If you think last year was good at ULM, just wait until next year
Originally published April 2003 in The (Monroe, La.) News-Star
One year ago, the people of Louisiana extended to me a sacred trust as president of The University of Louisiana at Monroe. Now is a good time to take stock of the past and look forward to the future. In my first address to this institution's faculty and staff, we laid out some of my objectives for the coming years. One was to meet you; the faculty, staff, students, alumni, and the people of northeast Louisiana. Others were to restore confidence in ULM, build an administrative and executive team, increase our recruiting efforts, evaluate how our funds were utilized, clean up the campus, balance the budget, begin an academic planning process, renew the strategic planning process, restructure our development efforts, increase the number of minority faculty and administrators, take our case for additional funding to Baton Rouge, and seek increased community support for intercollegiate athletics.
We have addressed all of the objectives set out in that original speech. We have addressed, in some manner, all of the recommendations contained in the Fisher Report within our first year. The News-Star has been very good about reporting on our progress, such as the unqualified opinion on our financial audit, the lifting of the accreditation warning by SACS, the unprecedented numbers of students that attended both the fall and the spring Browse on the Bayou recruiting events, and the highly successful "Reclaiming Our Campus" clean up effort. This has been a very good year for ULM and the students we serve. Morale on campus is high, students are happy and engaged, and interest of prospective students is greater than it has been in years. However, to me the most important accomplishment of the year has been that the ULM community, internally and externally, has again begun to work together. Many of you, the dedicated faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends in the community have stepped up when asked, regardless of the task.
Two of our most critical objectives that we begun during the year are our Academic Program Review and our Strategic Planning process, and our faculty has set the standard for accountability and assessment of academic programs through the Academic Program Review. What we have seen as the reviews progressed is a new learning experience for our faculty, students, and our community. The series of public forums has developed into a process to identify academic program weaknesses and strengths, a process that enables us to look at ourselves very honestly and openly. It gives all of us the opportunity to gather the information and to develop faculty- and data-driven plans for the future. The Academic Program Review Committee is establishing the baseline foundation for our strategic planning process. What all of us have learned is what many of us already knew: and that is the academic quality of this institution is as strong as any institution in the state, and the faculty is equally strong.
ULM is embarking on an ambitious university-wide strategic planning process. We will be seeking both campus and community involvement during the next six months to look deeply into the environment surrounding our institution. Our strategic planning steering committee will be developing a series of task forces to study the factors affecting the institution. We will use these analyses to help us develop a set of strategic objectives for the next three to five years.
From the classroom to the playing fields to the dance floor, our students have excelled. Earlier this week, 175 of our students and their faculty mentors participated in the Student Research Symposium, the largest number of participants ever. We created the Emerging Scholars program in which 30 freshmen jointly conducted research projects with a faculty mentor. We intend to expand that program to 100 freshmen next fall. ULM students planned and executed the first ever Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, and the first Mardi Gras Ball. Our athletes won another national championship in water skiing, and another conference championship in baseball. We even have a power lifting team and the Flying Tomahawks, our student aviation group, participating in national competitions this year.
The response of our business community, the Louisiana legislative delegation, the Governor's Office, and the entire Congressional delegation has been nothing less than spectacular. We could not have made the progress we did without the unwavering support of all of the individuals in these groups. In addition, even though we got a late start the generosity of our donors has helped move this institution forward.
Much has been accomplished this year, but much is left to do. The University of Louisiana at Monroe has been designated the health science campus for the University of Louisiana System. We currently have eight health science programs here, five more than any other of the system schools. Because of their accreditation requirements of low student/faculty ratio and their clinical component, these programs are inherently more expensive to conduct than other academic programs. Therefore, we need a larger number of students studying across a broad spectrum of disciplines to support the health science programs. This means all us must continue to vigorously recruit students to ULM. And, we cannot do the recruiting alone. We need every student, parent, alumnus, faculty member, high school counselor, teacher and area business person to help us recruit students to your university. Why, because it is good business. It is becoming increasingly evident that ULM is the economic engine of northeast Louisiana, not only by what we contribute to the economy, but what we contribute to the intellectual capital of the region.
For every student we lose to another institution, our schools will lose a qualified teacher, our hospitals will loose a nurse, a radiological technologist, a clinician lab scientist, an occupational therapist, and our dentists will loose a dental hygienist. For every student that we loose to another institution, the region will loose a computer programmer, an accountant, a banker, and the list goes on and on. In the end, for every student we loose to another institution, the region looses a well trained, motivated, tax-paying citizen. The research is clear, the higher the level of education in a region the greater the economic wealth in the region. For the economic viability of northeast Louisiana, the University of Louisiana at Monroe must remain strong.
On April 29, 2002 I plan to deliver the State of the University address. At that time our plan is to detail the many accomplishments of the dedicated group of ULM faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community volunteers. We also plan to discuss the key issues and objectives for ULM in the coming year.
I was asked recently how I would characterize the first year. My response was, "Last year was a good year for ULM, and next year will be even better."