Southern Oregon University : President's Page

Sustainability continues to be a major initiative on the campus. Last year, as you know, the student initiative for green tags made SOU the first Oregon campus to offset all of its electricity and natural gas with renewable energy added to the grid. The following are a few highlights of our work on campus:

April 22, 2008

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.

But Dennis isn’t the only SOU faculty member connecting through blogs with students and the rest of our worldwide community. K. Silem Mohammad’s Lime Tree engages readers in re-thinking poetry. And links from that blog spin you through cyberspace to seemingly infinite topics, sparking ideas and making associations between the visual and the verbal.

April 02, 2008

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!

As many people have said, the cities of Ashland and Guanajuato share many common aspects and values. Both cities have a true commitment to the arts. For instance, it was wonderful for us to arrive for the opening of the Feria del Libro y Festival Cultural Universitario. This is a huge university event that goes on for two weeks. Celebrating books and arts, the festival attracts thousands of visitors.

March 04, 2008

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.

Last week’s meeting of the Ashland Traffic Safety Commission gives me hope that we will see improved safety on Siskiyou Boulevard. I look forward to working with the City of Ashland on plans for increasing safety and awareness for both pedestrians and drivers on the major road running through the city and the campus.

February 26, 2008

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.

We are ready now to begin reviewing individual plans. The provost has received three plans: for the Medford Higher Education Center, for online instruction, and for international student recruiting. Here is the process we will use for reviewing and for receiving campus comment.

February 04, 2008

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.

Once we had the approval of the Academic Senate and the Student Senate, we took our draft mission statement to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education in January. They made a few suggestions but supported the general direction we are taking. I am hopeful that the Board will approve this mission statement at their meeting next week.

January 21, 2008

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.

Budget and Enrollment

January 07, 2008

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.

SOU is equipped with Blue Light Emergency telephones; we have Campus Public Safety officers on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; and we’re connected to the 911 emergency system. We conduct periodic drills with the Ashland Police and Fire Departments, as well as with Jackson County Health. We work closely with the Ashland Police Department (APD) to keep our students and campus safe. APD Officers and SOU professionals who work closely with SOU students meet regularly.

November 30, 2007

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.

The trip was made possible by our long-time partner, Dankook University, as they were celebrating their 60^th anniversary. They invited me and ten other presidents from around the world to participate. It was a wonderful experience.

November 05, 2007

I have just returned from Korea, where we were celebrating the 60^th 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.

Putting together a university–wide accreditation self–study in the same year that we were going through retrenchment took tremendous dedication, hard work, and focus. The self–study document is a balanced, careful snapshot of SOU in 2005–2006, the year before retrenchment, and also includes the key documents explaining the transitions we have gone through since that academic year.

October 30, 2007

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.

The Strategic Planning Workgroup has been consulting with entities on campus as we revise the SOU mission statement. We’re working toward a brief statement that sums up our strongest commitments and who we are. It’s a realistic mission statement, not a visionary statement about what SOU aspires to be in the future.

October 08, 2007

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.

I don’t think the SOU community fully realizes the tremendous efforts everyone has made over the past six months to recruit, support, and welcome the new students to our campus. We know individual parts but not the whole. Civic Engagement Day was one huge piece. The planning was extensive and intense—from contacting agencies to arranging transportation to ensuring students reflected meaningfully on the important role they each play in their new community.