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The Rev. Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., “Renewed for the Future: Stability to Achievement”
Loyola press release - August 22, 2007

Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J.
Renewed for the
Future: Stability to Achievement
Faculty and Staff
Convocation August 2007
Our gathering today is a
ceremony of renewal. At Loyola, we gather at this convocation to begin a new
academic year, and in so doing, we renew the university. After the break of
summer, Loyola, like most universities, comes back to life in its fullest, most
robust form, with the return of our students and faculty members. The
university is renewed by the addition of new faculty and staff members who are
joining us. We are also renewed by the new students—first-year students and
transfers—who come to join us. This year, we will welcome more than 700 new
students to Loyola. With these arrivals, Loyola is remade, yet again.
Renewal is a way of life for
every aspect of life here in New Orleans and along the
Gulf
Coast.
The recovery of the university is happening because people—particularly faculty
and staff—have worked very hard, in the midst of your own losses, to help make
this recovery happen. I am deeply grateful to everyone for their work,
creativity, and ingenuity in helping Loyola face the challenges of the present
and the future. Thank you. Without your hard work, creativity, dedication, and
patience, we would not be here today.
Today, we also welcome new
members of our faculty and staff, who join us with deliberateness and
intention. Thank you for joining us. I am very aware in our current
circumstances that this is not a casual decision. We welcome you and are
grateful that you have joined us.
A year ago, I wrote and
spoke about our need to achieve stability for the university. We did that. Now
we must move beyond stability to realizing our visions of academic and
intellectual excellence. In the city, we must move beyond stability alone to
the work of creating a city where human beings can flourish.
Later this week I will post
a full, more detailed report to the university community that updates where we
are currently. However, I want to be clear, we have much of which to be proud.
We, as an entire university, did something quite remarkable last year. In a
difficult year of reorganization and trying to achieve stability, we actually
moved up in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of American
Colleges
and Universities to sixth place. Moving up in the U.S. News rankings is
quite a feat at any time. In our situation, it is nothing short of remarkable.
It could not have happened without the work of all of you. Thank you. Today,
August 20, Loyola learned that we would be included in this year’s edition of The
Princeton Review, to be released on August 21.
Now I would like to talk
about some broad themes and topics which are important to where we are now. I
will speak briefly about enrollment (undergraduate), facilities, and
institutional advancement.
As everyone knows, almost every university is dependent on its enrollment for its financial stability. Loyola is certainly no different. Enrollment, particularly undergraduate enrollment, has been one of our greatest challenges post-Katrina. Last year, we enrolled 527 first-year students. At the moment, our enrollment for first-year students is at the same number it was a year ago. Graduate and law student enrollments are very strong and met expectations. The College of Law will enroll 320 new students compared to 250 of a year ago.
I want to be clear;
enrollment is a major challenge for the university’s future. What are we going
to do? At this point, I believe the best thing we can do is proceed with
discipline and focus. Because of the restructuring implemented a year ago, we
are well positioned to face these enrollment challenges. I believe our best
direction is not to look to cut but to strengthen and use efficiently the
resources that we have. We will continue to implement, in a disciplined way,
the strategic plan, and the goals of the plan.
We are fortunate that with
the most recent Congressional support for higher education in New Orleans,
and the appropriation by the state legislature, we will be able to close our
budget gaps for this year. The federal and state investment of 2.7 million
dollars this year will allow us financial stability at this difficult time.
We have already begun a
complete review of our admissions and financial aid policies for undergraduate
enrollment. This review will be crucial as we search for a new dean of
admissions. We have begun to use, more aggressively and systematically, our
network of alumni and parents in our recruiting efforts. Last year, we hosted
high school counselors from a number of schools, including the network of
Jesuit high schools, here in New Orleans
who will be good ambassadors for us in the year ahead.
While I would have liked to
see a stronger growth in our undergraduate enrollment, there are positive signs
in our undergraduate enrollment numbers this year. The overall academic quality
of the pool was very good. There was a five-percent increase in our
out-of-state applications. Fifty-four percent of this year’s new first-year
students are from out-of-state markets. There was a significant increase in the
northeast. Our ethnic and minority enrollment remains steady with 37.5 percent
minority, and we see a continuing increase in our male population that makes up
44.9 percent of this year’s class. We have seen dramatic increases in academic
programs where the city of New Orleans
is an asset. The College
of Music
and Fine Arts has a 38-percent increase in enrolling students, and the Music
Industry Studies Program had a 90-percent increase. The College
of Law
will begin the year with a significant increase in its new student enrollment.
New Hires:
The 2007 – 2008 full-time
new faculty hires are the largest group of faculty hired in recent years. We
have 36 new members from across the United States,
Canada,
and Australia.
Of the 36 new full-time hires: 14 are ordinary faculty, 21 are extraordinary,
and one is clinical. In the College
of Business
there are six, in the College
of Social Sciences
there are eight, in the College
of Humanities
and Natural Sciences there are 10, in the College
of Law
there are five, and in the College
of Music
and Fine Arts there are seven.
We also have a number of new
staff members who have come to join us. They will strengthen our ability to
achieve our mission to accomplish excellent, challenging education for our
students. It is important to note we are renewed by the new members of our
faculty and staff. These people have made choices and decisions to come and
join the Loyola community. And we welcome them!
Facilities:
As you know, we face a
number of challenges concerning our facilities. We must begin to address these
concerns in order to improve the quality of life for our students and faculty.
It is a priority that we address our facilities so we can better support our
faculty and students. We will proceed with a two-fold strategy in addressing
our facilities needs. First, we need to develop a long-term plan for the
campus. One of the goals of the strategic plan is to develop and implement a
new master plan for the campus. That planning process began last year by the
firm of Kell Muñoz; members of the firm met with the University Space
Allocation Committee, the Classroom Enhancement Committee, the Council of
Deans, and a committee of students. They conducted a thorough review of our
existing facilities and acknowledged our issues of deferred maintace. The Kell
Muñoz team created a first draft of a plan that is available in the Monroe
Library. This fall, members of the Kell Muñoz team will again be on campus for
further feedback and discussion before presenting the plan to the Board of
Trustees for review.
While we need a long-term
plan for facilities, we also have to live in the short term. Short tem, we must
take steps to address facilities issues in classrooms and student life so that
we improve the quality of life for Loyola’s students and faculty. We began,
over the summer, a refurbishment of the Danna
Student
Center.
We believe we can achieve, with minimal investment, a better facility that will
enhance student and campus life. The work will be completed by 2008. Part of
the refurbishment will include a renovation of our food services (in part
supported by Sodexho) and will include a faculty/staff dining area. We will
also look to address our classroom needs and the quality of our residential
housing along with some of the key issues of deferred maintenance.
Since I have arrived, I have
focused on revamping our institutional advancement operations. The aftermath of
Katrina has certainly put a new emphasis on this. In the past year, we have
re-staffed and reorganized the division and began serious planning for an
impending capital campaign. I am excited about the possibilities for the
campaign and by the people who have come to join our staff.
In the past year, we raised
just under $11,000,000 in gifts and pledges. This is a seven-percent increase
over 2006 and a 52-percent increase over 2005. Our alumni increased the dollar
amount of their gifts to Loyola by almost 10 percent this past year. In
addition to the gifts of private benefactors, we have received more than $16
million in state and federal aid since Katrina. Our alumni, benefactors, and
friends, along with the state and federal governments, have invested in Loyola.
They have helped us to achieve stability so that we can engage in the hard work
of achieving our future.
The Future
Many people have expressed a
commitment to Loyola and invested in our future. People have invested private
resources in us. State and federal governments have invested public resources
in us. Parents have entrusted us with their sons and daughters. New members
have joined our faculty and staff and many of us made a commitment to stay. All
of these are statements of hope and commitment about our mission and future.
In the past year, we have taken a number of
steps to ensure Loyola remains mission centered. I believe we need to remain
missioned centered, not only because I believe in the mission, but also because
in the market place of American universities, we need to be clear about who we
are and what we do at Loyola. In the last year, I have worked with the
committee of the Board of Trustees on Mission
and Identity on the committee’s role and responsibility. The responsibility for
mission is one that is part of the whole life of the university, but my office
has a special responsibility for it. Therefore, after consultation this past
year with students, faculty, and staff, I have reorganized some of the
important areas that relate directly to mission. Fr. Ted Dziak, S.J., director
of the Jesuit
Center,
will also be the director of ministry and mission for the university.
University Ministry will report directly to him rather than to the President’s
Office. I believe this re-organization will give us greater integration. I am
also delighted to announce that Loyola is forming a partnership with the
Jesuits of the New Orleans
Province
in the creation of a Jesuit Social Research Institute. This institute will be
part of the College
of Social
Sciences,
thanks to assistance from Dr. Larry Lorenz. In the next months, the initial
fellows of the institute, Ted Arroyo, S.J., Thomas Greene, S.J., Michael
Bouziguard, S.J., and Mary Baudouin, will be starting the institute, which will
be housed in Mercy Hall.
In the year ahead, I will
devote a good amount of my time to the steps needed to develop a new capital
campaign for the university. The staff of Institutional Advancement has already
begun key parts of this work. I believe this campaign is an opportunity not
only to raise additional resources but also to sharpen our focus and mission
and the concrete steps to integrating different aspects of the university.
For any campaign to succeed, you must develop
a good “case statement” that helps potential benefactors become friends and
supporters of the university. This is particularly important today in American
higher education where there are so many different views of knowledge and
education.
I have talked in the past
about Loyola
University
as a learning community. We are anchored in the tradition of the Jesuit
tradition of the liberal arts which sees knowledge not just as an end in itself
but as a means to free the person to better serve society. We will deepen our commitment
to the arts as a university in a city where the arts—particularly music—are
central to the identity of the city. As we focus on student learning, at every
level, we aim to help students experience knowledge as active and
interdisciplinary. The task of learning is not just the work of students; it is
also the work of faculty and staff as well. We can only succeed in building
this community of inquiry and learning if we, as faculty and staff, are
learners ourselves. We can succeed if we create a university where research and
teaching are seamlessly interrelated. In the Jesuit vision of knowledge,
knowledge is not just an end in itself, as it was for Cardinal John Henry Newman. Rather,
the purpose of this education is to form men and women who will grasp the
importance of asking ethical questions and acting with social responsibility.
We live in a city that is
both a challenge and an opportunity for learning. Every major social system of
the city—education, health care, commerce, music, and law—has been broken. We
know, and live with, the challenges of the city every day. It can be hard and
tiring. Yet, at the same time, it is a great—perhaps even unique—opportunity
for us as citizens, as a university community in the Jesuit tradition of
education, and the university as a citizen of the city. Winston Churchill once
said, and I believe, that “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every
opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Difficult
though it may be at times, I remain an optimist about the possibilities for the
city and the university.
Despite the day-to-day
struggle of life in New Orleans,
the city has made great strides. There have been significant reforms in
government—such as the reform of the tax assessors and levee boards. After 12
years, we have finally established the city’s Ethics Review Board and hired an
Inspector General. There have been landmark reforms in public education (see,
“Katrina’s Surprise,” Kerry A. Dolan, Forbes, 8-13-07). And there are
great opportunities for business and commerce. Recently a national real estate
magazine and a national business magazine listed Louisiana and New Orleans
as top prospects for opportunity and development.
Colleges and universities
are playing a major role in reshaping the city. In his plans for the city’s
recovery, Dr. Ed Blakely, executive director of recovery management for the
city of New Orleans,
has made higher education a central point in the recovery. As the nation moves
more and more towards a knowledge economy, few cities are better positioned
than New Orleans,
with its rich spectrum of universities, to play a role in the new economy.
In 1630, John Winthrop spoke
of the possibility that the Massachusetts Bay Colony could be a model of
Christian charity and a “city on the hill” that would be watched by the world.
It is my belief that New Orleans
has an unprecedented and unique opportunity to rebuild itself and be a city on
the hill for others to admire and follow.
I want to be clear about
Loyola’s goal and strategy. Our goal has been, and remains, to become known
nationally as a leading comprehensive university. I believe if one studies the
history of higher education in the United States,
one will see that our well-known national universities became nationally
recognized because of their ties to their cities and regions. We have a rare
opportunity to pursue this strategy as the southern tier of the United States
continues to become a more and more important region in the nation and as New Orleans
is reborn.
In the past year, there have
been a number of explicit acts of trust shown towards Loyola. The decision by
the New Orleans
province to create the Jesuit research center here and invest resources of
capital and personnel is an act of trust in our future. Over the past two
years, federal and state governments have invested more than $16 million in
Loyola and its future. This year alone, private philanthropy has brought us
more than $11 million. This past year, the Board of the Monk Institute made a
decision to move the institute to New Orleans
and Loyola. Men and women from all across the nation have made decisions to
come join us as members of the faculty and staff. Parents have entrusted their
sons and daughters to us, and students have decided to come and study at
Loyola. These are all great acts of trust. They are acts of trust that Loyola
is capable of achieving its vision to be one of America’s
great universities. These acts of trust give us the opportunity to make that
vision into a reality. We have already begun. The rankings by U.S. News,
the high quality of our new students and faculty members, and the decision of
the Monk Institute to call Loyola home are not only acts of trust but they are
steps towards strengthening the university and better establishing our
reputation. We have begun, but the work and the challenges ahead are great. But
they are worth doing.
I promise that I will work
with all of you to be worthy of the trust that has been placed in us and
achieve the potential for this university.