President's 2008 Winter Update

President's Winter Update

February 2008

Greetings and a belated welcome to 2008! I hope that this update finds all of you well, actively engaged in the New Year, and finally back to normal after your holiday activities. For those of you not living in the Midwest, we are experiencing a winter like we have not had for some time with lots of snow, ice, and even a thunderstorm in early January!

As in the past, my Winter Update is an opportunity to get our campus community, Trustees, and all of those interested in the University of Dubuque a rapid-read news summary. There was much activity over the fall semester, and the second semester looks to be just as exciting.

PLANNING PROJECTS

One of the important goals that we have tried to accomplish over these last several years is to bring a great deal of openness and collaboration in the University's planning process. This kind of transparency is important to a community in which we share a vested interest in our future.

Currently, the Budget Planning Committee, which is being led by our CFO Jim Steiner, is busy working through their recommendations for the Fiscal Year 2009 operating budget. The Program Planning Committee for the Fine, Performing Arts, Worship, and Campus Center, led by Dr. Carlyle Haaland, held a number of meetings over the summer and through the fall semester with many opportunities for the campus community to share their thoughts and ideas. Dr. Haaland has prepared a comprehensive draft of their report which will be finalized for presentation in the near future. We were fortunate to have recently received a $50,000 planning gift to help us get to the design phase of this project. Planning for an additional Residence Hall is also underway. We are expecting to present a design concept to the Board of Trustees at their May 2008 meeting for this Hall which will include space for undergraduate, seminary, and graduate students. The Trustees have raised over $40,000 from among themselves and through outside gifts to begin the initial design phase of this project.

Finally, the faculties of our college and theological seminary are finishing up the process of revising their respective Faculty Handbooks. For those of you not involved in the process, now would be an appropriate time for you to thank God! For those of you involved in the revisions, we thank you for making the time and careful effort to attend to the important and necessary details of these documents. To that end, our theological seminary will be hosting a reaccreditation site team from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) this spring. Again, our hats go off to all the members of the seminary and the entire University community for their work in this regard. So, please, if you see about a half-dozen serious looking theological types walking across campus in early April, say “hi,” “welcome” or “God loves you.” All help will be appreciated!

CAPITAL PROJECT UPDATE

A lot of you have been asking me about our future Capital Projects. It is difficult for me to believe but, over the last decade, we have built many new buildings (Jackaline Baldwin Dunlap Technology Center, Charles C. Myers Library, University Science Center [including the renovation of Goldthorp Hall and a new Mary Chlapaty Hall], Charles and Romona Myers Center, Seminary Village, University Park Village [undergraduate apartment complex], Chlapaty Recreation and Wellness Center, University Park Drive, and the Facilities Building). In addition, we have renovated every residence hall as well as many of our academic buildings.

Over the next year, the Trustees will be considering a number of other projects; projects designed to fulfill our Mission and to make us the absolute best that we can be. Those projects will possibly include: Fine & Performing Arts, Worship and Campus Center; residence hall; seminary/faculty office building; renovations of Alumni Hall, Van Vliet Hall, Severance Hall; updating Blades Hall; deferred maintenance projects, and an updated campus-wide Security/Emergency system.

Chlapaty Recreation and Wellness Center

If you have been to campus lately, you have noticed that there is a new building taking shape to the west of Chalmers Field…the new Chlapaty Recreation and Wellness Center. Steel continues to be erected; concrete continues to be poured, and masonry walls continue to be built even in this frigid weather. This is an amazing project, and when I recently walked through the building site with Dr. Stewart, we were both absolutely astounded by the size and scope of the building, as well as its beauty. The Wellness Center portion will be completed in the fall of 2008; renovation of the Stoltz Center into the performance gymnasium, along with all of the other renovations slated to take place in the Stoltz/McCormick complex, will begin in March 2008. Again, we are enormously grateful for the Chlapatys' gift to the endowment and for their commitment to our University. We are also very appreciative of the growing number of donors who are making commitments to assist in this exciting project.

MISSION, VISION, ACTION PLAN 2015

It is hard to believe, but the Mission, Vision, Action Plan 2008 will be coming to an end in December 2008. Occasionally, I must remind myself that when we began this endeavor in 1999, most of today's entering undergraduate students were eight to nine years old and had never heard of the University of Dubuque. Much has been accomplished over these last ten years, a lot of which is visible but most of which is not apparent to the eye. Daily I am grateful for the wonderful group of students, faculty and staff who call the University of Dubuque “home.” I marvel every day at both the depth and breadth of commitment exhibited by those who work here, teach here, coach here, and study here. We are very, very fortunate to be at this point in our history and, as I have said to you before, I do believe that the best is yet to be.

To that end, I have been spending the fall semester working on an integrated plan that will take us to 2015. When completed, the plan will be an updated Mission, Vision, Action Plan 2015 with chapters that include 3-year financial plans which are tied to Academic Program Plans, plans for non-traditional revenue streams, strategic and campus master plans, measurement indices, co-curricular plans, and more. Right now, the President's Cabinet and our Board chair have been gracious enough to begin reviewing the document and are adding their suggestions.

I would anticipate that there would be an early draft available for the Board to begin reviewing at their March educational conference, and we will be looking for opportunities to solicit input, critique, and suggestions from our campus community throughout this semester, over the summer, and into fall 2008. Depending on how much involvement there is, I would expect the document to be in final form for Board approval at either the October 2008 meeting, or the May 2009 meeting. If we are successful in our endeavors, we will surely be an institution with a unique national reputation within a clearly identifiable niche.

A special feature of this planning document involves the Board of Trustees challenging itself to be a “highest performing board” as measured by standards established through the Association of Governing Boards (AGB). The AGB has selected our University to be one of the few institutions featured nationwide in academic turnarounds, and in Board performance, and we will be featured in one of their future monographs. In other words, we will be studied; our national recognition will grow and, hopefully, we will be of help to others.

PERSONNEL TRANSITIONS

At the Board level, I regret to inform you that we are saying good-bye to two of our members, Ardyth Dierks and Mike Budde. Ardyth resigned after our spring 2007 meeting for family reasons. She is a new grandmother and, with limited vacation time at this point in her career, she understandably elected to spend her discretionary time with her family. We are grateful for Ardyth's contribution over these years: for her wit, insight, and for her commitment to her alma mater, the University of Dubuque.

We are also saying good-bye to longtime trustee, Mike Budde. After selling Advanced Data Comm, Mike accepted a position at Loras College, his alma mater. Mike has been an excellent chair of the Academic Affairs Committee and, a faithful supporter of Spartan athletics, a wonderful adjunct professor in our MAC program, and an all around good person.

Ardie and Mike, we are grateful for your service to the University, and you will both be missed!

On the staff front, I regret to inform you that Dr. Paula Carlson is resigning to take a position starting July 1, 2008 at her alma mater, St. Olaf College. Paula has held a number of positions at the University, starting as a part-time instructor over 10 years ago. She has served as professor, chair of the English Department, assistant dean, associate dean and director of the Lester and Michael Lester Wendt Character Initiative. Paula's involvements in the Core Curriculum, the Diamond Program, and many other projects on this campus have left an indelible impression on our collective academic life, and we are grateful for her time of service. Paula's roots run deeply at St. Olaf where her father is a graduate, where Paula and her husband, Thomas, are graduates, and where their two children are currently students. We wish Paula continued success and many years of service at St. Olaf College.

We are also losing the Offensive Coordinator on our football team, Joe Austin, and his spouse, Marissa, Alumni Director. Joe has accepted the head football coaching job at Hanover College in Indiana, and Marissa will be working there as well in one of their special programs funded by the Lily Endowment. We wish them both success …except when Hanover plays UD!

WENDT CHARACTER INITIATIVE

There has again been a great deal of activity with the Lester and Michael Lester Wendt Character Initiative over the course of this year. Dana and I had the privilege of hosting the Wendt Character Scholars just before Christmas which was really a treat for us. My, what an outstanding group of young people! We were privileged, as well, to host Pulitzer Prize winner and columnist George Will, as the annual Michael Lester Wendt Lecturer. Those of you in attendance surely noticed that Mr. Will is extremely thought-provoking and an “equal opportunity offender.” That is, he was thought provoking, engaging, at times controversial, and always entertaining. Most recently, the Center completed the 2008 faculty/staff in-service with a focus on the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

ENROLLMENT

At the end of the 10^th day of spring semester, we are pleased to report enrollment numbers of 1,119 full-time and 73 part-time students for a total of 1,192, compared to a target number of 1,058. In addition to better than projected semester-to-semester retention, 10 additional students transferred in to the University for second semester [75 students this year versus 65 students in January 2007]. We are still awaiting the completion of 10^th day enrollment information for our seminary and graduate students.

ADVANCEMENT

I would be remiss if I didn't mention to all of you that we are actively engaged in meeting our Mission and Vision Fund goal of over $1 million this year. I hope that all of our faculty and staff consider contributing to the fund this year, and I am proud to say that, again this year, the Board of Trustees has challenged itself to reach a goal of 100% participation in the Mission and Vision Fund. The Advancement Office was also pleased to announce a Trustee gift late in 2007 that helped the University meet the $250,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation. This is the first gift that the University has received from the Kresge Foundation, and we are very, very fortunate to have qualified for their match. Finally, we have also received word that we received Congressional earmarks for $1.43 million to assist with the funding for the Science Center, and with programs in the Center. I am pleased to share that now, after over ten years of planning, fund raising and construction the new University Science Center is finally completed and paid for!

Those of us involved in advancement and fundraising work would not be doing our jobs if we weren't always looking forward. On December 31, 2008 we will be completing our Forever Better Campaign. Thus far, we have benefactors and supporters who have given over $118,000,000 in commitments towards a goal of $125,000,000. If we are moving this Mission forward, however, it won't be too long after this campaign is completed before we'll be entering into another campaign.

In addition to the capital projects that I have already mentioned, I would anticipate that over 60% of the next campaign's goal will be focused on growing the University's endowment for scholarships, support for faculty travel and research, the Diamond Program, and more. We are rapidly approaching an endowment of $100,000,000. To compete on a national scale, however, we will need to move our endowment to a base level of between $200,000,000 and $250,000,000 as a next step. This is the level of endowment that it will take for us to begin to live into our mission and achieve our dreams, and, more importantly, to make it possible for the students who have been entrusted to us to realize their dreams.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

In the previous paragraph, I was initially hesitant to share some of my thoughts about where our endowment needs to me. At the fall 2007 Board meeting, however, I was reminded by several Board members that, as President, my job is to continue to lift up the Mission and Vision and to keep pushing them, and us, to not only reach that Mission, but to exceed it.

It is in that attitude of “lifting up and pushing” that I share the following quotation from Reinhold Niebuhr which Dr. Longfield passed along to me. You'll see that, in a nutshell, the quotation serves as inspiration as, together, we work at realizing our very challenging Mission. Niebuhr writes:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore we are saved by love.

When we began this journey nine years ago, it did not seem that our Mission, Vision, and Action Plan 2008 could be achieved in a “lifetime” and look where we have come. From 2009-2015, we will have exactly the same amount of time to lift the University of Dubuque up to a level of national prominence; itself a daunting task, and one which, arguably, cannot be achieved in a lifetime.

Yet, what I have learned from all of you is that we have acquired an ability to compress several lifetimes into one and, therefore, if my math is correct, we will make significant progress toward “Achieving the Dream” by 2015.

Thank you for your support…for your continued interest and commitment to in the University of Dubuque, and know that…the best is yet to be!

Blessings,

Jeffrey F. Bullock, Ph.D.

President