2006 Convocation
August 23, 2006
Northern Michigan University

“Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.” Mark Twain

Dr. Les Wong, President
Northern Michigan University

Download an audio version of the convocation address (.mp3)

Good afternoon. I suspect all of you are waiting to hear how Lewis and Clark are doing. I did in fact look up their 25th month of the journey. They are between Missoula, Montana and Lewiston, Idaho. The journals reveal a confident travelogue: plenty of water, game, friendly native peoples from whom they buy supplies, hired additional guides and they are making steady progress west. Their travels remain such a good allegory/metaphor for the two years I’ve been at NMU. But I may look for a new guiding parable since the 3+ years of the Corp of Discovery is just too short to apply to NMU. Our vision is much longer than that, so this may be my last reference to the journals.

Today, our own journals reveal adequate sustenance – a balanced budget, a larger state appropriation, plenty of students and a friendlier political climate. Year three is upon us with favorable conditions, what my sailing friends call pushing winds.  I’d like to address three areas today: first, a brief look at what happened this past year; second, our need to remain agile and finally, some thoughts I’ve come to call the issue of big questions.

A brief review:

My second year as Northern’s President has given me an even better view of just really how talented we are at NMU and a good glimpse of just how big our dreams can be. Some observations are unmistakable:  NMU is filled with talented people, we all want to be here and we are deeply committed to our students and the teaching-learning experience. The people around me, that is, all NMU employees are incredible. Thank you all for your good work, your commitment and the results.

We’ve been pretty successful in Lansing these past two years. Our constituencies – alumni, friends, parents and even students - support us and carry our message to legislators. We have developed new friends in the legislature and their awareness of who we are, what we do and what we want to achieve is now well known. And the legislature appreciates our desire to be a part of the solution. Our 3% appropriation increase this year recognizes the role NMU will play in promoting Michigan and the U.P. Our continuing growth addresses an expanding regional awareness of the quality of our programs.  Our continued growth in grants reflects a confidence in the depth of our scholarship. We are truly “Cats on the Prowl”.

Although it feels good to have directed the path of our ship through some powerful storms, our future will require us to remain vigilant, to remain agile, and not to forget that we have a vital mission to fulfill. It will take all of us to do so. Everyone matters, and I’m so pleased and very proud of our university community.

Allow me to address some announcements for the coming year. I’m pleased to share with you that a contract settlement with the AAUP has occurred. My respect and appreciation goes to the faculty negotiating team, the bargaining council, faculty leadership and the administrative negotiating team for a win-win effort. Keeping talent on NMU’s campus is a high priority. I’ve been both saddened and proud when major universities and corporations steal our people from us. But as we craft our long-term identity, our retention of students, faculty and staff will be a constant challenge. This settlement, along with our other accomplishments, is a very nice way to start the year.

Change is an inevitable part of university life, and changes in personnel will be occurring here at Northern Michigan University. As you all know, Connie Williams retired from the President’s Office after 40 years with NMU. In about a month, Jackie Schneider will retire from the President’s Office after 35 years with the university. We have filled their positions with Sally Roo and Therese Nease, both highly competent people whom I hope I can keep happy for another couple of decades.

In another change, Northern has moved to an internal legal counsel model.  Rather than depend almost entirely on legal services headquartered downstate, we have created a new office called, “General Counsel and Equal Opportunity”.  Cathy Dehlin will fill the role of NMU’s general counsel along with her duties as the university’s equal opportunity officer. She will coordinate any use of external counsel and will sit on the President’s Council.

We will be continuing our search for the next Provost. Our bar is high in replacing Dr. Fred Joyal. The majority of the search committee has agreed to continue their service this year. I want to thank the committee for its work last year and for its commitment to find us the academic leadership our future requires.

Along with the Provost, the VP for Finance is one of two pillars upon which my confidence depends. I must share with you the announcement of Dr. Mike Roy’s intent to retire January of 2008. This was a difficult decision for Mike, I know. This timeline of a year and a half with Mike on board will ensure a steady transition of leadership.  I will include and seek input from the campus during the transition process. Both Dr. Roy and Dr. Joyal have given their adult lives to this institution and this community. Much of what we are today bears their fingerprint. Thank you Mike and Fred for your excellent and continuing service.

Remaining an agile institution

One of the metaphors related to sailing that I used during my first convocation speech came from John A. Shedd: “A ship is safe in the harbor—but that’s not what ships are for.”  Northern Michigan University is about growth, change and quality. We don’t often speak of institutional agility. But the evidence I’ve seen suggest that we are, indeed, an agile institution. And how we continue to remain agile will be a central strategy to sustain our forward movement.

We have sailed this ship through some pretty rough waters. We’ve done it at high speed, low speed and I hope we’ll experience more even keeled cruising speed in good weather. Right now: smooth water, strong wind and the ship is definitely moving forward. But what awaits us over that horizon line?  What will challenge that agility?

I wish I could tell you that the forecast for the rest of the journey is for continuing good weather, but we all know forecasters only go so many days and weeks out into the future. They know variables are constantly changing and so do we. Likewise, I wish I could tell you that this year’s state funding increase indicates that our belt-tightening and funding concerns are a thing of the past. But I would not be doing my job well if I even implied that this was the case.

The reality is this: our funding is secure for this year  BUT  there is still a huge question about how the state will replace the nearly $2 billion in revenue generated by the former Single Business Tax (SBT), and the answer to that question could have huge implications for the funding of Michigan’s public universities.

Also, Northern still remains higher than its peer institutions in funding per Fiscal Year Equated Student or FYES. Although we’ve made tremendous progress on closing the gap due to our cost-cutting measures and the decrease in state funding of the past several years coupled with enrollment growth. Until our per FYES funding is comparatively similar to our peers, we remain politically vulnerable. That means there is still a target on our backs. For those of you unfamiliar with NMU’s per FYES funding issue, this has to do with a 10 or so-year history of Michigan under-funding enrollment growth at some sister universities. I just wanted to clarify that so that new faculty, staff and community members don’t walk away wondering about our past fiduciary competency: NMU has been a great steward of the public’s funds.

Another key challenge we still face – also related to state funding – is the continued existence of the House funding formula. As it currently exists Northern is adversely affected. In fact, it penalizes us for some successful NMU programs and initiatives. On the plus side, we have explained these issues to the policymakers, and they have heard our concerns, and in some cases have even addressed these concerns with adjustments to the formula this year.

On another front, enrollment continues to grow and that’s a good thing. But that growth has created its own set of challenges. In many areas, our departments are stretched to the limit. We need more support to continue to be the university known for its personal attention to students – and I mean that both academically and from a general student support standpoint.

Because we didn’t face state funding cuts this year and enrollment grew, it might be tempting to say, “OK, let’s start rehiring positions we cut over the past few years to reduce the strain.”  But what happens if our enrollment begins to level off or if the state begins reducing funds again. Today, we have some relief on our funding question, but there are no guarantees that this is a long-term situation.

At the same time, Northern administrators cannot ignore some of the staffing issues our enrollment growth is causing. On the academic side, we’ve shared with you a plan to increase faculty by 60 full-time equivalent positions over the next five years. This represents an investment of $840,000 per year. We have to do this in a way that keeps us agile, and we believe that means changing our mix of tenured faculty to non-tenured faculty. As we’ve explained we have no plans to come in and flip-flop our academic culture from its current ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty, but we have to find a way to get more teaching bodies in the classroom in the most cost-effective way, AND at the same time, continue to uphold the quality standards in which we all take such pride.

It’s a challenge, be we’re a can-do university. I do want to thank the faculty for engaging in this discussion about faculty mix. There are a lot of questions to be answered and details to be worked out; let’s keep banging away at those until we find solutions that work best for Northern and our students.

I think we are well on our way to getting more instructors, but what about the staff?  Please don’t think that the NMU leadership team is not aware of stressed staff areas. There are significantly less bodies to do even more work.

So how do we address non-academic staff levels  . . . AND still remain agile?  While I can’t give you a lot of details yet, because I don’t have them, I want the staff to know that the NMU leadership is working on this issue. We have approved several new positions that were clearly needed.  But again, we simply can’t afford to go on a massive hiring binge. So the question is how do we determine where the most critical need exists?  I am going to ask departments who feel stretched to the breaking point to do two things: 1) do a comprehensive review of your office or unit processes and make a minimum of two recommendations of change that could be implemented with the assumption that adding a position is not possible and 2) help us develop a work flow metric based in demonstrated professional standards that links to adequate staffing parameters.

I know the campus has spent the last three years looking at everything we do and exploring what can be done differently. I think we need to continue to do that, even though it may seem that we’ve searched every angle upside down and sideways. I also think we need to consider bringing in outside eyes – whether that means on-campus but outside the department or external sources – to see if they see options we’re missing.

Staff members, please recognize that what I’m asking you to do is basically the same challenge I’m issuing the faculty in considering a new tenure/non-tenure mix. In both cases, it means putting our emotional attachments to the way things are done today on the shelf and being brave enough to realize that proposed changes do not somehow imply inadequate work effort.  To remain agile is to be open to new ways of doing things because they will work for Northern Michigan University.

Agility!  Let me offer one more example. Demographic studies tell all of us in higher education that the national trend for traditional college-aged students will start a steady decline around 2009-10. The hardest hit regions of the country are expected to be the Northeast and the Midwest. Over the summer while lecturing at some conferences in California and Washington state, it became apparent to me that areas of the West are already seeing a plateau in the upcoming cohorts of college-aged groups.

So we know this is our future – traditional-aged student numbers will decline. How is Northern positioning itself to address this?  How will we maintain our enrollment numbers, which we hope to be over 10,000 by the time the decline will probably hit the Midwest?  Who will our students be then? Where will we have to go to get them?  What kinds of degree programs will they require and what will be their support needs and wants?  I can tell you this: these students won’t be mostly 18-22 year olds. This is why I’ve asked the academic units and the President’s Council to examine how we might add 1,000 off campus students. This may occur through technology. It may be off campus face-to-face (F2F) or some mixture of online and F2F. It is a challenge appropriate to our creativity and our resolve.

Right now, we are an agile institution. We have a balanced budget. Our enrollment has climbed again for a ninth consecutive year. We have launched our Superior Edge initiative and continue to work on internationalization. We have gained new business and educational partners. We have increased our research and research funding. We are a university on a roll despite everything we’ve been through over the past three years – the statewide economy and subsequent budget cuts, the state funding battle, hiring a new president two years ago -- all big changes. The Northern community has effectively met these challenges. We must sustain those habits that renew our energy, help us control our future and stay agile.  Keep in mind that 2009 is only three years away.

The issue of Big Questions.

Nothing makes a President feel older than when a group of students asks, “What was it like during the 60’s?”  “You mean you saw Jim Morrison-live in concert with the Doors? Wow.” Somewhere in or near that priceless time zone my favorite bumper sticker appeared.  I have not been able to forget it:   think globally, act locally.   As I ask us to think about a university education and a much larger world, I’m going to close by offering some think globally, act locally ideas from me. The strategy is, hopefully, to engage our thinking as well as our everyday behavior.  And in so doing, I hope that we will ask ourselves to what degree are we thinking globally and acting locally.

If you look at our current key initiatives, themselves big ideas -   internationalization, the Superior Edge, graduate programs and research, even our impending capital campaign - each has its way of pointing students to a much larger question. These initiatives also import a call to do something. Let’s take each initiative and address how they move us to confront a BIG QUESTION, yet imply that an answer will be elusive unless we are willing and able to act locally.

The Superior Edge: The Superior Edge will launch this semester. Never has a higher education institution taken the responsibility to incorporate key aspects of citizenship, diversity, leadership and real-life applications into a single, voluntary structured program that directly supports a student’s program of study. Many campuses have bits and pieces, but the Superior Edge is unique in its scope and effect. Imagine our modest goal of 10% of our students or 1000 students putting out 400 hours of work each, un-graded and unpaid, in service to their community. That is 400,000 hours of work. It’s like suddenly putting 200 full-time employees in service to the community tomorrow. The Superior Edge has this kind of potential even in its earliest stages. That is big stuff and it is incredible. It will not be surprising if we receive national recognition from this effort and that attention brings students and other universities to our campus the same way TLC did. Faculty are involved, staff are involved, community mentors are involved. This is truly a ground-breaking and significant program. Remember, students choose to undertake this challenge. Keep your eyes on this program; it is a winner. It is one way in which we ensure our students will have practiced and perfected what it takes to make a difference in the world around them. This adds such a profound dimension to the concept of being educated and earning a college degree.

Internationalization: for future educators and citizens, the transformational role of a university education will be even more complex. Richard Levin (MSNBC, Aug 21-28, 2006) caught this well with his comment, “As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace.”  NMU is on a path to build bridges (intellectual, social, personal and economic) to countries willing and desiring to work with us. Building those bridges requires a lot of protocol and friendship making before the real benefits of the relationship are realized. That is what motivated our past trip to Mexico and our upcoming October trip to China. One doesn’t just say to the world, here we are, we’re ready to play, and then wait for someone to throw us the ball. China will see us meeting with universities, schools, education officials, sports officials and our large corporate partner, Lenovo™ to begin building the bridge upon which faculty, students and ideas will flow both ways. We can’t wait. NMU departments and programs are doing likewise in Finland, Sweden, South Africa, Europe and Latin America. The fruit these efforts will bear may take a year or three, but life is about maximizing opportunity today. NMU can’t afford to wait. Our students must be prepared and practiced in the ways of a world that is not only “smaller” but under considerable change.

Some exciting ways to act locally: One of my personal goals is to develop a better understanding of diversity in today’s context and from the perspective of our students. My radical student days are long gone and I don’t know how our students are thinking about their role in a diverse society. Toward that end, our diversity events this fall are spectacular. The UNITED program on September 16-19 features great keynote speakers and begs us all to participate. I will attend the events and ask the university community and the Marquette region to join me in a serious discussion about race relations. In another program called “One Book One Community”, the role of culture, class and the American Dream will be explored. Community organizers have set the stage for all participants to have a meaningful discussion about immigration and the future of this country. In fact I challenge every faculty and staff member to attend at least one UNITED event and to read T.C. Boyle’s book, Tortilla Curtain.

Another personal goal, I’m going to read more about Islam. I’ve completely underestimated its spread through Asia, Latin America, and in the U.S. It is a gaping hole in my intellectual vision and it must be corrected. As Americans, we are too used to the idea that church and state are irreconcilably separate. What is our students’ role in the larger world when the U.S. may become the ONLY country where this is so.

Graduate Education: Our capabilities and capacities in graduate education and research reflect the intellectual capital so prevalent on our campus. As we push for more undergraduate research, how does this influence the concept of a graduate degree? And if we’re pushing research or “active” learning deeper into the undergraduate curriculum, what new expectations should we hold for the MA if not for the Ph.D.? And if big questions require a broader multi-disciplinary approach, might the best Ph.D’s come from advanced interdisciplinary experiences? Northern could not be in better position to lead in the innovation of doctoral and masters programs aimed at big issues. Strategic moves in this area have the potential to affect the economic development of Marquette, the U.P., and Michigan.

Capital Campaign:  Our plan for our second and larger capital campaign, the very means to fund these and other initiatives will also address four large and relevant areas:  academic excellence, student enhancement, community enrichment and internationalization. I believe our donors and benefactors want to support and become part of a much larger vision for NMU. They recognize the responsibilities educated people have and how their gifts bring us closer to that larger vision. You will be hearing far more detail about these four campaign themes.

We have moved aggressively to rebuild and reshape our Foundation and Alumni infrastructure. Those pieces are nearly in place. I am confident that we are poised to develop the gift base this university needs to meet big challenges and future changes. The spirit of a capital campaign will be that extra wind in the spinnaker.

Think globally, act locally. Who’d have thought that bumper sticker’s resurrection would create such thoughts for me at this time in my life. Oh...those 60’s. What will each of you do to support the Superior Edge program, help move NMU’s internationalization efforts forward, promote awareness and acceptance of diversity? Or will you step forward to help us redefine our curriculum and grad programs for future changes on the horizon. Let us couple our big dreams and ideas with meaningful and effective action. What a year this could be. We have a good sense of how fast, how quick and yet how steady this ship can move.

My thanks again to all the people that make up the Northern Michigan University community for all that you do. No one has a better view of your work than me, and I’m blessed to be a part of this effort. It is why I take our collective efforts so personally and with such responsibility.

Let’s keep the Cats on the Prowl, get engaged, be a part of the action.

Thank you