Fall Welcome Address by University President
Madeleine Wing Adler
September 5, 2007
Weaving Excellence at West Chester University

The Way It Is by William Stafford There’s a thread you follow. It goes among Things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread. 1 “The Way It Is,” copyright 1998 by the Estate of William Stafford.  Reprinted from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

When I arrived at West Chester University 15 years ago, I brought with me curiosity, anticipation, and a measure of trepidation. With me came the observations and experience of five decades of life, as well as the conviction — or at least confidence — that I could benefit this wonderful institution. I came, in other words, carrying with me a mix of ideas, emotions, and qualities such as our newest members of the faculty, staff, and administration bring with them today, and such as each of you brought to your earliest days on campus.

As I continue to look toward the future, I see this as also a time for looking back. Two-thirds of you here this afternoon have not served at WCU with any other president, so my history is very much your own. In the same way, your wisdom and talent have helped to create this university and, as a result, given me infinite pleasure and pride. The years have not been uniformly easy for any of us. They have brought loss, mistakes, and misunderstanding, but so, too, they have brought renewal, achievement, and the optimism that comes from the best in quality and character. In brief, the past 15 years have been years of change, change that has led West Chester University to become a model for all regional comprehensive universities.

And now we are facing still more change, individually and together. When I walk out of my office in Philips Memorial Building for the last time at the end of June 2008, it will end this year of transition for Fred and me, and we will begin another era of our lives. As I do so, you will welcome a new president, who will come to you with as much excitement, vision, and personal and public history as I brought with me back in 1992. And you will meet her or him with questions but above all with a desire to support and lead in the bright future the new president will join you in creating.

We cannot help but be struck by the scope of transitions ahead. But instead of enumerating possibilities, let us look instead at what Stafford calls “the thread you follow.” About this thread he tells us, “It goes among / Things that change. But it doesn’t change.” I would like to look at what will not and should not alter in the magnificent university we have created together. I want to remind us of the sources of this institution’s greatest strengths — and of your strength—and to show how we have readied West Chester University to tighten its already firm grasp on institution-wide excellence.

We have three strong looms on which we weave our excellence. The first of these is our mission as a regional comprehensive university. The second is our strategic plan, the Plan for Excellence, and the third is our campus-wide distributed leadership.

The top regional comprehensive universities answer the question, “What can be done to improve American colleges and universities?” In my May 1993 inaugural remarks, I asked us to set a new tone and direction for public higher education. In spite of our impressive work in the intervening years, the overall public perception of higher education has not changed. A 2007 study for the organization Public Agenda found, “Nearly half agree that higher education in their state should be ‘completely overhauled.’”² Regional comprehensive universities at their best, however, refute the criticisms of higher education. These universities reverse a failure to pair access for qualified students with excellence in the education provided and in service to the region whose taxes and philanthropy provide support. Other types of institutions — whether large research universities, small liberal-arts or specialized colleges, or community colleges — fill an important place, but it is the finest regional comprehensive universities, including West Chester University, that are transforming higher education.

The label “regional comprehensive university” helps to explain why institutions such as ours are the future of American higher education. First, we are “regional” not in having merely local ties — ours are national and even international — but in responding directly and broadly to our region, whether through academic programs and content, cultural offerings, research and facilities, volunteerism and public service, or workforce development. In this last category, for instance, WCU students tend to stay in our region after graduation: While about 55 percent of the University’s students are from Southeastern Pennsylvania, more than 70 percent of our graduates accept their first job in the metropolitan area. We respond to our region, too, in the diversity of our students, faculty, and staff and in the experiences and perspectives they bring to learning and teaching.

One measure of WCU’s ability to serve the needs of our students, of this locale, and of humanity itself is our individual and shared passion for what we do. Because every individual is an essential thread in the total design, this passion is not dependent on job title, degrees, or duties. An aspect of our passion is the shared conviction that education holds a critical role in preparing a promising future for the world. A document written for the 2006 G8 Summit expresses this same conviction by observing, “Education is at the heart of human progress. . . . Education enriches cultures, creates mutual understanding globally, [and] underpins democratic societies. . . . Education, the enhancement of skills, and the generation of new ideas are essential to the development of human capital. . . .³

In our university, we see a passion for serving reflected in thousands of individual acts and shared endeavors, from the service projects and global initiatives through which faculty and students enrich learning and reach out to others to the quality of service provided by the grounds staff and custodians who keep our campus and facilities beautiful and well maintained. Regional comprehensive universities also serve in part by building communities and a sense of community, including an appreciation for history and heritage. Among the purposes of an education, after all, is learning to think in terms of community — including the world community — instead of in terms of what is good for oneself alone.

Like showing regional responsiveness, earning the label “comprehensive” is central to our mission. Through more than 200 degree and certificate curricula, we offer outstanding education in both the liberal arts and sciences and the professions, and our 13,000 students are able to find the best match to their talents and interests. These students meet the high standards in our bachelor’s-degree programs, as well as in our master’s and other post-baccalaureate curricula, yet we offer an Academic Development Program, too, so that the chance for a West Chester University education is extended to those whose academic talents did not fully develop in high school. At WCU, our record of national and international accreditations further supports our claim of comprehensive excellence.

We are a university whose faculty conduct significant, often groundbreaking research because research and instruction are inherently interrelated, but we are proud to be primarily a teaching institution — and those are professors, not grad assistants, teaching our lower-division students. In addition, as a regional comprehensive university, we are committed to offering a complete educational experience, outside the classroom as well as in, from student leadership development to a full range of athletic teams and clubs. Excellence similarly defines our other endeavors, including our university-wide planning, resource acquisition and management, educational facilities, student services and housing, and faculty-staff development and training.

A benefit from working and studying at a regional comprehensive university and a source of further excellence are the supportive environment and opportunities that are difficult to match elsewhere. Take the example of undergraduate research, a significant adjunct to the other forms of learning. Participating in meaningful research also leads our students to greater overall academic and campus engagement. The value of our undergraduates’ research experience is not going unnoticed. According to testimony for the United States House Science Committee, “Primarily Undergraduate Institutions . . . in the United States, including . . . comprehensive universities, focus on excellence in preparation of undergraduates to do research.”⁴

West Chester University’s comprehensiveness extends to providing resources for lifelong learning. The National Academy of Sciences is one voice among many to stress that “With a workplace that is rapidly changing, education can no longer be seen as occupying just the first portion of a person's life. Formal education must prepare people for a lifetime of learning.”⁵ Here we teach our students how to learn and then we help them, ourselves, and our neighbors to continue learning — whether as one of the more than 70,000 audience members who annually attend the University’s exhibits and cultural arts events, as teachers participating in 3E Institute summer externships and seminars, or as business professionals updating knowledge and skills.

At WCU, we know ourselves well: we understand our strengths and available resources and the needs of our constituencies. We recognize that our greatest strengths are in excellent undergraduate education and in select graduate and professional programs that grow out of our faculty expertise and regional needs — and these are the programs and curricula on which we focus. Yet the fabric of our university has many dimensions; it is a monumental and intricately woven tapestry depicting victories that improve the individual and shared quality of life. Fifteen — even five — years ago, I could not have dreamed of all that we have now accomplished.

A second loom for weaving WCU excellence is our strategic Plan for Excellence. The plan’s transformations reflect thorough preparation for the future and are our design instructions for the next several years.

As many of you know, the Strategic Planning Resource Council last year collected and compiled university-wide feedback and suggestions for amending the plan to ensure that its transformations and goals continue to provide strong guidance for the near future. Then in the spring, SPRC presented a report to the President's Cabinet affirming that the plan itself remains sound and effective and summarizing the recommended modifications. These include clarifying the wording of several goals, strengthening the plan’s relationship to budgeting and assessment, and adding two new Responsiveness Transformation goals — goals for integrating a global and intercultural focus and for encouraging environmental awareness. We will have a copy of the SPRC report available for each of you at the close of my remarks, before you head out to the Quad for the reception. I urge you to read the document carefully because it lists the transformations in the form that will guide the University into the next decade.

From our individual threads of excellence, we are weaving the patterns of the Plan for Excellence — Student Success, Responsiveness, Diversity, Human Capital, and Resourcefulness — each producing myriad designs of its own: the Pharmaceutical Product Development Baccalaureate Program, the first of its kind anywhere; the Technology and Electronic Commerce Master of Business Administration, the region’s first graduate degree in e-commerce; our industry-supported master’s degree and certificate in Applied Statistics; the University’s All-Steinway School designation; the West Chester University Poetry Conference, the largest conference of its kind in the world.

The threads of excellence with which we weave are both old and new. They come to us passed down from Frederick Douglass’ teachings and his last public address, given on our campus on February 1, 1895, and are now cloth for daily use through the Frederick Douglass Institute and Scholars and our commitment to a diverse and civil academic community. They come to us from the institution’s alumni, who have given the legacy of their talent and example, as well as their ongoing loyalty and generosity. Among the alumnae was 1927 music and drama graduate Emilie K. Asplundh, for whom this concert hall is named. WCU’s excellence in the arts and in teacher education is as old as the institution, and through such high-impact initiatives as those of the Greater Philadelphia P-16 Council, we have twined our leadership throughout the region to improve the educational experiences of current school children and teachers and of the pupils and teachers of the future.

Displaying the distinctive textures of the transformations, our campus-wide achievements now blanket the area and beyond. Among selective institutions, our students rank nationally above the 90th percentile in both second-year retention and six-year graduation rates. At the same time, our scholar athletes have just earned a 12th-place national finish out of 224 Division II institutions in the U.S. Sports Academy Directors’ Cup. Through exchanges and partnerships, WCU faculty, staff, and students teach and learn with colleagues around the world. Today, science and technology are part of the woof and warp of our institution, as much as are our traditional strengths, and ours is among the elite institutions to have earned AACSB accreditation for our business programs. The Center for Social and Economic Research; the HEAT Institute; the Center for Microanalysis, Imaging, Research, and Training; the Business Technology Center; the GIS Laboratory; the new Southeastern Pennsylvania Autism Resource Center; our annual Integrative Health Conference; and dozens of other innovative and entrepreneurial ventures respond to a multitude of needs. Simultaneously, we have built for the future through the Campaign for Excellence, the renovation and growth of our Science Center, literally groundbreaking partnerships that have brought us new residence halls and parking facilities, the expansion of Sykes Student Union and Lawrence Center, the renovation of Anderson and Recitation halls, and on it goes.

The third of our powerful West Chester University looms is the loom of distributed leadership. Over the past 15 years, distributed leadership has moved from an idea to a way of life that is engrained across the institution. The approach makes us accountable to one another and to our students, trustees, and state. Then to that accountability, it ties leadership authority appropriate to our roles. Distributed leadership requires that each of us contribute to the whole because with even a single dropped or broken thread, the whole could begin to fray.

Conversely, while each thread adds its own texture, color, strength, and fibers, it is most useful when combined with others. And so many combinations are possible, depending on the relationship of the strands that are used to create them — silk or linen, cotton or wool; in plain, twill, and satin weaves; serge and gabardine, sturdy muslin, elegant velvet; cloth as rugged as burlap and as gossamer as lace. At West Chester University, we have designed an elegant and ever-more durable fabric woven through with the brilliant filaments of the arts, humanities, professions, sciences, and technology — all the fields of teaching and learning realized by our faculty and students and supported by our staff, alumni, and friends.

On the eve of each commencement, our multicultural graduates participate in a Kente Cloth ceremony. The Kente Cloth has symbolism for each of us. Kente is not simply a striking fabric. Each piece represents history, values, and beliefs. But while every Kente stole reflects a shared heritage and symbolic language, the patterns and colors also show their creator’s unique, individual artistry. It is the weavers who control the design. At West Chester University, it is distributed leadership that gives us all both the right and the responsibility to control the design of our institution.

Yet our WCU cloth is unfinished. What are the colors, patterns, and textures of your contributions to the whole? Today we welcome the newest weavers of our tapestry. The faculty and staff who have joined us since we met together last September are artists and artisans for our institution’s still more magnificent future. Today we welcome 30 new faculty members:

Nicole Armstrong – Sports Medicine
Mehran Asadi – Computer Science
Maria José Cabrera – Foreign Languages
Anthony Cataldo – Accounting
Angela Clarke – Psychology
Lynne Cooke – English
Cathryn Crosby – Foreign Languages
Karen Everett – Elementary Education
Daniel Forbes – Philosophy
Joy Fritschle – Geography and Planning
Ayan Gangopadhyay – English
Erin Gestl – Biology
Marybeth Gilboy – Health
Steven Gimber – History
Lisa Huebner – Women’s Studies and Anthropology and Sociology
Maria Kopacz – Communication Studies
Robin Caldwell Leonard – Health
Scott McClintock – Mathematics
Kellianne McCoy – Athletics
Vickie Ann McCoy – Counseling and Educational Psychology
Christine Moriconi – Nursing
Katherine Morrison – Sports Medicine
Katherine Norris – Early Childhood and Special Education
Andrew Sargent – English
Matthew Snyder – Counseling and Educational Psychology
Stephen Soltys – Mathematics
Elizabeth Staruch – Theatre and Dance
Jeffrey Sudol – Physics
Jacqueline Zalewski – Anthropology and Sociology, and
Lynne Zubernis – Counseling and Educational Psychology

We also welcome eight administrators who are new to the University or are colleagues assuming new responsibilities:

Darla Spence Coffey is WCU’s associate vice president for academic affairs.
Greg Cuprak is the executive director of Facilities Management.
Dee Giardina is WCU’s executive director of Facilities Design and Construction.
Joseph Malak is dean of the College of Education.
We welcome Richard Przywara back as executive director of the WCU Foundation.
Lori Vermeulen is dean of WCU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Gil Wiswall has been appointed special assistant to the provost for the 2007-08 academic year,
Lisa Yannick is serving as the interim director of institutional research.

To these individuals, I would like to add the other staff members who have joined us in the last year. Join me in welcoming all of these colleagues.

I want to extend a special greeting to the members of our Student Government Association Executive Board. We recognize your service to the University:

Ben Brautigam, our SGA president
Leonarda Parente, vice president
Jai Northcraft, treasurer
Kyle Smith, secretary
Laura McGregor, parliamentarian, and
Laura Ness, student trustee

Thank you for the energy and focus you bring to our campus through your excellent leadership and programs. A warm welcome also to all of the students who have joined us.

As you can imagine, my pending retirement comes up in many of my conversations these days, and I am often asked to list my most memorable experiences at West Chester University. My strongest memories run the gamut of emotions and outcomes.

A memory from early in my presidency would have been better avoided. It features a stalker who threatened my life. He made sure I knew that he could get close to me, but since his communications also included his name, tracking him down was not hard. Mike Bicking and Larry Woods protected me and helped the stalker leave our community.

I also have no excuses for the behavior of a then state representative from a neighboring county. Early in 1995, he challenged my right to free speech and tried to have the Pennsylvania Legislature remove me as president. The person who came energetically to my defense was Representative — now Congressman — Joe Pitts, a WCU alum. In support of free speech, fairness, and the work I was doing, he stood by me while others with political views closer to mine stayed quiet. Congressman Pitts earned my deep respect and appreciation.

Like Congressman Pitts, many of our students in the mid 90s already had the courage to speak up when they experienced or witnessed discrimination and other incivility on our campus. The resulting diversity forums — held right here in what was then Philips Auditorium — ran far into the night and led to sweeping changes in our campus climate. Prompted first by a concern from African American students, the forums broadened as other groups also expressed serious concerns. Out of the forums grew our civility efforts and focus on building a strong and diverse community.

The past 15 years included the greatest sadness in my life — the loss of my son, J.Peter, in a senseless accident that was no fault of his own. I will always carry with me the sight of the hundreds of people who gathered on the front lawn of Tanglewood to honor J.Peter and to support me. And J.Peter was not alone. The years have brought losses that touched nearly every one of us — the loss of students, colleagues, family members, and friends whom we miss dearly and who have forever enriched our lives.

The memories of tragedy or hardship are balanced, however, by recollections of pure pleasure and satisfaction. Some represent annual events — such as receiving Marsha Haug’s reports about the expanding excellence of our first-year students. Others are one-time experiences, among these traveling to South Africa with our WCU Honors students and teaching executive leadership to senior political science majors.

A number of emblematic scenes stay in my memory — scenes that symbolize things I especially love about our university. I recall a pre-game social attended by Larry Mendte, who, as most of you know, is a WCU alum and well-known broadcaster. That day at the social, the marching band performed under the able direction of a senior music major named Ben, whom I afterwards introduced to Larry. Larry asked Ben about his career plans and perhaps expected to hear about a job that could offer prestige and wealth. Instead, Ben said with typical WCU passion and enthusiasm, “I’m going to be a high school band director!” How wonderful!

Whatever our alums’ professions or means, I have loved traveling the country to visit with them and to ask for their support. I have also loved the chance to meet our newest students and colleagues. For the past three years, the First Friday road trips have given me a special opportunity to talk with first-year faculty and get to know them better.

Other memories are visually dramatic, from the beauty of our campus in every season to the sight of the stadium filled with our graduating students in their caps and gowns. Ribbon cuttings — most recently at the new Swope Music Building and the Performing Arts Center — have also provided vivid memories of celebrating with faculty, students, colleagues, and friends. And linked with my campus memories is the satisfaction I have felt from county and regional involvement through my activities in such organizations as the Chester County Community Foundation, the Chester County Historical Society, and the March of Dimes.

Finally, one of my greatest memories will be working individually and collectively with all of you.

For several years now, one of our traditions for the annual fall welcome has been presenting the WCU Civility Award, which reflects the commitment to mutual respect and cooperation that was first affirmed during the diversity forums. I am pleased now to be able to announce the winner of the eighth annual Civility Award, for which members of the university community submitted nominations from among our faculty, staff, administrators, and retirees. The recipient this year has consistently demonstrated a commitment to fostering civility and advancing the University’s values. In the classroom and for student, faculty, and staff trips and exchanges, she devotes exceptional energy, effort, and talent. As one letter of nomination explains, she “has tirelessly promoted West Chester to the world and brought the world back to West Chester.” Another letter adds, she has “built bridges between our campus and several Chinese institutions that are models of excellence for peers to emulate and students to embrace.” With pleasure I present the 2007-2008 West Chester University Civility Award to Wei Wei Cai.

The University’s 2001 Middle States Commission on Higher Education self-study notes that success for the Plan for Excellence means fulfillment of its vision. The self-study predicts, “The answer in ten years should be that West Chester University is the preeminent regional comprehensive university in the mid-Atlantic region because of the premium it places on serving its students and promoting their success long after their graduation.” In every important dimension, that vision of a future West Chester University is advancing toward reality. Recognizing this achievement, the Middle States reviewers for our 2006 Periodic Review Report — a five-year update of the self-study — gave us high commendation and ended their comments by writing, “In summary, the WCU community should celebrate their many accomplishments . . . and acknowledge the impact of the five transformations . . . on the university.”

But what about the West Chester University of the future? Will the fabric eventually lose its luster, becoming faded, pilled, and worn? On the contrary, I foresee a brilliant future for our institution. It will be spun from the gold threads of tradition, current excellence, careful preparation, and the entrepreneurial spirit. But these will only yield their full potential if they are used on looms that remain in optimal condition.

In my inaugural address, I spoke of my conviction that collaboration was a key to our future success. My remarks included a call to action that began, “We must seek partnerships with our communities, local governments, neighboring corporations, public schools, service organizations, and institutions in the other sectors of higher education.” Now the partnerships crisscrossing our divisions and region and wound around the globe are in fact a key to our ongoing achievements. I challenge this university to resist the isolating impulses to turn inward or to become more specialized. Instead, West Chester University must continue to expand the parameters of its economic, social, and educational development through collaboration. Equally important will be the ongoing efforts to build relationships with neighbors, alumni, friends, and state government and to attract new resources to support quality. Collaboration remains essential on campus, as well. The success of one person, program, department, college, or division does not threaten but, rather, contributes to the success of us all. Our looms raise all threads together.

In weaving the immediate future of West Chester University, we have important work to do in the year ahead. Essential fundraising is underway and will continue for the Undergraduate Business Center and the renovation of 25 University Avenue for our mathematics and computer science programs and some of our student services. We will be moving ahead with our new Student Recreation Center, along with completing the plans for replacing WCU’s old student housing. At the same time that we continue to progress toward additional program accreditations, we will enhance leadership training and experiences for students and continue to work with SPRC to monitor the Plan for Excellence. Reviewing, updating, and expanding our emergency preparedness procedures where appropriate are also on the agenda. An essential part of our agenda is, of course, preparing for an orderly presidential transition.

Throughout the year, we will keep the momentum strong, and you will continue to do so long after next June. That momentum and the excellence it propels are simply “The Way It Is” at West Chester University. Borrowing William Stafford’s words: “There’s a thread [that we] follow. It goes among / Things that change. But it doesn’t change.” We won’t “ever⁶ let go of the thread.”

I wish you the best for this coming academic year and for all of those to follow.

Footnotes
1. “The Way It Is,” copyright 1998 by the Estate of William Stafford. Reprinted from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
2. John Immerwahr and Jean Johnson, Squeeze Play: How Parents and the Public Look at Higher Education Today, A Report Prepared by Public Agenda for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, National Center Report #07-4, 41 http://www.makingopportunityaffordable.org/pdfs/solution_papers/squeeze_play.pdf.
3. G8 Documents “Education for Innovative Societies in the 21st Century” (St. Petersburg, Russia: 2006) http://en.civilg8.ru/g8_doc/2068.php.
4. Council on Undergraduate Research, Written Testimony: “The Role of Primarily Undergraduate Institutions in the Nation’s Scientific Endeavor for Consideration by the House Science Committee’s National Science Policy Study” 10 April 1998 http://www.cur.org/wp_HSC98.html.
5. “Preparing for the 21st Century: The Education Imperative” 1997 http://www.nas.edu/21st/education/
6. Emphasis added