October 3, 1997

Fr. Knoth outlines goals for the 1997-98 academic year

This a partial reprint of Fr. Knoth's fall convocation speech from August 25.

"With this brief review of last year's goals, let me explain my goals for the 1997-98 academic year. First, I will ask the University Planning Team (UPT) to continue its discussion on how to translate our diversity into opportunity. As I said last year, diversity is a statistic we wear well enough but do not translate particularly into an opportunity for learning and personal growth. As I mentioned, the UPT had an excellent first discussion and drafted objectives. I will ask the UPT members to continue their conversations. At the same time, there are two particular pieces I want to put into place. A subcommittee from the UPT met with me during the summer to discuss diversity; as a result of those conversations, I plan to start a group on campus this fall as an experiment. In my conversations with minority students over the past two years, I have heard them ask repeatedly for someone they can approach when they encounter confusing or questionable moments possibly connected to racism, sexism, or some form of discrimination. My plan is to establish a group of individuals from the faculty and staff, approximately 10 in number, who will be identified as our diversity network. They will be people whom any student can approach if they want to discuss a confusing or questionable moment; they will have immediate entree to me if they judge circumstances so warrant. To be proactive, I will ask the diversity network members to meet with me, probably every third week, to discuss any issues they feel need to be addressed. I consider this an experiment on the concrete level which we can start while the presumably more theoretical and longer range discussions are taking place in the University Planning Team.

"A second initiative included under this goal is to broaden a process begun in Student Affairs last year. Adapting criteria from 'The Carnegie Foundation Special Report on Campus Life: In Search of Community, ' a committee worked to develop a series of initiatives aimed at enhancing community on our campus. I believe the project has intrinsic merit and great potential but needs to be expanded in a way that will include every division in the conversation; only with expanded participation can the full potential be gleaned. Most aspects of this initiative touch on respect for all members of our educational community; I believe it can bring positive, constructive insights which will contribute to our conversations regarding diversity.

"My second goal is to continue to address retention and marketing under four different avenues. As you heard earlier, we have made lion-sized strides in the recruitment and admission of new students, but much hangs on the retention rate of returning students. Plans for improving retention are in place. I want us to review the results of those plans, make whatever modifications might be advantageous and continue to implement them in a meaningful way. We need to keep the issue of retention sharply in focus until we have reached a predictable rate of retention that is consistent with the graduation rate we have set as a long term goal. A second avenue connected to retention I will pursue this year is to actively continue to enlist everyone's participation. We can talk all we want in generalities about service in a Jesuit institution, but until every member on every level of the institution is aboard it is only hot air. As I have said before, we have some genuine heroes here but in fact, as an institution, we are only as good as the worst interchange that takes place on a given day. I know we can do better, and I plan to press this issue. A third venue under this goal looks toward marketing and will be to develop a strategy for marketing and recruitment on the international level. Some good work has been done along these lines in the past. I want us to develop a coordinated, coherent strategy which includes goals and an assessment of our success.

"The fourth avenue I want to pursue deals with marketing but in an internal aspect. We have a tremendous number of activities in progress at any time on campus. A concrete example is that, last academic year, we had 45 grants awarded from different agencies worth more than $2.5 million in external funding. We have a number of projects, large and small, in progress on campus. To improve communication in general and to provide an opportunity for in-depth explications, I have asked Mr. Mansfield to start a monthly, tabloid-sized newspaper, primarily intended for faculty and staff but available to all campus members. Like many of our projects, I would like to start this for a year and then assess its value.

"My third goal is to stimulate conversations on our educational technology, particularly--as I mentioned above--on how we might integrate our new electronic resources into instruction, scholarship, advising and mentoring students. The resources in place in a few days have an extraordinary potential--a potential some people recognize because of their experience or training, while some others without the same background may not see. I want to have some initial conversation in the University Planning Team; after that, because academic issues are clearly involved, I have asked Dr. Danahar to initiate conversations with the deans and SCAP and through the deans and SCAP in the individual schools and departments. The goals for the next phase of our technological development cannot be set in a meaningful way until a lot of conversations have taken place among faculty members and in departments. We need to get the process started this year.

"My fourth goal is to continue the development of initiatives already begun. This goal looks in several directions. In our physical environment, we need to continue the Monroe Library and residence halls project; we need to develop a concrete plan for the old library building as new space for the visual arts and drama departments. In another vein, we need to analyze and review changes we introduced in admissions and financial aid, discerning whether there are adjustments or refinements that should be considered. From the white paper last December, there were discussions introduced in various fora regarding future curricular developments, the potential for external and internal student transfers, the structures needed for the advising and mentoring of students. This goal is really a commitment to revisit what I put forward last year and continue to pursue the appropriate means to confirm that we are moving in the directions we desired or where possible to reach an acceptable closure.

"To summarize, my goals for this academic year are:

1. To continue planning on how to translate our diversity into opportunity
2. To continue to address retention and marketing
3. To stimulate conversations on integrating our educational technology
4. To continue the development of initiatives already begun last year

"At this point, let me welcome you all to the opening of another academic year. I look forward to an exciting year working together."