Ten years ago, in my inaugural address, I noted that those of us fortunate enough to lead educational institutions have a responsibility to place our efforts in an historic context and to act with a keen sense of obligation to the institution's traditions.
At some institutions, that awareness of history can lead to inertia. Happily, Union's early trademark was its willingness to do things differently. It is this capacity to think differently that Union will have to rely on to maximize its promise and secure its future.
In their original orders for books and equipment for the then-new Union College, the trustees of 1795 included many items of the sort used by every institution of the time — theological works, the Greek and Latin classics, and collections of sermons. But they also displayed an unprecedented interest in the contemporary scene, particularly in American history and politics. Perhaps more important for the future development of the College, those early planners also recognized the importance of science. In the list of “philosophical apparatus” ordered from London they included such startling items as “one Electrical machine, with working models to be set in motion by the Electrical fluid.”
The same broad views — the same willingness to “think outside the box,” if you will — were reflected in the educational program. In their outline of what constituted an educated person, those early trustees stipulated that “Students shall be acquainted with … three Books of Xenophon, Horace's Odes & Satires & Criticism, or, instead of the Greek with a History of the French revolution in French.”
To give the French language equal status with Greek — to equate understanding of the modern world with knowledge of the classics — was a startling innovation. Yet it was only one of many. Union's predecessors in America, conservative and for the most part sectarian, taught narrow views of man based on the classics and theology. However, Union was professedly liberal and nondenominational, and it adopted a broad view of education. In many ways, Union was the first American college.
For much of our history, this conception produced many new developments in the educational program of the College, and it showed the way for higher education to adapt to the needs of a developing American society. Witness, for example, the start of engineering in 1845. Although West Point and Rensselaer had introduced engineering earlier, we were the first liberal arts college to do so, and, significantly, we did not label technology as a thing apart but built engineering into the liberal arts curriculum — a curriculum based on teaching where we had been and where we were heading in the many areas of human endeavor.
We must recognize, however, that the mere assertion of our historic distinctiveness does not guarantee a passport to the future. For Union to maintain its hard-won position in the vanguard of a crowded and competitive field, we must prepare for the competition. During the past year, therefore, we not only engaged in a spirited conversation on campus preparatory to our reaccreditation, but we also worked on an updated strategic plan for Union. While the plan is still a work in progress, I want to discuss some of its broad outlines and some of the steps that I am convinced we must take to ensure our continuing strength:
- We must continue to attract and retain the best possible faculty (I believe Union's faculty to be one of the best teaching faculties in the country).
- We must attract the best students and ensure that they are properly taught, advised, and given a variety of social options.
- We must revisit what we are doing programmatically to ensure that our assets are used to our best advantage.
- We must ensure that technology is infused throughout the curriculum.
- We must continue to work to make Schenectady a more vibrant community.
- We must marshal new financial resources to guarantee our continued progress.
By bringing this strategic plan to life we will make sure that the intelligence, creativity, resourcefulness, and motivation of our faculty and students can develop to their fullest.
The next five years
In setting institutional priorities for the next few years, I think that Union's success in stepping up to the next level of excellence will be largely based on its ability to create an environment that will attract and retain the most academically talented and diverse group of faculty and students.
To accomplish that objective, we must take action in two broad areas — academic life and residential and social life. Although we operate today from a position of strength in both areas, our self-examination over the past year has identified a number of improvements that can — and must –be made.
Academic
With the expansion and renovation of Schaffer Library, the opening of the Morton and Helen Yulman Theater and the F.W. Olin Center, and the renovations to the Nott Memorial, we are no longer faced with years of deferred maintenance. We are truly in a position to join the highest ranks of liberal arts colleges in America. To accomplish this goal, however, we will need students who can thrive in an intellectually stimulating and challenging environment, and faculty who are committed to creating such an environment through their teaching and their scholarship– both within their disciplines and beyond them, and inside and outside the classroom.
As you have read in the previous pages, students and faculty appreciate the quality of what might be called formal academic life at Union: our curriculum, classroom teaching, faculty and student scholarship, and special programs such as Terms Abroad, the Union Scholars Program, and undergraduate summer research fellowships. The depth of students' intellectual life in the classroom is supported by strong departmental majors and by the research and capstone experiences that are most frequently part of a major. Clearly, there is considerable enthusiasm for these experiences among students, faculty, and alumni, especially because of the contribution they make to the development of the social and intellectual maturity and curiosity of our students and to the active engagement of faculty with students.
While they recognize the strengths of our formal academic program, faculty and students express some disappointment with the informal intellectual life of the community outside of the classroom. They want more from the various activities that take place outside of formal structures — activities that often cross disciplinary boundaries and that bring people from different parts of the community together around larger intellectual concerns.
Here are steps we are contemplating:
- We must find ways for faculty to be committed teachers and generous mentors of undergraduate research, as well as productive scholars. We should increase the size of the faculty to a level that will enable us to support a teaching environment of the highest quality, a diverse curriculum, increased student research, strong faculty scholarship, and faculty involvement outside the classroom. While space, funding, and the creation of new programs and policies are all important for improving Union's intellectual community, the fundamental limitation to what we can accomplish is the time, expertise, and creative activity of the faculty. Many of our major goals depend upon increasing available faculty time and broadening available faculty talents and expertise.
Specifically, we need to:
- create an enriched sabbatical program that enables faculty, on a competitive basis, to have a sabbatical every four years (it now is six years);
- make sure that Union's teaching load is competitive; and
- increase faculty endowed chairs by one a year.
- Given the success of undergraduate research intellectually engaging our students and of the Union Scholars Program in attracting and retaining excellent students, we should ensure support for these programs and explore new initiatives of this type, such as creating additional programs that would attract and retain top students. Specifically, we need to:
- Increase the Scholars Program to 100 students annually (it is now about half that); and
- Begin a second honors program for students who did not enter Union through the Scholars Program.
- We must expand the opportunities for our students to pursue undergraduate creative and scholarly activity in all of the academic disciplines. Student involvement in such activity comes in several ways — thesis work (including senior design projects in engineering), independent study, summer research, and internships. The overwhelming majority of our faculty feels that such activity enables the development of critical thinking, as well as writing, oral, and problem-solving skills. Since this kind of activity encourages students to see and think differently, it broadens their horizons and ultimately prepares them for life beyond college. Union is at the forefront of this important national trend, and we must encourage and enable more of our students to participate in this highly-positive activity. Specifically, we need to:
- create internship opportunities for 50 students with corporations and organizations;
- increase the opportunities for summer campus research to 100 students (it is now half that); and
- increase the number of students presenting at the Charles Steinmetz Symposium to 300.
- Union has a freshman faculty advising system that is designed to provide a range of advice and guidance to entering students. Unfortunately, many students soon lose contact with their advisors. Specifically, we need to:
- convert Becker Hall into a center that includes the Career Development Center, preprofessional advising, graduate honors and fellowships, and counseling;
- revamp the existing advising system with the objective of improving retention to 90 percent; and
- acquire the necessary hardware and software, train staff and faculty in advising skills, and emphasize advising as a core element of Union.
- We must prepare students to function effectively in the world by having all students either study abroad or interact electronically with students in other countries. Often described as one of the distinguishing pillars of a Union education, international opportunities are seen as constituting perhaps the most broadening experience that most Union students enjoy outside of the classroom. As strong as our programs are, however, we can do better. Specifically, we need to:
- provide more electronic capabilities for interactions with other institutions worldwide; and
- add a term abroad a year for each of the next five years.
- We must also prepare students to function in a technologically-sophisticated world. Perhaps no development has the capacity to change higher education more than new technologies. For example, the American system of higher education was built on the principal of putting campuses in reach of as much of the population as possible. Accordingly, New York has 108 independent colleges and sixty-four campuses of the state system spread across the state. With technology minimizing the barrier of geography, does that mean that some colleges will inevitably disappear? And how will those that remain adapt?
- As I noted at the start of this essay, Union has always been willing to do things differently, and that willingness has made us particularly well-suited to accommodate the inevitable changes that must be made if education is to remain a force for innovation. Our goal today is to continue to ensure that our students appropriately explore the linkages of study on campus and the world of ideas and experiences beyond Union. Specifically, we need to:
- establish a technical literacy standard, keeping in mind that today's students grew up with the Internet and the World Wide Web;
- continue to integrate Net-based learning into the curriculum;
- develop team-taught courses that bring together liberal arts and engineering faculty; and
- review our engineering program to ensure that what we do not only accommodates a society that seems to be moving at an ever-increasing speed but also remains consistent with our liberal arts tradition.
- We must increase the role of the arts in the intellectual life of the campus. Historically, the Performing and Visual Arts Departments at Union have been small and, given the significance of their role for in developing liberally educated individuals, underfunded. Although the Yulman Theater has been a significant addition to arts activity on the campus, adequate space is still needed for music, dance, and the studio arts. We should provide the opportunity for students to take a broader spectrum of courses in dance and in film, and we should explore the ever-increasing links between technology and the arts. Specifically, we need to:
- expand the dance program; and
- renovate North Colonnade to provide additional space for art and music.
- Each year during orientation members of the freshman class give hundreds of hours to community improvement projects. For many students, community service continues through their years at Union. To further educate students to be engaged as responsible citizens, we should:
- centralize volunteer activities in the newly-created Ralph B. and Marjorie Kenney Community Center in College Park;
- encourage members of the campus to be involved in the revitalization of Schenectady; and
- develop courses that include opportunities for civic involvement.
Residential and Social Life
The College must ensure that our residential life experience contributes vigorously to the intellectual, personal, and social development of our students. As a residential college, this commitment is a defining aspect of our style of undergraduate education. Union has made progress in the last ten years in creating a residential and social community for students that encourages their intellectual growth. Since students find that their intellectual life is more directly enhanced by the provision of a wide variety of smaller housing options with their own community and social space, we need to continue the type of housing provided by the growth of theme houses and the College Park renovation project.
The next few years will be a critical time for the College in dealing with this problem. Not only has sophomore rush begun with the class of 2004, but the U2K Committee has presented many specific recommendations for modification of the fraternity system and improvement of residential and social life.
We need to do more. Specifically, we need to:
- develop a house system that addresses out-of-classroom intellectual concerns of students, provides all students with equal access to housing options, and enables the fraternity system to continue as a part of, but not the dominant social vehicle on, the campus;
- renovate existing housing stock and provide for a doubling of the number of singles on campus; and
- improve our athletic facilities to provide better opportunities for both intercollegiate and intramural activities.
Committing to the Plan
A college prepares for the future by understanding its strengths and resources — its people, its facilities, its programs, and its promise. In all of those areas, Union is in excellent shape. We have — with your help — achieved much, and I think we deserve to pause occasionally to appreciate our College's many past accomplishments.
However, I also think that such a pause should be a brief one. Many challenges still face us, and a major campaign for additional resources will be necessary if we are to succeed. We have begun the planning for such a campaign, and we are assessing what is possible to achieve.
I recognize that a campaign at a time of substantial change is difficult. Given the fact that change is, in my judgment, absolutely essential if we are to enhance the quality of the teaching and learning that take place at Union and if we are to enhance, too, the reputation of the College, I believe that the Union community will embrace change. To fail to do so is to undo the progress of the past and to turn our backs on Union's tradition of innovation.
At the start of this essay I mentioned one characteristic of Union that particularly struck me ten years ago — the College's ability to change as new challenges arise. Today, the challenges are all around us — from society, from our peers, from our own students and faculty. With your continuing support, we will meet those challenges and equip Union to play in the future a leading role on the education stage. It will not be easy, but nothing good ever is.