before they are athletes.
I see a University that is known for its high level of customer service, where every employee is empowered to solve problems…where bureaucracy levels are low and trust is high.
I see a University that has budget-tracking information so that every budget manager can know instantly exactly how much money they have remaining in their budget – and where all the money that has been spent has gone.
I see a University that is supported by a strong Foundation, with an engaged board and a substantial endowment that will buffer the institution against the annual ups and downs of state appropriations.
I see a University that has a strong supply of scholarship funds to support students who cannot otherwise afford to attend, increasing access to our brand of higher education.
I see an annual fund that has 100% participation from faculty and staff, 100% participation from the Foundation Board, and 100% participation in giving from the Alumni Association Board.
I see a database that can account for every one of our 18,453 graduates from this institution – along with an information campaign that ensures every one of them who is still living knows our vision for the future and that 70% of them are inspired to support us as a result, putting us among the top schools in the country for alumni support.
I see a University that has an alumni center where graduates of this school can meet, visit with each other, and continue to be engaged in the life of this campus, no matter what the name of the school was on the day they celebrated their commencement.
I see a University that is working with local schools – elementary through high school -- to improve student preparation in math and science and to increase interest in these fields. Active robotics competitions are one of many ways to do this.
I see a University that collaborates with two-year schools in the University System to enhance transfer opportunities and to serve the students in this region.
I see a University characterized by collaboration through creative interdisciplinary programs, efficient, shared use of space, and effective use of resources, so that we meet the needs of all our academic programs, our two-year college partners, and other academic partners.
I see a campus that is an oasis of natural beauty in the midst of a suburban region, where people come to the campus just to spend time enjoying the trees, flowers, fountains, rocks, paths, courtyards, and quadrangles.
I see a University with a professional police department that knows the names of students, faculty, and staff and which is a model for campus police services throughout the state.
I see new buildings, funded by both the state and private resources so that our projects jump to the top of the Regents’ Capital Outlay Priority List, that provide appropriate space for all our academic and support programs.
I see a University campus on which the only one of the eight original campus buildings, built in the early 1960’s, still standing is the administration building, because that is the lowest priority for replacement in educating students and the other seven are all academic buildings that desperately need to be replaced. First.
I see a University that has expanded its borders from the current campus boundaries, to the east and west and south, and that the additional acreage is fully integrated into a unified campus.
I see a University where all faculty are engaged in scholarship appropriate to their discipline, whether that is the scholarship of discovery, application, synthesis, or pedagogy.
I see a University that is a leader in the State in continuing education and professional development programs.
I see a University that is pre-eminent in on-line education, providing leadership in the transformation of classes that depends on hands-on, experiential, laboratory settings into effective on-line instruction – that reaches literally around the world.
I see a University with a few selected, high-quality, well-planned overseas study programs that offer our students a chance to gain valuable international experiences while keeping them on track toward graduation.
I see a University that offers laboratory experiences that reflect the real-world application of knowledge, including laboratories, factories, studios, construction sites, and the new Galleria Performing Arts Center.
I see a University that sends a consistent message – from all faculty, staff, students, alumni, and supporters – about who we are and what we do…and that is so successful at doing this that “Southern Polytechnic” becomes a household name.
And to return to the results we are known for…I see a University that is known for the quality of its graduates: engineers with a social conscience and non-engineers with an understanding of technology.
Let me start by sharing your responses to my question of what the single most important change that is needed to move the University forward and to fulfill our mission. Again, these divided clearly into a distinct top five:
1. Increase resources
2. Market the University (with a focused message)
3. Increase enrollment
4. Expand the curriculum (60% = engineering)
5. Make the administration more effective
In our nebular model of the University, we are clearly accreting our efforts around these key areas. I see the curriculum as contributing to enrollment, since it is the reason that students come here…and I see #5 as an issue of how we are investing our resources. This list of your top five steps emphasizes the need to increase visibility, enrollment, and resources.
I would argue that visibility is the most important of these…with visibility come enrollment and resources. At a time when we are trying to communicate who we are and what we are doing here at SPSU, we need to take a minute and ask whether we all understand this…before we try to tell the rest of the world. We are the ones responsible for sending a consistent message about who we are.
In the last several years, we’ve spent time focusing on the goals of increasing visibility, enrollment, and resources. We’ve talked about the “hedgehog”: that our central, driving concept is the intersection of students, developing mature minds, and applying technology. We’ve focused on the “five big rocks”: academic programs, enrollment, customer service, sense of place, and private resources.
We’ve seen a lot of progress in the last five years – and a lot of change – including among the people who are part of this University community.
We are the ones who must articulate our message. If we don’t understand this, we have no hope of communicating our message to the rest of the world – to students, to our alumni, to prospective faculty and staff, to the community, to legislators, to our foundation, and to funding agencies.
We must send a clear, consistent message about who we are, what we do, why we exist, what we’re good at, how we accomplish the work, and who is actually making this happen – which is all faculty and staff.
Here are our messages:
Southern Polytechnic:
Create it. Engineer it. Design it.
Applied knowledge. Employed graduates.
Integrating people and technology.
Together, we develop minds to serve the real world.
These concepts aren’t new. They are consistent with our directions – with what we’ve been talking about – for the last five years.
But as our nebula has begun to spin faster and to contract, we are getting increasingly focused on these core messages. Your feedback from yesterday reinforces this.
I very much need your help in getting this message out –
with increasing our visibility. As you
all know, there are still people who have lived in
Here’s what we, as a campus, need to do:
1) Continue to emphasize our elevator message at every opportunity. (This statement is on the SPSU web site at: XXX)
Like many of you, I have the University’s “elevator statement” printed on the back of my business cards. I recently gave it to someone who turned the card over, saw the paragraph, and said, “Oh, so you’re a president who does marketing, too?” Yes. We all need to be doing marketing.
2) Be part of send the consistent message about SPSU:
-
Southern Polytechnic:
- Create it. Engineer it. Design it.
- Applied knowledge. Employed graduates.
- Integrating people and technology.
- Southern Polytechnic: Together, we develop minds to serve the real world.
The SPSU Marketing Committee is in the final stages of developing a style guide that will help all of us enormously with this effort. Establishing a strong institutional identity through consistent use of words and images is absolutely critical. This style guide will be finished and distributed soon. Once all of us are using this, we’ll be sending one strong, consistent message. And that’s a powerful way to pursue our goals of increased visibility. Our new “points of pride” flier can help communicate some of the great things that are happening here on campus. Please contact Melissa McGarity if you need copies.
3) Contribute to the divisional and departmental discussions about our vision for the future and our plans for realizing that vision.
4) Participate in the small group meetings that are scheduled the week of August 30. Please give me feedback about how we can “get there from here” How can we concentrate our efforts as our University nebula evolves?
These smaller group meetings (“fireside chats”) will focus on the importance of talking about the same issues and emphasizing that each of us has a role in realizing our vision for the University. Each one of us plays a critical role in sending a clear, consistent message about this University
The times for these meeting have already been scheduled, and I want to ask everyone, before you leave today, to sign up for one of these sessions. Ten time slots have been scheduled during the week of August 30, including morning, afternoon, and evening times, all in the Dogwood Dining Room. Please be sure to sign up.
5) Volunteer for the strategic planning committees that will revise the University’s strategic plan to reflect the focus and the forward motion that I’ve been talking about today. I’ll call for volunteers to serve on several committees to revise the University’s strategic plan after these small group meetings are completed.
These groups will deal with the question of how do we bring the strategic plan more into alignment with our vision for the university’s future. How do we make the strategic plan more robust? How do we bring it up to date?
The outcomes of these efforts I’ve described today will include three things:
1) A revised strategic plan that has broad campus input;
2) Greater visibility for the campus and a better public understanding of who we are and what we do – with all the positive benefits on enrollment and resources that increased visibility and a consistent message bring;
3) A clearer focus on our central mission, as we concentrate our efforts even more on our core goals; and
…..Success of galactic proportions.
Our University galaxy is getting focused. We’re using our energy more efficiently as we concentrate on our unique mission, on serving our students, on the application of technology to solve real-world problems, on what we do better than any other University in the country, and on producing graduates who will make a real difference in the world.
We’ve got a plan to realize the next step in the evolution of our University.
Together, we’re going to make this happen.
I’m looking forward to the discussions over the next few weeks.
Thanks for everything that each of you does every day to move this University forward.
We’re going to have a great year. Thanks for being here today.