"Pillars of Our Future" - Watch the address (streaming media)

 

Good afternoon. Welcome! Congratulations to our honorees and their families. Thank you for joining me for this annual Founders Week Convocation. Today there are reasons to be bullish about Creighton's future, tempered as those aspirations are by fiscal reality, a shifting political dynamic and changing demographics. Be assured the state of Creighton University is solid and the future is bright.

 

I am presently re-reading Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth." On the surface it is a multi-generational story of building the great cathedrals of Europe; in reality it is a reflection on faith; faith that what one builds today will have an enduring impact on tomorrow. So as I recount our building blocks-our shards of progress-we, too, must have faith and believe, that what we do today truly is building the Creighton of tomorrow.

 

In what follows I hope to be both informative and challenging. I will briefly touch on selected high points of the year, visit several national trends that threaten higher education, and end by sharing some new initiatives-the pillars of our future. By now you should all be on the edge of your chair!

 

PART I: SETTING TODAY'S STONES

 

For me the over arching achievement of the last academic year was the resounding reaffirmation and reaccreditation of Creighton by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association.

 

The efforts of hundreds of Creighton colleagues over two years resulted in a unanimous vote to reaccredit until 2017, without reports and without interim visits. Most gratifying in the commission's report was the affirmation that Creighton lives its mission as a Jesuit and Catholic university. I quote from the report:

 

"The institution is permeated by the basic tenets of Creighton's mission as a Catholic and Jesuit comprehensive university dedicated to the pursuit of truth..."

 

Thanks to all of you who were part of this splendid Self Study. It does not get any better than this!

 

We successfully completed, in an expeditious manner, the filling of two important decanal positions. Prof. Eric Chiappinelli will assume the helm of the School of Law and Dr. Robert Lueger is the newly appointed Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Both will join us in mid-summer.

 

Now let me publicly acknowledge and thank Dr. Robert Kennedy and Professor Marianne Culhane for serving as Interim Deans in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Law respectively. You both did a great job.

 

We opened the year with record enrollments across all programs and colleges. Creighton experienced a historically high enrollment of nearly 7,000 students, with a large and highly qualified freshmen class-rich in service, leadership, geographic and ethnic diversity. Thank you to the divisions of enrollment management, admissions, and financial aid. We could not do it without you!

 

Another recent/positive accomplishment is the approval, by the Academic Council, of the resolution to require courses in ethics and/or moral decision making across the curriculum, applicable to all schools and programs. This endorsement to implement  Creighton's faith-based identity in its academic missions of teaching, scholarship and service may be unique among America's Jesuit universities.

 

In terms of University Ministry, our retreat programs are over-subscribed; community service remains rich and generous; fall and spring break service programs set the standard for Jesuit schools; a renovated St. John's provides a newly enriched worship space; and the on-line ministry is playing to record hits-nearly 20 million hits this year.

 

The recently installed web page on the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus is playing to a global audience and bringing daily acknowledgements to Creighton for hosting such an important and valued site for the worldwide Catholic community. Again, Maureen Waldron and Fr. Andy Alexander, S.J., are in our debt for their generous and creative contribution to living our mission and being true to our identity.

 

This past year all health science schools have developed updated strategic plans which include goals and objectives for education, research, patient care and service. Collaborative efforts are under way with respect to the incorporation of Ignatian values into the curriculum, research and program development. 

 

A commitment was made to the development of interdisciplinary research programs with a focus on mission-driven translational research linked, where feasible, to other graduate programs and resources.

 

In the area of program development, a wide variety of programs were considered with distance learning, the creation of additional doctoral degrees-nursing, rehabilitation sciences, and pharmaceutical sciences-as well as a 5- year master's program in clinical education pedagogy.

 

Creighton University Medical Center celebrated two milestones this past year: the 30th anniversary of St. Joseph's Hospital being relocated to 30th Street and the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Bio-Information Center.

 

Students Services: At the topping off ceremony for the Harper Center, I voiced my hopes for developing a dynamic living-learning experience for our students. That dynamic environment, though, is not created by buildings alone, but by our faculty and staff working together in innovative programs for students and learning. The newly launched Faculty Partners Program has faculty working in concert with their Student Services colleagues, to help students make important connections between their lives in and out of the classroom. These partners will be housed in the Harper Center where they will teach in our newest, high-tech classrooms and collaborate with their Student Services counterparts in program design benefiting student learning and living. A companion program is the collaboration between the Center for Student Integrity and the Law School's Werner Institute, in launching a Dispute Resolutions Center that will provide interested students third-party mediation and programming; thus encouraging the use of effective communication and mediation skills.

 

Yet a third initiative is found in our endeavors to educate our students in the responsible use of alcohol.  This past year, Student Services strived to increase alcohol education by requiring all new students to complete "AlcoholWise," an on-line alcohol education course before arriving on campus. Once on campus, all new students attended a 90-minute, peer-to-peer alcohol education session and reviewed their on-line survey results. At the same time, Student Services launched the "Blue Zone" program with methodology that expressly and directly tells students to use alcohol responsibly.

 

It appears that these efforts have made a significant dent in alcohol use by new students; the number of freshmen with severe intoxication cases that attend our C.A.R.E. program declined by a full 66%, year-to-date.

 

It is in this same spirit-that we are teaching Creighton students to use alcohol responsibly-that we will launch a Sports Cafe‚ in the Harper Center. The Sports Cafe‚ will serve a variety of Applebee's-type fare and beverages. Our intention is to promote responsible drinking in a mature environment and grow the networking between upperclassmen and graduate/professional students and alumni.

 

Technology: Technological infrastructure provides the foundation upon which key services are delivered.  Access to the network and information services like internet, voicemail, e-mail, calendaring, medical applications, research and patient-care databases is critical for the academic, research and administrative processes of the University.  There are multiple layers to the University's infrastructure from cabling to software, to servers and storage systems.  Other more sophisticated services such as video and voice over IP are also included as infrastructure.  Threaded throughout all of the layers is the critical importance we must place on data and network security. 

 

Threats from outside forces trying to gain access to sensitive and private data continue to plague university campuses and corporate institutions.  Creighton is no exception to this, and we are taking greater steps to protect our personal and private information. 

 

We have committed significant financial capital to outfit and upgrade the Creighton Data Center to accommodate growth and provide enhanced backup, fire suppression and added physical security.  We must increase our collective ability to properly secure, protect and back up data that is critical to the success of our students, faculty, and researchers, as well as critical to the patient care we provide.

 

Over the next 3 years, it is critical that aging phone systems and core switches at their life's end be replaced to accommodate expanding needs.  This upgrade and expansion is neither easy nor cheap, but we must invest in this to support our current and future needs.   

 

Philanthropy: In my 2005 Convocation, I strongly positioned that strategically Creighton needed to focus on how we do our business. How to decrease dependency on tuition and clinical revenue, yet allow for opportunities to secure additional funding that will be allocated to priorities to complete Creighton's mission. I suggest we are making progress in this effort.

 

The Willing to Lead Campaign launched in 2005 has an impressive goal of raising $350 million. To date, we have secured over $320 million in gifts and commitments. While the campaign has sparked unprecedented interest and support in Creighton - and we celebrate that progress to date - there are institutional priorities - old and emerging - still to be met. The deans of all the schools/colleges are strategically looking at the campaign's impact on programs, faculty, students and facilities.

 

The Campaign Steering Committee believes that while an increased goal appears to be within Creighton's reach, there is no compelling reason to revise the goal at this time. However by late fall a determination will be made concerning a revised timeline and goal.

 

In keeping with the objectives of the campaign, I am pleased to announce two newly endowed chairs: the Mahoney Chair in Radiology will be inaugurated tomorrow, with Dr. Martin Goldman as the first chair holder. Later in the year we will inaugurate the Bergman Chair in Cardiology. Within the College of Arts and Sciences, a well-financed professorship in liturgical theology-soon to be a fully funded chair-will be announced on February 14.

 

To date, the Willing to Lead Campaign has funded 16 new endowed chairs.

 

I am pleased to announce that on Monday Creighton was awarded the "2007 President's Higher Education Community Service Award with Distinction" by the American Council on Education. This national recognition celebrates our community service and outreach in the Omaha community and beyond. It is a great list to be on.

 

There is so much more to be highlighted, but that is for another time. I hope you agree that Creighton is in a very good place on this February afternoon.  The building blocks of this past year provide the bed rock of tomorrow.

 

PART II:  STUMBLING STONES: CONSTRUCTION HAZARDS

 

As an intermezzo between recent points of progress and new opportunities, I want to briefly visit some issues in the external environment that will influence our progress and wellness.  For when all is said and done, I remain a realist!

 

Of the ten issues identified by the Association of State Colleges and Universities, Creighton can identify with four: affordability, accountability, diversity, and the economy.

 

Affordability:  While parents and their students still consider academic quality and a personalized college environment as more important than costs, financial
considerations are becoming more forceful here in the Midwest. The middle class and upper middle class have begun to look at their state schools and somewhat less selective privates who offer huge merit awards as more viable alternatives. Net cost after aid is a significant factor in their final choice of college.

 

Accountability: As recently highlighted in our 2007 accreditation report, Creighton has a strategic alignment of its assessment measures and its clearly articulated mission. Further, we remain committed to assessments of student learning, primarily because we strive to make student learning public. It is a matter of professional integrity that we provide measures of our educational actions. We are fortunate that we can proactively form, articulate, and measure current program outcomes and that we can find common ground in our affirmation of shared values, outcomes and mutually-created measures of learning. This may or may not be enough to quiet congressional critics.

 

Demographics and Diversity:  Shrinking and shifting demographics, the browning of America, the geopolitical landscape, and the vanishing male student all contribute to the timeliness of this issue. We experience all of these trends.

 

Over the next decade, Nebraska will experience a 7% decline in high school graduates and Iowa will face an 8% decline. The same is true in all of our traditional feeder states. The growth will be in the western and southeast sunbelts. By 2015 a full 64% of America's student population will be students of color.

 

One glance across this campus and you realize we have work to do; the diversity and access issues are here to stay. They are not in our control. Our recent success in enrolling new students, including improving diversity to 21%, is due to our managed approach to recruitment. We must stay vigilant to this task.

 

The Economy:  Like everyone else, we must take notice of the fragile state of the economy. Subprime mortgages notwithstanding, other vital indicators are not healthy. There are implications for education. Reduced support for state funded institutions will result in these institutions turning to the private sector to make up their shortfall and aggressively recruit the same students we do.  We also have to consider the debt burden of our graduates; long-term endowment performance; the shrinking philanthropic dollar; and the increasingly costly federally mandated regulations across all educational and health care institutions.

 

The successes of the past year, tempered by the reality of the present moment, sets the stage for the next phase in the Creighton story-a look at "The Pillars of Our Future."

 

PART III: THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR TOMORROW

 

Pillar #1-Graduate Education: In last year's address, I announced my "intent to appoint a Blue Ribbon Committee, under the direction of the Graduate Dean," to "examine current institutional strengths and future growth potential for mission-explicit Graduate education."

 

The task force had representation from all nine of Creighton University's schools and colleges.  Its report, "Graduate Education at Creighton:  A Vision for Growth" was completed in December and distributed to administrators in January 2008.  The task force prepared the report according to the core principle that:

 

The focus of all new initiatives in Graduate education at Creighton must be on developing programs that further our reputation for academic excellence, as well as capitalizes upon our identity as Jesuit and Catholic.

 

The report sets forth five recommendations along with a series of action items for each recommendation. These include improved Graduate School infrastructure, support for new program development; foster and grow interdisciplinary and cross school programs; develop distance education and explore and develop key programs.

 

While we face both challenges and opportunities in engaging in institutional growth, this report provides a framework for embarking on this journey. I commend the members of the task force and its subcommittees for their work in generating a consensus-based document that provides a vision for growth in our Graduate programs. I might add that, in a soft economy, graduate programs offer the opportunity for growth without increasing costs on infrastructure.

 

Pillar #2-E-Learning: In January we held a Joint Academic Forum on "Extending the Creighton Experience" by looking at ways we could build and grow on-line learning. The joint forum was a great success and I am encouraged by the on-going conversations.

 

For the last two years I have encouraged the growth and development of on-line programs. I have been excited by the possibilities of distance / e-learning as an innovative approach for working professionals. The market is still bursting with opportunities. We must all think creatively of ways we can leverage e-learning as a delivery method for Graduate programs as well as in specialized undergraduate areas. Programs in nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, education, dispute resolution and theology are presently on-line or soon will be.

 

Today, I am confident and excited by what Creighton has accomplished thus far, but we can do more. Our infrastructure is ready; a market of learners is waiting for Creighton; so let's give them a value-centered Creighton education on-line.

 

Pillar #3-Scholarship and Research: The first two pillars support the case for academic revitalization. This will require a vibrant scholarly culture, one that reaches outward as well as inward, one that integrates our educational mission into significant research projects in the sciences, the humanities, and the professional disciplines. Research, publication, presentations, and performances are among the many ways that scholars bring their work to their peers and contribute to the common good of the academy. We must not only educate our students, but each other as well.

 

Creighton currently supports a range of important research, and we encourage faculty to seek outside funding for their scholarly work.  We need to build on this success.  We must will a future that allows us, in whatever ways we can, to build a community of scholars who strive to contribute to the advancement of knowledge-nationally and internationally. 

 

Leadership in research will not be easy.  We are not a university with vast resources and a multi-billion dollar endowment.  But we are a university that is capable of building a culture of scholarship, one that allows faculty to fully realize our call to be among the leading Catholic universities in America. We can be a place where commitment to students, commitment to service, and commitment to the Catholic tradition joins a commitment to scholarship at the highest levels.

 

"Academic revitalization requires a trenchant rethinking of the entire teaching-learning experience, the quality of students, standards for faculty, and the academic culture of the institution as a whole. This kind of academic revitalization makes the university a more exciting place to learn and teach, it also strengthens external perceptions."

 

Pillar #4-Sustainability:  Although our colors are blue and white, Creighton must take on a "greener" approach.  Renewable and alternative energies are perhaps one of the most important issues of the next decade.  We must do our part to reduce our consumption of energy from conventional sources.  Today I ask every division and department, school and college to find ways to be more energy conscious.  Do we turn off our lights, shut down our computers and/or reduce our heat when we leave the office for the night, just as you do at home.

 

Today I challenge you to help reduce our energy consumption by 5% in the next year. The incentives will become obvious when reduced energy savings hit the bottom line.

 

Note too, Creighton and OPPD are jointly developing a solar collector site, an energy conservation education and training program, as well as fostering the use of renewable resources. And our newest buildings have many green characteristics. At the same time, Creighton must embrace recycling across the campus?the students are taking the lead in this effort-so the institution must walk the recycling talk.

 

Pillar #5-Strengthening Our Work Environment:  Before I conclude with comments on planning and identity, I want to assure the Creighton community that we are addressing several salient and sensitive concerns:

 

• We have restructured our endowment to enhance asset allocation and performance. The present value of the endowment is $408 million, a 16% increase over last year.

• We continue to monitor our health care benefits and plan structure and emphasis on wellness.

• We are working on the retirement plan regulatory changes and enhancements currently under study by an expanded and inclusive transition committee. A transition website is being developed that will include information about progress on the project, frequently asked questions, a project timeline and educational materials.

• And we continue our efforts to enhance our working environment through "Best Places to Work" surveys and follow-up.

Pillar #6-Revisiting the Campus Master Plan:  The nationally award winning Campus Master Plan completed in 2003 is in need of updating. As we revisit the University's Strategic Plan, the Campus Plan must flow from and support the Strategic Plan.

 

Significant progress has been made since 2001, as indicated by projects completed and currently in process:
 
 

• Science Center
• Davis Square
• Morrison Stadium
• California Mall
• Cuming/Burt Street reconfiguration
• Parking garages
• Opus Hall
• St. John's renovations
• Harper Center
• Ryan Athletics Center
• Property acquisitions
• New Wareham building
• Exterior renovation of Creighton Hall

 

As this map shows, since 2001 we have expanded the physical footprint by some 40-45 acres on both the east and western edges of campus.

 

At the same time significant activity is occurring around the campus that will affect and influence campus needs, including: riverfront and downtown condo projects; Destination Midtown master plan; Mutual's Midtown Crossing at Turner Park; completion of the North Downtown Study and the North Omaha Development Project. We also must be attentive to the on-going discussion of a downtown ballpark and speculation on the fate of the Civic Auditorium.

 

Creighton has been an active player in all of these surrounding developments. We are well represented by Dan Burkey, Lennis Pederson and Fred Salzinger.

 

Pillar #7-Strategic Planning:  To help identify our future with more clarity, we will continue our engagement in strategic planning. Strategic planning is a process that helps an organization renew itself and keep focused on its desired future. We started this process in 2001 with Project 125 and continued it through the self-study process for our North Central re-accreditation. Many issues we identified in Project 125 have either been significantly accomplished or may not be representative of our current environment. So we need to identify what current issues we face in moving into our future.

 

An April planning retreat will convene the vice presidents, the deans, other administrators, and representatives of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni. As we did with the self-study process, we will post items to the web page for your consideration and comment.

 

In measuring our success we will look at five dimensions: have we been true to our mission as a Catholic university; have we exceeded the needs of our many constituencies; have we enabled faculty and staff to develop professionally; are we prudent stewards of our resources while becoming more efficient and effective in providing our education and other services?

 

Measuring our progress in this fashion will require changes in our processes and culture. Some of these changes will be difficult and challenging. At the end, however, Creighton will be a better institution. For the right planning process can serve as an excellent vehicle for institutional transformation.

 

Like with the Higher Learning Commission self-study, your involvement will be crucial in this planning process. All of us have a role in moving Creighton University to its fullest potential!  I know I can count on your cooperation.

 

Pillar #8-Jesuit Identity: Let me end with a reaffirmation of our Catholic/Jesuit identity and mission. Perhaps one of the most significant opportunities opening before us speaks to Creighton's Jesuit charism/identity.

 

In mid-January, the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, meeting in Rome, elected a new Superior General.  Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, S.J., was elected to replace Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., who has been our Superior General for 25 years.

 

Fr. Nicolas comes from a missionary tradition. He is a university professor, a theologian specializing in inter-religious dialogue.  He understands the relationship between faith and culture and respects diversity.  Having been a Provincial of Japan and the Moderator of all the Provinces of East Asia, and having had personal experience working with refugees, he understands complex global issues.

 

As a Jesuit Catholic university we are acutely attuned to the mission of the Society of Jesus, continually renewing ourselves so that the contribution we make as university benefits the common good and the needs of those on the margins of society, within an ever growing global perspective.

 

As the Jesuit order expands its vision and mission to address the challenges of a world that is truly flat, we must continue to commit ourselves to being creative in how we can keep our vision broad, scholarly, service oriented, student and patient-centered, with a special affection for those most in need. 

 

Like the broader society we, in Omaha, will wrestle with globalization, the environment, inter-religious dialogue and building partnerships across the university. As a university community, we must always be focused on the impact of our teaching and scholarship on what our students become and how they affect society around them.

 

It has been my experience that our students and colleagues will respond and be the transformative difference for our world. The Society of Jesus' transition in leadership and, perhaps, emphasis should be exciting for all of us engaged in a Jesuit sponsored enterprise. In partnership we can embrace the change and move forward together.

 

Thank you for being here today! Again congratulations to all of our honorees. On a personal note, I greatly appreciate your support and collaboration in making Creighton the outstanding institution it is today. You all have a role to play and you are doing it very well!

 

Again, thank you!

 

 

John P. Schlegel, S.J.