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OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

President's Fall Address to the Campus Community

September 7, 2005

"So, what did you think about the news stories-the press clippings?" They brought two thoughts to my mind as I was considering what to say today: First Towson University 2010 is real and second you, all of you, are making it a reality. Every one of those slides provides part of what 2010 at Towson University will look like to our students and to us.

I don't know about you but when I see a "plan" like TU 2010 it appears abstract, a bit disengaged from our day-to-day lives, a vague glimpse of the future. These clippings tell us that TU 2010 is not abstract, it is real, and we are all living parts of it each day. TU 2010 is only 4+ years down the road!

I will begin with several important campus updates and a bit of what is ahead of us organized by our five TU 2010 Themes: Enrollment Size and Mix; Student Experience and Success; Resources for Success; Partnerships Philosophy; and Telling and Selling the Story. I will follow that with a brief snapshot of some of the major challenges before us over the next 4-5 years and what we are doing to address those challenges. Finally, I will close with a picture of where we are going, where we will be in 2010. Now, let's look at today:

Enrollment Size and Mix: Our planning tells us that we will grow by about 3,000 students between now and 2010. We have planned our growth and how we will make it happen. Our plan tells us we will grow by another 4,300 students between 2010 and 2015. That's an average increase of 600 students each year for the first five years and then 1,000 students each year for the following 5 years taking us from 18,000 students today to 21,000+ in 2010 and 25,000+ in 2015. We are on track to meet those demands and reach these goals. From Fall 04 to Fall of 05 we have experienced a growth of 350 students. We again set a new record with over 15,100 applications for the 3,700 slots available.

Student Experience and Success: Much has happened in this arena. Our Student Affairs team has launched several major initiatives aimed at engaging/involving more students with the campus. And, the Student Government Association and their leadership have been supportive of these efforts and have launched many of their own. The goal of improving the student experience on the campus is being strongly embraced. A Student Affairs Leadership Team has been formed as has a Council of Student Leaders, a leadership program (Leadershape) developed, TU Cares and New Student Orientation are being expanded and improved, and the idea of developing a belief in and commitment to civic engagement both while a student here and when one graduates is becoming a major tenet among the educational outcomes we want to achieve.

Resources for Success: We had a good budget year in Annapolis. We were provided, through the efforts of the Governor and Legislature and our Board and Chancellor, with a 5.7% overall increase in the USM budget. For Towson University that translated to about $9M in new dollars. Over half of that amount is used for increased compensation and benefits and the other half to begin to take the steps we need for our planned growth: $1.6M in new faculty lines, $500K to improve the salaries of graduate assistants, $500K for new space for the Mathematics Department, $500K for the Capital Campaign, $400K for nursing, and improved funding for marketing, utilities, maintenance, and financial aid.

As we looked at the enrollment growth models that the USM had developed, something interesting happened. The models…their models, not ours… made it clear that what we had been saying was true: The current mix of state funding and tuition/fee revenue is neither appropriate from a public policy perspective nor is it likely to be sustainable from a financial perspective. We will not be able to find more and more students who can handle the financial burden currently being placed on them. The USM financial models made the case for us. Now they know, what we have known. We cannot grow using the current model.

There has to be a re-balancing, shifting a bit more of the financial burden to the State and a bit less to the student. We are now working to formalize an agreement that will provide us with the finances we need to grow and to continue to mature, as part of that growth, as a more research intensive campus. From the latter perspective, we do quite well with our business operations but will have to continue to improve our efforts at garnering more extramural funds particularly through fundraising and increased activity in grants and contracts. Both of these are key components of TU 2010.

The Jess and Mildred Fisher College of Sciences is one major example of what needs to be done. We have our first named college. The $10.2M gift tied to this naming is a model for similar efforts in other colleges and similar efforts across the campus. I want to thank everyone in Development and CSM for their efforts related to this gift.

We also need more space. This fall we opened the Center for the Arts. We are progressing on the timetable for the construction of the new Childcare Building and the College of Liberal Arts Complex including the major infrastructure changes needed to handle the Complex and to get us ready for the full Master Plan development. The initial planning for a new Health Professions Building is also underway as are efforts related to increased parking and housing.

Partnerships Philosophy I am running out of time and space, so much is going on. Let me mention just a few successes under this theme:

--We have a wireless campus thanks to a partnership between Cisco and OTS; --We have been recertified as an NSA (National Security Agency) Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education. --Several other major initiatives involving DECO also came to fruition:

We began a feasibility study for a new business incubator in Baltimore County (with the Baltimore County Department of Economic Development); our Center for Geographic Information Systems has launched a region-wide Emergency Management Mapping Application (EMMA) which is helping address the homeland security needs of all of Maryland's Emergency Operation Centers; and the Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum continues to grow in size and stature;

--Award winning WTMD (one of Baltimore's Best) is now an official affiliate of National Public Radio. And, --We are working with Baltimore City, the Baltimore City Public Schools and the Cherry Hill Neighborhood Association on a major effort to improve the educational outcomes of children in that neighborhood; this effort is being led by the College of Education; -- We have agreed to work with the Hagerstown Higher Education Center and will be launching our Nursing Program at that site in the fall of 2006; --We are attempting to launch a new and innovative joint MBA with the University of Baltimore…we will make this happen!

There is a lot going on that links us to the world outside our campus borders. That outcome is core to the philosophy of Metropolitan Universities.

Telling and Selling the Story: We have been telling the Towson University story to anyone who will listen. We have even told it to a few who don't want to listen. It is paying off. We are now viewed as an institution that is involved, creative and entrepreneurial and on the move. We have only begun. Telling and selling our story is important to our future. I want you to know I am out there working, as are many of you. This initiative is a big part of what I do, so I will mention a few of the efforts I have been involved with. I have given speeches all over the region, for example the Greater Baltimore Committee Annual Meeting, Rotary Clubs, Harford County Chamber of Commerce, College Bound Foundation, commencement at Carroll Community College, and many others. Many of you on campus have similar lists. All of that telling is beginning to pay off; we are selling the TU story and people are listening and applauding. I have given testimony before the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate and before the Board of Regents and the Maryland Higher Education commission.

We are working more on the National level, where many of you serve as officers in professional groups. I'm also working on the National level for us. I was recently elected to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Board and appointed to the Board of the American Council on Education and serve as Vice President of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities. I also serve on the Board for the Colonial Athletic Conference, the NCAA Task Force on the future of Intercollegiate Athletics and the NCAA Division IAA/IAAA President's Advisory Committee on Athletics. I mention these as examples of how our story is being told and sold nationally. Each time I or you are at a meeting, it is Towson that is at that meeting. We all want the last word on their lips to be Towson. It isn't "Tow" son or "Townsen" anymore! Again, many others on the campus are telling our story in other important venues.

One of the most important efforts related to this theme will soon begin when we launch a year-long media and marketing campaign to carry the Towson University message and mission to the region. You will see Towson opening its doors to the world through TV, radio and billboards and our new "homepage". Our new web portal is on schedule to be launched by mid-Fall.

The news clippings and snapshots of initiatives you have been watching share a common factor, a common thread. The stories are all the result of our efforts, all of us, the people who comprise the Towson University community. The key tenet in the recent best selling book Good to Great centers on people. The author, Jim Collins, says the most important thing in ensuring the success of an organization is to have the "right people on the bus" with you. Towson University is fortunate to have many of the right people on the bus. I have or will mention some of you today. I wish I could mention all of you. If we are going to get done what needs to be done, we will need a bus, or several busses, full of the "right people". We need you to be one of them.

We have accomplished a great deal, yet there is always so much more to do. That is why it is so important to look backwards every so often to see what has been accomplished. There is always more to be done, more to be accomplished, but we can get from 2005 to 2010 if we all do our part.

Obviously we still have a lot of needs, some big and some small. What is changed at Towson is, we are not going to sit and complain any longer. We are looking at our needs, looking at our goals and… we are doing something about them! Let me mention a few of the big ones.

-- If we are going to grow at the pace I have described (600-1,000 students each year) we will need faculty. We just hired over 60 new tenure track faculty for this Fall. I just had dinner with those faculty and they will be wonderful additions to our family. Equally exciting is the fact that they represent the broad diversity that is the world: China, India, Vietnam, African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American, and, of course, male and female. We have an exciting future.

--We are also going to need space. Our capital projects are creative, aggressive and on target. We are doing something about that! Much progress is being made and space is being added to the campus: classrooms, laboratories, studios and clinics, offices, parking and housing. It is all coming together. I'm getting excited again.

--We have had serious deferred maintenance needs on the campus. I pleased to report that we will be spending almost $2M dollars this year to help meet those needs. I am committed to the "clean, safe, pretty and happy" campus. I hope you all are also. Together, we will do something about that need.

--Salaries have to be made more competitive. Thanks to the help of the State, the Chancellor and the Regents we have improved our salary competitiveness from a national perspective across the campus.

Yes, we have needs, but we are addressing them now and are planning on how to address them in the future. We will design and control our growth and future, we will not just let it happen.

Now, I want each of you to picture yourself relaxing and in a contemplative mood, sitting, walking, at the beach, in the mountains, at home, wherever. The question I want you to ask yourself today is "What can I do to address these needs? What can I do to move us closer to the kind of campus we say we want to be? What can I do to make Towson University 2010 a reality for our students and our entire community? How do I get engaged, get involved? How can I help make it happen?

Before you answer, let's take a moment and talk about communications across the campus. I am in my eleventh year as a college president, and my twenty-fifth as part of the "administration." Over the years I have seen dozens and dozens of initiatives looking at some aspect of how campuses function. One concern that always comes to the surface is the concept of communication. One hears statements such as; I don't know what is going on? I am not asked for my opinion? "They" don't ask what we need or want, "they" just do what they want! Even if they ask, they just do what they want to do anyway! Top administration doesn't know what is going on. Communication in my division is okay but I don't know what is happening in other divisions. I understand these statements and, in some ways, often agree with them but complaining alone does not help. We need to all work to better communicate with each other. A key to knowing is engagement and involvement. When we work, play, and spend time with each other, communication improves. Communication is a two-way street. The campus needs to communicate with its communities but the reverse is also true.

We have taken many steps to help keep the campus and broader community informed and to solicit their input. There is the Daily Digest, E-TU, Towson Magazine, periodic post card mailings on major happenings, and Towerlight. And, there is more coming. As mentioned earlier, we are revamping our "home page" to serve as one of the primary communication tools for the campus. The launch is scheduled for October. We are adding a TU 2010 hot button to E-TU to highlight a major step taken in addressing our action items each week. We just began a new, succinct, mailing (electronic and hard copy) titled UpTUDate highlighting the major happenings on the campus on a periodic basis. And, with regard to TU 2010 , as we promised, we will have our first annual "report card" on progress this November, which will be followed by three quarterly updates. That cycle will continue annually. Towson University is doing more and more to communicate with both its internal and external communities. Are you doing more and more? Read, learn, talk and share. Again, I say, we need you to be involved in the dialog, be engaged with the campus.

I will end with a view of what TU2010 will look like. What follows is the view we provided to the Board of Regents at their recent retreat on enrollment-our desired view of Towson's future. You will see that much stays the same but much also changes. What stays the same are the things that make Towson University such a special place. What changes, results from improvements in areas where we know work is needed.

Now let's stop at the year 2010. Towson University is a highly selective campus of 21,000 students located on just under 350 acres in the county seat of Baltimore County, MD with satellite locations in Baltimore City and several of the surrounding counties. Our campus has approximately 80% Maryland residents and 20% students from other states or countries. Degrees offered include the Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees with the majority of the graduate programs, which comprise approximately 20% of the enrollment, in applied, professional fields. The 25th/75th percentiles for the SAT of incoming Freshmen is in the 1050-1250 range and the average GPA is approximately 3.6. 90% of the students rank in the top half of their high school class, 80% in the top quarter and 25% in the top 10%. Fewer than 5% of our classes are classified as large classes and 80% of our classes fit the small size category. The undergraduate campus is 40% residential. We remain widely known for a focus on excellence in teaching. We have developed a strong program of applied research bringing in approximately $40M/year in extramural funds through grants and contracts with business and government and through fundraising efforts. The 6-year graduation rate is over 60%. The alumni giving rate is above 30%. The highly successful athletic program competes at the Division I level in 23 sports in the Colonial Athletic Association and many teams compete in postseason competition. The student-athlete graduation rate remains well above that of the student body as a whole.

We can apply the "good to great" title here as a metaphor of our path to 2010. We are a good campus, a very good campus and we are moving to become a great campus. We are planning our future, we are planning our growth, we are planning how we go from here to there and we are planning it in a way that is true to the beliefs and value system of our campus and the type of educational experience we want to provide to our students.

What you have seen and heard is just a part of the picture, but it gives us a flavor of what we have planned for our future. And, remember, our future is just around the corner. 2010 is on the horizon and we can already begin to see it. We are building on our strengths. High quality arts and sciences based education, real faculty in the classroom, small and interactive classes, a residential climate, a place where education and learning are at the core of all that we do. And, we are working on our weaknesses. We have a better defined external image, a more appropriate level of resources and a higher percentage of resources coming from extramural sources, less dependence on tuition revenue, more students and faculty/staff involved in the day-to-day life of the campus, an engaged community from both intra-campus and external perspectives.

We started today looking at press clippings of what has happened over the past academic year. Let's now take a look, as we did last year, at some of the press clippings we plan on seeing in 2010.

Become more and more involved, more engaged with the campus. Ask yourself where you can play a role, what you can do, where you should be involved and then take the steps necessary to make it happen. Towson University needs you.

Be part of Towson University 2010. Be part of the 2010 Plan. Be part of 2010, our future.

Thank you and have a great semester.