2005 Convocation
August 25, 2005
Northern Michigan University

“Each day, each week is an adventure”
Dr. Leslie E. Wong
President

Introduction

A year ago, I stood before you to present my first convocation speech at Northern Michigan University. I said that I expected my first year as president to be an adventure. I obviously have better perception than even I realized! At my installation ceremony 10 months ago, I used the travels of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery as a metaphor for the current journey I saw NMU taking. I’d like to return to the Lewis and Clark mission again, this time to look at just one particular week one year into their travels.

During the middle weeks of May, 1805, the explorers were seeing the Rocky Mountains for the first time. Commander Clark’s exhilaration was matched only by his awareness of what it would take to get over the exalted peaks and conquer the next level of progress. Seeing the mountains renewed his spirit.

However, the Rocky Mountains sighting was not to be the only thing that made this week significant. It is also during this time that a misdirected sail keels the pirogue boat over, forcing Sakakawea to save a number of journals and logs from the river. Clark himself kills a 500 pound bear on the way back to camp. At the camp, another bear is causing damage to the exploration party, chasing men about the camp – in fact going over a cliff with two of the men where it was finally killed. As if that weren’t enough excitement, that night a bull bison came across the river and walked over a canoe and through camp, frightening the group yet again.

Quite a week! It demonstrates that each day of the Lewis and Clark expedition had its moments, but they never completely lost site of their larger goal. I find great inspiration from the Lewis and Clark journals. To me, there is great analogy between this mission and the life of this new college president starting his adventure – even though I do not have to kill bears and avoid bison.

Our effort to provide our students with the best we can offer often meets unavoidable bumps and bruises, but these are part of the journey and we learn from the experience. Each day pushes us toward that bigger goal even as we remain vigilant for surprises and the unexpected. Each day offers us all a chance to excel and presents us with a lesson, if we’re willing to look and notice. And at Northern, we do this quite effectively. And that, I have learned, is a key part of the magic that surrounds NMU.

I have also found in my readings, that Lewis and Clark did not dwell much on where they “had been”. Their life was today and tomorrow and that’s a value that resonates with me. So I’m going to spend a very small amount of time sharing what happened during my rookie year and talk more about the future. Suffice to say that I saw my share of bears, buffalo, surprises and successes. My crew’s spirit, though challenged by legislative fiat, remained high and focused. We are, in Ambrose’s term, “undaunted”.

What happened in 2004-2005

Higher education funding for the Michigan 15 – quite a welcome to this state for me! The ill-fated notion of tuition restraint may have appealed to us all in some abstract way, but the reality of soaring medical/pension costs, utility costs and the state’s historic inability to fund growth meant that universities like NMU were hard-pressed to balance budgets without considering tuition increases. NMU has kept to our mantra of low tuition and high financial aid. It is becoming harder and harder to sustain that model given today’s costs. Last year NMU was forced into compliance with a tuition restraint model with the promise of no further cuts. If you were here last year, you know the state’s finances did not allow them to keep that promise and there were further cuts to higher education. That was the first major bruise.

The next hits came with the House and Senate bills and the highly politicized cuts to NMU and to the U.P. These issues remain unresolved though the most recent signs out of Lansing are much more positive. Hard-line positions have softened and higher than expected state revenues should help Northern, Newberry and the U.P. We have worked hard to make NMU’s position known and NOT unreasonable. We, at Northern, are indebted to the collective voice of the U.P. community, our alums near and far, parents and students and, of course, many of you, for actively, energetically and loudly making it known that we will not stand for unfair legislative actions. I want to thank every one of you who have spoken in our behalf. Your voice was heard and it mattered.

Legislatively, we were definitely bruised, but certainly not broken. The bears chased us but we prevailed. But one thing to keep in mind is that the so-called “funding gap” and formula funding issues will force us into a fight every year during the legislative budget process. We must work hard on campus and with legislators to come up with a reasonable solution to fix these problems so that our students are not the ones injured in the fight. We are doing this. You will hear more about this over the upcoming year at the university forums and I encourage you to be an active participant in developing our strategy.

Like all good journeys, you learn as you travel that it is often wise to make some changes to one’s itinerary, and at the end of my first year we’ve made some. Two that I’d like to point out because they are integral to other areas of the campus are the move of the Intercollegiate Athletics, Recreational Sports and USOEC department back to the President’s Division as of August 1, and a restructuring of the Office of Graduate Studies and Research.

My plan is to be more engaged with athletics and recreational sports, the USOEC, their associated fundraising capabilities, and to offer my resolve to build and enhance our efforts in this area. Ken Godfrey will carry the title of Special Assistant to the President/Athletic Director. There is great potential here for us to live up to our current potential and to craft a bigger vision for student-athletes.

We have also re-created and reinvigorated our graduate studies effort. Dr. Cindy Prosen took on this position a few months ago with gusto and has already produced significant results. One recent and major change for this area was the decision to move Continuing Education back to this department as it was many years ago. Dr. Prosen will be the Dean of Graduate Studies, Research and Continuing Education. Northern also has incredible potential to enhance its revenues via grants and gifts and, with Dr. Prosen’s encouragement, Dr. Joyal and I have approved a plan to add a grants person to the NMU staff. Now, we must establish the infrastructure so that a full-time grants person can come into our community and hit the ground running.

During our mapping period for last year, we said that as a university we would have a year-long, campus-wide discussion on the “Curriculum for the 21st Century,” and we have done this. A large part of this discussion resulted in the creation of two task forces who spent a year articulating key components of our future. The Internationalization Task Force and the Superior Edge Task Force did commendable work, and I applaud all the participants. We WILL begin implementation of their recommendations. I repeat, WE WILL BEGIN IMPLEMENTATION. Neither bear nor bison, nor the dark night will deter or delay our effort. The activity may not be at the speed and level everyone wants, but continued forward movement on these initiatives will be made this year. I’ll address these later in this presentation.

The future from our strength and our resolve....

I have often said to audiences that technology is “how” we do something, not why. And I’ve given a lot of thought time to a potential answer to the question of “what is our strength and what future will be driven by that strength?” Despite the lure and appeal of technology, it will never be Northern’s main strength. Technology helps us remain distinctive and is ONE strength of NMU. It is not our key strength. Remember the overhead projector and the mimeo machine, the IBM selectric/correcting typewriter? Let’s keep technology in perspective. Let’s also recognize that this powerful tool may very well help us reach new audiences. But technology is not why we do what we do.

Northern’s signature and its central strength is its paramount and clear commitment to students. When you engage NMU, you engage a culture that prides itself by the learner’s accomplishments. We pride ourselves in being high touch. During my rookie year, it became apparent that this sense of having someone care about you and your success came from every corner of our reach – from alums, parents, other students, community members, visitors and most importantly, from NMU faculty and staff.

I’d like to try to make tangible what is so intangible with a brief 5 minute DVD we produced to give to legislators. It demonstrates that student success isn’t quantifiable into a formula and it is not something found to the same degree on every campus as it is here at NMU. Let’s hear from the students:

Video "In Their Own Words" (WMV)

What you just saw – students talking about their NMU experiences and the role of NMU faculty and staff mentors in their success – IS our soul, our strength, our hallmark. I could end this speech right here because the students’ words exactly describe our legacy of every effort here at NMU for over a hundred years. That is the “why” of why we do what we do with technology and all other campus directives. Let us not forget that legacy as we move ahead ready to cross our own Rocky Mountains.

The future

So, where are we going? Predicting the future isn’t easy and as my biology mentors have said, it’s all incremental. But when you witness the powerful effects of the Northern experience, one can’t help but believe that our commitment to students will remain job #1. A new president learns a lot from listening and probing. And through that a few clues to our future are quite clear. Thematically, these clues have helped me envision what’s possible for us and ultimately for our students. Let’s talk about them.

THEME #1 for the future:

Our future will be shaped by how much higher we can develop, promote and measure the intellectual and social capital at NMU. That our work in the classroom is excellent is fine for today. I am not criticizing what we do today. My concern is what we will expect of ourselves tomorrow. The future will ask us to think harder, engage more difficult and complex ideas and coerce us to voice our perceptions in an articulate and forthright way. We may even have to cross disciplinary lines to examine some of these questions. We must keep up with the rush of ideas and the pedagogies that bring learning and enlightenment out of our students and ourselves. This requires us to demand excellence in the classroom, reward risk taking, and encourage learning. It compels us to correct complacency and not tolerate mediocre work in students, in our colleagues and from one another. This is why the AQIP assessment process is so important. The potential of that intellectual fervor is on campus but we do not do enough to gather the data that will tell us and our public just how effective we are. Our teaching must be sharp and up-to-date and our assessments must support this. Like the Corps of Discovery, you can’t just get on the boat and ride expecting to do the same thing each coming day. Lewis and Clark had no tourists on their journey. Everybody played a role that was critical not only to the exploration, but to the group’s survival. What we do today should not be what we are doing tomorrow especially if we know that tomorrow will demand something different from us.

Last year, the most powerful image of what’s possible on a broader scale for me was the incredible number of achievements by our students and faculty. I’d like to name a few:

• The baja road vehicle created by Adam Menor and friends in the Industrial Tech program (all on their own time) did admirably, even placing above formal engineering programs in a regional contest. I want to thank the students for trusting me to take it for a test drive! On their own and for minimal credit, the students acted upon their learning and made it real. A great job.

• The discovery of a rare blood type by a clinical laboratory studies student Pete Pelletier during his internship at an Idaho blood bank center, may have saved a life. Pete said he thought he made a mistake because the outcome of his tests didn’t seem possible – an indication of a blood type so rare most professionals don’t see it in the course of their entire careers. He double-checked and re-checked his tests, followed the procedures he was trained to follow and actually did make the discovery of this very rare blood type. Kudos to him and his professors. I should mention that a number of lives were saved last year by action taken by NMU students. Wow....

• Jennifer Silverstone saw the need to prepare children to be energy aware. She took it upon herself to seek, write and obtain a grant and thus Northern Options was created. She took it upon herself to make a difference and strive for positive change. Today, Northern Options is a vibrant organization in the Upper Peninsula.

• Using her athletic and coaching training, HPER student Trisha Hernandez challenged herself to go to Africa and use her skills to help children cope with the ugliness of war and famine. She found there is a way for ONE person to make a difference in the world, and in doing so found a new career path.

• There was a greeting card business started by art and design student Angela Kipling. You know I love to see that entrepreneurial behavior.

• Our construction management students have worked with local contractors to complete the Magers Hall renovation. Now they are becoming involved with the work being done on the Wright Street apartments. Active learning at its best.

• The art, poetry, articles and essays presented at national conventions were astounding. It took a considerable amount of time to completely read the English department newsletter because of the number of books, poems and other products coming from faculty, staff and students there. Excellent work.

• Likewise, the thoughts and ideas that found publication in journals as well as the national and regional presentations from all of the NMU academic and non-academic departments – I’d exceed my time limit for this speech if I tried to list them all.

• Lastly, and most importantly, the thousands of students who volunteer time to this community, helping young and old and everyone in-between in special ways. For example, Lambda Chi Alpha and other Greeks who delivered tons of food to the Salvation Army last year. There is no better service than that given to others.

I am not doing justice to everything so I apologize to those not mentioned. The hurt feelings of those I’ve failed to list here do concern me and, please, your exclusion does not mean that your work is less valuable or underappreciated. But the work of our faculty and staff to help students push the edge of their knowledge is exceptional and a source of great pride for me. In my investiture speech, I asked whether we would approach that distant smoke of some unknown person or idea with fear, aggression or curiosity. We have approached that smoke with curiosity and that attitude and boldness makes me proud to be a Wildcat.

There is a special message here that tells me how successful we can be at promoting scholarship. Northern has done this without raising admission standards. We have done so effectively with ANY STUDENT who has shown his/her willingness to learn, to commit to learning and to confront his/her own fears and ignorance. I believe it is this quality that defines our high touch mantra. And this will be our cachet for the future. We prepare ANY STUDENT who comes to us for life in the real and complex world by preparing him/her to think well, think effectively and to think without fear. We need more of this and we need not be shy about telling the world about how well we do it.

How we ramp up the support of intellectual achievement on this campus will define our success in the future. I believe we can do so without endangering our egalitarian obligations. A public higher education is exactly that and should remain so. But there are some significant challenges ahead. And there are some short-term activities we will undertake now to set the stage for our future.

In the short-term future, higher levels of excellence can be reached if:
We can resolve a conundrum of considerable importance. How do we continue to build an integrated and cohesive campus culture while at the same time developing an off-campus enrollment base to reach audiences who can’t come to campus? I will be asking the Provost and the Academic deans, faculty and staff to begin, in earnest, a planning and implementation process that sets some realistic targets for off-campus enrollments. I will also be asking for union input into how we might do so within the parameters of the master agreement while also providing departments the flexibility they need to be more entrepreneurial and to benefit more directly from entrepreneurial behavior. Why this thrust for off-campus enrollments? We are fighting against a demographic curve that is telling us that fewer and fewer traditional age students will come to us from the U.P. We have to reach out in new and creative ways.

In the short-term future, higher levels of excellence can be reached if:
We can develop a long-term, multi-year strategy that will serve to reduce the semester credit hour production per full-time teaching faculty. This was and is an issue recognized by the Board of Trustees prior to my arrival and it continues to be of primary importance to them and to our university community. One cannot continue to speak of higher levels of excellence as classes get larger, more students arrive on campus, the cycle of class offerings gets longer and the state continues to reduce its financial commitment to higher education. To the faculty: the simple answer is “Les, get more faculty here.” And I wish my response could be an equally simple, “Yes, let’s do it.” But you know and I know there are many reasons why it is not the answer at this time. I believe we must put our thinking to the question of managing enrollment, reducing costs, and remaining affordable. Simply hiring more full-time faculty doesn’t answer this issue. The President’s Council has done considerable work this summer fleshing out innumerable scenarios. Most come with the desirable feature of growing enrollment, which we must continue to do. But to their credit, we have also engaged the question of the limits to that growth (the declining demographic curve). And that is where the question of a campus culture complemented by an off-campus culture has arisen.

In the short-term future, higher levels of excellence are possible if:
We can ramp up the areas of continuing education, online course development, grants and enhanced gift giving. They are all inevitable parts of our strategy. I know the staff members in these areas have many ideas about how to do this. Climbing to the next level requires resources and smarter ways of handling those resources.

THEME #2 for the future: Internationalization

The future is now, goes a popular saying, and we will begin implementing many recommendations made to me by the Internationalization Task Force. To set this stage, this past year we have spent considerable time initiating relationships in China, Mexico, Sweden and Finland. My goal is to have a number of signed cooperative agreements with partnered universities and/or government agencies before the academic year is complete.

I will be meeting with the Task Force to offer “a response from the president”. A number of key issues remain unresolved and I will need their guidance and thought. We must continue to work toward the means to ensure a study abroad experience for each NMU student getting their baccalaureate degree from us. This is not only a financial issue. We need a viable infrastructure to serve these many students going abroad.

Likewise, there does appear to be a softening in the student visa process and we cannot afford to wait to take advantage of this. Our on-campus culture must come to represent both domestic and international diversity. And this may mean a review of how we recruit domestic and international diversity and how we are organized to serve them once they are here.

THEME #3 for the future: The Superior Edge

I encourage everyone to read this report. The recommendations are quite clear. While other Brand X universities talk about leadership development, we have a roadmap to act. The 400 hours needed to complete all four of the Superior Edges will signal to future employers that our students have demonstrated clearly the essential elements of true leadership ability. I look forward to implementation. What a terrific way to complement our highly successful Student Leader Fellowship Program, our commitment to volunteer service and our passion for service learning.

In closing...

My work in Lansing this past year was effective because of my ability to showcase our excellent work. When you do your work well, and when you believe you can do it even better, that is what enables NMU to move forward to the next level of excellence. Student achievement in this intellectual enterprise is what we are all about, and no political message of mine will take the university anywhere unless you individually and collectively commit to ongoing progress toward higher levels of excellence.

My call to action is for you to promote, support, and nurture excellence in our students and in ourselves, both in and out of the classroom. We are capable of even higher standards and I will work with you to ensure progress toward that end result. You may find me asking you this very question when I run into you, “what are you doing to push your students and yourself to higher levels?”

I cannot close without a few quick notes of gratitude. My rookie year has ended and I feel very good about what has happened, but I didn’t do it alone. I need to thank some specific people.

First, I want to ask my bride to stand and be recognized. Thank you, Phyllis, for your work as NMU’s ambassador. You have built bridges to the community and have fostered new friends for NMU. You are there as my best fan whenever I got off a plane or out of the car, no matter what time of day, no matter what my mood. Thank you for that. It does take a team and both Phyllis and I are proud to be part of this team called Northern Michigan University.

Speaking of teams, it is difficult to even try to explain how NMU’s legislative team performed – the hours spent planning, preparing, and executing are almost beyond comprehension. This work was done on airplanes, in cars, sometimes in cars on different highways in different parts of the state, in hallways; by phone, by e-mail, face to face. That we still like each other is a miracle. Joining me on that team are David Haynes, Cindy Paavola, Mike Roy, Gavin Leach, Fred Joyal, and they brought their A game every day. Thank you for being relentless on NMU’s behalf.

Special thanks to the citizens of Marquette and the people of the Upper Peninsula. You’re the best. Your voice for fairness and respect was loud, consistent and effective. Without it, I would have been a nervous wreck. You gave me confidence with your support.

To my staff, Pam Grundstrom, Connie Williams and Jackie Schneider, what a year! Thank you for keeping me sane and on task.

And to the Board of Trustees, thank you for your confidence and patience. A new president cannot ask for better.

To NMU employees, your talents blow me away. Beyond serving our students in and out of the classroom, you’ve served as host to the President of the United States, Finns from around the globe, parents, and guests from other countries and cultures. You all are the epitome of the phrase ‘can do’. I hope I continue to meet your expectations to the same degree you’ve exceeded mine. Thank you for your hard work, day in and day out.

So, it’s time to open up the new academic year. Let’s welcome each other back to a noble task and promise to engage students in the best of enterprises – knowing full well that in doing so we may have to endure a few bears chasing us, a bison or two stomping around our campsite, and live through some injuries, all, while we continue to push to new heights and great accomplishments.

 

Dr. Les Wong
President
August 24, 2005

 

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References:

Gass, Patrick (1812) Journal of the Voyages and Travels of a Corps of Discovery. Under the command of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clarke of the army of the United States, from the mouth of the river Missouri through the interior parts of north America to the Pacific Ocean During the years 1804, 1805, and 1806. Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey, 1812

Ambrose, Stephen E. (1996) Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, And The Opening Of The American West. New York: Simon & Shuster Pub.

Recommended Websites:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/

http://www.lewisandclarkeducationcenter.com

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/lewis_clark/home.html

http://lewisandclark.state.mt.us/

http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/