Founders Day Convocation 2007 
The Creighton Moment -- "It Is Up To Us" 

 

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining me for this annual Convocation. This week we recall the 100th anniversary of the death of Count John Creighton, founder of the Medical School and St. Joseph’s Hospital, and the architect of the Creighton of today. Congratulations to our honorees; and a warm welcome to their families and friends.

 

Presently I am reading The Emperor’s Handbook by Marcus Aurelius the 2nd century Roman emperor. Upon ascending the throne he went to the oracle at Caieta for guidance. The seer told the emperor, by way of guidance for his new enterprise: “It is up to you.” In what follows, I say to you my colleagues and partners, the future of Creighton is “up to you/us."

 

The building blocks are in place to craft Creighton’s future. Since 2001 we have:

 

• Enlarged the campus footprint by 30 acres;

• Built the Hixson-Lied and upgraded the Rigge and Criss teaching and research space;

• Occupied Opus and Davis town homes;

• Enjoy new parking garages, Morrison Stadium, enhanced landscaping and a renovated central mall;

• Experienced the technology enhancements to the Boyne, Administration and Ahmanson Law buildings;

• And as I speak, we are lovingly restoring the spiritual center of this campus – St. John’s.

 

Enrollment across all of the University’s programs is positive in both quality and quantity. In fall '06 we had the largest enrollment ever, just under 7,000; an increase of 4.4%. We achieved that while taking in fewer first-year students; hence the growth was in positive retention, growth in new graduate programs and in University College. Enrollment for this spring semester, too, is a historic high. As a tuition-dependent institution, enrollment is an important aspect of our fiscal wellness and of our future.

 

Our financial picture continues to be positive with end of year budgets in the black. The endowment has grown to over $425 million; we continue to address deferred maintenance; and as we strive to be an Employer of Choice, we are addressing compensation and benefits benchmarks.

 

On the co-curricular front, we thrive. Student clubs and organizations, community service and immersion programs test the generosity and the leadership skills of students and staff alike. The performance of our student-athletes, on and off the court and field, is impressive and serves Creighton very well.

 

Of course, the central building block of the future, as in the past, remains our identity as a Catholic university with a clearly articulated Jesuit mission. Creighton remains deliberately Catholic, even amidst a shifting and challenging landscape. As Archbishop Michael Miller noted last September, "Creighton’s service to the local church and its bishop is distinct among America’s 220 Catholic universities," and our spirit of celebration gives a “strong witness to Creighton as a Catholic university."

 

For the past 128 years, Creighton has realized that there is no Catholic identity apart from affiliation with and service to the local church. With that criterion actively in play, we are, indeed, the region’s premiere Catholic university.

 

With this as prelude, are we ready to build a promising future? Do you, like me, believe this to be the Creighton Moment?  If so, "It is up to us."

 

To be sure amidst this tangible progress and evident success, there are challenges, formidable obstacles, and unforeseen setbacks, but there are also new opportunities and great possibilities.

 

In what follows I will briefly reference our self-study to the Higher Learning Commission, focus on areas of progress that present both challenges and opportunities, and end with some comments on new directions and some announcements!

 

Every ten years we are visited by an accreditation review team representing the Higher Learning Commission for the North Central Association. As you know, a team will be visiting us this coming March 11 - 14. Over the past two years, we have worked hard on our accreditation self-study process. This has been a collective effort with hundreds of our faculty, staff, and students contributing to the process and the self-study report. While I thank Prof. Wiseman and her team, I also want to thank all of you for your contributions to this effort.

 

Our current self-study has proven to be a useful self-reflective process. Overall, it documents the tremendous strength of our people, programs, and infrastructure. We can be very proud of what we have accomplished and the quality of our teaching, scholarship, and service. While the self-study identified a number of relatively minor areas for improvement, we will await the Commission’s findings.

 

ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES

 

Having gone through the self-study process and other area accreditation preparations, the University has a pretty good idea where we stand, where our strengths and weaknesses reside and a sense of how to advance the institution.

 

Among the issues facing Creighton, I have selected seven to illustrate the richness of both the challenges and the opportunities. We begin with students, who sit at the heart of this educational enterprise; for “Creighton exists for students and for learning."

 

Our students have never been more numerous or better prepared than today. Their very presence, their behavior, engagement and generosity of commitment demand our attention.

 

As we become clearer about our mission and the identity of the University, as Catholic and Jesuit, new and continuing student expectations have been raised. Students know why they came to Creighton and they like what they have found. Students are not only eager to do service, they are demanding opportunities to reflect upon the meaning of that service; to reflect on the values and ideals that we hold most dear, our sense of who we are and the meaning and purpose of life … and of our connectedness.

 

As students see us invest in their learning and experience life in the city and the world, they look to us for guidance and leadership in addressing the demands of working for justice and bringing peace to society.

 

A majority of today’s students (3-in-5) place a premium on their spiritual development and many of them hope – indeed, expect – that the college experience will support them in their spiritual quest.

 

It is up to us together to do even better what we do so well now. It is up to us to respond to the expectations of students stretched by the mission and our service of it, for and with them. It is up to us to live the vision Creighton has to offer. We cannot be timid in being who we espouse to be! Our students expect nothing less!

 

Unlike any other time in our history, the students coming to us live and learn in completely different ways than any of us can truly comprehend. They have wires running through their veins; they grew up on video games and the web. Our students enjoy learning through multimedia and social networking; they expect to review and re-experience lectures, class notes, and presentations through their i-pod or multimedia device. They would rather instant message or text message than use e-mail. If we expect to stay student-centered we must be willing to learn how these students communicate and learn.

 

This remains a wake-up call for faculty and staff alike, across the nation as well as at Creighton. I encourage members of the Creighton community to use our information technology training services team to learn new, and maximize existing, applications. The E-Fellows program remains a great resource for faculty development.

 

A third thing to note about today’s students is their need for attention/supervision. During high school years, students are kept busy and even ‘over scheduled,’ and a variety of issues are suppressed until the students leave the nest. Consequently it becomes the responsibility of the University to keep the student over-scheduled or deal with the implications--drug and alcohol use, depression, suicidal tendencies or sexual activities. Parent demands for academic support services, to depression interventions, to fun and games, continue to mount.

 

As a residential campus our resources are stretched to meet these escalating needs and will remain so into the foreseeable future. We remain committed to do the best we can to meet these needs. But we must approach today’s students with our eyes and hearts open! They come to us with baggage; we have to help them carefully unpack their bags!

 

Speaking of students, let’s look at access and affordability, as a second opportunity. Creighton has a healthy understanding of its mission to balance the use of financial aid and to compete for the very best students. We know a socio-economically diverse student community of hard-working, high achievers with an orientation toward service, leadership and professionalism provides a vibrant learning experience. This is Creighton today!

 

Creighton’s commitment and success in enrolling students who come from first-generation or lower-income households is much higher than nearly all other universities rated in the nation’s top 150 institutions. We enroll as many students with household incomes below $50,000 as we do with incomes above $200,000. We remain committed to our historic mission of educating first-generation college students.

 

The demographics of this country indicate that over the next decade, many more students from lower-income households will seek a college education. While we already award scholarships and need based aid to over 87% of our students, we must grow our endowment to support these students, mindful of their debt load and the families’ financial capabilities. This is one of the top priorities for Creighton’s continued growth.

 

At the same time, as optimistic as I am about future enrollment, especially in light of our present application pool, I am aware of our need for added or improved housing for our first-year students; hence freshman housing is an area of need and opportunity.

 

A third issue relates to our financial wellness and the way we do our business. Budgets are in the black, the endowment is growing and the campaign’s progress is promising. A number of efforts are under way to enhance our working environment. The benefits enrollment and administration functions were recently converted to an on-line process. Work continues on developing and implementing market-based compensation programs, revising the performance evaluation process, enhancing employee training and development, redesigning the workplace conflict resolution process and improving retirement plan administration.

 

These efforts are designed to provide more timely, efficient and effective service for employee benefits, improve employee development and strengthen our compensation and benefits programs.

 

These are ambitious and challenging initiatives that will require a number of changes in how we do business. The wide ranging nature of the areas being touched means that most everyone will be impacted in one way or another.

 

As is always the case, changing long-standing practices is uncomfortable at best. It will take hard work and cooperation on everyone’s part to successfully accomplish these objectives, but once the transition is complete, we can look forward to significant enhancements to our working environment.

 

On the technology front security is an issue across the country. Creighton is no different. We must stay vigilant and mindful as we expand our use of technology in this highly mobile society. Never before have we seen data and information flow faster than it does today. Never before have we seen so many colleges, universities, banks and industries under attack from outside forces with malicious intent. Never before have the tools and information been so easily accessible to assist these hackers to accomplish their goal.

 

Over the past year, through the efforts of the Secure It campaign, we have educated our campus on the need to remain vigilant in protecting our data. We have put significant resources into protecting our data center. We have promoted how to better protect yourself, each other, and Creighton through secure passwords and we have protected our e-mail system with encryption that not only helps our health sciences but everyone on campus. I share these with you today so that you know we are continuing to address this ongoing threat. In the coming year, we will continue to apply resources that protect and secure our files and communications. All of us play a vital role in helping to secure our data and intellectual capital.

 

Let’s now turn to graduate education. This is a topic not widely discussed on this campus, but it will be hence forth! In graduate education we have witnessed an extremely successful start for the Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, a multidisciplinary master’s of science program that has exceeded enrollment projections by threefold. Our Physics Department was recognized in the American Institute of Physics as one of the top 16 master’s granting physics departments in the country. The new MBA in financial analysis is thriving!

 

American graduate education is projected to experience significant enrollment growth over the next ten years. It is predicted that total enrollment of students in master’s and doctoral programs will rise 19%. Much of this increase will come from women, who are expected to make up 62% of all graduate students in the next decade. This projected growth is coupled with a more challenging picture of student financing of graduate education.

 

As our world becomes flatter we are experiencing increased complexity in societal problems and an increasing need for graduate education. Creighton as a complex, yet relatively small institution, has the potential to easily cross disciplinary boundaries and generate creative multidisciplinary programs to address some of these needs. I look to our Graduate Dean’s leadership in nurturing the present and future growth of our graduate programs; I am especially interested in growth!

 

An added opportunity with expanded graduate programs resides in Creighton’s mission-explicit approach to education. Can we replicate, at the graduate level, the experience of the undergraduate core curriculum, which embodies the values that Creighton cherishes and wishes to hand on as an intellectual community in service to the broader community?

 

It is my contention that all graduate and professional students should leave Creighton with some knowledge of the Jesuit/Catholic intellectual and spiritual tradition. So as we begin in earnest a reinvention of our graduate programs, we are on the cusp of a new beginning, that if truly mission driven, will be a new departure in graduate education at a Jesuit university … anywhere!

 

A sixth area is the health science schools, which continue their focus on enhancing their educational programs. Building on the successful pharmacy on-line initiatives, the School of Nursing implemented the on-line nursing education program in January 2007. This program presents the RN-BSN curriculum in a web-centered format, which provides the flexibility and convenience requested by practicing registered nurses.

 

The School of Dentistry has been engaged in a comprehensive planning process resulting in the Strategic Pathways Initiative. Components of the initiative include pedagogy, curriculum, research, outreach and enrollment projections. Each of the eight pathways is congruent with Creighton’s Strategic Plan 125 and will enhance the role of the Dental School within the University.

 

Creighton University Medical Center and the University have jointly developed the Creighton First Program to facilitate health promotion and to make the Creighton family aware of the excellent clinical programs and health care professionals we have within the health sciences. To date, three Creighton First Programs have been offered on topics of sleep, smoking cessation and weight management. They have been very successful!

 

The health sciences have their challenges, of course, including student debt, and the need for facilities to support growth in the education, research and clinical missions; as well as program design. To that end the School of Medicine now podcasts first- and second-year lectures and has added clerkship opportunities and electives at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. And Pharmacy is utilizing its distance pathway to engage students in rural Nebraska, hoping they will stay in those needy areas. There remains an ongoing need for technology enhancement in support of the clinical, research and educational mission.

 

This last focus, I suggest, contains great opportunities – namely our present Willing to Lead campaign, officially launched in December 2005. I am pleased to note that in an increasingly difficult climate for philanthropy (everyone is in campaign mode) we are making steady progress. We have raised close to $300 million or 83% of goal with 22 months to go!

 

Some results are evident, others are not. For example, the Hixson-Lied Science Building and the Rigge-Criss renovations represent $56 million investment in students and faculty alike; the east campus expansion with the Morrison Stadium, Opus Hall, Davis Square and the Living Learning Center, all have immediate impact on the quality of life for students, and the renovated central mall benefits the entire Creighton community … and our visitors.

 

Ten newly endowed chairs and three endowed professorships are directly benefiting faculty and departments. Contributions for scholarships and program support are evident in the growth of our endowment and the payout to underwrite financial aid. The impact of this campaign is beginning to be felt.

 

It should be cautioned that the distribution of the monies does not always coincide with the campaign priorities. Some targets are more popular than others, thus the need of describing the campaign in a more holistic manner: how targeted areas intersect with each other.

 

Another dimension of “The Willing to Lead” campaign yet to be activated is the invitation to faculty and staff to participate. You are a vital part of the institution, your participation reflects and echoes to our donors your loyalty and support. That is why we will shoot for a 100% participation of faculty and staff in this campaign. Regardless of the amount, there is a place for each of you.

 

A final note on the campaign is the configuration and changing culture of the University Relations division; ours is a new and highly talented team. What they lack in institutional memory and networking is compensated by their skill sets, experience and passion for the Creighton cause. We have ambitious goals, driven by a compelling vision. They are finding that the graduates and friends of the University are connecting with that vision by supporting our cause of refounding the University and repositioning Creighton in Omaha and well beyond Nebraska’s borders.

 

THE NEXT LEVEL!

 

Having reviewed the building blocks for a solid future and some points of progress with their attendant opportunities, lets end on a lighter note.

 

The trafficking in endowed chairs is brisk: In this spring semester, we will see the announcement or inauguration of four newly endowed chairs:

 

• The Union Pacific Chair in Accountancy will be inaugurated in May.

• The Criss/Beirne Chair in Nursing will be inaugurated in late spring. This is the first chair in the School of Nursing.

• The Anna and Don Waite Chair for Visiting Jesuit Scholars; fully funded last Friday; it will be activated in the 07-08 academic year.

• And an Endowed Chair In Pharmaceutics is the gift of an anonymous donor, activation date pending.

 

Now if that is not enough to get your juices running, there is going to be some new signage on campus as buildings are built and others renamed.

 

• On Thursday, I will ask the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors to allow me to rename the Administration Building to the “Creighton Building” or "Creighton Hall.”

• While the Humanities Building will retain its name, the moniker “Dowling Hall” will be affixed to it, thus welcoming back a familiar name from times past. Father Michael Dowling is credited for saving and reinventing Creighton during the challenging days of the early decades of the last century. We owe a great debt to him at the beginning of the 21st century.

• And the newly secured O’Keefe Building at 16th and Webster will proudly wear the name of the Wareham Building, honoring the two founderesses of the University and Medical Center-Mary Lucretia and Sarah Emily Wareham Creighton. This high visibility building will also pay tribute to the contributions of the many women who have made Creighton the successful institution it is today.

• The present Wareham Building will be rechristened as the Schneider Building, honoring interim president Fr. Clem Schneider, S.J., who guided the University after the untimely death of Father Harry Linn in 1969.

 

Now it gives me great personal pleasure to make the next announcement. The anonymous site of the Living Learning facility will finally get a name. Thanks to the benefaction of Mike Harper, CEO Emeritus of RJR Nabisco and ConAgra Foods, a long serving member of the Creighton board, and the Harper Family Foundation, the new facility will be christened the “Mike and Josie Harper Center for Student Life and Learning.”

 

I end with these added announcements:

 

• It is my intent to appoint a Blue Ribbon Committee, under the direction of Dr. Jensen, to fully explore the opportunities for program expansion at the graduate and doctoral level.

• I will also empanel a committee to evaluate cross-campus communications and provide reasonable solutions with time lines for implementation.

• I also publicly affirm the NCAA’s “Academic Progress Towards Graduation Program" as well as the NCAA’s newest guidelines for fiscal integrity, transparency and accountability in Division I athletics.  

• Also with the assistance of Dr. Neil Norton, President of the Faculty, I am inaugurating twice monthly lunch meetings with faculty from across the University’s programs. This effort will mirror my very successful weekly breakfasts with students, which I have held for 17 years and continue to find very informative and gratifying, not to say challenging.

• Finally, I want to reassure you that Creighton is participating in all of the redevelopment projects taking place around us. We are partners in Destination Mid-town, the North Downtown Initiative, and the newest study for the economic and cultural redevelopment of North Omaha. We are engaged in conversation with all sectors.

 

Let me conclude by thanking you and your colleagues for what you do on a daily basis to make Creighton the university it is. I also note that I very much enjoy working with you and being at the helm of Creighton.

 

The more time I spend on this campus, the more I realize that there is commitment to encourage extraordinary thinking … that instills values and competency … that nurtures service to others … that supports students in ways we never thought possible … that solves the puzzling and complex issues of human illness and societal injustice, and that achieves what was never imagined by our founders 128 years ago.

 

With this new willingness comes the realization that it is no longer about rankings in U.S. News, The Princeton Review or PC magazine.  Those are other people’s standards. This is about our vision. It is about our opportunity. This is about our moment.  This is the time for Creighton University to demonstrate its standing as one of the finest Jesuit, Catholic universities in the U.S. and to secure the achievement of our vision, by all measures.

 

This is the Creighton moment. It is up to you! It is up to me. It is up to us…to give that moment life.

 

Thank you.

 

 

John P. Schlegel, S.J.
President

 

• Watch the address (streaming media)