President’s Opening Day Remarks

President’s Remarks
Opening Day Faculty Meeting
August 18, 2005

For as long as I have been making remarks at the opening faculty meeting, I have wondered whether it is such a good idea to be last on the agenda. You have had a full morning already and it is always a challenge to follow folks like Alice Sagehorn and Bob Ratzlaff.

But because this is perhaps the only time during the year that all of you will be together at the same time, there are just a few things I want to share with you.

First, I want all of you here this morning to share the optimism and excitement that I feel about the coming year. This past year was great. Faculty excelled in research, teaching and service. A number of our students earned regional and national attention in their fields of study. Graduates got jobs in an improving economy and enrollment continued to be healthy. Although there will be challenges, we expect to sustain that positive momentum this year. I believe this is going to be a very good year for Pittsburg State University.

We will be working on some exciting projects in the months ahead.

• We will continue to aggressively pursue the $120 million Campaign for Pittsburg State University, through which we will continue to increase support for student scholarships, faculty development, and academic programs.
• We expect to make significant progress on several bricks-and-mortar projects, including the student recreation center/classroom/armory, the student health center, the Kansas Polymer Research Center and the stadium improvements.
• And we will soon receive the draft report of the 21st Century Task Force, which began its work last February.

As you may remember, I asked this task force, which is under the leadership of Dr. Steve Scott and Dr. Jennifer Schmidt, to answer three important questions:

• First, What currently distinguishes Pittsburg State University from other four-year institutions?
• Second, What should Pittsburg State University strive to become in the future? In essence, what should our vision be?
• And third, How do we reach this vision?

You can read more about the task force and its work on the university Web site, but you should know that the members of the task force have taken their work very seriously and have been diligent. They conducted an exhaustive review of campus planning and other documents and have spoken with more than 340 individuals representing just about every facet of the PSU campus and off-campus community.

I have intentionally not seen any of the draft language of the report and you and I will receive this draft at the same time next month. After you have seen the draft and had an opportunity to comment to the task force, they will finalize the report.

While this important report may not contain the definitive answers to all of the questions we are asking of ourselves, it should help focus the discussion in a way that will help us chart a clear course for the future of Pittsburg State University.

Other issues of importance this year will be:

• The continuing tension between rising costs and a limited state budget
• The Board of Regents move to link performance and funding
• Discussions with classified employees about their future in the state’s classified system
• And the possibility of offering tuition waivers for the spouses and children of university employees.

Conclusion

In addition to sharing with you my optimism for the coming year, I want to tell you something about Pittsburg State University. I say this with deep conviction: this is a special place and this is a special time. Those of you who have been a member of the Pittsburg State family for some time already know this. I hope those of you who are joining us for the first time today have already sensed it. And I hope that you feel, as I do, that we are richly blessed to be part of this great enterprise that is higher education. The love of learning; the genuine caring for students; the respect we have for each other; are all part of the fabric and life of Pittsburg State University. It is our heritage and I believe it is our future.

If I were to offer any advice to the new faculty, it would be something along the lines of the advice that the cowboy philosopher Will Rogers once offered: If you want to be successful, know what you are doing, love what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing. I can’t think of a better example of the proof of that philosophy than Dr. Robert Ratzlaff, who begins his 40th year of service to Pittsburg State. There was never a question that Bob Ratzlaff knew what he was doing, whether it was in the classroom teaching American History, or as an administrator working with the faculty. There was never a question that Bob Ratzlaff loved what he was doing. And there was never a question that Bob Ratzlaff believed in Pittsburg State, its students, and its faculty. If the same can be said of each of us, then we, our students and our university will surely be successful.

Over the next several months we’ll begin the process of searching for a new vice president for academic affairs. This will not be easy, because the bar has been set pretty high. I have enlisted Dr. Orville Brill to lead that search and he has graciously agreed to do so. Bob, we look forward to working with you this coming year and appreciate all you have done for Pittsburg State University.

And now we begin the 103rd academic year at Pittsburg State University. To all of you, old friends and new, I give my personal best wishes for a great academic year!