Convocation Remarks

by
Loyola University New Orleans President
Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Ph.D.
August 18, 2008

Across the United States, indeed around the world, colleges and universities are coming alive again. We gather in convocation to begin a new semester at Loyola and to renew the university. However, our renewal is not typical or ordinary as our city and region are also being renewed. The renewal of the university is happening because people—particularly faculty and staff—have worked very hard, in the midst of your own difficult circumstances, to help make this renewal possible. I am deeply grateful to everyone for their work, creativity, and ingenuity in helping Loyola face the challenges of the present and the future. Thank you. Without your hard work, creativity, dedication, and patience, we would not be in the strong position we are in today.

Today, I would like to recall, briefly, what we were able to accomplish last year, and set out some crucial tasks for this year.

I. Review of What We Have Done

1. Admissions:  Undergraduate admissions were my top priority last year. 
Last year, I presented to the Board of Trustees a three-year plan to rebuild undergraduate admissions. I believed that, using our business interruption settlement to offset losses, we could rebuild our undergraduate enrollment in terms of numbers, quality, and diversity in a three-year period. For this year we targeted an incoming first year class of 600 students  I am delighted to report that this year’s class is over 700 and the profile of the class is excellent.   We had an increase of more than 20 percent in undergraduate applications and we have an increase of 40 percent in students who enrolled. Thirty-seven percent of the class is students of color, the mean GPA for the class 3.74. Fifty percent come from states other than Louisiana and 30 percent are the first in their family to go to college. 

I am very grateful to our admissions office, led by Lori Zawistowski, for the excellent work they did this past year. I also want to thank our financial aid staff for working so hard with our admitted students to meet their financial need. I am also grateful to Terry Fisher and her marketing staff for all of the support they gave to our undergraduate admissions efforts. Our success in admissions was due to the hard work and collaboration of these different offices.

2. Searches and Leadership:
My second goal last year was to complete the searches for academic and university leadership. As you recall, last year we were involved in a number of searches. I am delighted that they have been successfully concluded. So, as we begin our new year, we welcome Bill Locander, dean of the College of Business, Luis Mirón, dean of the College of Social Sciences, and, Dr. Ann Cary,  director of our nursing program. In January, we will welcome Joann Moran Cruz as dean of the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences. As many of you know, she has already been at work here this summer and will continue working with us this fall before she actually moves to campus. We also completed our search for new vice president of enrollment management. We welcome Sal Liberto to this position and to Loyola. And, we completed a search for a new vice president for finance and administration, Jay Calamia. Jay’s move was a bit easier as he had only moved up one flight.

I am very grateful to everyone led the searches, Deans Brian Bromberger, Mary Lee Sweat,  Ed Kvet, Cissy Petty, Mary Oriol, and Bill Barnett. And I want to thank the many people who served on each of the committees and Lisa Alexander and Gail Howard who staffed the different searches. I am also grateful to Dr Walter Harris for his leadership of Academic Affairs through this time of reorganization. I want to thank again Larry Lorenz, Jerry Dautrieve, and Mary McCay, for their service, leadership, and generosity through this time of transition. Finally, I want to thank Ed Kvet for agreeing to serve as Provost. I look forward to his leadership of academic affairs and his work with the other vice presidents and offices of the university.

3. Finances:
As you know, we end our fiscal year on July 31. At this time, it is anticipated that the university will have a small surplus.

In regards to revenues, the university achieved a better-than-expected enrollment in summer classes taught here on campus, as well as in online courses. Our traditional summer school had a 15 percent increase in graduate credit hours and an approximate 33 percent increase in professional credit hours. The revenue produced in summer classes was significantly more than anticipated. We also had additional revenue realized due to better than expected revenue in auxiliary enterprises, interest earned on investments, gift income, and recoveries of direct and indirect cost.

The university expects to end the fiscal year with a surplus just under $90,000. This also means that we do not have to use any of the business interruption insurance to balance our budget this year.

4. Facilities:

This past year we began to address major facilities issues facing the university. As I have said in the past, we need, and are developing, a long-term facilities plan which will be completed this year. Nevertheless, we also have to live day-to-day in the short run. So we have begun to address serious issues of deferred maintenance as well as work to improve the quality of life and work for faculty and students. In the here and now, we need to have facilities to attract students and to support us in our work with them. We have been able to accomplish these renovations by a careful fiscal discipline within our capital budget not our operational budget.

We have just about completed a renovation of the Danna Student Center. We hope that this renovation will help the center truly become a living campus center for the university. We have also completed renovations of the admissions offices in Marquette. We have done mundane things like clean the exterior of the library. Soon, we will paint the exterior of Greenville Hall. We have also addressed a number of deferred maintenance issues. And, we have invested in our classrooms. We now have two classrooms in Bobet that are two state-of-the-art classrooms. My plan is to use these classrooms and get feedback from faculty and students before we begin a systematic renovation of all of our classrooms. We are redoing four studios in the Music/Communications building that will serve music industry studies, mass communication, and the Monk Institute. We have completed work on the renovation of our chemistry labs. We have created a new teaching and learning center in the library and a learning lab in the Danna Student Center. At this point, over 80 percent of our classrooms have been upgraded with presentation equipment.

I want to thank everyone who has helped in these projects. I especially want to thank Ann Moss and Paul Fleming for their work and leadership in getting things done. I also want to thank Kurt Birdwhistell for his tireless work on the chemistry lab project, Susan Brower for her work on instructional technology, and John Snyder for his work on the planning for the space in Music/Communications, and Cissy Petty for her energy and work on the renovation of the Danna Student Center.

5. Development:
This past fiscal year was another record year for our development efforts. We raised over $11,500,000 in gifts and pledges and our number of donors increased again this past year. This is excellent, but we need to do better if we are to realize our potential in philanthropy and our dreams for the university.

6. Board Reorganization:
This past spring our Board of Trustees went through a self-study with the Association of Governing Boards. The result of that study was as reorganization of the board and its committees. We now have seven board committees, as opposed to the 13 we had before. I believe this reorganization will allow a greater integration of knowledge and planning and allow the board to be strategic in its work.

7. Government Relations:
As I am sure you are all aware, indeed just this summer, Congress finished work on the Higher Education Act (HEA), which the President signed last week.   While there are many important parts to the HEA, one of the most important, for us, is the Education Disaster Loan Program. After nearly three years of lobbying our delegation and Congressional leaders, the Education Disaster Loan Program was included in the bill. Specifically, the legislation authorizes the Secretary of Education to establish a loan program that provides funds for long-term, low-interest guaranteed loans to institutions for losses incurred because of a federally declared disaster. Now that the mechanism is set up, we will work with the other New Orleans universities to have the program funded. I believe that this program will be important to us as we move into the future I want to congratulate and thank Mr. Tommy Screen, my assistant for government relations, for his tireless work on our behalf on this program. He has worked, with his peers from other New Orleans universities, for three years to make this program a reality.

8. Quality of life:
You recall that last year I said that we would be committed to looking for ways to improve the quality of life for faculty and staff. We were able to do a number of things. We implemented the memberships for the University Sports Complex. We established the dining room for faculty and staff. We also revised a number of policies to improve the quality of life. For example, we revised the Tuition Remission Policy that now allows staff members to take up to one course during working hours. We revised the Parental Leave Policy by reinstating a four-week paid leave for new parents of either gender upon birth, adoption, or placement of a foster child. We also improved the Vacation Policy and the Extended Sick Leave Policy. I want to thank Ross Matthews, our director of human resources; Bob Gerlich, S.J., the chair of the University Senate; and Bret Jacobs, the chair of the Staff Senate for their help and leadership in all these efforts.           

This year we will begin this year to develop and implement a plan to deal with salary compression issues. Also, I remain committed to finding ways to improve the quality of life for faculty and staff. Therefore, I would encourage people who have ideas or suggestions to bring them forward.

II. Looking Forward

We have achieved much. And, we have much to celebrate. We should take the time to acknowledge the work that has been done and to celebrate those people who made it a reality. But, our work is far from done. Our work to renew the university and the city will continue in the year ahead. 

In the year ahead, my own goals for this year are:

• Work with the Provost and Cabinet on refining the current strategic plan by the end of the year. This refinement will include key elements of academic planning, student affairs planning, and facilities planning. This work will involve very fundamental questions about the size and mix of our programs, graduate, undergraduate, and professional. This work will entail the development of a systematic plan for faculty hiring, salary compression, and a reexamination of faculty teaching loads. All of these questions are interrelated and I will delegate them to the provost, the vice presidents and leadership of the staff and faculty. My key responsibility will be to keep the conversation moving and see that it is done by the end of the year.

• A second goal for me is to work with the provost to keep the discussion of the Common Curriculum moving and move that conversation to completion.

• Fundraising has to be my top priority in the years ahead. We have ambitious goals and dreams for the university and they can only be realized by the infusion of new capital. We also know that we have untapped resources. We not only need the infusion of capital, but we need to build a culture of philanthropy among our alumni and our benefactors. For the year ahead, I want to see and increase of 15 percent in our fundraising.

• I will also continue my work on the Ethics Review Board for the city and as chair of the nominating committee for the State Ethics Board. Tomorrow, I will chair a meeting of the Nominating Committee for the State Board of Ethics. That meeting will take place here on campus. I hope that when we finish the meeting we will be able to send a pool of qualified nominees to the governor and the legislature so they can fill the State Ethics Board and it can resume its work.

III. Conclusion

Throughout my remarks, I have mentioned a few people by name to say thank you. There is always a risk that you will leave out someone. And I am sure I have made that mistake. But, I recall that for St. Ignatius, living with a spirit of gratitude was central. And, he insisted that we be concrete in naming our graces. Today, I have named just a few of our graces. It is a litany of gratitude:  Larry Lorenz, Jerry Deauterive, Mary McCay, Mary Lee Sweat, Cissy Petty, Terry Fisher, Brian Bromberger, Walter Harris, Mary Oriol, John Snyder, Jay Calamia, Bill Locander, Sal Liberto, Luis Mirón, Joann Moran Cruz, Ross Matthews, Paul Fleming, Ann Moss, Susan Brower, Lisa Alexander, Henry Munoz, Tommy Screen, Gail Howard, Kris LeLong, Bret Jacobs, Bob Gerlich, S.J., and Ed Kvet. If this were a litany, the response after each name would be “Thank you.”

Renewal is work. To achieve a renewed New Orleans and a renewed Loyola University, it will take focus, work, and dedication. The work of renewal will meet with frustration and it will test our patience, good will, and charity. But, I believe, it is work worth doing and, if done well, will lead to a better, more humane city and a stronger, better university. The cover story of the Sunday Magazine of The New York Times this past weekend was about public education in New Orleans. The subtitle of the story was “The most ambitious education laboratory of our time.” I think the story was only part right. Education is not the only story in New Orleans. The story is every aspect of life in this city: health care, government, the arts, law, housing, and business. New Orleans may be the largest and the most complex social laboratory in the United States. It is hard to imagine a better, more exciting place to be a university—a community of learners—than in New Orleans. 

Welcome to a new year in this challenging, exciting city!

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Updated September 24, 2008