September 18, 1998

Knoth outlines plans for 1998-99 academic year

The following is a reprint of Univeresity President Bernard Knoth's August 25 convocation remarks.

I hope everyone is ready for what I believe will be an exciting year, the centerpiece of which will be bringing our new Monroe Library into full service.

There are many points I want to review with you this afternoon. I will begin with a series of updates and then comment on my goals for this year. Finally we will have an open forum for questions and discussion.

I want to be certain those of you who were away over the summer are aware of two announcements I made in late July. The first is that, with Mr. Knipfing's retirement, I appointed Dr. James Eiseman to a two-year term as vice president for student affairs, effective August 1. I made this appointment for a two-year period to insure we have the continuity we need at this stage in the $20 million building and renovation project we started in Student Affairs. Building on the foundation Mr. Knipfing established during his 26 year tenure, I am confident Dr. Eiseman's skills in communications, public relations and marketing, and the fresh perspective he brings will move the division forward in its development. I welcome Jim to the administration and look forward to working with him in the future.

Second, I have retained Mr. John Eckholdt as an independent contractor to continue running the Division of Business and Finance until a successor for that office is in place and has had the opportunity for an appropriate transition. I had an initial meeting with an plain ad hoc lain committee of trustees last week to begin the search process; my goal is to name a new vice president during the Fall, hopefully beginning the transition by November 1. The search will look in two directions: the local market where there is currently a considerable amount of movement with the Banc One purchase of First National Bank of Commerce, and the membership of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. While I will chair the University Budget Committee, I have asked John to continue with his other duties and responsibilities. I appreciate John's willingness to continue to serve the university in this capacity.

With the start of undergraduate classes less than one week away and the law school already in full swing, let me begin with a report on admissions activities. Dean Massingill and the undergraduate admissions staff have done an extraordinary job in garnering the freshman class of 2002. Currently numbering 687, the entering class mirrors the academic quality of the last two years. For the class of 2002, the average GPA is 3.55; the SAT combined score is 1176 which is comfortably above the average score of 1013 for the national college-bound population; the ACT combined score is 25.7 compared with a national average of 20.9. Fifty-seven percent of the class identified themselves as Roman Catholic, although 22% did not specify any religious affiliation. The overall ethnic minority percentage of the new first-year class is 25.5% which is slightly above last year '92s class. In the mix of ethnic students, we declined slightly in African-American students and increased in Hispanic-American students. I attribute this change in part to a major effort by Dillard University and Xavier University to increase their freshman classes. Overall, however, these statistics are in a range we hoped to achieve. The class of 2002 represents 44 states and 4 countries; in a change from last year, 48% are from out of state, 45% from metropolitan New Orleans, and 7% from other parts of Louisiana. With the number of high school graduates still in decline in Louisiana, the numerical increase in Louisiana students is quite a feat. On the other side of the ledger, as we have seen in the past, the implementation of new incentive programs presented a distinct challenge. The clearest example is Florida's Bright Futures'94 program with no tuition costs for academically qualified Florida resident students at Florida state institutions: in fact, we had 60 fewer applications and 30 fewer confirmations from Florida this year. My congratulations to Nan and her staff for working in creative ways to meet the challenges that tough competition and changing high school demographics present.

The Law School began its orientation activities last week with 252 first-year law students who confirmed and paid deposits. While it will be a few days yet before the first-year final count and the extent of slippage among the second and third year students is clear, the law school enrollment seems on target to achieve its projected goal of 8900 credit hours.

Let me comment for a moment on enrollments and budgets. That the law school is on target is very important and changes the mix of variables from what we have experienced the last two years. While the 687 new freshmen falls below our goal, the number of transfer students is still increasing which is again a positive variable. As of yesterday, the total of new freshmen plus transfer students was 849 or twenty-one more than the same total on a comparable date last year. Additional transfer students will help offset the freshman shortfall. As I explained to the University Budget Committee in a memorandum ten days ago, barring any unforeseen complications and with a modicum of growth in retention, we should be approximately within range on our income projections. This is acutely important. Although we are still refining the numbers, it is clear that last year, even with the economies we tried to implement, we had a significant deficit in our operating budget which we covered through additional endowment drawdown. This is a pattern that flies in the face of the university 's long-term good fiscal health and one which the trustees will not continue to countenance. We should have a better read on this year's enrollment numbers and income projections after Labor Day: I hope I will have good news in this area for you later in the semester.

Good news I have for you this afternoon regards progress made on a number of projects on campus. To introduce this update, I start by returning to an explanation I have given in this forum twice before; the explanation provides the starting point which simply cannot be missed. I quote: Clearly, our primary goal is to provide an excellent education rooted in the Jesuit, Catholic heritage, fostering scholarly development among faculty and intellectual, spiritual and personal growth among our students. Our educational process does not take place in a vacuum: instead, it involves interrelated variables one of which is providing an environment supportive of a contemporary liberal arts education.

We have spoken before in this forum of the extraordinary potential the new library will provide for scholarship and the educational process. Having been through it many times over the summer, I cannot wait for you to experience it. It is so much beyond what we are accustomed to have available that its effect can only be transforming. The planning committee and the architects achieved a marvelous combination of large and small spaces, study rooms and public areas. The electronic features are genuinely state-of-the-art. When we begin to use the library, I know we will take a giant step forward.

The contractor made significant progress over the summer progress on the exterior you can see and progress on the interior you cannot see. There was some difficulty over the summer with production and delivery of the cast stone, but that problem has been rectified. The overall timetable was adjusted recently. The plan now is that the entire first floor should be completed by September 15. This will allow us to occupy the three computing labs in the south wing and to have access to the mediated classrooms in what was the Miller Library reading room. The three computer labs will together have 75 new state-of-the-art personal computing stations with the latest releases of software, printing stations and Internet access; this facility is designed to be available to students on a twenty-four hour per day, seven day a week basis. Completing the first floor will also have a number of domino-style effects in that services currently in the Miller Hall section of the library can be relocated and the renovation of the Miller Hall library areas started. As of the current timetable, the entire building including the gallery and all site work should be complete by December 15 which still allows us to move the book collection between the semesters and be ready for January occupancy. The new library is the keystone project in the initiatives we are pursuing. I am excited for all of us that what has been a dream for more than ten years is about to become a reality.

We saw progress in a number of other areas over the summer. Construction on the new residence hall is currently on target to be completed in late Spring or early summer 1999. The relatively dry weather in June and July was an advantage at this early stage of the project. The masons should begin laying bricks within the next two weeks. We are still completing the installation of lines from the central plant to the new residence hall; this will cause intermittent disruptions to pedestrian traffic near the south end of Biever Hall through the early part of the semester. The disruptions are unfortunate but unavoidable. As we proceed with the planning for the renovation of Biever and Cabra Halls, we have entered into a different relationship with the architects and contractor. For these two renovations, we will use a negotiated process in which the contractor and architect work together from the outset to achieve a completed renovation at a guaranteed cost. This will help us avoid the disappointment that developed when the new residence hall bids were received. The first phase of the Chemistry Laboratory renovations are complete, and the labs will be in use this semester. The exterior work on Marquette Hall, a deferred maintenance project, was completed If you have been in the Danna Center, you may have noticed the advertisements for The Underground which was finished over the summer. It is an attractive facility in what was formerly the Pub: I hope you will have an opportunity to visit it soon. As you may have noticed while walking over here this afternoon, the white apartment building on Loyola Avenue was razed during the summer. We have a dismantlement permit for the Conway Farrell property, and the Farrells have started that process on the interior. The area between the old library and the Monroe Science Building should be completely vacant by mid-September. For now, until the old library is renovated, the area will be maintained as an open lawn.

There have been a number of developments in our Information Technology. A significant amount of work has been done on the campus e-mail system over the last few months. The dial-in availability of the system has been greatly improved and the amount of system down-time should be dramatically reduced. List-serve arrangements are available for class sections of courses. I have approved two different documents, our web page policies and our computer use policies, which can both be viewed on-line as of September 1st. These policies have been reviewed and refined over the past year with input from faculty, staff, deans, vice presidents and legal counsel. All members of the university community with an e-mail address now have their own web page space, set up and ready for their web page content. Loyola's web site has information on constructing your web pages.

Starting September 1st, you will notice that Loyola's web page will have a number of updates including a new internal (also known as intranet) format for faculty, staff and students. While the external and internal versions of the site have the same information, the internal version is faster loading and has a number of at-a-glance handy reference items such as the university and academic calendars.

To touch on a completely different area, I wanted to explain that we had something of an anomaly occur with the Board of Trustees. You may have seen the newspaper article over the summer announcing some of the new trustees. Two Jesuit members, presidents, who could have stood for reelection declined because their own board dates were in conflict with ours; two lay trustees resigned because of business or family reasons. Five others completed their second terms. We also had one seat unfilled from a previously expired term. We currently have eight new Board members enlisted, and I hope we will fill the other seats before the first Board meeting in September. The names and biographies will be published in one of the first issues of our campus news. To have this many new Board members at one time will be an exciting challenge. The new members are all enthusiastic and promise to be active and supportive trustees.

Another area for explanation is in response to two questions I received regarding the voluntary severance plan. The almost $3 million in severance payments will be funded from the endowment over the seventeen months involved in the pay-out window. We will reimburse the endowment from savings in salaries we realize over the next two years based on the timing and the salary level at which the positions are filled. There will also be some positions which may not be replaced. Dr. Danahar is working with the deans on positions made vacant in academic affairs; I am reviewing staff positions made vacant in other areas. This is the basic paradigm on how the plan works as approved by the Board; we are still reviewing the positions on an individual case basis.

We made significant progress over the summer months in the capital campaign. I am pleased to report that at the end of July we had pledges totaling $44.4 million in hand. For library construction, we have $17,750,000 pledged out of a goal of $20 million. Library endowment, with a goal of $10 million, is at $1.1 million. The conventional wisdom for this piece is that the endowment is easier to raise once the prospective donors can see the area or room to be named in their honor. Scholarship endowment stands at $4.9 million which should start to generate more than $240,000 in named scholarships next year. I am pleased that faculty support endowment will have exceeded our goal once all the pledges are paid. The pledge amount, plus any State of Louisiana matching funds when applicable, is $10.9 million. In the end, when all pledges are paid and any matching funds are received, a total of 24 professorships in the amount of $100,000 each will have been established. We also have nine chairs valued at $1million each in the works. Two are fully funded now; a third pledge should be paid by the end of the calendar year; a fourth is in a will just going into probate now. Four others have partial funding now and should be fully funded in another year. Funding for the last chair is committed in a will, although the donor is still very alive and well. Other pledges reflect a variety of purposes, notably the Donnelley Center for Non-Profit Communications, the Visual Arts Artist in Residence program, the CBA Information Technology Fund, the Loyola Institute for Catholic Studies, and the Chemistry Laboratory renovations. In August, we learned of two wills in which we were remembered that should add, conservatively, $3 million more to our campaign total. I am pleased we are this far in the campaign, and I am optimistic that we will reach our $50 million goal by the end of the calendar year. While I have said this before, I sincerely thank the more than 650 Loyola employees who donated almost $500,000 to the campaign. We should see your bricks in the plaza in front of the new librarys main doors soon.

Let me say a few words about my goals last year and this year. Last year, my first goal was to continue planning on how to translate our diversity into opportunity. Under this goal, we got the Diversity Network started in the Spring semester which effort we will continue this year. The second initiative under this goal was to broaden a process begun in Student Affairs in the 1996-97 academic 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 increased community building on our campus. I believe the project has 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. I plan to actively pursue this initiative this year as my first goal.

My second goal last year was to continue to address retention and marketing. We made good progress in this area. Every college has a plan for improving retention. We developed a coherent strategy for international marketing and recruitment. Under this goal, to improve internal communication, Institutional Advancement started publishing our monthly on-campus newspaper. As my second goal for this current year, I will revisit retention and marketing. While we have plans for improving retention, we must insure they are a consistent effort with the support of the entire permanent university community, not just the work of a few heroes. We also need to evaluate the effectiveness of our monthly campus newspaper.

My third goal last year was to stimulate conversations on how we might integrate our electronic resources into our educational experience, that is into instruction, scholarship, advising and mentoring. We made a number of advances in this area, particularly in advising and mentoring, although we have yet to hold some of the broader conversations on instruction and scholarship. I plan to take this area back to the University Planning Team and to have Dr. Danahar continue the conversations he started with the deans and SCAP. If we do not formulate plans in a proactive manner, we will shortly be wandering in an electronic Disneyland where only a limited few can access the resources.

My fourth goal last year was to continue to pursue the initiatives outlined in my White Paper in Spring 1996. We have made excellent progress on a number of them, touching almost every aspect of the university. I will continue this goal again for the coming year.

In closing, I want to share a moment of consolation I had this past weekend. I went up to Grand Coteau to make a few days of retreat and took along a note book I have kept for years. It is not an organized journal; it is more a hodgepodge of ideas and insights, some on spiral bound pages and some loose notes that I have inserted from time to time. A loose page that slipped out was a note I had written to myself three years ago. Written on our old black and white stationary, the note gave me pause to reflect on the great number of changes we have seen over the last three years. Working togethersometimes unanimously, other times not-we have accomplished an incredible number of positive, forward looking changes which will prepare Loyola to enter the next century.

We have a big year, really a great year ahead of us. We have a near full house of bright new students, two new deans and a new vice president in place. We will open the finest educational library in the South in mid-year. I am delighted that a committee of faculty and staff have been working on an interdisciplinary symposium-Challenging Southern Values, Changing Southern Culture to celebrate the library dedication in February; Mr. Shelby Foote is planning to be with us that weekend to receive an honorary doctorate at the dedication convocation. We will complete our capital campaign in December and roll immediately into the silent phase of our next campaign. We have important budget and compensation issues to discuss in the University Budget Committee and topics to discuss in the University Planning Team. I hope it will be a grace-filled, propitious and blest year for us all.

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