Winthrop
University Opening Address
Academic Year 2008-2009
President Anthony J. DiGiorgio
August 20, 2008
Higher Education ‘As
the Progress of the
Times May Require’:
Everything Is Waiting for You at Winthrop
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to
the opening of another academic year here at Winthrop. This is our 123rd
academic year.
As returning faculty and staff members
know, this is a time of year when we say “welcome home” to our veterans
and to our newcomers alike. It’s simply part of our tradition – at
Winthrop, we want newcomers – faculty, staff or students – to feel you
are truly part of this special community from Day One.
So that we may begin that process, would
all our new faculty and staff members stand, please, and let's give them
all a warm Winthrop welcome?
We also have among us today some other
special guests. Please hold your applause until they are introduced:
From the Winthrop University Board of
Trustees:
- Dr. Cheryl Fortner-Wood, Chair of
Faculty Conference and Faculty Representative to the Board of
Trustees, and
- Tatiana Sosa, president of the
Council of Student Leaders, and student representative to the Board
of Trustees.
Welcome!
Also today, we have some emeriti faculty
members in attendance. These individuals represent the very best of our
past and have laid the foundation for our future. Let us acknowledge
their faithful service to Winthrop, and welcome our emeriti faculty.
Let me also
acknowledge a few members of the campus community who are serving in new
roles this year. Please hold your applause until all are standing:
- Brien Lewis,
previously acting vice president for development and alumni
relations, took on that role permanently last Spring.
- Dr. Gloria Jones
is the new dean of University College.
- Dr. Tim
Daugherty is the new associate dean of University College and
director of our Touchstones program.
- Dr. David Rankin
this year will serve as director of the Teaching and Learning
Center, in addition to his on-going responsibilities in guiding the
Master of Liberal Arts program, after graciously serving as interim
associate vice president for our graduate program for the past
couple of years.
- Dr. Greg Oakes,
who this year will serve as director of our Office of Nationally
Competitive Awards, as Dr. Jennifer Disney is on sabbatical.
- Ms. Maria Massey
is now Academic Space and Scheduling Coordinator for all of Academic
Affairs.
- Dr. Beth Costner
is now Chair, Department of Mathematics.
- Dr. Jonathan Marx
is now Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
- Dr. Tim Boylan is
now Acting Chair, Department of History.
- Dr. Bill Naufftus
is now Acting Chair, Department of English.
- Dr. Sarah
Stallings is now Acting Chair, Department of Speech/Communication
Disorders (Dr. Stallings will also continue to serve as Associate
Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.)
AND
- Ms. Margaret
Williamson, who is now assistant dean of The Graduate School.
Let’s thank all of
these folks for taking on new roles here at Winthrop.
Those of you who are
veterans here at Winthrop likely noted that I just mentioned “The
Graduate School” here at Winthrop, rather than “graduate programs.”
That’s because this
year, we continue to re-focus graduate education here at Winthrop to a
new level of emphasis and status. After a national search, we also have
brought to campus an experienced graduate education hand to head up that
effort. Please welcome the first dean of The Graduate School at
Winthrop, Dr. Yvonne Murnane. Yvonne, please stand.
From our newest dean
position, let me know move to a new face in one of the longest-standing
and most-revered programs at Winthrop: Please join me in welcoming the
new dean of the Richard W. Riley College of Education, Dr. Jennie
Rakestraw. Jennie, please stand.
Let me also take a
moment to thank Dr. Pat Graham for the stellar leadership she provided
to the College of Education in recent years. She was and is a real pro,
and we look forward to her continuing contributions to Winthrop.
Pat, please stand so we can recognize you.
Also this year, we
will have a visiting international faculty member with us, teaching the
Arabic language. Ms. Saba Hanbali from Jordan and is at Winthrop
through the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program sponsored by
Fulbright and the U.S. Department of State. Please stand so we can
welcome you to Winthrop.
Indeed, this is a time of year when the
campus community forms itself anew for the academic year to come – when
those who have embodied Winthrop University for a part of their
professional lives enlarge the circle to welcome new faculty and staff,
and yes, new students as well.
Come the end of this week, those newest
of new faces will start to appear among us, too. There will be a lot of
them, and to some of us, they will seem younger than ever.
In fact, Gale and I have marveled over
the summer about how this entering class has been on earth less time
than we have been at Winthrop.
Yes, most members of this year’s
entering class were born in… are you ready?... 1990!
I would imagine there might be more than
a few folks in the room right now who have items of clothing in their
closets that are older than that.
Think of it – when most of these
students were born, the Soviet Union had just become history and East
and West Germany would be reunited before the year was out.
Nelson Mandela had just become a free
man after 27 years behind bars.
It was the year in which the very, very
first episode ever of a now ubiquitous TV series called Law and Order
aired on TV… .
A new Madonna video was so racy it was
banned on MTV that year – and that was the same year Alex Rodriguez
celebrated his 15th birthday.
To our freshmen this year, the phrase
“phone booth” is about as relevant as “horseless carriage.”
Most will arrive here with their cell
phones anchored to their ears – talking to their friends, of course, but
often as not, to their parents, too.
Emails are too slow… only texting will
do. Want to hear a certain song? Download it instantly, while texting
three friends so they’ll know you’ve done it.
Yes, this generation of students is used
to dazzling immediacy in all pursuits.
For instance, if they should be asked to
find out about a poet named James Russell Lowell, they can start fast.
After all, the Google search engine
provides a list of potential sources in just .23 seconds – on a slow
day.
But Google won’t tell students which source
is credible, or which is derivative of others. And only after some
deeper inquiry will a young researcher find a gem of a quote from Lowell
that sums up well what higher education is truly about -- even in this
instant-gratification age – for teachers and learners alike:
“True scholarship,” Lowell
wrote, “consists in knowing not what
things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory, but judgment.”
For someone who left this earth about the
same time Winthrop came to Rock Hill, Lowell’s words are an excellent
reminder of what educating our students for 21st century
success means.
Indeed, it’s always been higher education’s
mission to go beyond shallow knowledge, into the deeper kind of learning
that provides context and builds capacities to make solid judgments.
It is how we at
Winthrop keep faith with a mandate unique among South Carolina’s public
institutions of higher learning: to provide students with a
“first-class” higher education, adding features and programs “as the
progress of the times may require.”
We seek and find
inspiration for that work in all kinds of places – in our history and
traditions, in our sense of place, in our experiences, and in our own
individual and collective aspirations. We have done it that way – many
of us here together -- for almost 20 years. As a result:
-
Winthrop is
recognized as one of the best institutions of its kind in the nation
– a place where quality and value work together to prepare students
to live, learn and lead for a lifetime.
-
Furthermore,
Winthrop is now ready to pursue the next goal in our “Vision of
Distinction:” To move from national recognition to national
prominence.
Will it happen overnight? Of course not
– it has taken us almost 20 years to gain a level of national
recognition in the realm of being among America’s best values in higher
education.
So we can and will grow to our next
level of achievement -- national prominence --
thoughtfully and carefully as well.
And please know this: Even as Winthrop
charts a course of carefully planned incremental growth over the years
to come, Winthrop’s nature and character will not shift dramatically.
It will continue to be our mission to
guide students toward a deeper kind of learning that values the quest
for meaning as well as facts, and builds the capacities of
students to be leaders in their communities, as well as leaders
in their professions.
President John Adams once put it more
simply, over 200 years ago: "There are two types of education. One
should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.”
Well, at Winthrop, we
are proving daily that it is possible to do both.
It is in that way that Winthrop will
continue to fulfill its mandate and its mission to offer students true
first class higher-learning experiences, “as the progress of the times
may require.”
These are not easy times in which to
declare such an intention, must less fulfill it.
The global nature of the times requires
every citizen be prepared to take a world view of even the most
kitchen-table of issues. That means we must broaden the perspectives of
the students we prepare for later life, no matter where they intend to
live. In other words, we have to do more than higher education used to
have to do.
And we are expected to do that
more… with less.
The public policy environment in
Columbia, especially where finances are concerned, is more challenging
than it has been at any time since the post - September 11, 2001,
downturn in the economy.
This spring, higher education, like all
agencies, took a cut in state support for the fiscal year that began
July 1. Then, just last week, state leaders ordered an additional across
the board 3 percent giveback. That’s a matter of almost $700,000 for us.
At least one agency, which holds
responsibilities for providing assistance to the mentally retarded,
autistic and brain- or spine-injured, has begun layoffs. It is
particularly sad when those who care for the most challenged among us
seem to be the first turned to at budget-cutting time.
While I foresee no circumstances that
would require Winthrop to consider such a drastic step here, we will
have to work as a community to address the same issues that households
and businesses are facing all over the country in a time of rising fuel
and food costs. And we have to do it at a time of declining public
resources overall.
Indeed, over the past couple of years,
Winthrop already has lost a total of $2.6 million dollars, and our
annual appropriation is now back at the 2000-2001 level.
State appropriations that used to
provide 44 percent of our budget now provide barely 17 percent.
Even given that, comparatively speaking,
higher education is in better shape than most state agencies, since we
can supplement our appropriation with tuition dollars when necessary.
The state Department of Health and Human Services can’t do that. The
Department of Corrections can’t do that.
So legislators – in South Carolina and
beyond -- increasingly have turned to higher education as a balancing
wheel for the rest of their state’s budget, because they know we have
other sources of revenue.
It isn’t helpful that higher education
then gets criticized by some state and national leaders for those very
same tuition increases, but that’s the way of the world in such times.
I elaborate on this situation not to
depress us as we begin this year together, but to empower all of us,
individually and collectively, to address these challenges as we always
have: Together, because that is when we are our strongest.
Winthrop has been successful in riding
out such times before over the past 20 years, and then advancing when
better times returned. Particularly in the post- 9/11 period, citizens
all over the country did that with knowledge that there was a common
good for the nation in all our pitching in together to deal with that
downturn.
Here at Winthrop, in that period, we
used our time to finalize and polish various plans, and when state
fiscal conditions improved, we were ready to implement those plans
successfully.
Today, we call those successfully
implemented plans by other names: our Touchstones program, University
College, the MSW program, the Information Design program, our
Distinction in Leadership program, Leitner Wall, the West Center and
Owens Hall.
Over the year ahead, we will see
substantial progress on fulfillment of three more of those major plans –
first, Carroll Hall, then the new Campus Center, and already taking
shape, parts of Scholars Walk. In addition, Byrnes Auditorium is in the
midst of receiving another part of its phased improvements, and you will
see those up close during Convocation next week.
Likewise, work is moving forward at
Joynes. Kinard Auditorium is upfitted as a first-class instructional
space, and, yes, the leaky roof at Dacus is being replaced.
It is important that both veterans and
newcomers, Rock Hill residents and visitors, understand that major
bricks and mortar investments are coming from funds we long ago created,
designated and dedicated to those purposes – not from the operating
budget that funds our day-to-day work.
Students arriving this year will find a
Winthrop that has been the focus of continuous quality enhancement over
their entire lives – in order to be ready for them when they decided
they were ready for us.
And so it is today that we must continue
our dedication to quality and enhancing all we do here – because
somewhere out there, this very minute, there are freshmen who will enter
Winthrop in 2026 taking their first breaths and opening their eyes to
the wide world for the first time, to see what is waiting for them.
Their expectations are already high.
I’m told one brand-new 2008 entry into
the world is already accustomed to the touch of only baby wipes warmed
in an appliance kept beside his crib for that purpose. Likewise, his
lullabies come from a programmable audio feature on his new baby swing.
(Word is, he likes opera, so there is hope for the
artistic preferences of the next generation.)
Maybe some of you have held those
bundles of joy in your arms and wondered what type of world they will
inherit, and what they will do with it.
I like to think that at Winthrop, in
2008 as it will be in 2026 and beyond, we can answer that question by
telling these young people with enthusiasm: “everything is
waiting for you” at Winthrop.
A favorite discovery of mine in recent
years has been philosopher/writer/poet David Whyte. One of Whyte’s
works was inspired by a colleague from Northern Ireland, Derek Mahon,
who once penned a poem telling his countrymen in troubled times that
“Everything Will Be All Right.”
Whyte went a step beyond in his work,
telling the world, “Everything is Waiting for You,” and advising us how
best to take part. Let me read a few excerpted lines:
Your great mistake is to act the
drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings….
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness
and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
So
let us encourage our new students, as we encourage ourselves in these
times of challenge, to “put down the weight of aloneness” that they –
and we -- might feel amidst all these changes. We know the best way
forward is as it always has been – to (quote) ease into the conversation
(close quote,) and in that process, cement old friendships and make new
ones, as we solve problems and address new expectations together.
Whatever your
responsibilities in this wonderful work-in-progress called Winthrop, in
this time of change, do know you are empowered to bring forth your ideas
for how we can do our work smarter, more cost-effectively and still
achieve our quality goals for our current students, and the ones who
will find us in future years.
Indeed, that’s how
we’ve always done things at Winthrop, in good times and bad – with every
person in the community able to contribute ideas, from groundskeepers to
housekeeping, from athletics to administrative support, from deans to
development, from faculty to facilities managers. That sets a wonderful
example to our students for how they can best succeed in life, too.
For as we’ve known for years at
Winthrop, the lifeblood of higher learning and democracy itself, is that
“constant conversation” that characterizes the best university campuses,
including ours.
For those who are new to campus, let me
share with you a quote about that “constant conversation” that I have
annually referenced here for the past half-dozen years.
It is so reflective of Winthrop’s nature
and character that it now appears on our freshmen ‘Blue Line’
tee-shirts:
It is from A. Bartlett Giamatti, the 20th
century Renaissance man who was at various times president of Yale
University, as well as Commissioner of Major League baseball:
“The
university today is very different from the one 25 years ago, or 50 or
100 or 250 years ago, and yet it is not different.
“It is still a constant conversation between young and old, between
students, among faculty; between faculty and students; a conversation
between past and present, a conversation the culture has with itself, on
behalf of the country….
“ Perhaps it is the sound of all those voices, over centuries
overlapping, giving and taking, that is finally the music of
civilization … making the world, for its pain, work. It is a good place
that continues to want to make her children better.”
Making our children better, of course,
involves building their personal capacities in ways beyond any one
discipline – in fact, it requires us to think of this particular
responsibility as an ‘all-institutional’ one.
So, at Winthrop, we have not shied away
from imparting values as part of our core commitments as well. In
fact, Winthrop over the years has made this calling so much a part of
our approach to deep learning and student development that we have been
chosen as a national leader in this regard.
The Association of
American Colleges and Universities last year selected Winthrop as one of
only 18 institutions in the nation to lead a national initiative
focusing on educating students for personal and social responsibility
across the curriculum. This work will focus on the following “core
commitments”:
- Achieving excellence by doing
one’s best in all aspects of college and life,
- Cultivating personal and
academic integrity;
- Contributing to the larger
community;
- Taking seriously the
perspectives of others, and
- Developing competence in ethical
and moral reasoning.
That is yet another example of Winthrop
meeting its obligations “as the progress of the times may require” – and
why we can tell students that “everything is waiting for you” at
Winthrop, where they can learn to live, learn and lead for a lifetime.
In addition to what’s been occurring in
our General Education program and especially our distinctive Touchstones
courses, we are continuing to grow our residential learning emphasis by
expanding the number of Academic Success Communities this year, and
continuing our two-year residential experience for all new students.
We also are developing data about the
impact on our students of this distinctive work. Consider this:
- First-year students living on the
Winthrop campus who were enrolled for fall 2006 and returned in fall
2007 were retained at 73% compared to 62% for their off-campus
counterparts; a difference of 11%.
- Second-year students living on
campus who were enrolled for fall 2006 and returning fall 2007 were
retained at 85% compared to 76% for their off-campus counterparts; a
difference of 9%.
In other words,
students who engage themselves in the full Winthrop experience as campus
residents are more academically successful, dropping out notably less
than commuter students, we believe, because they develop a stronger
sense of purpose and a better set of life skills by living on campus.
Helping them do that
is an all-institutional responsibility, carried out with equal
dedication and a strong sense of shared purpose among talented faculty
in Academic Affairs and talented student development professionals in
Student Life. As much or more than on any other campus with which I’m
familiar, those responsibilities are viewed as collective ones here at
Winthrop, with the creation of University College a few years ago a key
milestone in that regard.
That work, I am
convinced, will hold Winthrop in good stead as we prepare to meet
another all-institutional responsibility that is on our horizon: a
regional re-affirmation of accreditation site visit by the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools in 2011.
Work toward that
already has begun this year, with initial structures put in place to
begin this process. As we move forward, cross-campus work groups will be
created and will begin an institutional self-study wherein Winthrop will
be its own toughest critic, in preparation for an external site visit
the following year. As is our usual standard, our goal for that visit
will be for the team to make zero recommendations for improvement at
Winthrop.
The timing of this
work is actually synergistic, coming as we prepare to grow
incrementally, and want to fine-tune every aspect of how we present
ourselves externally.
As many of you already
know, over the past couple of years, Winthrop has been readying itself
to begin expanding the number of students who can have the Winthrop
experience. Now that academic facilities are in place to accommodate
that growth, we can accommodate careful additions to our student body
without impairing our quality.
With that in mind, our
Advancement Division, headed by Dr. Kathryn Holten, is already
recruiting for both 2010’s entering class, and even for entering classes
beyond that.
As Winthrop grows, we
of course will continue to serve our state, maintaining an in-state
presence of no less than 75 percent. But our national recognitions mean
we have the opportunity to open our doors more widely in a geographic
sense. That will broaden and deepen our students’ experiences in
working with others of differing backgrounds and perspectives, while
also broadening our national reputation and prominence.
It also will allow us
to do as we’ve been talking about for a couple of years now – focus our
resource-building to our own outreach to prospective students interested
in a quality educational experience and to prospective donors interested
in supporting such an institution.
Winthrop has an
exceptionally good story to tell in that regard.
In addition to
increased persistence toward degree completion on the part of our
residential students, our students in general are demonstrating the
strong outcomes possible under the Winthrop approach to deeper
learning. The scores of Winthrop students on the national Collegiate
Learning Assessment show that Winthrop students’ tend to develop greater
capacities for critical thinking, analytical reasoning and writing from
freshman entry to second semester of their sophomore year than the
students of 27 other participant institutions nationally completing the
testing.
And we already know
that our students annually report a much higher level of engagement in
key success-building experiences than their peers from other
institutions report in the National Survey on Student Engagement.
This is additional
outcomes-focused data that supports our contention that the Winthrop
two-year residential experience is a pathway to success.
As we grow, we will
need to develop additional campus housing to meet incremental growth,
and discussions about those options already have begun.
Such planning for
results gives us a good story to tell prospective students and their
families… especially when augmented by the campus development projects I
mentioned earlier.
As always, Walter
Hardin, Dave Rentschler, Ben Roach, Manning Gibson and the Facilities
team are doing a wonderful job in juggling several large projects at
once.
Carroll Hall is
rapidly taking shape and should be ready for occupancy this time next
year, for the first time giving the College of Business Administration a
gathering place to bring students and the business community together.
The Carroll Capital
Markets Trading and Training Center and its special equipment and
programs -- supported by a gift of alumna Vivian Carroll and her
husband Larry – will be a signature learning space, used to familiarize
students with the impacts of the global economy on all aspects of the
financial markets.
In addition, MacFeat
House, previously the academic computing center on the corner by
Thurmond, is being integrated into the project and will become both a
faculty-staff dining facility as well as a reception center for Carroll
Hall.
Our Campus Center is
coming out of the ground finally, and we are able to watch it take
shape, too. It will be ready in 2010 to serve our campus community with
space for student organizations, bookstore, dining, a theater and other
21st century amenities worthy of the crossroads of Winthrop’s
campus.
And, just outside
here, at the West Center, you see the first phase of Scholars Walk
taking shape, with umbrella tables inviting faculty and students to
carry on those constant conversations we like so much at Winthrop.
You likely have seen
large billboards in place at each of these project sites. They are there
to remind us all that our growing pains will be worth it, and also to
show off the next horizons of the Winthrop campus for prospective
students and families to see and appreciate.
Over time, a special
sculpture garden will take shape at this end of Scholars Walk, providing
green space and an outdoor venue for small performances, small
gatherings or individual reflection and solitude.
The exceptional beauty
of Winthrop’s outdoor spaces is an important part of what makes our
campus such a special one, and we will remain committed to that being a
part of our campus environs.
Concurrently, we
continue work on long-term replenishment of our tree stock and planted
areas, emphasizing native varieties and sustainability. Given recent
losses of some heritage trees to particularly strong storms and long
periods of drought, we want to ensure the green canopy of Winthrop
continues to be a part of this campus’s identity for future
generations of students as well.
Having our campus be
pedestrian-friendly and as safe as possible in general is also an
important part of our nature and character.
This is an era when
campus security is a high expectation everywhere for obvious reasons.
Last year, following the Virginia Tech tragedy, Winthrop added both a
cell-phone text-messaging alert system and 50 ALERTUS emergency beacons
to our other notification systems.
This year, we will be
adding 50 more beacons across campus, as well as a Tillman Tower outdoor
warning capacity as part of Tillman’s renovation.
Each building on
campus now has designated Critical Incident monitors, who will assist
our Critical Incident Management Team in spreading instructions and
taking other building security steps when a threat exists, be it severe
weather or something more extreme.
My thanks go to Vice
President for Student Life Frank Ardaiolo, Police Chief Frank Zebedis,
and other cross-campus members of Winthrop’s Critical Incident
Management Team for their work in this regard.
Training for monitors
is underway, and over the year you will see enhancements to our web
pages to provide additional information that members of the campus
community might need in a critical incident. This will supplement our
existing Emergency Guidelines handbook.
We continue to
emphasize a multi-layer, multi-media approach to campus communications
when such needs arise – to me, that’s a critical aspect of being
proactive about safety.
We are fortunate to
have a highly professional police force on our campus. As we saw over
the summer after there was a series of intrusions into some offices over
the Fourth of July, Chief Zebedis and his force where tenacious in their
investigation, and within days had brought charges in the case.
As much as we all must
play our part in protecting the campus and our own possessions through
keeping security measures in place, it is good to know that Chief
Zebedis and his force are here to be both proactive and reactive when
necessary.
Traffic
safety requires a proactive approach these days, too.
Last Spring, we
unfortunately had an incident of “car meets pedestrian” near Kinard Hall
– a frightening situation that was almost inevitable, given the growth
in convergence of pedestrians and vehicles amidst parked cars in that
vicinity. So we immediately instituted some parking shifts that we had
been considering out of just such concern.
Consequently, that has
become a safer area this year, with new parking spaces dedicated for
faculty and staff use in both the Stewart House lot and the President’s
Circle lot.
Overall, 37 F/S spaces
were relocated, but 59 new F/S slots were designated in these lots,
creating a net gain of 22 F/S spaces. This was possible because our
purchase of the former American Legion property enabled us this summer
to add 500 student spaces to that lot. In turn, we could reallocate some
of those former student spaces to F/S spaces in the Stewart House and
President’s Circle lots as needed. In addition, parking for the
disabled has been expanded as well, from six designated spaces to 12.
We’ve also added what
traffic planners call ‘traffic-calming’ features to Alumni Drive on the
west side of campus. The colorful flags of 56 countries represented
among Winthrop alumni now line that corridor. It’s a work in progress,
as research farther back into alumni records results in new flags being
ordered.
Those flag additions,
plus the Winthrop signature fencing around the former Legion lot, and
the installation of additional safety cameras and call boxes make it
very clear that lot is now a part of campus.
It also markedly
improves the look of things along Cherry Road. Campus entrance
improvements there were planned to improve visibility at the
intersection of Alumni Drive and Cherry Road as well, as some of you had
expressed concern about safety of turns there.
We continue to press
the City of Rock Hill to work on the Cherry Road corridor immediately
across from campus, to give it a more pedestrian friendly – and
investment friendly – streetscape and feel, as that is a high-profile
perimeter going from the eastern edge of campus to the heart of campus
entry along Alumni Drive.
The profile of that
entrance to campus will become increasingly important over time, as it
leads directly to the new heart of campus, including the site of what
will become our new Library.
The saga of this
building effort is a long-standing one, as the state of South Carolina
has not provided institutions like Winthrop with capital investment
dollars for new construction in a decade. The state’s expressed desire
to build a knowledge economy apparently hasn’t included building
academic buildings needed to develop that knowledge base.
Hopefully, however,
South Carolina may be on the threshold of a change in that regard. A
state capital bond bill, we’re told, is being contemplated for this
year.
That would be a good
thing, because there is a huge cost to waiting on such projects – and
taxpayers get nothing in return for those additional costs.
Our library is a case
in point. The design envisioned for 21st century learning and
research doesn’t require a significantly bigger library – just a
differently configured and more technologically empowering one – and
hopefully a drier one than Dacus! Yet the building that could have been
built five or six years ago for 35 million dollars is now estimated to
cost 45 million if we broke ground today – and it will reach almost 50
million if we don’t start soon, given the project timeline once funding
is approved.
For two years now, legislative leaders have been indicating a bond bill
is a possibility. Two years ago, it never became a reality, as
legislators devoted their primary attention to three top priorities: tax
cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts.
This past spring, it never became a priority because legislative leaders
didn’t want members to have to do battle with the anti-spending
governor, who had signaled he likely would veto any new capital spending
initiative.
So
there’s little reason to believe harmony on spending of any type is
about to break out in Columbia.
Things are even worse in some other states, with Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger planning to put all state employees on minimum wage on
September 1 if the legislature there doesn’t give him the budget he
wants.
At
last count, 31 state legislatures were coping with budget gaps, and 12
of them were targeting higher education for cuts – the most of any
single category – while 10 were planning across the board cuts.
Given that it’s an election year, and the cost of fuel and food remain
major issues, no state seems to be talking about tax increases, though
some, including SC, are having discussions about overhauling tax codes
completely.
It’s times such as these that I recall a wonderful quote from Winthrop’s
founding president, David Bancroft Johnson, that was unearthed by
historian and Dacus Archives namesake Louise Pettus.
Dr. Johnson, she reports, once told legislators this:
“It has been too common a political
teaching that the best government is that which levies the smallest
taxes. The future will modify that doctrine and teach that liberal
taxation fairly levied and properly applied is the chief mark of
civilized people. The savage pays no tax.”
That was in 1925, of course – but apparently those sentiments were no
more warmly received in Columbia then than they would be in Columbia or
Washington today… yet there remains a good deal of truth in them.
These days, we simply call taxes by other names – user fees, admission
fees, permit fees, tolls, tuition … and sometimes, in hindsight, lost
opportunities or compromised quality.
To
the credit of the strong stewardship exhibited by Winthrop’s trustees
over the years, Winthrop has found ways to avoid compromising our
quality.
We
have kept faith with students of both the present and the future, by
keeping quality high in today’s terms and planning for what will be
necessary to meet the quality standards of tomorrow. Winthrop has
progressed and gained national recognition for its quality and value as
a comprehensive university as a result, and we can bring national
prominence to South Carolina the same way.
So, over the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to describe all
Winthrop’s far-reaching successes and we will remind our state’s public
policy makers that providing long-term answers to the changing needs
presented by the times is what public higher education is all about, and
Winthrop is serving the State of South Carolina exceptionally well in
that regard.
We
will expect our regional legislators to do the same, until both capital
and operating dollars allocated to higher education better reflect the
level of dedication to South Carolina demonstrated by Winthrop and its
peer public institutions.
And we will do that because Winthrop takes seriously its legislative
mandate to keep up with the progress of the times, and we expect our
legislators to take that state mandate equally to heart when making
their appropriations decisions regarding Winthrop.
We
can expect nothing less if we are to keep faith with both the future
that arrives next year and the year after that, and the future that
arrives a generation from now as well, so that we can continue to tell
them “Everything is Waiting for You” here, at Winthrop.
That’s why this year you also will continue to see a good deal of work
dedicated to identifying what
capacities, staffing and resources will be necessary to meet academic,
facilities and support service needs to accommodate incremental growth
in enrollment while maintaining and building upon Winthrop University’s
nationally recognized quality and value.
We will prepare for the future as we
have for the present, answering the questions of how we grow in the
right way, with the right kind of education for our times… and more
importantly, for our students’ times.
It is a case of
Winthrop doing for its ever-evolving family what each of us does
for our respective families.
We lay foundations for
the future – we don’t ask our children and grandchildren to take the SAT
when they’re in first grade, but we want them to master what they need
in first grade to move on, year after year, and be able to do well on
the SAT when it comes. We use the present to prepare for the future, and
try to stay on top of what that future will encompass.
As Gale and I were
able to spend some extended time with our grandchildren over the summer,
the importance of that preparation was all around us, at the beach, and
here in Rock Hill.
Gabriella, soon to be
14, is doing well – she’s petite, spirited and typical for her age and
gender in all the predictable ways: she loves shopping in general,
clothes in particular and, yes, boys are worthy of special note now,
too. She can also do more with a cell phone than I can with a whole
computer. Text-messaging doesn’t begin to cover it all.
The boys, Beckett and
Jack, are high-octane blurs at times, united only in the pleasure they
take in tormenting each other, as brothers often do at that age. What
they have in common for now is that they seem to share one volume
setting – loud -- and one speed-- full-tilt run.
Beckett, the elder at
age seven, is tall, dark and exhibits his senior status by turning
inquisitive and introspective from time to time.
Jack is our
four-year-old, a free-spirited California surfer- to-be, with
sun-streaked golden curls, a happy smile just about all the time, and an
inclination toward mischief.
For part of our
summer, the whole family was in residence at the President’s House, and
it was an uproarious series of:
- “Peanut butter
emergencies,”
- Olympics-style
“suitcase high jumps,”
- A daily meltdown
or two (I won’t say whose,)
- And, I strongly
suspect, at least one bathtub snorkeling adventure gone seriously
awry!
Joyful and exuberant
as it was – at least in retrospect -- it also was at times the kind of
non-stop activity that made me imagine the House’s historic photos of
former Winthrop presidents coming alive in the quiet of night, with my
predecessors all looking around in unison, as if to say, “phew… glad our
House made it through another day.”
There were quieter
times, too, of course.
Beckett may be a
scientist or an engineer someday, as he loves trying to figure out how
toy Transformers and Gameboys do what they do.
Jack’s favorite gadget
of the moment is a kid’s DVD player.
Imagine it: personal
“movies on demand” at age 4! At this rate, he’ll likely be posting his
own You Tube videos of pre-school graduation!
In fact, it becomes
clearer to me every time I am with them that the role technology plays
in this generation of young people is very different from what is was in
my generation’s youth – our childhood marvel was actually the ballpoint
pen!
In your generation, it
might have been the innovation of a transistor radio small enough to fit
in a pocket… then a Walkman… and now an I-Pod.
But for these younger
kids, even more than the students we have now, life is – and always has
been -- about high-tech, high-speed and high energy. That is the
generation that Winthrop must plan to be ready for– now and over the
decade ahead.
As always, Winthrop’s
success will come through an accumulation of those accomplishments, each
emanating from some segment of the university, and contributing to a
greater whole.
It will come from each
of you – and from the person sitting next to you, and the two people
behind you, and that row over to the left of you and to the right of
you.
After all, Winthrop’s
success is the sum total of the work of this caring campus community,
doing what we do best, day after day.
In that way, it’s like
the academic and personal development of each young person – it happens
day by day, with each accomplishment building on a foundation that is a
lifelong work, perpetually in progress. It’s a job never quite done…
because the world keeps changing and the progress of the times keeps
altering what is expected of us.
More importantly, it’s
a success that’s always growing because we keep changing each other
through the very act of working creatively together … to teach… and to
learn.
That is why public policy must be about
people, for it is people who are the ultimate source of progress for
both our families and our nation, and it is people who are our reason
for being.
Because despite all the changes in the
world, one touchstone remains true:
The genius and beauty of the American
experience has been universal acceptance of the fundamental premise that
members of each generation should be able to advance the quality and
ease of their own lives, make choices that guide their own futures, and
broaden the opportunities available to their children to do the same
over time.
It is the way in which this nation …
generation after generation…has said to its young, whatever their
backgrounds, in the words of poet David Whyte: ‘Everything is Waiting
for You.”
We hold fast to that
promise at Winthrop. As always, that is our tradition, that is the
inspiration for our collective work, and it is our privilege to take up
that work again in the year to come.
Thank you for being
part of this plan for success for Winthrop University and its students,
and thank you for making this a better place for your being here.
Now, let us prepare to
move to the Tuttle Dining Room for some refreshment, and best wishes for
a great academic year! |
