2009 Convocation
August 19, 2009
Northern Michigan University
Les Wong, President

Watch the video of the 2009 Convocation address (mediasite)

Three curses attributed to the Chinese but origin quite unknown:  1. May you live in interesting times 2. May you come to the attention of those in authority 3. May you find what you are looking for

Thank you Dr. Koch.  And thank you Dr. Poe.  I want to offer a warm welcome to two members of the NMU Board of Trustees, Mr. Jack LaSalle and Mr. Steve Adamini, who are here today. And let me add my own welcome to the new faculty and staff who are joining our NMU community.  I also want to offer the first lady a special thank you.  She has brought NMU national notoriety for her work with the “Gossard Girls” of Ishpeming.  She continues to energize the One Book, One Community initiative and her work promoting NMU and our students is exceptional.  Our adventure here continues and it looks like the adventure is not going to slow down.

One of the most used phrases this past year was without a doubt, reference to living in interesting times.  I suspect you may not know that that phrase is but one-part of a three-part curse, attributed to the Chinese but the source is largely unknown.  The Chinese are known for twisting opposing positions into a single proverb to make one think carefully.  And this curse thing is no different.  And while I do not entirely believe in curses, I also know that the opposite of a curse could be a “promise” – as in future opportunity.  Just as the Chinese ideograph for “threat” and “opportunity” are identical, so too, a curse can also suggest an opportunity.  In light of the Chinese habit to hold two opposites in one idea, I still found the three “curses/opportunities” an excellent way to shape this presentation.  I would like to use all three pieces of the curse/opportunity to guide my comments today.

First part of the curse/opportunity:  “May you live in interesting times”

The past 12 months was not only challenging to the university, but we’ve seen the scale of change take on dimensions not seen in recent history.  We all watched as the very economic foundations of a world economy teetered on the brink.  The interconnectedness of the world was brilliantly on display with each day’s report.  Michigan’s one state recession is now 50 states and most of the world’s countries.   There has been 41 consecutive months of decline in personal income in America, evaporation of nearly a third of most American’s personal wealth (or retirement savings), homes lost, unemployment at all time highs, millions of Americans continue to live without health care coverage, and surprise, revenue projections in Michigan continue to be worse than expected.  Michigan now faces billion dollar shortfalls in FY 2010 and 2011.  And soon, you won’t be able to read a daily newspaper unless you have a computer, a smart phone or a Kindle.  Interesting times…don’t forget that there were also historical events that made us proud to be American.  The President is African American, there are three Asian American cabinet members, and we have an Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court.  The speed and scale of change made for interesting times.  2008-09 was not a boring year.

To the university community:  we have challenges in front of us that will test our resolve, our patience and our focus.  But if teaching makes a difference, NMU will always remain a point of stability in the lives of our students.  If there is one prescription to deal with the instability and ambiguity of living in interesting times, it is to remember NMU’s mission statement.  I find myself referring to our mission quite often as I seek to ensure that what we do is smart, right, and meaningful.

“Northern Michigan University challenges its students and employees to think independently and critically, develop lifelong learning habits, acquire career skills, embrace diversity and become productive citizens in the regional and global community.” 

To think independently and critically.  I’ve been telling this to students and their parents for 5 years now.  NMU has figured prominently in the lives of this community and untold thousands of students for its 110 years.  I am confident that today’s work will be talked of 110 years from today.  What may seem strange and tough now, will, in the light of history, deal less with what happened to us as it will report how we thought clearly, intelligently, and creatively to sustain the quality of the Northern experience.  And while it may be a curse to live in interesting times, what better place to pursue an opportunity than to be on NMU’s campus in the coming weeks, months and years.  These times are indeed interesting, but they can also provide us the opportunity to set in motion decisions and solutions that will carry us beyond 2015.  It may not be easy, nor comfortable, but doing daring things isn’t comfortable or ordinary.   After all, interesting times are the life blood of interesting people, and we are that.

-- Second part of the curse/opportunity: “May you come to the attention of those in authority”

You’d think that the last thing I’d want is to come to the attention of those in authority.  What appears to be a curse reflects exactly the opportunities seized by NMU, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.  For example, we are one of only 200 universities the Carnegie Commission recognizes as a community engaged university.  Our visiting accreditation team was impressed with the work of students, faculty, staff and administrators during these “interesting times”.  Legislators refer to NMU as the “can-do” university.  And more importantly, annual giving to NMU in FY 2009 was a million dollars ahead of FY 2008.  People have noted our focus, our success and our ability to look ahead and be ahead of the pack.  We have earned a new found respect and we have earned their financial support.  It is good to be noticed.

The purpose of the Road Map to 2015, which is now a year old, was to maintain our focus and to sustain our creativity.  The Road Map has become an excellent resource to guide our thinking and decision-making in these tough times.  Our external audiences are noting our willingness and our competence to plan ahead and act in accordance with this plan.  I’d like to give just a few examples from each of the Road Map categories that reflect our focus and achievements during interesting times. And please don’t forget that the Road Map is one of many answers to the threats ahead.  It is one of our best answers given the results we’ve compiled.  And these results are being noticed.

Innovation

Under Innovation, we’ve created more study abroad opportunities, invited more international speakers on a wide variety of topics to campus, and we’ve reformatted our performing arts series into the new NMU International Performing Arts Series. NMU is the first higher education organization in the U.P to receive McNair program funding and one of only 185 institutions in the nation to be chosen.  In a highly competitive grant process, NMU secured $880,000 over 4 years to prepare low-income, first-generation college students and students from groups underrepresented in graduate education for doctoral study.  We also implemented the Wildcat Innovation Fund and awarded seven proposals with a combined $120,000 in funding to seed new ideas.

The Grants Office annual report continues to point to incredible potential.  NMU submitted more grant applications last year, 74 in 2008-2009 compared to 60 the previous year.  56 submittals netted $5.4 million dollars with an average award of $95, 658.  More importantly the office worked with 11 new Principal Investigators.  Kudos goes to Andy Smentkowski and all the faculty and staff who stepped up. 

I want to make special note of one way the business world is noticing us and also remind you that this is the 10^th anniversary of the laptop initiative.  This initiative significantly closed the digital divide for the first time by ensuring equal access to the same technology tools (laptop and software) by all of our students.  We have corporate friends on campus this week who are key industry leaders representing Intel, Lenovo, Motorola, and IBM.  When NMU secured permanent WiMax certification number 59 (in the world) through IEEE our dreams of closing the digital divide one more time for our students became a reality.  When 3,000 of our students turn on their new laptops later this week, NMU and Marquette will have one of the most active, perhaps one of the most extensively in-use, WiMax networks anywhere.   Measured in miles rather than feet, this network represents a new generation wireless that will foreshadow bringing high speed broadband to rural, isolated communities across this planet.   The ideas and technologies of tomorrow are being created here, at Northern, in Marquette, today, because we remained focused, we thought independently and we acted.   A big thank you to our internal IT staff led by Gavin Leach and Dave Maki but also a big thank you to our corporate friends, as well as Congressman Bart Stupak and Wildcat alums like Kevin Boyle, who continue to support our ideas at the federal level.

Meaningful Lives

We have made significant progress on implementing an online degree evaluation tool, traditionally known as degree auditing.  We’ve automated that process for students and it is available to students in all but a few NMU majors.  This will help students quickly and easily answer the question “what if I want to change majors, what do I need to take and how will my past courses help or hinder?”  Also, we have nearly completed a new set of online interactive tools to better help students and their parents understand the financial aid process and the funding opportunities available to them.  These two items may seem small, but being clear about the direction of your studies and how you are going to afford them are two critical questions in front of our students and their families.  

Leveraging Campus Attributes

We continue with our efforts to renovate physical spaces to meet LEED standards.  But let me congratulate professor Mike Andary, construction management, and Brandon Sager of engineering for passing certification tests to become LEED Accredited Professionals.  We also had three students take the required tests for certification and pass.

Regarding sustainability, if you get a chance, stop by or go on the Housing web site to see all of the many, many initiatives Housing and Residence Life have put in place to help students be more green.  And if you want to see a glimpse of our work campus-wide, go to www.nmu.edu/facilities to see a sampling of the many sustainability projects underway at Northern.

Community Engagement

Superior Edge, our civic engagement-leadership program, continues to grow with about 1850 students in 2008-09.  Academic service learning courses also increased.  Last winter there were 49 class sections (30 courses) designated as academic service learning courses with 783 students enrolled.  And by the way, I asked Dave Bonsall to give me a list of agencies and sites where our students offered their time and effort.  The list is 6 pages long listing over 200 local agencies and/or organizations where our students made a difference.

I hope to soon post an update of the Road Map identifying campus wide accomplishments in 2008-09.   Additionally, the President’s Council has been working hard to release a new update of the Road Map for 2009-2010.  Our goal is to present a refreshed version to the Board of Trustees at their September meeting.

Third part of the curse/opportunity: “May you find what you are looking for”

In a teleconference with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan just two weeks ago, a small group of us heard him say often, “We will need to educate our way to a new economy”.  I think he and President Obama are absolutely right.  The talent-based, service economy, dependent upon educated, versatile, IT savvy, worldly students describes Northern to a “T”.  Any kind of education will meet the minimum requirement.  A quality education at Northern, will be the strategic choice.  In order to find what we are looking for, I am scheduling a round of discussions across campus that will be a bit different than what I have done in the past.  Campus forums are a great way for me to share how all of you have influenced my thinking and our decision making, but this year I want to hear even better what more of you are thinking.  I want to meet face-to-face with more and perhaps in smaller groups where we can engage the problems and discuss solutions.  Given our propensity to find what we are looking for, I look forward to these discussions.  Knowing and understanding the goals of the Road Map will be required. 

To set the stage for these meetings, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on what NMU may be looking for.  From where I sit, we will be looking for a refined yet lively discussion about our identity as Northern Michigan University.  Let me explain.  We have had incredible success as a teaching institution where “high touch, high tech, high quality” served to define and differentiate us from our competitors. Conditions then allowed us to sustain a high financial aid – low tuition model through efficiencies and reallocations.  These conditions will soon cease to exist and at projected declining appropriation levels that high financial aid- low tuition model could be difficult to maintain.  We may need a new and different model.  Also consider that a new generation of faculty and staff (who want to do more research at the undergraduate level) has led to increasing interest in grant support and different kinds of assignments.  One must also consider the demographic pressure on our enrollment and a shrinking state appropriation expected to continue to decline through 2015. Just these few pressures tell me that we need to discuss what is sustainable and what is not.  And when you begin to ask yourself about how unavoidable pressures can exert significant change on how you do business, then you are raising the critical question of how we define ourselves.  Can we be the same kind of institution as before given this impetus to change?  I don’t think so.  Just as each of us individually redefined our personal identity with each phase of life, institutions today will face the same challenge.  And like individuals, the identity that forms will shape the kinds of opportunities you seek and identify those attributes you will avoid or drop. 

To be blunt, we need to find and articulate the answer to a very central question: what are the core functions at the heart of the mission of this great university?  The status quo is being challenged on a number of fronts and we must use the time ahead to become much more clear about who we are, what are our core functions and what kinds of decisions will be needed to attain a new identity without sacrificing the quality of our current work with students.  This will not be easy to do and it is something we cannot postpone.  I am inviting you to join me in an important and not inconsequential discussion about our identity.  As I’ve told my senior staff and the President’s Council, we have the opportunity to manage the path to the future we want.  We may not get the chance again if the current pressures remain or worsen.  One last caveat:  We shouldn’t expect this new identity to necessarily be rooted in or benchmarked by the current student-faculty, student-staff, student-administrator ratios that currently exist.  We have saved money, but it has also stretched us too far and too thin.  Let’s give ourselves the freedom to put everything on the table for reconsideration.

You told me two years ago that IT expertise, civic engagement/student leadership and international work were our strengths and areas of continued support and investment.  You have also told me that the broad area of environmental studies/sustainability and enlarging programs in the health professions were close to the top of our priorities.  We’ve seen growth and attention given to these areas.  Do you still believe this to be our top 5 signature areas?  Are these the 5 areas that serve as the figurative core of our identity?

So…..

May you live in interesting times, may you come to the attention of those in authority and may you find what you are looking for.  Such a provocative curse, oops, I mean opportunity.

Let me close by asking every employee to think about our identity and when the discussion gets to your area, I hope you bring your thoughts and ideas to the table. 

Thank you everyone.   The future needs us right now, and I look forward to my discussions with you.  I appreciate and respect the work you do for our students and our many audiences.

Please don’t forget that the reception following my remarks is at the Berry Events Center where we will be treated to a speed skating demonstration by NMU’s USOEC student athletes as a preview to the Olympic Trials that will take place on campus in about 20 days.

Thank you.