Administration, Alumni, Chancellor, Community, Diversity, Education, Faculty And Staff, Strategic Planning, Students
Posted by on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 5:58 pm

Chancellor Linda P. Brady’s Speech at Fall Convocation 2011

Aug. 17, 2011

This is a significant moment for us and for this university in which we are all greatly invested — professionally, intellectually, emotionally. In an ordinary year my State of the Campus address would focus on our latest enrollment figures, fund-raising successes and grants and contracts awarded. I would display photos of new or newly renovated facilities on the UNCG campus. But this is not an ordinary year.

Yes, we have recruited an academically strong class of entering students, and the most diverse class ever. More than 91 percent of last year’s inaugural class of UNCG Guarantee Scholars have returned for their sophomore year.

Yes, our outstanding faculty members have won nearly $48 million in external grants and contracts, despite an increasingly competitive funding environment.

Yes, our students, faculty and staff have received many national and international awards and recognitions, including our first ever Gates Cambridge Scholar and Henry Luce Scholar.

Yes, UNCG exceeded its annual fund-raising goal for 2010-11, raising more than $12 million in support of school, college and university-wide needs.

Yes, this fall we open a beautiful LEED-certified building for the School of Education. And right across the street, students are moving in to Jefferson Suites, UNCG’s newest residence hall and the home of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship living-learning community.

This is an extraordinary year for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Today I plan to talk with you about the “State of the Community” rather than present a formal “State of the Campus” report. You will hear me talk about what makes UNCG a special place — our people — and how faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of this university are working to support our ambitious goals during these difficult times. Today, I will tell a story of challenge, but also of hope. There will be no PowerPoint slides.

Our community has been seriously impacted by an over $30 million dollar reduction to our 2011-12 state budget. But numbers don’t tell the full story. Numbers don’t capture the impact on individuals, many of whom have given decades to making UNCG a strong and vibrant community. The human toll of these cuts is significant, painful and impacts us all.

Communities of people

We must never forget that public universities are communities of people who share a belief in the value of higher education, a commitment to the success of our students, and an obligation to serve the local community in which we live. We have been given an ambitious charge. The citizens of this state expect us to translate our spirit of discovery and inquiry into remedies for the problems we face as individuals and as society. They expect us to prepare the next generation by providing access to education and ensuring students have the support they need to be successful. We must continue to foster a learning environment that inspires a quest for discovery, the desire to see the world from multiple perspectives, and the confidence to find one’s place in it.

Our people represent the foundation upon which we will build.

People like Ricole Wicks, a junior media studies major at UNCG. Ricole has an ambitious goal — to be the first-ever female, African-American sports broadcaster with a disability for ESPN. “I’m the kind of person that if you tell me no, I’m going to find a way for you to say yes. You just have to find the right support network,” says Ricole. And at UNCG, Ricole has found that network. Ricole is UNCG.

People like Kristen Christman, leader of our undergraduate student excellence programs. Last year Kristen learned that one of our first-year students was homeless. She brought this student into her home to ensure she had a place to live between orientation and the start of classes. This student is a returning sophomore, making good academic progress, and well on her way to a very different future. Kristen is UNCG.

People like Koami Amaglo from UNCG’s Housekeeping Department, who came to the United States in March 2002 fleeing political instability in Western Africa. He also works at Gentle Hands, giving back and serving patients with disabilities. Koami applied for citizenship and received his Certificate of Naturalization on July 27, 2011. Koami returns the hospitality and kindness he received from others to all with whom he comes in contact. Koami is UNCG.

People like Tom Martinek, faculty member in the School of Health and Human Sciences. Years ago Tom had a vision….to create a Middle College at UNCG that would serve high school students challenged by a traditional school environment. Last week we opened the UNCG Middle College with a focus on health-related careers. At a welcoming reception for students and their families two weeks ago on campus you could feel the excitement and hope in the room. Tom is UNCG.

People like Vicki McCready and her colleagues in the UNCG Speech and Hearing Center, who sponsor a summer Language Literacy Camp for four to 6-year-old children with communication delays. While visiting the camp last month I was approached by a mother of one little boy who shared the positive impact the camp has had on her son. In tears, she told me that he had made more progress in two weeks at camp than he had made during the entire previous year at his elementary school. Vicki is UNCG.

People like Nicolle Brossard, who, a week after surviving the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, deployed to Afghanistan. Upon her return, Nicolle feared her transition from combat to college would be more daunting than her experiences at war. But Nicolle found an inclusive and supportive community at UNCG. Joshua Green in the Dean of Students Office and Dedrick Curtis in the Registrar’s Office, both veterans themselves, warmly welcomed Nicolle and worked to ensure a smooth transition to student life at UNCG. Today, Nicolle serves with Joshua and Dedrick on our Task Force on Military, Veterans and Families, ensuring students have the support and resources needed to succeed. Nicolle’s story of resilience and service is moving. Efforts by those like Joshua and Dedrick to make UNCG a place our students can call home is inspiring. They are UNCG.

People like Adam Hall and Joseph Starobin, faculty in the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, who worked with students from Mendenhall Middle School to design an experiment looking at the effect of gravity on the life cycle of brine shrimp; the experiment was selected for the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavor. When asked what she had learned from the project, one middle-schooler commented: “I’ve learned to think small. It takes so much more to think small than to think big.” Thinking little but with a big impact. Adam and Joseph are UNCG.

People like you, and me, and so many others — students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of UNCG, who donated numerous hours last spring working with Well Spring Retirement Community and Habitat for Humanity to build a home in Greensboro for Beshir Ibnaouf, Maarif Abbas and their five children. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow could slow our progress. Mark Cable and Bill Hardin from Facilities Operations provided needed expertise. And Chris Fay of the Grounds Division taught all of us the correct way to plant a tree! It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we come together. We are UNCG.

These are our stories. And there are many more stories that could be told. I know each person in this audience has a story to tell — a story of people helping people, on campus and within this community. We are UNCG.

Emerging with strength

Times are tough today, but UNCG has a history of steadfastly pushing through tumultuous economic times and emerging stronger for it. Recently I re-read the late Allen Trelease’s marvelous history of UNCG. He writes movingly about the impact of the Great Depression on the North Carolina College for Women. Let me quote:

“The college’s annual appropriation fell from $465,000 in 1928-29 to $161,195 in 1933-34, the worst year — a drop of 65 percent. Legislators also mandated a 10 percent salary reduction for all state employees, including university and college faculty. Still deeper cuts came in 1933, when faculty salaries were reduced by another 32 percent. … Students were pressed into service as groundskeepers in 1930, as they had been during World War I. Student enrollments in the same period dropped 31 percent. … (President) Foust’s correspondence in these years is full of letters from parents seeking financial aid, some leeway in making payments, or sorrowfully withdrawing their daughters.”

But the community that was the North Carolina College for Women came together and emerged stronger. Their story teaches a lesson of unyielding strength and persistence, a community which left a legacy for us to follow. We will not be defined by the current challenge, but by how we respond to it. We are UNCG.

Today, unlike President Foust who received letters, I receive e-mails from parents concerned about the affordability of college, asking for our help, and well aware of the importance of a college education for their student’s future. Our community will rise to the challenge. Despite cuts in financial aid at both the State and Federal levels, UNCG will continue to invest all the resources we can muster to enable these students to achieve their dreams. People and community will remain our top priorities. And student success comes first.

In the coming year we will continue three efforts already underway to position UNCG for the future. First, we will build on existing learning and living-learning communities designed to enrich the educational experience of our undergraduates and contribute to improvement in retention and graduation rates. Our newest learning community, focused on Sustainable Entrepreneurship, opens this fall in Jefferson Suites.

Second, we will move forward with our academic program review, designed to identify areas of strength, potential, and unmet need, and to profile what we do uniquely well. The Provost and I have been working with deans, department heads, faculty, and staff to refine the review process based on significant concerns we heard regarding reliability, validity and interpretation of data, and the potentially adverse effects of imposing a highly structured ranking system for our academic programs. With your help, we have made great strides to guide this important process in keeping with our core values, many reflected in today’s stories. Academic Program Review provides UNCG the opportunity to reinvest in our future, a future we will define collectively.

Third, we will advance our shared agenda related to diversity and inclusion, working to implement recommendations offered by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Task Force on Military, Veterans and Families. While the budget situation will not allow us to continue the search for a Chief Diversity Officer in 2011-12, our focus will be on mobilizing existing resources to make real, concrete progress in building an even more inclusive community.

Results of our collaborative efforts

Much has happened during the past year that reflects what we can do together. The Education Trust recognized UNCG as one of only five universities in the country serving low income students well. Campus Pride highlighted UNCG’s efforts to support LGBTQ students. The Arbor Day Foundation designated UNCG a Tree Campus USA for the second consecutive year. Princeton Review recently included UNCG in its list of “best” colleges for undergraduate education. And Forbes last week ranked UNCG number 24 out of 100 colleges and universities nation-wide that provide a quality education at an affordable price. These recognitions do not reflect the work of one individual, but the efforts of many. We are UNCG.

Despite our recent successes, challenges remain. How do we take the next steps forward? We must continue the conversation about how we as a community can best prepare ourselves for the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing environment. We must continue to build partnerships across the campus and with the broader Greensboro and Piedmont Triad communities. We must invest greater time and effort in securing private funding. We must be nimble, ready to take advantage of emerging opportunities, and prepared to deal with new challenges. We must be willing to make the difficult decisions that will position UNCG to meet the future needs of this state and the nation.

Our pledge to listen and respond

We will focus on our core values of inclusiveness, collaboration, sustainability, responsibility and transparency. I pledge to you that I will continue to listen and respond to your concerns, through formal and informal dialogue in settings large and small. We will be honest with one another and address the problems that confront us. And we will do all of this mindful of the obligations of public universities — to provide access and support student success, to contribute through research, discovery and creative activity solutions to the problems of our times, and to enhance quality of life for individuals and the communities we serve.

We have come through a difficult year, and there will be more challenges ahead. But I have confidence in the UNCG community before me. You are people of passion, people who reflect our great and proud history, a community that rises to the challenge, building on the accomplishments of those who came before us.

Together we will continue to advance this university and fulfill the promise of education and a better life that we make to every student who enters these halls. We are UNCG.

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