2000 State of the University Address: A Place of Opportunity

Editors, news directors: Following is a basic transcript of Ohio University's 2000 State of the University Address, which was delivered by President Robert Glidden at 3 p.m. on Friday, October 20.

Thank you, Dr. Ackerman, for the introduction, and thank you all for being with me this afternoon for the 2000 State of the University address, which I have titled, "A Place of Opportunity." Indeed it is wonderful to have so many alumni in attendance. You are the best testimony to the fact that Ohio University has always been a place of opportunity–a warm and welcoming place–and today I want to assure you that we will continue that tradition.

In six years at Ohio University I have never been more optimistic about our standing as a university or about our future as a leading institution of higher learning. I am more and more bullish about the quality of our faculty, about the excellence of our staff, and about the learning capabilities of our students. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by many remarkable people — caring in their attitude, competent in their roles, and confident about our future. I am enthusiastic about new possibilities that a successful capital campaign will bring us, and about our forward momentum in general.

Each year, however, I face a conundrum: I am delighted by the opportunity to highlight some of the outstanding accomplishments of the past twelve months, but simultaneously troubled by the realization that I will certainly not be able to mention every achievement of note. Truly, in terms of achievement, Ohio University has enjoyed a bounty of success during the past year.

Following some highlights from 1999-2000 I will spend more time on plans for the current year. Please be advised that we will hold a brief press conference at the close of this address. We ask you to stay for that event for a very special announcement! And, we invite you to join us in the lobby for a reception following the press conference.

Let me begin, then, by noting several items in a category I’ll call "Globalization and Outreach."

• We formally dedicated and began the Ohio-Leipzig European Center (OLEC) in conjunction with the University of Leipzig.

• The center provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to study in Germany, with German students and under German professors, but in English and in courses that will fulfill our General Ed requirements.

• Close by, in Halle, Germany, the College of Fine Arts signed first-ever international exchange agreement with Burg Giebichenstein Kunst Hochschule.

• "The Burg" is a prestigious art school with a long history of excellence -- Halle is a close neighbor of Leipzig.
• This program began last spring with two Ohio University students traveling to Germany, and one "Burg" student coming to Athens.

• College of Health and Human Services is pursuing several international relationships, including:

• a program in hospital administration with Peking University Health Sciences Center,
• a program in community health with Chinese University of Hong Kong,
• exchange programs in physical therapy and speech pathology with Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India.

• Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine has teamed up with nine Chinese medical institutions to form the Sino-American Consortium for Traditional Chinese Medicine. The goal will be to study traditional Chinese medicine and its potential for application in Western medical practice.

• Study Abroad Exceeds National Level
• Students and their professors also are involved in the globalization movement at Ohio University. Today more than 3 percent of our undergraduates participate in study abroad programs, when the national average is 1 percent. Thanks to the many educators and staff working on study-abroad programs across the campus, and most especially to Connie Perdreau.

OUTREACH

There are many examples, but today I'll talk about only two -- Regional Higher Education and Libraries:

• Regional Higher Education.

• Pickerington Center will extend the Lancaster Campus' reach in this rapidly growing area,
• the Zanesville Campus is now leasing space in a facility in Cambridge,
• the Eastern Campus has an agreement with Washington State Community College for baccalaureate completion programs on that campus,
• Southern Campus continues to see increased enrollment at the Eastern Lawrence County Center in Proctorville.
• All benefit non-traditional college students

• Alden Library (continuing with a different kind of "outreach")

• We are creating a 'library without walls.'
• Last year, for every 100 who walked into Alden, another 60 accessed materials from a distance through computers
• We recorded a total of 684,294 web sessions -- nearly 2,000 per day!
• In the category of "global outreach," some of those web sessions were initiated by students in Mexico, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia

• Student Ambassadors
• Closer to home we have the Student Ambassadors, an innovative program advised by Assistant to the Dean Erek Perry in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Ambassadors coordinate recruitment and retention programs and arrange campus visits for incoming students. Ambassadors also e-mail and telephone students to give them a student's perspective of the university -- again, another example of our campus as a warm and welcoming place.

• African Studies and Southeast Asian Studies programs have been designated as National Resource Centers by U.S. Department of Education. We were the ONLY Research II university in the nation to receive funding for more than one NRC.

• Commendations and thanks to Associate Provost Josep Rota and to Professors Steve Howard and Elizabeth Collins.
• Both programs also received Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships for graduate students -- 6 in African Studies; 8 in Southeast Asian.

• Office of Nationally Competitive Awards. In first year, we were pleased to have a Goldwater winner (Riedel-Cutler Scholar Allison Norwood), a Truman finalist (Upendri Gunasekera), and a state-level Rhodes interview for Daniel Foor, who subsequently went on to win a Fulbright and is currently studying in Cairo.
• University College's Supplemental Instruction Program -- helps students in classes that have been historically difficult -- has been named Outstanding Program in the Country in 1999.
• MBA without Boundaries won a Benchmark Award as a Best Practice Partner in Technology-Mediated Learning. (Award from American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business and American Productivity and Quality Center)
• The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism won a $480,000 three-year grant, awarded by the Knight Foundation, to continue the Ohio Editing Program. This is in addition to a new $45,000 three-year grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation to continue the Broadcast Partnership, which brings working professionals to campus and sends out students to media work sites.
• "Wandering Souls: Tet '68 Remembered" produced by our Telecommunications Center, won a Bronze "Telly" Award. Kudos to producer/director Blis Hanousek DeVault and to Ohio University alumnus and Vietnam veteran Dave Garrod, who was featured in the documentary.
• Individual Achievements:
• Patrick Davison, one of our Visual Communication graduate students, won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography on the Columbine tragedy.
• Class of 2000 Visual Communication graduate Vincent Pugliese won the National Grand Champion in Photojournalism and Best Picture Story awards at the Hearst National Photojournalism Finals.
• Theatre Professor Charles Smith's play, "Knock Me a Kiss" premiered in Chicago and received 8 nominations for Black Theatre Association Awards -- a record for a single production
• Dance student Chia Chi Chiang's choreography was one of 34 pieces out of 640 submissions selected for adjudication by the National American College Dance Festival.
• Ten Ohio University first-year students were recipients of the new Gates Millennium Scholars awards.

With the public announcement of a major fund-raising effort just weeks away, I want to emphasize the importance and the impact of private support. Last fiscal year, overall private giving reached almost $38 million, a significant increase (in fact, more than 50%) over the previous year's total of $25 million. Both corporate and individual giving were significant.

• Scripps Howard has been a most supportive partner for our College of Communication:

• Scripps Howard Multimedia Lab -- $300,000 from the Scripps Howard Foundation. This facility will enable students to learn the combination of text, audio, video, graphics, still photography, and interactivity which will be vital to success in communications in the 21^st century.
• Scripps Howard Teaching Fellows - $100,000 from the Scripps Howard Foundation. This program brings top practicing journalists to campus as doctoral students in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism; while studying, they teach undergrads who benefit from their real-world knowledge and perspective.

• Two Major Gifts In The Russ College: Stuckey Professorship in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, funded by Charles and Marilyn Stuckey; Thomas Professorships in Civil Engineering, funded by the estate of Bernice Thomas.
• And also in the Russ College last year, in conjunction with the National Academy of Engineering, we established the Russ Prize in Engineering -- the equivalent in the engineering profession of a Nobel Prize. To be given every other year -- major cash prize of $500,000, this has been endowed in the University Foundation by Fritz and Delores Russ.

• Airport runway expansion and terminal construction will soon be under way, with major funding provided by alumnus and University and Foundation Trustee C. David Snyder of Cleveland. Thanks, Dave, for the gift making the terminal possible, and thanks to Dick Siemer and Pam Parker for shepherding the runway extension project through federal government channels.
• Each year, this address is the forum for the announcement of external funding for research and sponsored programs, and I am delighted to announce a record increase from last year. Total funding reached $49.1 million in FY2000 -- a 39% increase over 1999's $35.2 million. Research support increased 23%, from $16.5 million to $20.3 million for FY 2000, and support for educational and public service programs increased a remarkable 54%, from $18.7 million in 1999 to $28.8 million in 2000. Federal government support accounted for 72 percent of the total awards this year, compared to 60 percent in 1999; and there were substantial increases in the amount of support faculty received from the two principal research agencies, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health: NSF funding grew by 130 percent ($1.2 million to $2.7 million) and NIH funding by 68 percent ($2 million to $3.5 million).

• Congratulations to our faculty, and to Vice President for Research Jack Bantle and our Research Office

• And finally, in the area of private support, the University's endowment has now grown to $220M, from $95M in 1994.

I realize that these few minutes are too few spent on past achievements -- indeed, there are MANY more that should be cited. But let me continue by focusing now on the present academic year and the future.

Last spring, in summarizing for myself the major areas of focus that have marked my six years as Ohio University's president, I arrived at a list of six items. These certainly do not include everything we've tried to do, but much of our time and energy has been devoted to the following:

• Research enhancement -- we've tried to increase the University's capacity and support for faculty research. Importantly, we have been just as diligent in taking no steps that will diminish our longstanding excellence and attention to our teaching mission. Rather, we have sought a certain balance that we believe appropriate for a national university, and as you can determine from the Research statistics just mentioned, we are proud of our efforts in this regard. I will tell you in a few minutes of some plans to further enhance our research mission.
• The benefits of a residential campus -- we realize that our historic and beautiful Athens campus is a great benefit and a great attraction to prospective students. We are attentive to the quality of student life and to community issues in general. I will have a few words, also, about activities we have in mind for this area for 2000-2001.
• Technology -- Sometimes I think we can hardly afford to keep up, but I also know we cannot afford to fall behind. We have made great progress in developing the technological infrastructure on our campus and in providing students with access to computing and improving our administrative computing. There's more to do and I'll tell you something about that.
• Community development -- Yes, as many of you are aware we have been working on several matters with regard to community development, and I'll tell you about that.
• Globalization -- Universities across the nation, and the national higher education establishment, are giving more attention to the need for globalization or internationalization of our institutions. Ohio University is ahead in this, thanks to presidential leadership from John Baker, Vernon Alden, and Charles Ping. We are continuing and I'll say a few words about that.
• Our status as a national university will be emphasized. We serve our region admirably, I believe, and we serve our state well, but for our students, who expect to contribute and compete at national and international levels, we must think about our national stature. So, I'll speak a bit about what that means.

First, then, let me continue to talk about Research and activities planned for this year that will further enhance our capability in this area.

• Competitive Research Groups -- Office of Research will work with deans and faculty to craft competitive research groups in order to compete for a federally sponsored research center in science and/or engineering within the next two years.
• Will be interested in multidisciplinary cooperation where we have strengths in two or three areas than can be combined to give us a competitive advantage.
• A federally sponsored research center would afford several advantages:

• To further our efforts to form new companies that we hope would locate in our region;
• Elevate our scholarly reputation;
• In these days of emphasis on multidisciplinary research, provide greater opportunities for external funding.

• Ohio University's Strategic Investment Plan

• We had the goal of choosing a select group of doctoral programs to receive the special funding needed to bring them to the highest level of competitiveness.
• The two programs selected in the initial cycle of the plan -- the nanoscience emphasis in the Department of Physics and clinical health psychology in the Department of Psychology - help meet the critical state needs of economic development and public health.
• Strategic Investment Plan at the doctoral level is part of a wider effort to strengthen all of graduate education at Ohio University.

• The Ohio Plan -- The New Economy is knowledge-based, dependent on scientific breakthrough. We believe the State of Ohio must make a major investment in university research in order that our state not fall behind in the New Economy.
• Strong universities are essential for success -- to generate the cutting-edge ideas, graduate highly trained professionals.
• Our OBR request to the Governor and General Assembly is $150M in each year of the FY2002-03 biennium.
• Research would …
• Be focused, competitive, innovative.
• Entail three major categories: Biotechnology, Infotechnology, Nanotechnology.
• Emphasize collaboration among universities, and with business and industry.
• Leverage state resources many times over.
• Expedite technology transfer -- the conversion of discoveries into commercial products.

• As we look to the future of the Athens campus, we will be compelled to demonstrate the "value added" achieved for the cost of a residential campus experience. Must not "rest on our laurels" in terms of our attractiveness and activities that contribute to the quality of student life.
• Campus Development

• Have just purchased the Athena Theater -- not because we want to be in the movie theater business but because it is too important to the quality of life in our community
• Emeriti Park adds more beauty to our residential campus, and thanks to Emeriti Faculty & Staff (and crews) for that.
• Stimson Avenue entrance to campus is being planned.
• Mill Street Apartments will be raze and replaced
• Efforts to upgrade student residence halls -- Johnson Hall, in particular--are soon to be under way.
• Work on both the Life Sciences Research building (west of Richland Avenue bridge) and a chemistry research facility on West State Street has begun.
• Planning is underway for the Bentley Hall renovation, including a new adjoining office building on the corner of Richland and President Streets
• Golf Course improvements are planned, including making functional the "bridge to nowhere."
• "Horse Barn" Child Care Center -- will open January 1, 2001
• Peden Stadium Improvements -- being done with private funds -- also are planned.
• We are giving careful consideration to a new student center.

• Living/Learning Communities. We want to combine the strength of our residential campus experience with thematically connected coursework in a way that melds academic and residential experiences and improves student success.
• Six residential learning communities now in place, with themes like "The Chemistry of Life," "The Global Economy," and "The Individual in Society." (Thanks to Joe Burke in Res Life and Tammie Kahrig in University College, among others.)
• The 100 students who are participating live together in residence halls and take a common set of courses.
• We will continue to learn about how these arrangements can interest students and stimulate their intellectual growth as well as their residential experience -- more to come!

• Character Education -- Our PATH program continues to gain national attention, through the Journal of College and Character and conferences on character education.
• PATH is being incorporating more activities into Student Affairs programming -- incoming students at Precollege learning about personal accountability, trust, and honor not only as ethical constructs but as ways to build character and community.
• PATH principles also being used to guide programs in Judiciaries, with an especially innovative program called "Bridging the Gap: Your PATH to Success." The two-hour interactive course targets repeat violators of the student code and asks them to reflect on the concept of living by a code of ethics. Students reflect on their own personal code of conduct, consider PATH principles, and develop strategies for bridging the "gap" between their personal codes and the University's expectations for community living.

• Respect -- Civility -- Diversity. These themes will continue. They, along with PATH, are key to our university goal of being a model learning community.

• Administrative Computing
• The Enterprise Project -- a massive undertaking -- involves a new Oracle system that will eventually handle nearly all of our administrative computing. We are installing components in order of need.
• We will begin with new Human Resources Management System and Payroll modules -- will come on line January 1, 2001.
• Financial/Budget modules are set for July 1, 2002; the Student Information System modules, in 2003.
• Kudos to Vice President Dick Siemer and Carolyn Sabatino for their vision and leadership on this project, to Dave Fritchley for his invaluable help.
• Document Management Project -- We have purchased an industrial strength document management system that essentially digitizes, stores and files electronically for easy retrieval what would otherwise be paper documents.
• Technology includes imaging, computer output to laser disk, electronic forms management (taking admissions information directly off the web and into a processing application) and related functions.
• We have implemented some aspects of this system over the past year in Financial Aid, Admissions, Registrar's Office and the Housing Office.  Now we are doing projects in the Payroll Office, the Foundation Office, and Purchasing. (For all the money we will spend on new administrative systems, this will give us the biggest bang for the buck in terms of efficiency.)

• Teaching and Learning
• Will continue to support both faculty and students in their desire to use technology to enhance the teaching-learning process.
• The key now to better utilization of technology in teaching and learning rests in the hands of the faculty -- and we are proud of the use our faculty are making in this area.
• To the extent possible, we want to expand faculty opportunities at the Center for Innovation in Technology for Learning (CITL) as we can afford it … and we want to take full advantage of the fact that our residence halls are now fully computer-equipped.

• Improving Student Housing Options -- University Courtyard will be ready for occupancy in Fall 2001. We expect these apartments to set a new standard in Athens.
• Working with private developers, exploring options, for improved housing in the area between campus and Stimson Avenue on the east side.
• The effort partly to raise the standards in that neighborhood, where quality is now very mixed, but also to provide attractive options close to campus so as to slow or halt the conversion of the near eastside neighborhood to multiple student housing units.

• Commercial Development
• Development of a new shopping complex will soon begin on East State Street. This development will provide significant tax revenue to the City and Schools, and it will provide much improved shopping opportunities for faculty, students, and the community at large.
• Economic Development -- Most importantly, we will continue our diligent efforts to stimulate economic growth in Southeast Ohio.
• Average unemployment rate for Ohio's Appalachian counties is 75% greater than for the state as a whole, and median income for this part of Ohio is $4000 less than the state average.
• There is great need, and Ohio University has a responsibility to offer leadership and assistance wherever we have the capability to do so.
• Appalachian Development Fund -- will assist small and emerging businesses in this region with capital and technical assistance.
• Foundation's Early Stage Development Fund -- has been established to help university research that has commercial viability.
• Appalachian New Economy Partnership -- This is part of the OBR budget request to the Governor. It would help counties in Appalachian Ohio lay the technology infrastructure to avoid the "digital divide" issue.
• Airport runway extension and new Snyder Terminal (as mentioned earlier). Of great importance to the university and the general community. Hope these projects will both be completed by the time of this address in 2002. Will be a great asset for economic development in this region.
• We are working for a new Innovation Center facility on our West State Street property. This would be full of tenants -- new high tech businesses for Athens -- if we can complete it. Kudos to Vice President for Research Jack Bantle for his tireless efforts to make this happen!

• International Partnerships -- We are fortunate to have many, including:
• Japan (student and faculty exchange with Chubu University); Thailand (joint degree programs with Bangkok University); China (research institute with Tsinghua University, teaching partnerships with Peking University), Taiwan (renewing relationship with Feng Chia University), Germany (education abroad, student and faculty exchanges with the University of Leipzig and Burg Giebichenstein in Halle); India and Brazil (Business delivering education programs), among others

• Education Abroad
• New Ohio-Leipzig European Center is an exciting opportunity for students. We hope to replicate that in other parts of the globe, at least in Central or South American and in Asia, but probably will not materialize this year.
• We will visit several places in Asia in a few days to explore possibilities.
• We would like to double the number of Ohio University students studying abroad by the time of our bicentennial, even though our numbers exceed national averages, as stated earlier.

• Internationalizing the Campus
• Attracting international (particularly undergraduate) students to Athens will be an important goal.
• It is difficult to recruit worldwide, but we will at least look at our admissions procedures, schedules, etc., to see in what ways we can better accommodate international students.

• What does it mean to be a national university?
• It means having programs and professors of national impact and import. Many of the initiatives already announced, such as the drive for a federally sponsored research center, will help us to become more of a national university.
• It means attracting and retaining faculty with the highest standards -- people who themselves have a national perspective of their disciplines. And it means maintaining competitive salaries and benefits and providing the right climate for research and teaching so that we can keep them!
• An example: National Endowment for the Humanities Regional Humanities Center -- We are committed to establishing this at Ohio University.
• Have won a planning grant under the leadership of Professors Joseph Slade and Judith Lee. This makes us one of two semifinalists for the Center, to serve Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky.
• We believe we are ideally located to serve this region as a resource center for future research and teaching throughout this region.
• This would involve cooperation and partnerships with many other colleges, universities, libraries, and museums in the region. (Indiana University, University of Michigan, Michigan State, University of Kentucky, West Virginia University, Berea College, to name a few)
• We have made the commitment to raise $15 million in private funding over 7 years for this project. Full plan and proposal will be developed during this year -- with a decision by NEH in December 2001.
• There has been great team at work on this -- will follow through with commitment to Center even if not selected by NEH.
• Ohio University Without Boundaries
• Our "niche" is a combination of high tech and high touch through on-line courses modeled after our MBA Without Boundaries program, which has been highly successful and brought national and international acclaim.
• We will develop a Master of Public Administration WB during this year, to roll out in Fall 2001.
• Development of WB programs in Rehab Counseling and African Studies has begun and will have some components ready by the end of this academic year.
• Music education will begin with a slightly different model, but will be designed for teachers working at a distance and combining new technologies with on-campus residencies.
• Other areas we would like to develop include sports administration and engineering management.
• For returning adults, we had 25 undergraduate courses on line this past summer -- total of 40 courses now ready and would like to double that number during this academic year.
• Designed for people who cannot come to campus, enrollees should be able to complete an associate's degree on line by Fall 2001. They can already earn a bachelor's degree with a combination of on-line and print-based courses.
• A number of non-credit and professional certificate degrees for working adults also are under way.
• Bicentennial Campaign
• We will announce the campaign on November 8 and 11 in Athens, and on November 17 in Cleveland.
• The campaign is primarily for endowment -- scholarships and professorships, and some facilities, to help us achieve the various goals we've stated today.

• Three ingredients in academic excellence:
• Outstanding faculty
• Outstanding students
• Outstanding programs

• Faculty: One strategy for recognizing and supporting faculty excellence
• Teaching Awards. Announce today the establishment of the "President's Teaching Awards." (Will ask the University Foundation in November to fund these, but we hope that these awards will be endowed and bear other names in the future.)
• Each year, up to four awards will be awarded to faculty judged by their peers to exhibit exceptional achievement in teaching.
• Some $15,000 for individual awards, over three years, will be given.
• This will provide a series of high profile awards for teaching to accompany the Presidential Research Scholars awards for research, scholarship and creative work.
• Thank the provost and the committee who helped develop this program, Lorene Giese, chair.

• Recruiting High Achieving Students
• Ohio University remains a very popular choice for students in Ohio. We still enjoy the largest pool of applicants for the number who can be accepted of any public institution in the state.
• However, our percentage of top 10% -- those who graduate in the top 10% of their h.s. class -- is too low. In this year's freshman class it is only 17% and we would like it to be at least 25%.
• If we want to compete for top students, it is crucial to increase merit scholarships, and also to make those awards earlier in the recruiting season. I know that the University Planning Advisory Council (UPAC) recognizes that scholarships are an important priority for the University and I urge them to support Academic Achievement Scholarships for highly qualified students.
• We also recognize that the opportunity to study abroad is an important one for our students and could be an attractive feature for top achieving students. We presently send 600 students/year abroad for study, but as we've said, we would like to double that number by the time of our bicentennial.
• In order to meet our goal, we will need to increase scholarship funds available for study abroad. These do not have to be large scholarships, but again, I believe that they are crucial, and I urge UPAC's strong and enthusiastic support for these Study Abroad Scholarships.

• Undergraduate Research
• Ohio University does an outstanding job of providing undergraduate students with research opportunities. This fall we have expanded those opportunities further by establishing the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund. Based on a competitive application process, this Fund covers the costs of travel and supplies needed for a student research project that is sponsored by a faculty member. A small number of apprenticeship stipends will also be available.
• Honors Education
• Ohio University supports two types of honors programs. Our Honors Tutorial College, as a degree-granting tutorial college, is, to the best of our knowledge, unique in the nation. Because it is very time intensive, however, it can serve only about 225 students at any given time.
• In addition to HTC, we want to strengthen our commitment to high-achieving students by providing more honors study opportunities in the departments -- programs that will encourage and support intensive research, scholarly, or artistic pursuits in their major by our best students.
• Provost is providing base funding incentives to departments who will support honors programs for their majors.

• Evaluation
• It is critical that we do all within our capability to "stretch" our students as far as possible…to expand their horizons … elevate their aspirations … stimulate their ambition for learning.
• One of the important ingredients in the educational stew of teaching and learning is the evaluation process. How do teachers evaluate students to give them an accurate appraisal of their educational progress, and how do students evaluate faculty to "keep them in tune" and to help them improve their teaching skills?
• We have had some concerns about each, and a committee of faculty and students studying each.
• Students don't always take seriously their opportunity … and responsibility, really … to evaluate faculty.
• On the other side of the desk, many professors are proud of their rigorous courses. But a few teachers are sometimes too easy on students in their coursework, which leads to grade inflation and declining hours spent on homework. This occurs perhaps because of pressure from students, or perhaps because expectations of today's very bright and savvy students are not high enough. Fact is, technology is helping students get work done faster and finer than ever before, and we need to fill the gap to keep them working not only up to standards … but beyond them.
• Reports from committees and recommendations have just been released. They will raise some interest on campus.

• General Education
• For those who may be unfamiliar with higher education jargon, "general education" refers to that collection of courses, experiences, and/or competencies that are required of every student who earns a baccalaureate degree at the university. Some institutions call this liberal studies or the "common core."
• The rigor and seriousness of the general education or liberal studies program is, to me, a significant difference among colleges and universities. Generally, smaller liberal arts colleges have done this better than large research universities.
• Ohio University's approach to general education, however, has been excellent. It is one of the reasons we are so highly regarded as a university that cares deeply about undergraduate education.
• Our GenEd program has served us well, but it has been in place for 20 years and it's time to ask whether it is serving the needs of today's students.
• We started this process with a series of "brainstorming" dinners with faculty, hosted by the provost and me during 1998-99.
• Last year, a committee co-chaired by Ping Professor of Humanities Tom Carpenter and University College Dean Patti Richard began to work in earnest. The committee has done a great job! I commend them!
• I'm very excited about this! The committee's work builds on a great tradition of excellence in general education at Ohio University, but moves us forward with attention to critical skills and understandings that we know our students need in the 21^st century.
• Proposal is summed up by the acronym "S E E K"
• Skills
• Expression
• Ethics
• Knowledge
• Because that's what it covers in a matrix of 1) skills, 2) areas of knowledge, and 3) competencies … providing maximum flexibility with maximum comprehensiveness:
• Foundational skills: These include writing, oral expression, and quantitative skills.
• Breadth of knowledge: These include Humanities and Fine Arts; Mathematics, Science, and Technology; and Social Sciences.
• And then an "overlay" of competency requirements that may be developed through any course in the curriculum. The competencies would include areas such as:
• Written expression
• Oral expression
• Ethical judgment
• Aesthetic judgment
• Cultural perspectives
• Research
• The design is clever because it accomplishes all this without adding to the number of credit hours committed. In other words, we do not have to cut into the curricula for majors to accomplish this, nor do we have to add to the credits and time required to earn a degree.

• Example: In order to address all these competency areas, content courses across the university in sciences or humanities or arts or whatever, as appropriate, will be redesigned to include writing or oral assignments to help students develop those competencies, or to include studies in ethics or aesthetics or cultural perspectives to assure that students develop those competencies.
• Other courses, many of which are already being taught, will have a given competency as their main objective. The freshman composition requirement would count towards the writing competency, for example.
• The research competency may be developed in part by research methods courses, or more likely, by a combination of experiences in various courses in which the student does research and produces a paper, a thesis, or other research product.

• Rigor -- we are, of course, interested in an appropriate degree of rigor in the entire General Education curriculum, partly to ensure that there is a certain "evenness" across the university but also to ensure that we are stretching our students, that we are, indeed, expanding their horizons, elevating their aspirations, and stimulating their learning.
• The GenEd proposal suggests that these courses must either be small size (under 35) … or if larger courses, they must have discussion sections of no more than 25 students or a distinct strategy to promote discourse among students and between student and teacher.
• The proposal suggests that courses should incorporate active learning strategies and that at least half the grade in each course be based on essay or short-answer questions rather than multiple-choice exams.

• Because we are in a knowledge era. Knowledge is as important a resource for our economy now as it is for our intellectual and cultural life. It is as important for the "new economy" industries as raw materials were in the age of manufacturing. And obviously, the professions -- medicine, law, engineering, teaching, the arts -- have always been in a "Knowledge Era."
• The knowledge required for our students to succeed in today's and tomorrow's world is not just knowing about, it is knowing. Knowing about is a relatively simple cognitive experience. It does come first, and it is a prerequisite to knowing, but it is what people tend to joke about when they make fun of academics. It is having a theory that is never applied. Or in school parlance, it is learning a series of facts to parrot them back on a multiple-choice exam.
• Knowing involves human experience. It comes from active rather than passive learning. It comes from knowing about first, but then applying the theory, trying it out, getting involved with it as a way to make something happen rather allowing it to remain abstract or obscure.
• Consider this progression that I heard last spring in a session on "knowledge management" at a business and engineering meeting.
• Data ® Information requires analysis, but…
• Information ® Knowledge requires human experience. And…
• Knowledge ® Wisdom requires accumulated human experience.

• That seems to make sense to me. The difference between information and knowledge is human experience. What does that say to us?
• It says that as we educate people in the university for this Knowledge Era, the kind of knowledge they develop is very much dependent upon the kind of human experience we provide.
• That human experience is shaped by all manner of experiences on a residential campus such as ours. Our Division of Student Affairs becomes all the more important; the activities and opportunities provided by student government and some 350 student clubs and organizations on campus become all the more important.
• The opportunities for social life on campus, for learning to be respectful and civil, and especially for learning to understand and appreciate diversity -- those things all become more important.
• But so does General Education. General education is not just about what our students learn, but how they learn. It is not just a collection of courses in various disciplines, but a process of developing skills and competencies that will help them to know…not just to know about!
• It is not just about comprehensiveness, it is about intensiveness; and it is not just about passive listening but active involvement. It is about lively discourse, and healthy interactions among people, and yes, it is about communication and learning through computers in residence halls too.

• That is why this General Education plan is so important to me. We have a great tradition to uphold at Ohio University. We have been a place of opportunity where many thousands of alumni have come to discover a bigger world of ideas, to develop higher aspirations, and to find themselves through the rich mix of academic and social experiences that they have found in our charming and nurturing community.
• But tradition is about more than preserving the past. When you consider that our most cherished tradition is as a place of opportunity, it is not about keeping all things the same. To be sure, the thing that will remain the same now and in the future is the welcoming and warm attitude of our learners and graduates. Nonetheless, a tradition like ours is dynamic; it demands of us that we keep seeking the best experiences for our students so that they too may find new dreams to realize, new worlds to conquer, and new knowledge to guide them.
• Our most cherished traditions include our history, to be sure, but those many thousands of dedicated and loyal alumni would tell us that while they revere our history, what they remember most is the liveliness of the place.
• We want to be a model learning community. That includes being lively and dynamic. It includes being a place of opportunity for the entire community.
• And certainly, if we accomplish that, we will be a cradle for leaders of the 21^st century…as we have been for the previous two centuries!
• I ask your help in assuring that!

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