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| President Caret's installation |
Towson University is a place of possibility. Look to the past, look at the present, look to the future, and you will see Towson constantly evolving - evolving as a place of possibility for professional and personal growth - and as a place of possibility for Maryland and its citizens.
Years ago (1974), when I was working as a visiting assistant professor in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at Towson, I was given my first research student. His name was Larry, he was from Baltimore, and like many of our students, was the first one in his family to attend college. And also, like many of our students, he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do. He was thinking about teaching science in elementary school.
Well Larry ended up in my lab, working on organosulfur chemistry - I won't go into the details -and Larry became hooked on science. He graduated and went on to dental school.
While attending dental school, he worked during the summers to improve the dental health of Native Americans on reservations in Arizona. But for Larry that wasn't enough. He soon went on to medical school and received a degree in osteopathic medicine. I visited Larry and his family about a year ago and he is still volunteering his time and skills to improve the lives of Native Americans in Arizona.
For Larry, Towson University was the place where his life took on new possibilities. Because of Towson, now Larry creates possibilities for the patients he sees each day. That's the impact that we have as faculty and staff members - to take our students to another level of possibilities.
Let me tell you a story that is similar but provides an even broader view of the impact our institutions have. I was at a conference co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation at which there were approximately 400 participants, all of whom had a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent degree. The keynote speaker was the assistant director of the National Science Foundation, a colleague and a chemist, by the way. He began the speech with a question.
"How many of you achieved what you have achieved so far, worked for the degree you finally received and chose your field of study, because you wanted to help economic development in your state?"
As I recall, about three of the participants put up their hands, and I believe they had degrees in finance, accounting, or economics - or similar fields. He followed with a similar question asking how many people were where they were today because they wanted to make the world a better place. This time perhaps 12 hands went up from among the philosophy, sociology, social work, and theology majors - and a few others.
Finally he asked the question, "How many of you are where you are today because you met the right faculty member at the right moment in your life?" All 400 hands in the room went up.
I have been at other events since that one approximately 30 years ago. I have heard similar questions, and the results are always the same. Our institutions have a major impact on the lives of the people who pass through our doors - and, our faculty and staff are the primary influences in that impact.
CREATING THE VISION: THE FUTURE OF TOWSON UNIVERSITY
Most of you know about Towson University today.
- Our enrollment is 17,200+ and growing.
- We had 14,000 applicants for 3,200 openings for new students this fall.
- Our incoming freshman class for Fall 2003 had an average GPA of 3.6 (as measured on a true 4.0 scale) and a mean SAT of about 1100.
- We have 55,000 alumni in Maryland, and, as has always been the case, most of our alumni - an estimated 80 percent or so of each graduating class - work in Maryland.
That's part of the Towson picture today.
In my Fall Address, I painted a picture of what Towson could look like five or 10 years from now. We will have grown to 20,000+ students, will have become more active in research, receiving more of our support from grants and contracts, and will have developed new programs to meet new needs - ranging from the bachelor of technical/professional studies to applied doctorates. Just as we've always done, we'll continue to evolve programs to meet the needs of society - to produce the work force needed to drive the state.
With the implementation of our new campus facility master plan, many of Towson's buildings will be either renovated or replaced. The campus will be an even greener and friendlier place for pedestrians and cyclists - I like to say, a "clean, safe, pretty, happy" campus. And, although more students will live on campus, many of those students will participate in ways of learning that don't include the traditional classroom.
Now I want to introduce you to another Towson student. Instead of Larry, let's call our student "Marie." She's a student in one of our applied doctoral programs, but the year is 2053. That's right - 2053. We know the present, we have a glimpse of the near future, and now I want you to think about the world Marie lives in and the campus she attends 50 years from now.
This January, we will graduate our 100,000th student and in the spring, our first doctoral candidate. If we continue to grow at the nearly two percent rate of growth of the last 10 years, by 2053, Towson University will have graduated 342,000+ students.
In education, if we just keep pace with current trends, by 2053 Towson University will graduate 25,000 to 30,000 more classroom teachers. If we keep pace with the demand for health professionals, we will graduate tens of thousands of nurses, audiologists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists over that time span.
EMBRACING CHANGE
Higher education, 2053-style, will be determined by forces that are already affecting every institution today:
- Unprecedented and growing enrollments;
- Eroding state support;
- Increased tuition costs;
- The expanding role of technology;
- Quantum leaps/growth in diversity;
- Competition from the for-profit sector;
And, perhaps the most far-reaching change - a tectonic shift in approach - will be how learning is measured. Towson began this leap about 15 years ago and we are still learning how to do it. No longer will the measurement of learning be based solely on time spent on task, but it will be based on the outcomes - what is learned - and the ability of students to demonstrate that learning.
Towson University will continue to be an important force in Maryland higher education if we just keep pace with this change. But let's think about our student Marie. What will Marie's world look like if we don't just keep pace with change. What will Marie's world look like if we drive the change - if we become the change that re-creates Towson as a dynamic force in Maryland higher education?
A NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS…BUT ENDURING EDUCATIONAL VALUES
A new way of doing business doesn't mean that our core values will change, the values that Towson embodies: our strength as a teaching institution, our merit as a great educational value in Maryland, and, perhaps most importantly, our commitment to the arts and sciences and the education and enrichment of our students. Our mission is to continue to create analytical readers, writers and thinkers - future leaders.
An integral part of that mission is providing access and a high-quality education to all students who qualify. We must work much more closely with our community - Baltimore City, Baltimore County and the state - to ensure that more students do qualify, have equal chances and opportunities, and have the support to be successful.
PROGRESS THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS: MARYLAND'S METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
How will we create change? We've already begun. By defining ourselves as "Maryland's Metropolitan University." Metropolitan Universities are institutions that have a primary emphasis on being responsive to the needs of their communities.
What does that mean?
It means taking our strengths - the things we do well - out into the "real world" through partnerships. We cannot be insular and we cannot be stagnant - Towson University must be dynamic, interactive and reaching out to our communities. Let me give you some examples:
- GBMC partners with our Nursing Department to help working nurses gain certification and advanced skills on site.
- Our Wellness Clinic is an innovative partnership with St. Joseph Medical Center that helps individuals improve their quality of life and reduces their risk of heart disease.
- Sheppard Pratt Hospital provides numerous internship opportunities for our students in psychology.
- Our College of Education's Professional Development School (PDS) program is a national model. Through it we partner with more than 80 public schools in 11 Maryland school districts, placing our faculty and students in real classrooms in partnership with the classroom teachers and administrators at those schools.
- Through Project Teamwork, our student-athletes tutor Baltimore high school students in science and mathematics.
- Towson students and faculty members work with the Baltimore Urban Debate League to give disadvantaged city youth the chance to explore a different way of learning through preparation and participation in highly spirited competitions.
- The Maryland Council on Economic Education is working to educate Maryland schoolchildren about economics and, through the work of approximately 45,000 teachers, they have reached nearly 2.9 million Maryland schoolchildren since 1953.
- Our Center for Applied Information and Technology (CAIT) has been named as a "National Center of Academic Excellence in IT and Assurance" by the National Security Agency.
- Our Regional and Economics Studies Institute (R-E-S-I) brings in $12-15 million in grants and contracts by providing comprehensive services to Maryland decision-makers, including econometric modeling and forecasting, technology solutions, and consulting in organization and management, human services and policy analysis.
- The Center for Geographic Information Sciences provides GIS and related geospatial services to government agencies and businesses, such as NASA and Raytheon.
These examples are only a small selection of Towson University partnerships today. Through these and many new partnerships we help address complex problems and better educate our students while building a better community.
CREATING THE VISION FOR 2053
Remember that student Marie that we talked about - Marie, the student walking across campus in 2053? Today, we are creating the environment - academic, practical and social - in which Marie will learn. The decisions we make - and the change that we enact today will create the Towson of 50 years from now.
Back to Marie! We find her sitting in the new, modern information hub of the campus and community (once called the library). There are books, journals and periodicals everywhere, but those making use of the facility are also using their "PDA 2053" and the super high-speed wireless connection that is available to them, not only throughout the building, but across the campus and the community.
Marie downloads her class work, gets her daily advising from her faculty, chats with her faculty and friends, pulls in her e-mail, personal entertainment, and news for the day (all set up through her personal Web portal), and departs for her next class. She jumps on her model "2000+ Segway" and jets over to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center for her class on Human Cloning and Ethics - it's a requirement for the major in philosophy.
The campus and community are filled with green spaces, criss-crossed with walking and people-movement trails, which are filled with all kinds of individual transportation vehicles.
Marie has chosen to live on campus in the highly technologically enhanced graduate student housing. Her lights, her temperature settings, her mood music and all utilities are controlled by a central knowledge center that she can program easily by using her PDA.
Marie can also tie into her classroom electronically, but today she would like to be part of a communal atmosphere. She's going to visit one of the learning pods where, with the help of a faculty guide, Marie will be working with her research team on today's multidisciplinary research question. There they will be accessing information on the "Web" and talking in real time with experts around the globe. In 2053, teamwork, experiential learning, and multidisciplinary approaches to problem solving are all part of the norm.
Marie isn't sure what she wants to be yet, but she is tending toward becoming a "biochemical ethicist." The program requires a double major in biochemistry and philosophy, along with an extremely strong background in applied information technology. Most of the professions (and the professors) in 2053 are multifaceted and multidisciplinary.
Just as Marie is able to interact with the institution itself and her faculty, the faculty are able to interact with her. And, Marie's degree will be based on what she has learned, not how quickly she has learned it. In fact, she's finishing her bachelor's in three years and hopes to finish her doctorate in just three more years. The ability to take multiple courses in parallel timelines, with a variety of student and faculty teams as guides, accelerates her ability to move forward and provides a synergy to the learning environment.
That is just a small view of what might be at Towson University in 2053. I know that much of what will be here in 2053 is well beyond our imaginations, but we must build the framework for those students and for that institution today.
Take a moment to reflect back 50 years to 1953 (I recall the first TV in my home!) and then begin to move forward to today and consider the change that has occurred. With technology changing almost exponentially, one can only begin to imagine the change that the next 50 years will bring.
Just 20 years ago I was presenting, with a couple of colleagues, the first administrative seminar here at Towson on the use of technology in the office and the classroom. We were just beginning to use the World Wide Web, and, after typing in perhaps 100 keystrokes, I was able to link our group in the University Union at Towson to a library at the University of Colorado. No browsers, no graphics, no shortcuts, no search engines - just lots and lots of keystrokes to get to very little information.
In that seminar, we talked about the dream of sitting in a field and linking into that same library using very sophisticated tools. Twenty years later we can do that at Starbucks, at the airport, in the mall, at home, at school, virtually everywhere. Dreams do become reality. Change is upon us.
Back to the present, what are some of the things we need to do today to get ready for the future?
I see very strong partnerships and joint programs with many of our brother and sister institutions. I have already had conversations with my colleagues at College Park, Morgan State, and the University of Baltimore. I have meetings scheduled with my colleagues at Coppin State and University College and I will meet with others in the University System and the Community College sector as quickly as possible. I foresee an array of 2+2, 2+2+2, 3+2, 3+2+2 programs to meet the needs of 2053. We must approach these needs from a societal perspective (What does society need? What do our students need?) and not just the perspective of each, individual institution. We must work more closely together.
I see courses that use electronic learning through the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, St. Joseph Medical Center, and Sheppard Pratt Hospital (the "Towson Four") to provide a much broader pipeline of health professions. I envision much more aggressive approaches to addressing societal problems, including those of Baltimore City and the region. We must look at new and creative ways to work together with K-18, government, business, and nonprofits to transform how we teach, how we learn and how we progress.
Fifty years from now, universities will still exist as centers of learning and socialization for our young adults. Universities will retain their importance as places for instilling the core values necessary to advance the technical, social, political and cultural aspects of society.
In 2053, Towson University will remain an institution with the same core values we will have embraced for 187 years. There will be new buildings, new concepts, new courses, but Stephens Hall will still stand in 2053 as the physical link to our educational heritage. And, the faculty and staff will still be taking our students to new levels of possibilities. We will still have a major impact on the lives of those who pass through our doors. And they in turn will continue to have a major impact on their communities and their society.
I came back to do my part in driving that change. I came back to ensure that this dynamic, thriving campus remains engaged with its community as it works for better education for all Maryland citizens.
I invite you all to join with me in the pursuit of that goal.
But Towson University will also be an institution without walls, a university that has evolved in many, many ways, but it will also be an institution that remains at its heart, "Maryland's Metropolitan University."
In conclusion, I would like to thank my wife Liz for her support, flexibility and encouragement, my family for their understanding and support, my friends and colleagues who convinced me this was the right place for me to be today, and the Board of Regents for their belief in me. I would also like to thank the faculty, staff and students of Towson University for your inspiration in helping to make my possibilities into realities.
Let me end by paraphrasing a quote that means a great deal to me. It is from the inaugural of a friend and peer:
"I am honored and humbled to be the next link in the long chain of this university's history, and the 11 presidents who have come before me. I accept this medallion as a symbol of our mutual faith in the future of Towson University."
Thank you.
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Last Updated: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 | |
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