We’re Still a Work in Progress
I’m just heading out to attend the last two Parent/Family weekend. It’s been a lot of fun, though I am a little exhausted (though certainly not the only one). These are my thoughts as I head out the door.
One of the President’s expectations, strongly supported by all of the VP’s, is that as we continue our quest to make our academic programs stronger that we look to beef up the academic component of everything we do. Academics is everywhere. We’ve changed the orientation program to strengthen academic expectations. We’ve changed things in the residence halls to facilitate learning. We created new rituals–specifically the new student convocation–to make it clear that we have high expectations for our students. Even in athletics, we attend to academics. Many people don’t realize that when Vice President Kowpak reminds us that we are the Number 1 public institution in New England and the 19th ranked Division 3 institution nationwide the we’re talking about the academic performance of our athletes.
We’ve also committed to strengthening the academic component of Parent/Family Weekend. On Friday, 73 parents attended 7 classes that they had pre-registered for, just like their students. Today, we have our first Celebration of Academic Excellence during the Weekend. We’ll be showcasing Student-Faculty Partnerships, from studying abroad to undergraduate research initiatives to community outreach.
This is exciting stuff. It’s also rather new. We’re trying new things on our campus and we’re having tremendous success. But we don’t always succeed. A class is missed, someone forgets to show up, we’ve been a little late in notifying people about a few things. For those, I apologize to those affected.
For today, I ask that everyone take great pride in the revitalized commitment to academic achievement and to our core purpose as an institution of higher education. It’s nothing short of thrilling…mistakes and all.