http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/rss.php?subdir=president Dr. Mary Cullinan, SOU President en-us Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:07:14 PST Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:07:14 PST http://test.sou.edu/president/blog presidentsoffice@sou.edu webmaster@sou.edu http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog001.html I’m starting this blog to provide informal and regular communication from the President’s Office. I’ll try to post frequently—though I’m sure there will be gaps during particularly busy times. 1177916400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog002.html Last week, I mentioned some of the work we’re doing to help the legislature understand the importance of funding higher education in Oregon. 1178521200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog003.html As we worked on our budget issues this past winter, several students came to see me. Their goal was to have SOU known as a campus that stresses sustainability, a campus dedicated to building a sustainable future through education and example. 1179126000 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog004.html Our state funding situation is looking a bit brighter. 1179730800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog005.html On May 8, we held a President's Breakfast, planned in association with our Advisory Board. Community members were invited along with SOU faculty, staff, and students. The focus was civic engagement and community–based learning. 1180335600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog006.html Amazingly, the academic year is hurtling to an end, and Commencement is a little over a week away. Only ten months ago, I was moving here from Texas and learning my way around campus. 1180940400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog007.html Traditions are deeply buried in our communal psyches. Every university develops its own set: celebrations, ceremonies, awards, special events. They range from departmental to universitywide—from opening–of–the–year potlucks to major convocation events. With changes in leadership or in campus culture, the traditions evolve and vary. And those changes sometimes dismay folks attached to the way things were. 1181545200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog008.html I am already excited about next fall and a new academic year. We have a good plan in place for our budget and many exciting initiatives underway. It will be a good year for SOU! 1182150000 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog009.html During the summer, I will publish my blogs intermittently. My weekly blogs will resume in the fall. 1182754800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog012b.html I want to thank again the faculty, staff, and students who participated in the President’s Breakfast, hosted in association with our Advisory Board on May 8. Focused on civic engagement and community–based learning, the breakfast discussion explored how we can partner more effectively with the community and tie our commitment to civic engagement even more successfully to our academic mission. 1185778800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog010.html From June 22 to 25, I represented SOU at the annual meeting of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges in Superior, Wisconsin. COPLAC members, which number about twenty–four, include institutions such as Evergreen and Truman State that are often the only designated public liberal arts colleges or universities in their respective states. 1183359600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog012c.html I realize that many of you are interested in planning and organizational processes for the Schneider Museum of Art. 1186383600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog011.html Institutions of higher education are frequently in transition: new leadership, new plans, new priorities and goals. In my recent conversations with COPLAC colleagues, I found seven or eight of those institutions were searching for provosts, and others were searching for presidents. 1183964400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog012d.html Well, it’s happening again: summer is drawing to a close, and we’re gearing up once again for fall. As we make plans and set our goals for the new academic year, we should think about how grants and contracts add significantly to the teaching and learning experience here at SOU. Successful grant and contract initiatives enhance the experiences of students and faculty and provide tangible benefits to the campus and external community. 1188889200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog012.html Everyone told me that July 4 in Ashland would be a memorable experience. It certainly was! The excitement and good feeling generated by the parade and city festivities underscored the sense of community in this city and region—and the tremendous fun folks can have in a community that works together. 1184569200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog013.html Now that our new fiscal year has begun and we’re about to begin the new academic year, I’m pleased to say that the campus has done an excellent job of keeping within the constraints of the final budget plan that emerged from our retrenchment process. Although our fund balance (reserve) is still not at the 5–percent level the Oregon University System has designated as the low end of an acceptable range, we have emerged with slightly more in our reserve than we projected. 1190012400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog014.html Renee Fisk recently sent a wonderful thank-you message to the campus highlighting the faculty, staff, and students who participated in making Civic Engagement Day such a great success. I have included her message below because she expresses so many of the things I want to say. 1191826800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog015.html Autumn (and Halloween) are upon us. Our site visitors from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities have come and gone (their recommendations will be the subjects of future blogs). We have had a good opening to the academic year. We are on track financially and are continuing a powerful planning process in almost every area of the University. 1193727600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog016.html I have just returned from Korea, where we were celebrating the 60th anniversary of our sister institution, Dankook University. While I was away, I continued to think about our recent site visit from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. I am very thankful to the many folks who participated in the self-study and extremely proud that SOU fared so well in the evaluation process. 1194249600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog017.html As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve recently returned from Korea, where Dr. Younghee Kim and I spent a week meeting with university administrators and staff (and a few students) and exploring international partnerships. 1196409600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog018.html One of my new year’s resolutions is to help SOU become better-prepared for responding to campus crises. Thankfully, our campus has a very low crime rate; nevertheless, we need to have good communication and preparation for a variety of situations, be it a computer virus, a natural disaster, a real or perceived threat, or a criminal act. 1199692800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog019.html Now that we’re back for winter and spring terms, I thought I’d list a few of our accomplishments from last fall. We’ve all been very busy—but we also got a lot done! I’m very appreciative of all the hard work that went into these achievements. 1200902400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog020.html In a blog last October (click here), I wrote about the Strategic Planning Workgroup and the progress toward a new SOU mission statement. Since that post was written, we have had our visit from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) evaluation team, and they stressed that we should finalize the mission statement and move forward with strategic planning. 1202112000 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog021.html As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, we are making good progress on our planning process. The Strategic Planning Group has been discussing ways to help us weave the new, approved mission statement more deeply into the fabric of the campus. Dennis Dunleavy and his students are continuing to work on an “unpacked version” to help expand everyone’s understanding of the mission and its connections with SOU. As soon as we have some samples of unpacking, we will share them with the campus. 1204012800 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog022.html February was a difficult month.  We lost our wonderful student, Gladys Jimenez, and we mourned the deaths of five students at Northern Illinois University. These tragedies, and the ongoing memory of the violence at Virginia Tech, continue to haunt us and stay in our memories. Also, within our university community are other difficult and sad situations—serious illnesses and personal challenges seemed to come at us in a tidal wave during February. 1204617600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog023.html I am delighted to have joined the community of SOU faculty, staff, and students who journeyed to Guanajuato. I made the trip in mid-March with Meredith Reynolds, and together we met with many people from the university and the city of Guanajuato. Our trip overlapped slightly with a group from the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, so for a few days, the Ashland presence in Guanajuato was pervasive—we were everywhere! 1207119600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog024.html New media enrich our knowledge and communication. As I was thinking about updating my own blog, I thought about Dennis Dunleavy’s SOU Today. It’s been great to watch it evolve into a dynamic, visual review of life on our campus. I appreciate deeply that Dennis takes the time to capture our day-to-day campus experiences with such panache and enthusiasm. 1208847600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog025.html On Friday, May 9, we held a President's Breakfast organized by our SOU Advisory Board. Focused on sustainability, the breakfast centered on an inspiring discussion and laid an excellent foundation for further communication and partnership. I was delighted that representatives from the Ashland City Council and the cities of Talent, Phoenix, and Grants Pass, as well as individuals from organizations such as Avista and the Land Conservancy, were able to attend. 1210662000 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog026.html May 21 and 22 were memorable days at SOU. Our first annual SOAR celebration took over the campus as students and faculty moved from building to building, participating in a grand array of presentations, posters, performances, discussions, and exhibits. 1212476400 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog027.html Dear Campus Community: Now that we’ve sailed into summer after the excitement of Commencement and end-of-year celebrations, we can take a few minutes to reflect on the previous academic year and look forward to the next one. 1214895600 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog028.html Dear Campus Community: It's heading toward the end of August. The new academic year is just weeks away. The first holiday catalogs are already arriving. The air is a tad smoky, and the price of gasoline is breathtaking. But the weather is warm, Ashland is awash with playgoers, and vacations are happening in many shapes and forms. 1219129200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog029.html Dear Campus Community: As the summer winds down and fall term marches closer, groups all over campus start coming together. This year, we celebrated the opening of the Higher Education Center in Medford with a spectacular ribbon-cutting and Open House. The executive team met for a day's retreat out at Deer Creek. 1222153200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog030.html Dear Campus Community: Last year, we took our first steps in strategic planning. We developed a mission statement that was discussed across campus and approved by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education in February 2008. We also formalized a number of smaller plans for initiatives that were already in process when I arrived in 2006 (you may view these and other planning documents here). 1223881200 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog031.html Dear Campus Community: SOU continues to make headlines related to sustainability. We've just learned that, based on our green power purchasing and other factors, the Environmental Protection Agency is going to name SOU one of the top twenty universities for green power. This is wonderful news, a great testament to the work done by our students, faculty, and staff—and our hardworking Sustainability Council. 1224486000 http://test.sou.edu/president/blog/blog032.html One highlight of this past Fall Term was planning for our 40th anniversary celebration with the University of Guanajuato (UG)—and the city of Guanajuato.  Dean Josie Wilson, Meredith Reynolds, Dennis Slattery, and many others have been putting together an exciting academic colloquium for April 16, 2009, while folks from the City of Ashland and SOU have been working on the Global Conference that will take place on April 17. 1231142400