Happy anniversary, President Schatzel

January 25 marks the one-year anniversary of President Schatzel taking the reins at Towson University.

By Ray Feldmann on January 24, 2017

When Kim Schatzel arrived at Towson University exactly one year ago, snow was falling and accumulating at a record pace. Wondering how bad conditions really were on what was scheduled to be the opening day of the spring 2016 term, Schatzel personally inspected campus from the front passenger seat of Police Chief Bernie Gerst’s four-wheel drive vehicle.

TU’s brand new president then promptly shut the university down for three days.

“When students heard that I was coming to Towson from Eastern Michigan,” she recalls, “they thought ‘Oh no, we’ll never get a day off for snow now.’ I think I really surprised them when we were closed for three days.”

Over the next 12 months, it has been Schatzel who has taken the university by a storm.

The 60-year-old marketing professor quickly held a series of town hall meetings, which she called her focus groups or “listening tour,” to gauge what was on the minds of students, faculty, staff, alumni and other stakeholders. She was confident that common themes would emerge that would help to determine her areas of focus over the coming weeks and months.

“And that’s exactly what happened,” she said earlier this week. “When I did my listening tour, people were honest, candid, and forthcoming with their ideas. That was a real gift to me.”

Following the town hall meetings, eight presidential priorities were established that have become Schatzel’s guiding principles:

  1. TU Matters to Maryland: Telling the TU story with a more contemporary vision.
  2. BTU: Partnerships at Work for Greater Baltimore
  3. Lifelong Career Center
  4. Diverse and Inclusive Campus
  5. Culture of Philanthropy
  6. World Class Faculty Development Center
  7. Strategic Plan Alignment
  8. TIGER Way: Transfer, International, Graduate Enrollment Resource initiative.

While all eight priorities are of equal importance to the president, the need to “relentlessly pursue a diverse and inclusive campus environment” demanded her immediate attention at the start of the 2016 spring semester.

Responding quickly to student concerns that the university’s existing hate crimes/bias incident process was difficult to understand and clunky to navigate, Schatzel pulled together groups of students, staff, faculty, and administrators to fix it. 

To demonstrate her commitment to creating a campus environment that was welcoming to every student, Schatzel added a new member to her President’s Council leadership team: a vice president for inclusion and institutional equity. Leah Cox, Ph.D., started in that role this week. 

Schatzel has been recognized nationally for her efforts to promote and foster inclusivity throughout the campus community and in March will be speaking on diversity and inclusivity at an American Council on Education (ACE) panel in Washington, D.C.

But it hasn’t been all work and no play for the university’s 14th president. Schatzel has had plenty of fun along the way, holding an ice cream social during Inauguration Week, attending athletic events, participating in events and activities across campus, taking and posing for hundreds of selfies, and staying active on Instagram and Twitter.

She has also implemented strategies to enable the university to operate more transparently, launching a series of video blogs to communicate progress on her priorities and publishing “microsites” on the TU website on a variety of topics, including a Diversity Initiatives Progress Report.

In between meetings in her office earlier this week, Schatzel reflected on her whirlwind first year on the job.

“It has gone really fast,” Schatzel said. “I’ve enjoyed it so much. I feel so much at home here. I knew this would be a great place, but it has exceeded every expectation I had.

“I knew before I came here that TU was well-respected and had a great reputation,” she continued. “So many people, on campus and in the community, have shared positive stories with me about how Towson University made a difference in their lives or for someone in their family. The connections here are strong.

“I feel honored by how the campus community and the greater community welcomed me and connected so quickly to me,” she added.

Schatzel knows her work here has only begun (she sports a “Towson Tiger For Life” license plate holder on her car), and she is excited about the transformation that will take place in the next decade. She cites a new science facility that will be under construction later this year, modernization of the University Union, re-opening of Burdick Hall gym and Newell Hall later this year, rehabilitation of Residence Tower, and plans for more residence halls to accommodate anticipated enrollment growth.

Additionally, Schatzel has contracted with Margrave Strategies and its CEO, former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, to develop a blueprint for cementing the university’s position as an anchor institution in the Greater Baltimore region, and for strengthening the "connective tissue," as she says, between TU and uptown Towson.

Schatzel plans to update the campus community on those plans, and much more of what lies ahead, in her Spring Address, scheduled for April 13 at 4 p.m. at Stephens Hall.

“Over the next seven to 10 years,” Schatzel said proudly, “the changes we will see will literally transform this university.”