From the Office of the President

Dear Roosevelt University Colleagues,

I begin this letter by thanking each and every member of the Roosevelt community for your hard work and dedicated service during a challenging time for higher education in general and for our University in particularly. Your unwavering commitment to our students and to the values and mission we all treasure is what makes Roosevelt such a remarkable place. You are the reason students elect to study here and you are the reason why they stay, earn their degrees and do so well thereafter.

During this coming academic year, the number one priority for me and the University's senior administration is to develop strategies which will lead to increased enrollments, first in the spring of 2012, then in the summer, and thereafter in the fall of 2012.

Our specific goal is to enhance freshmen retention rates from this fall's 66.8% to at least 72% and to add at least 300 additional new students next fall. If we are able to do just those two things, and I believe we can, we will be able to address many of the budget difficulties we have faced in the recent past.

I am pleased to tell you that thanks to everyone's determined efforts, we are on target to reach our University-wide enrollment targets for the fall semester of 2011, though it will be the middle of October before we know for sure how these numbers have translated into budget dollars.

We all should be proud of this important step forward because it demonstrates what will happen when faculty, staff and current students are actively involved and collaborate in efforts to retain and recruit students. We need to keep in mind, however, that the enrollment goal was lower than in past years so our overall headcount, though on target in terms of our projections for this fall, will be lower than last fall.

The next 12 months are certain to be exciting and historic for Roosevelt University. Indeed, they will be transformational. Our dramatic Wabash Building is on schedule to be completed in March, 2012. At that time we will start the complicated process of moving into the building and adjusting office spaces throughout the Chicago Campus. This building will transform Roosevelt by providing our students and faculty with 13 floors of state-of-the-art classrooms, laboratories, offices and gathering spaces. Plus there will be 18 floors of on-campus housing with spectacular views of the city. The building will attract local and national attention from prospective students and the general public. In fact, it already is doing just that. I invite you to tour it this month by contacting Natalie Henry at nhenry@roosevelt.edu or 312-341-3613 to arrange a time.

In addition, during this academic year the Lillian and Larry Goodman Center (field house) will be constructed at the southeast corner of Congress Parkway and Wabash Avenue. When it is completed next fall, the Goodman Center will be the perfect place for students to exercise, participate in intramural sports, hold social and academic events, and watch the Lakers men's and women's basketball teams and women's volleyball team compete.

At the Schaumburg Campus, exciting and equally transformational changes are under way.

The new College of Pharmacy has been an unqualified success. There were 570 applicants for 68 openings in the inaugural class. In keeping with Roosevelt's tradition of diversity, a little more than half of the students are women, more than a third are people of color and the age range is 20 to 51 years, with the average age being 25. Students come from 15 states and eight countries including India, Vietnam, Korea, China, Poland, Romania, Cambodia and Thailand. If you have not already seen the new classrooms and laboratories on the second floor, be sure to check them out as they are both high tech and very attractive.

The restoration of the campus landscaping, returning it to a more natural prairie ecology, is well under way, while the relocation and upgrading of the Center for Campus Life and the newly painted entrance and hallways convey the image and help create the reality of a campus on the move.

This summer many of you took time out of your busy schedules to actively participate in the Community Forums on the future of Roosevelt held at both campuses. We are already moving forward with one of the major ideas to come out of those lively discussions as the Schaumburg Campus Operations Committee is currently reviewing options to open a Transfer Center at that campus in the near future. Thanks to all of you, we are making great, collective progress on many issues discussed at the forums. I look forward to continuing our conversations during the academic year.

In that vein, I will soon be announcing follow up forums on each campus this month for members of the community to engage Board Chairman Jim Mitchell and Trustee Don Hunt, who chairs the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, in a conversation about our future.

Finally, I hope you are able to attend some of the informative and high profile events Roosevelt will be sponsoring this fall. They include the Wrongful Convictions Distinguished Speaker Series which begins with a lecture by renowned memory expert Elizabeth Loftus on September 8; the annual Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt lecture with nationally acclaimed economist Dean Baker on September 12; the Mansfield Lecture with Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, on October 13; and the annual Herb and Eileen Franks Seminar on Politics featuring political reporters Clarence Page, Rick Pearson and Bruce Dold on November 7. In addition, there will be numerous musical and theatrical presentations, athletic events and social activities for your enjoyment.

Thank you for helping us begin the 2011-12 academic year in such a positive and optimistic manner. I am confident that the rest of the year will not only be exciting and challenging but rewarding for all of us.

Chuck Middleton