February 26, 2003
Dear Colleagues,
For those of you who could not make the Mardi Gras Ball last night, you missed a wonderful event. ULM filled the Atrium with hundreds of our students, faculty and staff all in their finest attire. Many of us have already spoken to students about the event. Every single person there expressed how much fun they had, and the ones that missed the Ball expressed their regret. For the first time, many of our students had the opportunity to dress formally, and associate outside the classroom setting with their faculty and the administration. The success of the event has started discussion on what we do next, and I know the Student Government Association, the Campus Activities Board, and their advisor Dr. Martha Upshaw are already thinking ahead. A special word of thanks goes to Martha and our student leaders for hosting such a marvelous activity. I also want to thank Joe McGahan for his support in promoting the Ball to the faculty and staff. I can only imagine how much bigger and better the next one will be.
The Ball was but one of the many events for this campus in the last few days. During that time, we crowned a new Miss ULM, junior Casey Chamblee, hosted Congressmen David Vitter, opened a new recital hall, were entertained by the Baermann String Quartet, the ULM Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band, and a performance by the ULM Theater. In addition, we hosted a baseball tournament and both basketball teams were in action last Saturday. Provost Richters has coined a phrase that the "University is much wider than the classroom." A quick look at the calendar on our website confirms his concept. Please take advantage of all of the wonderful events taking place on our campus. Students involved in athletics, the band, the symphony, in theart department, and all across campus tell me how much it means to them to see their teachers attend one of their events or performances. Take the time to visit with your students outside the classroom.
We are preparing to start our strategic planning process. On March 17th and 18th, Dr. Bob Shirley, a former university president, will be on campus to help us start the planning process. Dr Shirley will be meeting with the executive team, the faculty senate executive committee, and the soon to be appointed Strategic Planning Steering Committee on March 17th. On March 18th from 8:30 am until noon, Dr. Shirley will be conducting a campus-wide strategic planning workshop. The workshop will be open to the entire campus community. I especially want to invite the Faculty Senate and all other interested faculty members, the Administrative Management Council, and the Student Government Association members. We have been clear that this strategic planning process will be all inclusive, active, and meaningful. We want to have a plan that sets our direction for the next decade. This plan will be dynamic and not one we put on the shelf and admire. In addition we will develop a mechanism to allocate our scarce resources for the implementation of the strategic plan when it is developed.
I envision that the planning process will take at least twelve to eighteen months to complete, if it is ever completed. I say this because we will continue to monitor and update this plan on an annual basis and report those results. We will have a mechanism on which we judge our progress toward our strategic goals.
This is an exciting time at ULM. We are beginning to work together to move this institution forward - again. When I wrote you about the "Reclaiming the Campus" campaign almost a year ago I said, "However, I believe that the effort is worth it. By working together at this and all other aspects of University operations, we will make the progress necessary to make things better here at ULM." And it worked; on April 27th we came together for the first time in a long time for the common good. This strategic planning process takes our "Reclaiming the Campus" campaign to the next level. We started by removing dust and grime from our buildings and our psyche. On March 17th, let's start to remove the dust and grime from our vision and our dreams for ULM.
James E. Cofer, Sr.
ULM President