Convocation Address
President Charles Middleton

CONVOCATION REMARKS, FALL 2008

Charles R. Middleton, President

August 28, 2009

Thank you, Jim.

Good morning everyone and thank you for coming.  It's exciting to look out into the audience and see so many new faces -- faculty, staff and especially students -- eager to begin the 65th year here at Roosevelt University.  If you are among those who are joining us this year, your decision to come here was one of the smartest you will ever make.  It will forever transform your life for the better, just like it has already changed the lives of all of us who are returning.

The start of an academic year is one of the best moments in higher education, if not life itself.

In fact, the energy and excitement coming from our students, faculty, and staff is stronger than I've ever felt, and for good reason.

We are experiencing unprecedented enrollment growth here at the University, which is fueling the development of new academic programs, the return of our Athletics Program, and, of course, a brand new 32-story building in the heart of downtown Chicago.

Roosevelt University truly is experiencing a transformational change, and everyone here gets to be both a part of it and, more significantly, to help shape its outcome.

Outside the University, the world has been experiencing a period of harsh economic times, though recent signs suggest that things might be improving a bit.  Despite this, we have continued doing great things at Roosevelt.  Most important of all, we are dedicated to and invested in sustaining high academic standards and the development of first-rate activities in student life both inside and outside the University.

As you know this year we've hired 42 new full-time faculty members, whom you have just met. The new faculty on this stage, along with the faculty in the audience who have been here in the past, are the guardians of this tradition of academic excellence.  In their teaching, scholarship and creative work they assure that it endures from generation to generation.

This falls' huge increase in full-time faculty means a corresponding increase in opportunities for all of our students to experience a broader curriculum and to be taught by a group of people who are dedicated to their overall well-being, not just to their intellectual and creative growth.  But to do that work at the highest level, we need modern space, not just in continuous renovation of our current facilities, but especially in a new building, designed for us and our purposes.

New Building

Since our overall success is being driven nearly exclusively by growth on the Chicago Campus, we're all working tirelessly to build a new building on Wabash Avenue. A to-scale model of the project is there for you to see in the Michigan Avenue lobby of the Auditorium Building.

I want to take a moment and thank our Board of Trustees for their visionary leadership on this project.  Back in June, after years of planning and purposeful deliberation, the Board took a bold step and passed a resolution to move forward with the development of our new building, which will provide much needed state-of-the-art academic space for our students, faculty, and staff, along with a new student union and housing for many of our students.

The 32-story glass structure will also forever change Chicago's skyline in the South Loop area.  It will be an iconic 21st century building standing side-by-side next to the post-Chicago-fire Auditorium Theater Building of the 19th century – two different types of architectural coolness, but both of them symbolize the importance and enduring vitality of Roosevelt University.

Intercollegiate Athletics

On another level, for many perhaps the most exciting development over the past year is the return of the Roosevelt Lakers and the re-establishment of our Intercollegiate Athletics Program.

We've already hired the head coaches for women's basketball, men's basketball, and baseball.  The first intercollegiate competitions will begin in the spring of this academic year with club baseball.

No doubt there are many of you out there who are eager to see this program up and running and will lend your support both as spectators and participants.  So be on the lookout for tryout information if you are interested in becoming a Laker.

The presence of Intercollegiate Athletics will also enable us to expand intramural sports on both campuses, so look out as well for those opportunities to be advertised as the semester begins.

New Program Development/New Branding Initiative

We are also working to spread the news of our successes in new and exciting ways in what is often known as branding. Over the past academic year, Roosevelt has worked hard to identify the University's unique attributes, and to communicate broadly who we are as an institution with clarity, integrity and vibrancy.  In this energizing effort we will express our mission and values in ways that raise awareness and visibility of the University and what makes us special and different from our peers and competitors.  We do not just speak our core values, we live them every day.

This past weekend we wrapped the Auditorium Building with some of the key elements of this new image.  Not many Universities broadcast to the world as it passes by the core values and purposes that drive their success.  We are boldly proud to do so.  Take some time to go outside to read the messages.  Then let me know what you think.

This initiative entails, of course, a long and comprehensive process of putting out the new messages, so you will be able to see evidence of this in many places over the coming weeks, but especially when the new website rolls out later this semester.

On the programmatic front, Roosevelt was recently selected to be one of the 55 institutions nationally and only one of two in Illinois to receive a civic engagement grant from the Association of American Colleges and Universities.  The goal of the grant is to enable us to establish a national model for a campus culture that infuses civic engagement and service learning into curricula across the University.  The selection of the University for this important honor is another recognition of the value-driven nature of all we do here.

Schaumburg Campus

As we turn toward the future, our eyes fall upon the Schaumburg Campus.

Currently, enrollments have remained essentially flat in Schaumburg over the past few years.  The creation of the new Pharmacy Program, which will be housed there exclusively, is the first step, but only the first step, in a much broader process of a complete rethinking of the goals and purposes of that campus.

We have a great opportunity this year to reassess the campus as a distinctive part of the University overall. In my view, the campus mission needs a major recasting. I have asked Provost Gandre and Vice President Potenza to work with the campus community this fall to develop a clear set of goals and academic purposes that will lead to greater campus differentiation from what we do in Chicago than has been the case heretofore.

This afternoon, I will announce the membership of a task force composed of faculty, students and administrators who are personally committed primarily if not exclusively to assuring our success in Schaumburg.  I will ask this task force to engage the community there in a broad discussion on the future of the campus and to report back to me with their recommendations on that future no later than December 1, 2009.

While I am not yet certain what the key ingredients or drivers of returning the Schaumburg Campus to enrollment growth and expansion are to be, I do know that we must be bold and take thoughtful risks in the process.  Incremental change will not work, as the experience of the past few years has demonstrated.

Closing remarks

In closing, I want to address a few remarks directly to our new students who will be formally matriculated into the University in just a few minutes.  Many of you are entering your very first year of college.  Some of you are continuing students, transferring from other institutions as a sophomore, junior, or senior; and many are new graduate students embarking on a whole new level of study. 
To the freshmen I say, if you feel a bit apprehensive about coming to a new place and starting a journey that will shape who you will be and what you'll accomplish for the rest of your life, that's OK. In fact, that's not apprehension – it's really excitement that you feel – excitement about the prospects of being a college student and striking out on your own as a young adult. 

Maybe some of you transfer students feel the same way as you change institutions.  I know that there are graduate students who do.

I have to confess that I was scared to death when I went to college and then again to graduate school, and I remember asking myself, both as a freshman and as an entering graduate student, “What have I gotten myself into?”

But I adjusted and you will too. 

You see, it matters that you're at Roosevelt University.  It matters because of our values as expressed in our mission statement.  That statement is our promise to you and to ourselves of "educating socially conscious citizens for active and dedicated lives as leaders in their professions and their communities." 

We – you and your professors and all of those in the administrative offices who support your work here – really have just one goal in mind.  It comes down to your success as refracted through our mission.  The time spent with each other, the time spent with your mentors and your professors, and the time spent in service to your community are all important to you both as an individual and as part of your academic success. 

At Roosevelt, you will not only be obtaining your formal education, you will also be getting a broad, personal education to prepare you to living a rewarding and meaningful life in the future.

With that prospect in mind, on behalf of all of us who came here before you, we are indeed proud to welcome you to the Roosevelt community. Together we will work hard to make sure that you finish what you've started and that you walk proudly across this stage as you leave here with your degree in the future.