Fine and Performing Arts Center Performance Hall
Wednesday, August 13, 2008

View the accompanying slideshow (PowerPoint)

Welcome back!  I hope that you had a great summer.  This is going to be a very busy and interesting year.  This is the year where the over-arching strategies that we have been developing for the last several years begin to be implemented for real.  It also is a year where we will complete our brand identity and marketing studies and we will go forward with a consistent, coherent approach to positioning the University for the future.  In fact, this process begins this afternoon at 4:00 when we formally unveil the new athletics logo and the latest version of the Catamount.  (Everyone is invited to attend this special event.  And, there is no truth to the rumor that our new football coach Dennis Wagner was the inspiration for the new version of the cat!)  Today, what I plan to talk about primarily is what it means to implement the strategies that we have together created over the last several years.  First, however, I want to introduce a couple of folks who arrived on campus relatively recently.

Although he has been here for a few months, I want to make sure that everyone has had a chance to meet Bob McMahan.  Bob is the Dean of the Kimmel School.  He has been with us since the middle of the spring semester.  We also have a new endowed professor in the Sequoyah chair.  Robert Conley joined us this summer.  He is a nationally known scholar and prolific author in Native American studies.  Third, David Goss has just joined us as the director of the Advising Center in the One-Stop.  We’re glad that all three of you are here and welcome!        

There is one more introduction that I need to make.  Last year the Faculty Senate recommended, and the Board of Trustees approved, creation of the “Madison Professorship.”  A Madison Professor is a person who has been a member of the faculty at WCU for many years and who has achieved outstanding recognition in his or her field.  The intent of the Madison Professorship is to recognize very special individuals who have, by their actions and professionalism, exemplified the core principles for which this increasingly great University stands.  I am very proud to announce that David Shapiro of the College of Health and Human Sciences was approved by the Board of Trustees as WCU’s first Madison Professor.  David, please stand up so that you can be recognized.

David Shapiro, professor of communication sciences and disorders at Western Carolina University and one of the nation’s top speech-language pathologists, has been at WCU in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders since 1984. He received the Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999. A prolific researcher, David has more than 50 published works and 100 professional presentations to his credit. Again, congratulations David; this is a well-deserved honor.

Now, I want to turn to the beginning of the year.  We were able to make significant improvement in the average academic quality of the entering freshman class.  Overall, we expect the class to be about the same size as last year’s.  On the traditional two-part SAT scale, this year’s class has a record 1039 and an average weighted high school GPA of 3.5.  As you see on the screen behind me, these represent major improvements in the quality of the class.  As I mentioned several times last year, our entering class looks a great deal like UNC Greensboro’s typical class. (We don’t know what their class is like this year).  And, the change in SAT is “statistically significant” in the usual way in which these numbers are considered.  Generally a change of six points on the two-part test is considered to represent a change in population. 

Behind me also is a graphic showing the changes in average SAT since 1995.  As you can see, we are in a very different position than we were at that time and we have by far the best entering class in the history of the University.

We also are all concerned about retention rates.  Those data will not be available until after the 10^th class day, but it appears that we are making progress compared to last year.  This is an important indicator and one on which we will be judged as an institution.  We also should see some improvement next year since we reduced significantly the number of marginally prepared students in our entering class.

As I began to prepare for today’s talk, it dawned on me that this is the fourteenth time that I have opened the academic year at WCU.  In some ways, that is a very long time (how many of you sitting here today had not graduated from high school in August 1995?) yet in the life of a university it is little more than the blink of an eye.  And, as I looked back to that first talk in 1995, it really struck me how far we have come.  I want to share with you a few numbers that might help those of you who were not here then to understand how far we’ve come.

• WCU’s total enrollment in 1995 was 6,551; today it is approximately 9,000.
• Of that 6,551, 866 enrollees were graduate students; today graduate enrollments are more than double what they were in 1995 and we should pass 2,000 graduate student enrollments this year.  Graduate education has become a much more important part of our offerings today than it was in 1995.
• In 1995, we received 3,312 applications and we admitted 83 percent of those people who applied; in 2008, we had 7,440 applicants and we admitted 52 percent of them.
• In 1995, the average SAT was 965; in 2008 it is 1039.  In 1995, the average high school GPA of students who entered WCU was 2.78; today it is 3.53.
• The Honors College did not exist in 1995, but in 1997 it admitted 130 freshmen with an average SAT of 1160; this year there are 180 freshmen entering the Honors College with an average SAT of 1200.
• In 1997, the average weighted GPA for Honors College students was 3.94; this year it is 4.27.
• Returning to 1995, that year we had a total of 1,255 employees; today we have 1,642.
• In 1995, we had 334 full-time faculty members; today we have 502.  Of that 502, 83 percent started work at WCU after July 1, 1995.
• Distance education (called extension education) produced 6,688 credit hours for the entire academic year of 1995-1996; this fall alone we expect it to produce approximately 11,000.
• In 1995, there had not been a new building constructed at WCU since the Ramsey Center in 1984.  Since 1995, WCU has built the Center for Applied Technology, the Fine and Performing Arts Center, the University Center addition, Central Drive Residence Hall, the Village, Norton Road Residence Hall, and the Campus Recreation Center.  During this period we also added the West Stands to the football field, built the track-soccer-tennis complex, and added the softball stadium. We also massively renovated the University Center, the Bird Building, Killian Annex, Forsyth, McKee, and Stillwell.  And, we have two new residence halls, a dining hall, and Health and Gerontological Sciences building under way.  We also have planning money for a new College of Education and Allied Professions building.  Since 1995, the university has had more than $330 million in construction funds from various sources.  In 1995, the replacement value of the University was $250 million.
• In 1995 there were no state-recognized endowed professorships; today there are nineteen.
• In 1995, the total endowments for the University were $5.6 million.  Today they are over $31 million and we will complete a $40 million comprehensive campaign—the first in the University’s history—this academic year.
• In 1995, the campus covered 278 acres; today it involves approximately 680 acres.
• The Millennium Campus did not exist even as a concept in 1995; today we are beginning its development.
• In 1995 there was no campus master plan; in 2008 the Board of Governors approved the second master plan since that accounts for the Millennium Campus.
• Since fall of 1995, we have created a number of new degrees.  We created 11 bachelors programs; 15 masters programs; and we had 22 programs approved for distance education.
• In 1995, the campus was not networked.  WCU was the first fully-networked campus in the system and it won national recognition for Cullowhee as the “Most wired small town in North Carolina”—beating out Chapel Hill.  We also had no computer classrooms; few, if any, teaching stations, and our distance education capacities consisted of a cable link though Southwestern Community College.  We also were the first university in the public sector in North Carolina to institute a computing admissions standard.  Today, that seems passé, but for its time it was a very big deal.
•  A few years ago we also created the One-Stop to relieve the student “run around."

These are all major accomplishments, but you have not rested on your laurels.  Think about the groundbreaking work in North Carolina that you have accomplished with our very forward thinking Quality Enhancement Plan, our AFE process, and our adoption of the Boyer model.  These are all major accomplishments that strongly support our moves as a university to provide a world-class education.

The only area of significance in which we have not made major improvements is in the area of retention.  Our freshman retention rates are still where they were in the 1990s and we will pay close attention to that issue.

All of the changes that I mentioned are at a very high level—they do not speak to the day-to-day experiences of students, faculty members, or staff members.  At a macro scale, however, they are very impressive.  How many universities do you know that have changed their positioning to this extent in the same time frame?  WCU today is not the same university it was in 1995 or even in 2001.  Together we have made great progress.  And each of you has contributed through your hard work, willingness to take on new tasks, and dedication to increasing quality.  It is only because so many people working collectively and as individuals decided to make a difference that we can see the changes in the institution.

Although we can see, in retrospect, that we have made progress on the journey, we experience our lives one moment at a time.  What we did today may have been incrementally better than what we did yesterday, but the change is so small—the effort may even appear trivial—such that we don’t even recognize that through our actions we have made a difference.  But, together, we have: WCU is a different institution than it was in 1995 in so very many ways. 

Now, if you think about how far we have come together, there is reason for great pride.  But, we also need to recognize that we are only part-way on our journey as a university and we still have a great deal more to accomplish.

One of the traditions in preparing my opening address is that I like to find quotes that set the direction.  As I look back over the last few years, it is clear that we are “almost there”.  We’ve got the tools and we have the people.  So, I began looking for a quote but I kept seeing the picture in my mind of the great 60s TV secret agent, Maxwell Smart.  To paraphrase Maxwell Smart “we’re just this close” to going over the top.  While this quote fit, it probably didn’t have the appropriate gravity for an opening address—besides, we’d all look funny talking into our shoes.

I then came across a quote attributed to George Washington Carver.  It is a great quote.  Carver said:

"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."
-  George Washington Carver (1864-1943)

Well, that quote seems to fit much better.  We are about teaching, scholarship and service—the fundamental activities of any university.  But, we are doing them in very uncommon ways.  The path that we are on is very different than most other universities and it is clear that we have an opportunity to strike out in a direction that could have far-reaching implications not just for us, but for our state and for higher education in general.

I tried to think about metaphors for where we are as an institution and the clearest one seems to be that of climbing a mountain—it seems especially fitting given our location.  What we have accomplished so far is the equivalent of building the base camp.  We have all the equipment and supplies; our guides are with us and ready to go.  Our team is experienced and well trained.  They all have climbed mountains before and they would not be on this expedition if they weren’t the best.  But there is one problem—none of us (including our guides) has climbed this mountain before.  On clear days we can see the top; we know where we are going.  But, as we climb we will learn how we get there.  We are, in a very real way, like Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay when they set out to climb Everest.  They were experienced climbers but no one had been to the top. 

So, this is the situation in which we find ourselves.  We’ve built the base and it is time for each of us to ascend.  We know where we are going and we understand the skills that it will take for us to get there; but we have a great deal to learn along the way.  As a University, our climb involves implementing four highly intertwined strands that together form a very strong rope that can take us to the top of the mountain.  These strands are the Quality Enhancement Plan; the Boyer Model; Stewards of Place Model; and the Millennial Initiative.  I hope that is clear to everyone that these four strands are tightly intertwined and form a whole that is very strong and that will take us to the top of the mountain.

I hope that you appreciate how very unusual our situation is compared to other universities nationally.  We are in the very enviable position of being able to fundamentally change the future of this institution, and to have a major impact on higher education nationally if we simply follow through with the core initiatives that we have underway.  Generally, this is not a year to start large, new initiatives; it is a year to align our actions, organization, and programs so that we can increase our academic quality, better serve the state, and assure that the future of the university is sound.  Therefore, the rest of today’s talk will focus on specific actions that we will take this year to increase the alignment of our strategies, programs, and processes to better implement our core direction.

Just as a reminder, I thought that it might be useful to summarize our four core strategies that are directing our efforts to improve the university:

1.      Implement the Quality Enhancement Plan

2.      Fully implement the Boyer Model across each program in the University

3.      Assure that we are addressing the core community issues as defined by the “Stewards of Place Model” in a manner consistent with our Board of Trustees expectations

4.      Continue to develop and implement the Millennial Initiative that links campus physical plant and structure to the other three strategies.

As we implement these four over-arching strategies, it is crucial that we improve academic quality.  It is equally important that we accomplish our goals as outlined in our response to UNC-Tomorrow.

Over the last decade we have made major quality improvements in nearly every area of the University.  Those faculty members who were here during that time will tell you that we have progressed—sometimes iteratively—by improving the quality of our entering class and the quality of our academic programs.  I feel very confident in saying that if one looks at the quality of faculty we have, the quality of the staff and the quality of our administration, this university can stand up with any in the UNC system with regard to its ability to achieve its institutional mission with the highest quality outcomes.  We are extremely well-positioned.  In fact, I doubt that any other institution in the system is poised to complete the major transformation that we together have accomplished over the last decade. 

As we move forward there are some really critical actions that we need to take—especially as we integrate our work with the outcomes of UNC-Tomorrow.  If you look at the four over-arching strategies, nearly every element of our UNC-Tomorrow response can be incorporated into at least one of them.   But, focusing on these strategies will help us bring coherence and order to our UNC-Tomorrow responses.

Now, to make sure that I understood how we should proceed this year, over the spring semester and this summer I spent a great deal of time listening to people regarding their concerns and specific directions that they would like us to take.  Much of this listening was a specific outcome of UNC-Tomorrow, but I’ve also spent time with several trustees, members of our foundation board, deans, and people at the state level.  In addition, I also studied the data provided to us by MGT and the underlying research conducted by Stamats for our branding study; there are some very specific patterns that continue to emerge.  What is interesting is that as one looks across the various constituencies—students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators—there are significant consistencies in perception of the university that speak very clearly to where we need to focus efforts over the next several years.

I would like now to share with you some of the focus group and survey results from the Stamats study.  Their study was especially interesting because they used both questionnaires and focus groups to generate data.  These data seem easier to interpret and discuss because they highlight significant opportunities that we have as an institution to take the next major steps.

First, it is clear that most constituencies see WCU as in the “middle of the academic pack” with regard to quality.  While that is not where we want to be, or where we should be in the next several years, it is much better than where we were in the late 1990s.  As Fred Hinson, Bruce Henderson, or others who have been here for any length of time can tell you, this represents a significant improvement.

We are Western and we are doing better, but as we implement our QEP, the Stamats data give us some very specific indications of where we should be paying special attention.

As we implement the QEP we need to pay particular attention to several areas.  First, faculty, staff, administrators and students are in agreement that our academic majors vary a great deal in quality.  We need to pay special attention to assuring that all our programs are good if we are to both recruit and retain excellent students.  We need to work to reduce the variability in programs.

Second, there appears to be significant concern on the part of students with regard to the availability of internships and co-op placements as well as the level of support for career counseling.  Partly, this appears to be based on the feeling that our location provides few opportunities, but it may also have to do with the level of staffing and resources that we have committed to those areas.

The third academic issue on which there appears to be reasonable agreement is that we as faculty members vary a great deal in our orientation to teaching and to mentoring students.

These are the most important areas that we will need to address if we are going to improve our academic reputation.  Don’t get me wrong, I am very proud of the excellent work you do every day.  But, the data show that we can continue to improve in these very important areas.  We are Western, and we can do better.

What is most exciting about these findings is that our Quality Enhancement Plan will provide each of our programs the opportunity to document the quality of its work and it will give us a focus on improving student learning and mentoring.  Fourth, because of the importance of internship, co-op education, mentored research, and service learning for implementing our QEP, most of the concerns that are shared by faculty, staff, administrators and students will be addressed.  This is very exciting!  We not only are doing better, by implementing the QEP we will be able to document that we are doing better.  This will make a major difference.

Because of the importance of the QEP for our continuing accreditation and because of the obvious links between the QEP and the Stamats and MGT research, I met with Provost Kyle Carter and the deans this summer and asked them to work with you to develop a schedule so that all departments have their version of the QEP ready to go by Fall of 2011.  This timing will allow us to make enhancements to improve the quality of our programs, where needed, and it will allow us to have documentation for SACS as we prepare the newly required five-year update report.

Some of you may not be following what is happening with the U.S. Department of Education and the accrediting agencies, but there is a great deal more federal intervention at the collegiate level.  One federal mandate that has been placed on the regional accrediting agencies is that they must require all colleges and universities to complete a serious five year review.  While the five year review is not as extensive as the ten year, it is complex and it does require institutions to demonstrate that they are in compliance with major standards and that they are making progress on their QEP.  Therefore, with this new SACS process, it will be incumbent on us to move systematically and with expediency to implement our QEP.

While we are on the subject of changes in the external environment, I also need to mention that the UNC system is developing a set of institutional expectations with regard to core quality issues and UNC-Tomorrow.  Every institution will be judged by the President and the Board of Governors on how well it achieves progress on key indicators including freshmen retention rates, institutional graduation rates, and the like.  There is a broad set of indicators being developed that will be approved and implemented.  We will have to show significant progress on many of these indicators over time. 

What I am getting to is that the external environment within which we operate has changed and will continue to change rapidly—and the change is generally in the direction of more accountability and much greater expectations concerning documentation of learning, containing costs, and effectively graduating students.  These changes will affect every program in the University and we can expect to have to respond in detail to increasing numbers of questions.

Because of work by Melissa Wargo in assessment, the Office of Institutional Research, and such groups as the Liberal Studies Committee, we are relatively well positioned to deal with these changes.  However, we will need to focus more closely on documenting quality, progress, and cost containment in all areas of the University. 

By the way, over time I expect that this trend will continue and that there will be increasing numbers of reports and required actions on the part of universities.  You also should be aware that this is not a party question: both Democrats and Republicans are concerned about the cost of tertiary education and the return that students are getting for their investments.  Therefore, regardless of who wins the fall elections, I anticipate that there will be increased regulation and reporting.  I don’t particularly like the changes in the environment, but it is important that we respond to them very well.

Now, I want to return to our own programs again.  As a part of our SACS review, we spent significant time analyzing Liberal Studies.  We were required to provide SACS with a focused follow-up report that is due this September.  Since the visit by SACS, we also have completed phase I of UNC-Tomorrow.  Both of these studies suggest that we need to better align our liberal studies programs with the requirements of SACS—including our QEP--and with the requirements of UNC-Tomorrow.  Therefore, I am asking the Liberal Studies Committee to begin reviewing the program this year with special emphasis on the following questions:

• What are the specific learning outcomes that we expect from any generally educated student and how are we assessing each of these outcomes?  This has to be much more than course grades if we are to meet the external standards that are being expected.
• To what extent can the Collegiate Learning Assessment—with which we are experimenting as required by the UNC system—act as a key indicator of liberal learning?
• What are the minimum standards for liberal learning assessment that must be included in each student’s educational briefcase?  While it is clear that departments must have great flexibility, the national and system moves to accountability will require us to have some elements in common.  What will they be and how will they be measured?
• There is great interest from UNC-Tomorrow in including “soft skills” that were not traditionally measured by liberal studies.  These skills include the ability to work in groups; a strong sense of ethics; the ability to work across cultures; personal responsibility; and citizenship.  How will these so called “soft skills” be incorporated in general education and how will we assess students’ abilities to perform in these areas?
• Under the QEP, all students are required to develop life plans, to have experiential education, and to engage in reflection.  Since these elements are required of all students, how will they be linked to general education?
• Finally, is it time for us to look at general education differently?  That is, should there be a core of courses that all students have to take and then can—or should—there be options based on where the student majors?

Because we have to finish UNC-Tomorrow phase II by December, I am asking the Liberal Studies Committee to use fall semester to develop a review strategy and to begin the formal review in the spring.  This is a very important review and it cannot be rushed.  At the same time, it is critical that we align general education, the Quality Enhancement Plan, and UNC-Tomorrow.

As we examine all of these academic issues together, we need to be cognizant of the importance of students being able to complete their degrees in four years—including their required experiential education courses.  Room will need to be made in the curriculum for the terminal requirements, including internships and co-op placements.  Now, it should be possible, if your program includes full-semester internships or co-op placements to have enrollment options that allow a student to complete a degree in five years including two semesters of co-op education.  That could have impact on many of the ways we normally think about students’ progress and course scheduling.  There are, however, a number of excellent examples of these types of programs nationally and we should be able to draw upon their experiences.

This is a very large agenda and it is clear that it will take a great deal of effort to implement all of it.  It also has become increasingly clear that if we are to implement these types of programs well, we will need to engage faculty members more directly and more fully in discussions at various levels of the institution so that we can assure that everyone is engaged and able to discuss the key issues.  Several years ago we began to change the way we do business by implementing what I like to call a “college structure model.”  This model moves many functions of the university that used to be housed in the Chancellor’s office to the appropriate level of decision making.  So, approvals of faculty positions, academic department budgets, and similar issues now are handled in the Provost’s office rather than in mine.   Now that most colleges have deans whom we expect will be with us for some years, it is time for us to move to the next phase of development of the “college structure model” this includes the Kimmel School.

For us to really be effective as we grow, we will need to change very substantially the structure and powers of the deans.  This will not be an easy task because for more than 100 years the university has relied on a fairly centralized structure that is typical of institutions with our history and of our traditional enrollment size.  As we continue to grow, and as we continue to improve our academic quality, it will be necessary to vest more authority and decision-making capacities closer to the action; that is, closer to you.

This change is going to be very significant and it will impact how many major activities of the University actually are managed.  We are going to increasingly vest the ability to make decisions affecting such issues as budget, faculty assignments, and the like in the colleges under the leadership of the deans.  We also are asking the deans to review their internal college structures to assure that we have appropriate mechanisms to increase faculty involvement in college governance.  That is, faculty governance and participation structures will need to be more robust in most of our colleges.  I would expect, therefore, that the colleges will become one of the most important mechanisms through which the faculty voice can be heard.  This is not to take away from any of the traditional forums, such as the Faculty Senate, but it is to add appropriate mechanisms within this increasingly important structure.

In addition to refocusing many of our decisions to the college level, we also are going to need to redesign many of our processes and reporting mechanisms.  That will take a great deal of work on the part of people in several divisions.  Therefore, I have created a new group that will meet regularly to manage these transitions.  I am calling this group the “University Leadership Council.” I will lead the group and its members will be the Provost, vice chancellors, deans, director of assessment, and folks with particular specializations such as Rich Kucharski and Dianne Lynch.  We will meet monthly or more often if needed. 

The primary purposes of the University Leadership Council will be to: 1) increase communication among all parties as we go through the next phases of our organizational transition; 2) minimize bumps in the road that can develop when an organization is in transition; 3) develop priorities for process re-design since there is no way to take all of this on at the same time; and 4) develop appropriate “dashboard” indicators that will allow us to effectively and efficiently determine if we are meeting our objectives in creating these more robust management structures. 

Please understand that we are moving to a structure that is more typical of larger universities and that promotes our ability to achieve our goals.  This represents a very important next step in developing our academic structure to support our goals and aspirations. 

Academically, this will be a busy year. But we also have major activities to implement in other divisions.  I want to return now to the Stamats report and focus for a minute on non-academic issues.  One of the major findings is that we need to increase the quality of the student’s out-of-class experience.  In some ways, the QEP will help us; so will branding.  The QEP better integrates out-of-class and in-class experiences so that students have a more “coherent” experience.  But, we need to take further action to assure that students’ experiences at WCU are satisfying.  Therefore, I have asked Vice Chancellor Sam Miller to focus attention on the level of activities available to students and to assure that we develop mechanisms to communicate the availability of activities to students.

One major development which will affect the student’s experiences is creation of the “town center” as a part of the Millennium Campus plan.  The revised town center plan was approved by the Board of Governors in May.  This academic year we will prepare the Request for Quotes, or RFQ for a developer to create the center.  We know, however, that the value of the development will be significantly increased if we have the capacity to have nice restaurants on the site.  That requires the ability to serve at least beer and wine with meals.  Therefore, we are working to craft a change in the ABC laws that would 1) allow the service of alcohol at restaurants in the town center and as part of a possible conference center, and 2) include WCU’s Fine and Performing Arts Center in current legislation that allows sale of wine in such facilities.  We will be hiring a director for the Millennium Campus and he or she will lead preparation of the RFQ.

As you are aware, in addition to the town center we also are developing a health-related neighborhood and, with the recent legislative authority to plan our new education building, we will be planning a neighborhood focused on the needs of birth through community college education.  All of this is happening because of key legislators.  I should especially note the strong support of several legislators in this session.  I particularly appreciate the leadership of Rep. Phil Haire, Rep. Ray Rapp, Rep. Doug Yongue, Sen. John Snow, Sen. Joe Sam Queen, Sen Martin Nesbitt and Sen. Marc Basnight.  If you know any of these individuals, please thank them.

You also should be aware that as a result of the increased housing prices in this region, we plan to develop a neighborhood of housing opportunities for faculty and staff.  These units will be based on models developed at the University of California to address similar issues.  We believe that this type of neighborhood can be of great benefit to our faculty and staff and that it can improve our ability to recruit and retain faculty.  (Kyle tells me that housing costs were a major issue in the decision of six candidates for positions here to not accept our offers.  Housing cost was a much bigger issue than salary.)  Chuck Wooten, Rich Kucharski and I will be looking at several models this academic year and, if it is financially feasible, we intend to bring a plan to our board of trustees in 2009.

There is one more topic that I need to discuss with you today and that is “branding.”  I’ve referred to the studies conducted by Stamats and MGT, but want to let you know a bit about the schedule for rolling out our brand.  I’ve already mentioned the athletic roll out this afternoon at 4 o’clock. We will roll out the institutional marks on October 1 at Employee Appreciation day. If you have been part of the development of the brand or if you have been following the process, you will know that we spent a great deal of time focusing on the visual image of the university.  While the visual image is important, it is not the essence of the process.  What are most important are the words that we use to describe ourselves and the university.  These words will be used in all of our publications, in all of our ads, and they need to drive our development.  I think that Stamats listened very well and they have captured in words the essential character of this University.   Those people who have served as the steering committee for this process helped a great deal.  They made great suggestions and helped us get the project moving.  I wanted to publicly thank them while we are all together.  This will be a very important process as we implement it over the next several years.

I will stop here; this talk has gone on long enough.  But, I want to conclude with an observation.  This University has come a long way with regard to quality and focus.  We have an excellent faculty; our staff is committed; and we have a top flight, stable administration.  We have the key resources.  We do have significant work ahead of us, but as we move forward it is very important that we remember what makes WCU the great place it is to work and live: it is the people who form this great community.  As we take our next steps, I would strongly encourage you to make this University your own.  Personalize it.  Continue to make it yours and include your students.  Both you and they will benefit greatly. Personalizing what we do is so important and it is a core value that has served WCU well for more than a century.

What you are about has the potential to transform our university and it has implications well beyond.  I started this talk with a metaphor of climbing a mountain.  And, as Denis Waitley reminds us:

Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating.

We are Western Carolina University! We will climb the mountain—the best view is from the top!

Thank you, and have a great year!