General Assembly Remarks
August 19, 2008
President Michael R. Lane
Emporia State University

Thank you Dr. Mehring. Good afternoon and welcome to the start of the 2008 – 2009 academic year. This year, in the words of an old Chinese saying, promises the opportunity to “live in interesting times.”

I will follow the same format as in the past, beginning with a review of some of the many accomplishments during the past six months and updating you on a few items. I will then move into the major part of this year’s message, the draft strategic plan.

University Accomplishments 1/1/08 – 6/30/08
As usual I have included many of the items reported by Deans and directors. Time and space limitations preclude inclusion of all items submitted.
University-Wide

• ESU has been selected as one of the universities that will be participating in the 2008-2009 American Democracy Project initiative, America’s Future: Protecting the Fiscal Health of our Democracy.
• Emporia State University is one of more than 270 public institutions participating in the “Voluntary System of Accountability.”
• The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) communicates information on the undergraduate student experience through a common web reporting template called the College Portrait. The VSA is a voluntary initiative for 4-year public colleges and universities. Developed through a partnership between the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), the VSA is designed to help institutions meet the following objectives:
• Demonstrate accountability and stewardship to the public
• Measure educational outcomes to identify effective educational practices
• Assemble information that is accessible, understandable, and comparable
• ESU’s New Mission Statement approved by the Board of Regents in May.
• Reorganization of Enrollment Management into one division, we are still searching for an Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management but Drs. Mehring and Williams continue to work on creating a unified division.
• Successfully hired an outstanding new Provost Dr. Tes Mehring.

• Six new programs were approved by the Kansas Board of Regents for offering at the Metro Learning Center: undergraduate programs in health promotion, and business administration – marketing , as well as Graduate programs in Curriculum and Instruction, Educational Leadership, and Special Education (Adaptive Concentration) and the MBA Program.

General Education

• After several years of intense work and study, the General Education Council put forth a proposal for a new General Education Program. I approved that program last spring and it will be effective for the entering class of fall 2009. Thank you, to all the members of the Council who spent so much of their time reworking the program.

Technology & Computing Services

• Hired a new Assistant Vice President for Technology and Computing Services and CIO, Mr. Michael Erickson.

• TCS hosted the 2008 Conference of Higher Education in Kansas in May.
• Cheryl O’Dell, Information Security Officer for ESU, was selected as Chairperson of the Regents Information Security Committee
• Enhancements to Information Technology systems and architecture
• Continued enhancements and upgrades to the Banner system
• Began migration to the Microsoft platform for user identity
• Initiated a supplemental UPS and generator to improve data center reliability
• Enhanced Academic and User Services
• Expanded help desk hours and addition of two remote help desk sites in the Memorial Union and Library.
• Expanded training opportunities in technology areas – both in-person and online.
• Creation of the Multimedia Lab Podcast Studio for creation of podcast content by faculty/staff.
• Upgraded Blackboard to a redundant server architecture for improved system stability
• Provided Web streaming of events including athletic events and spring commencement.

Special Inter-Departmental Activities

• Si Se Puede Hacer Ciencias y Matematicas, a new program began during the 2007 -- 2008 academic year. ESU participants included: Dr. Elizabeth Yanik, Dr. Joe Yanik from Dept. of Mathematics, Computer Science & Economics, Dr. Dwight Moore from Biological Sciences and Dr. Jorge Ballester from Physical Sciences. Twenty nine Hispanic students from the Emporia School District participated in the program whose goals are to increase Hispanic youth's interest in science and mathematics, to foster awareness of career opportunities in mathematics and science-related fields, and to provide Hispanic youth with an opportunity to meet and form personal contacts with professionals working in mathematics and science-related careers.

The School of Business

• Successfully hired a new Dean of the School of Business - Dr. Joseph Wen.
• Accounting graduate Rapheal Hamilton received the Elijah Watt Sells Awards From American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) on the basis of his excellent Uniform CPA examination scores.
• Mu Chapter of Pi Omega Pi, business education honor society, placed 6th in the annual national competition among 42 active Pi Omega Pi chapters in the United States. Honor is based on local, regional, and national projects completed by the chapter.
• Dr. Raffaele DeVito received 2008 Outstanding Achievement Award from Kansas Cavalry Encampment to honor his 20 years contributions in International business to the State of Kansas.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Communication and Theatre Arts

• Kelly Thompson, a senior Speech Education major, was honored as a member of the First-Team Scholastic All-Americans Nationwide at the Cross Examination Debate Association National Tournament.

Nursing

• Dr. Jean DeDonder was named as the 2007 Kansas State Board of Nursing Nurse Educator of the Year.

SLIM

• SLIM was awarded continuing accreditation to 2015 for its Master of Library Science program by the American Library Association.
• Please join me in congratulating Dean Gwen Alexander and the faculty, staff, and students of SLIM for this wonderful accomplishment!
• Monique Lloyd, a student in the MLS program, received the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award, a national competition sponsored by the Society of American Archivists. The award recognizes minority graduate students of African, Asian, Latino, or Native American descent who, through scholastic and personal achievement, manifest an interest in becoming archivists.

The Teachers College

• IDT offered a summer institute to help faculty improve on-line teaching which was fully subscribed. My thanks to the IDT faculty and my congratulations to all the faculty who participated.
• AACTE Best Practices Award for Collaboration with Community Colleges

The Best Practices Award was received in February 2008 in recognition of our 2+1+1 program in elementary in collaboration with Butler Community College.

• Association of Teacher Educators Distinguished Program Award

The Association of Teacher Educators Distinguished Program Award was received in March 2008 in recognition of the Olathe Professional Development Schools.

• Edutopia – ESU one of 10 ‘cutting edge’ teacher preparation programs

The George Lucas Foundation and publisher of Edutopia highlighted ESU’s teacher preparation programs as one of the nation’s 10 best and cutting edge programs in teacher preparation in the November/December Vol. 3 (8) issue.
Library

• Cynthia Akers has been accepted to the Association of College & Research Libraries Institute for Information Literacy Assessment Immersion Program. This is the first of these week long immersion programs for library assessment. It was a very competitive process. Cynthia is to be congratulated for being selected into this program.

University Advancement/ESU Foundation

• Raised a total of $6.59 Million in cash and pledges for FY08, the fourth-largest total in the Foundation’s history
• Received two “Council for Advancement & Support of Education” (CASE) district awards:
• Bronze for excellence in writing for a Spotlight article and a
• Bronze for the Scholarbucks Café package design for the ESU Foundation’s faculty/staff campaign.
• Five alumni chapters were established or reorganized, including four out of state chapters

Athletics

• On the strength of three top ten finishes, Emporia State University placed 11th in the final 2007 - 2008 U.S. Sports Academy Director’s Cup standings. It is the highest finish ever for Emporia State and the fourth straight year ESU has finished in the top 50 nationally out of nearly 300 NCAA Division II schools. The Director's Cup takes into account the top finishes on the national level by an institution's sports programs and is generally regarded as the industry standard for measuring overall athletics success by an institution.
• In addition to the on field success, ESU had 24 student-athletes earn Academic All-MIAA status and had a department wide GPA of 3.03 in the spring of 2008. Two Hornets, women’s basketball player Michelle Stueve and baseball player Brian Majors were named ESPN The Magazine Academic All-Americans.

Fiscal Affairs and Administration
Fiscal Affairs

• Assisted in completing the Banner implementation, allowing all phases to now be operational
• Rollout in fall 2008 of a revised and significantly simplified fee payment process featuring:
• Phase-out of deferment payment plan
• Phase-out of installment payment plan
• Replacement with a single fee and more precise deadlines for accounts receivable being due
• Takes advantage of information from Banner Accounts receivable process
• Allows a significantly streamlined procedure
• Team Work was the watchword in this process
• This last week massive calling and e-mailing by Fiscal Affairs, Financial Aid, Registration, Admissions and others was instrumental in getting more than 800 students into payment status by the Aug 15 drop date.
• Ultimately only 265 students were dropped from their classes, due to non-payment and who must reapply for their courses
• Compares to 354 two years ago
• 318 undergraduates potentially dropped last year
• Making all this happen most recently consumed a massive amount of midnight oil (literally) last Friday night.
• Staff was very careful to process all payments and drop only those who had not responded to multiple notifications that they must make some effort toward payment
• In fact, toward midnight last Friday, some thought was given to going to the local bars with laptop computers and having a new type of “last call” but they thought better of it.
• Hesitate to name names for fear of overlooking someone but the Offices most responsible for making it happen include:
• Budget
• Controller’s Office
• Cashiers Office
• Financial Aid
• Registration
• Within H.R. advocacy and initiation of an improvement to annual leave benefits for classified employees
• Also within H.R. implementation of all paperwork for significant market related pay upgrade for classified employees

Facilities

• Renovation to the Art Annex Area
• Completed are improvements to: electrical system; retaining walls; plumbing; floor covering; connectivity and HVAC.
• Remaining finish work to walls, doors, and metal roofing will be completed by Oct 1, 2008 and will not interfere with classes
• An initiative to replace locks in classroom and laboratory doors, with lockset mechanisms allowing locking from inside (while preserving the ability for authorities to unlock from outside) is 90% complete. These improvements per recommendations of Commission investigating events at Virginia Tech. Remaining areas will be completed by September 1.
• Initiation of the Regents Deferred Maintenance Program
• Working toward October completion of HPER roof (not easy due to the continuing rainfall throughout year)
• Initiation of engineering analysis in preparation for electrical and HVAC upgrades to William Allen White Library
• Initiation of asbestos removal project in tunnels and beneath Roosevelt Hall, preliminary step to stabilizing the Foundation of Roosevelt Hall
• Continuation of planning process leading to renovation of Memorial Union
• Architect selected for project, Treanor and Associates
• Campus signage planning completed.

Strategic Partnerships and Student Life

• Organized and offered a day-long Risk Management seminar through The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management
• ESU was named to the “President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll” for 2007.
• Emporia State student-athletes also help out in the Emporia community, donating nearly 2,000 hours of their time in community engagement projects throughout the Flint Hills. The ESU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee was named the MIAA’s 2008 winner of the Community Engagement Award of Excellence by the NCAA Division II and the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) for their senior prom “Take a Step Back in Time”

Budgets (Rumor Control!)

• As of today there have been NO budget reductions for 2008 – 2009 or 2009 – 2010.
• We have been asked to submit plans for the following contingencies:
• 2008 – 2009 - a plan to reduce expenditures by 2% in case State revenues do not hold for the remainder of the fiscal year.
• 2009 – 2010 – a plan to reduce expenditures by 5% in case revenue estimates for FY 2010 are insufficient to fund the State’s budget needs.
• I will be reviewing our plans with the Regents tomorrow at their retreat.

Campus Safety Update

• Classroom lock changes – can be locked from the inside without a key and without opening the door.
• Rave Messaging System (our new text messaging service) is up and running. There have been announcements on Buzz-in – register now!
• Campus whistle – still working on volume, will supplement Rave System
• Consultation, Assessment, Resource, and Education Team (CARE)
• Piloted last semester
• Working on structure, details, processes, and forms
• Expect official kickoff December 2008
• Faculty Staff training beginning in January 2009
• Administrative Team continues to monitor needs and consider changes

Strategic Planning

• Friday, June 29th, 2007 was the first formal meeting of the Emporia State University Strategic Planning Task Force. Dozens of meetings and hundreds, if not thousands, of work hours later resulted in the report I present. This working draft of the strategic themes and goals of our five year plan is intended to serve as the basis for conversation to finalize the plan.
• Structure (A total of 121 individuals)
• Task Force - 41 members
• Work Groups - 98 members
• Writing Committee – Six Members
• Process
• Beginning soon, review the draft plan prepared from materials of the work groups and Task Force last year. (September/October)
• Open Meetings for campus and community members
• Review Strategic Themes
• Goals
• Objectives
• Appoint Implementation Committees (December/January)
• There will be many opportunities to provide input and feedback as this strategic plan is further refined. Your oral and written comments are welcome.  Several open forums will be scheduled early this fall and the writing committee needs your participation for the success of this document. Look for the specific information about those open forums on Buzz In. I thank each of you who have participated in this process during the past year.
• I offer a special thanks to the Writing Committee Writing Committee who worked long and hard this summer to get the draft to where it is today. Please stand when I call your name – I ask you to hold your applause until all six have been introduced.
• Dr. Betsy Yanick
• Ms. Kenna Reeves
• Mr. Bill Barnes
• Dr. Ken Weaver
• Dr. Tes Mehring
• Dr. Jim Williams
• Please join me in thanking them for the work they did this summer and the work they will do this fall through the open meeting process.

I will now walk through the Strategic Themes and Goals prepared as a result of the Task Force meeting in May. Please keep in mind that the time-frame for the plan is five years. Due to this limitation, some recommendations are not included in the draft. Those omitted are simply not achievable within that time frame and should be reconsidered as we move to the next planning process.

Mission Statement
Emporia State University is a dynamic and progressive student-centered learning community that fosters student success through engagement in academic excellence, community and global involvement, and the pursuit of personal and professional fulfillment.
Vision Statement

• Emporia State University will be a premier comprehensive university focused on academic excellence, student success, leadership, and community and global engagement.

Core Values

• Excellence—we value intellectual challenges, problem solving, and creative and critical thinking.
• Respect—we value integrity, collaboration, diversity, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression.
• Responsibility—we value accountability and stewardship of the institution, the environment, human resources, and personal well being.
• Service—we value engagement in leadership and community that positively impacts our global society.

STRATEGIC THEME #1
To enhance academic excellence by providing opportunities that lead to increasing levels of student success through excellence in curricular development and deliveries, facilities, and technologies that meet the educational requirements of members of the Emporia State University community.

GOAL 1.1: Cultivate and enhance our intellectual culture by attracting additional highly qualified students and by providing academic opportunities beyond the classroom for our students.
GOAL 1.2: Increase faculty participation in the academic curriculum review process.
GOAL 1.3: Increase faculty, staff, and student participation in the assessment of student learning.
GOAL 1.4: Expand the “culture of ideas” by increasing intellectual opportunities for faculty and students.
GOAL 1.5: Assess and enhance the quality of academic advising.
GOAL 1.6: Develop and implement First-Year Experiences within academic departments and university programs.
GOAL 1.7: Develop, implement, and support interdisciplinary courses.
GOAL 1.8: Develop, support, and expand quality graduate programs that are central to the mission and vision of the university.
GOAL 1.9: Develop and implement a plan to increase the recruitment of under-represented minority students.
GOAL 1.10: Match planned enrollment growth to provide functional and innovative instructional and office spaces.
   
STRATEGIC THEME #2
To increase the number of opportunities students, faculty, and staff have to engage with local, regional, and national entities to develop and manage mutually beneficial partnerships.  

GOAL 2.1: Cultivate new strategic connections with the community of Emporia and region.
GOAL 2.2: Cultivate new strategic connections between Emporia State University and national entities.
GOAL 2.3: Strengthen and cultivate new strategic connections between Emporia State University and other institutions of higher education in Kansas and the surrounding states.
GOAL 2.4: Strengthen and cultivate new strategic connections with Emporia State University alumni and the campus community.
GOAL 2.5: Enhance and diversify sources of funding.
           
STRATEGIC THEME #3
To enhance the opportunities for the Emporia State University community to engage in international learning.

GOAL 3.1: Expand and diversify international opportunities.
GOAL 3.2: Promote increased global awareness
GOAL 3.3: Increase the recruitment of international students by expanding the relationships between Emporia State University and its current and future partners.
 

STRATEGIC THEME #4
To improve communication among all University stakeholders.
           
GOAL 4.1: Improve vertical and lateral communication within the ESU community.
STRATEGIC THEME #5
To provide an attractive, welcoming, and sustainable environment for students, employees, and visitors.

GOAL 5.1: Update and maintain campus facilities.
GOAL 5.2: Provide safety and accessibility at campus locations.
GOAL 5.3: Provide the appropriate technology necessary to support the strategic plan
GOAL 5.4: Initiate the renovation of the Memorial Union.
GOAL 5.5: Review and update the comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plan.  

URL for Draft Document
http://www.emporia.edu/strategicplanning/working_document.pdf

There will be a “hotlink to the draft will be available from the Strategic Planning  Web page. Once again, I remind you that there will be many opportunities to provide input into the final draft of the plan. The draft which is available on the WEB also includes the objectives in addition to the Themes and Goals covered today.