Convocation September 24, 2003
President Thomas J. Schwarz
The Performing Arts Center PepsiCo Theatre

Welcome to the new academic year. I am optimistic that it will be a good year filled with teaching, learning and a new respect for our community and ourselves. I will come back to that theme in a few minutes.

First, let me report to you on the state of your College.

This year we had 8552 applicants; 38% were accepted, a percentage in line with the most selective institutions.

Again this year our selectivity increased and our liberal arts program is one of the most selective among public colleges in the country.

Our professional arts programs continue to be at the top in the country and even they are getting better.

Our budget is tight. Classes are too big – larger than we want. Nevertheless, I want you to note in the face of state and national budget problems:

· Our greatly expanded Career Counseling Office under the direction of Wendy Morosoff

· Our new Advising Center under the direction of Professor Lynn Mahoney

· Our new dining facility in CCN thanks to Chartwells and the PCA under the direction of Bill Guerrero.

But not withstanding the national and state economies, unlike colleges and universities around the country, because of the generosity of our donors – including alumni – we have been able to use Purchase College Foundation funds in order to augment state funds and thereby maintain our core program.

I want to publicly thank the Board of the Purchase College Foundation for its commitment and its financial support. I ask Margaret Sullivan, the Vice President of External Affairs to stand and receive our thanks. Without her hard work and the support of our donors this would be a very different year.

Our finances - operating finances – are in good shape and we will get through this difficult time – this difficult economy – without major cutbacks because of the hard work of all of us and the controls put in place. Again I want to thank Chief Financial Officer Judy Nolan who has become affectionately known on the campus as “J No” for her tireless efforts in implementing complete financial systems and putting in place a sense of restraint and accountability that has allowed us to deliver our program.

Although our operating funds are sufficient, our capital funds which allow major construction and critical maintenance are behind. As many of you know, six years ago the Governor’s budget gave us a $45 million capital program to do critical maintenance programs. For example, the work that is going on in the Music Building to replace skylights is a capital program, as is the new Humanities Theatre and the renovation of The Performing Arts Center.

Unfortunately, the legislature did not approve the Governor’s new 5-year capital program this year. So some of the critical capital programs like the foundation of the Art and Design Building and the renovations in the Library will be delayed. We are hopeful that there will be a new capital program next year and we are presently in design on certain projects like the replacement of windows in the Dance Building and the overhaul of our heating plant where we have actually borrowed money from another project so we can replace our 30-year-old generators.

You will soon see construction commence on the new Student Services Building on the mall and the closing of the Lincoln Avenue overpass. This building was in the prior capital program and when completed it will house all student services in one building and allow for expansion in Humanities and the other academic buildings where the various student services are now housed.

With respect to Residential Facilities, as you know Alumni Village – financed by a subsidiary of the Purchase College Foundation – has been delayed because of the contractor. Although we should have had all of the buildings for the start of this semester, we only planned on 7 –8 –9 which should have been ready long ago. I am pleased to announce that as of later this week, students will be moving into those buildings. I am sorry for the difficulties those students have experienced but I believe under the circumstances, we did the best that we could. I am told that some of the 60 students who have been at the Crowne Plaza will be sorry to leave.

We hope to have Buildings 10 – 13 in January and I am not counting on it.

We are now beginning the early stages of planning for new residential facilities. We have hired an architectural firm to help us in the citing of the buildings and the Dormitory Authority is now finalizing the contract with the new architect we have jointly chosen to design the new facilities. Students will of course be involved once we begin the actual design process.

As all of our resident students know, all of the residential facilities were painted and cleaned up for this year. I want to thank Chief Operating Officer Joe Olenik and his staff for their hard work. I know the students have been appreciative and that they will maintain the residences properly.

The President’s house – Beechwood – which is on Purchase Street will one day house the President. We are engaging an architect to do the necessary renovation and I look forward to raising the money necessary to do the work and then living in the home and raising even more money. In the meantime, I am creating an apartment in the Administration Building so that I can spend time living on the campus and participate in more of the events of the College.

Now I have the honor of announcing my recommendations to the Chancellor for tenure and promotions.

First, two professors have been recommended for tenure:

After earning her M.F.A., in printmaking from Purchase College in 1991, Professor Cassandra Hooper returned to the College as a full-time faculty member in Fall 1998. Casey has participated in numerous solo and group, national and international, exhibitions. Her work is included in many collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Washington University Library, St. Louis. She is the quintessential teacher.

Professor Lenora Champaign has taught Drama Studies at Purchase since 1990, becoming full-time in 1999. In addition to her work with the Drama Studies program, which she currently chairs, Professor Champaign is well known as a performance artist, playwright, and theatre critic. Having authored or edited several volumes of plays, Lenora was appointed Durst Chair of the Humanities in 2002-03.

Tenure is a privilege and of course is difficult to attain. I congratulate both professors Champaign and Hooper.

I have also recommended for promotion to full professor, Morris Kaplan.

Professor Morris Kaplan has taught philosophy at Purchase since 1988. Widely published on issues of gender, sexuality, and the law, he is the author of Sexual Justice (Routledge) and the forthcoming Sodom on the Thames (Cornell). Active in service to the College as well as in scholarship, Morris has served as coordinator of Culture, Society and the West, and currently chairs the Philosophy Board of Study.

Full professorship demonstrates distinction in teaching, service to the community and scholarship or artistic endeavor. I congratulate Professor Kaplan.

I am also pleased to announce that Professor Nancy Foner - anthropology - has been awarded the rank of Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York. Professor Foner is on sabbatical this year.

The Distinguished Professorship is a highly selective, prestigious, tenured University rank that is conferred in recognition of consistently extraordinary accomplishment. Authority to appoint resides solely with the State University Board of Trustees, and such appointment constitutes a promotion to the University's highest academic rank.

Dr. Peter Ohring has been awarded the Chancellor's Research Recognition Award. He is a mathematician with interests in the study of Harmonic Analysis and Probability, applied math and image compression and processing. Dr. Ohring is one of the founders and the first program chair of the New Media Program. This interdisciplinary degree program teaches students to create, process, and communicate artistic content using digital technologies. He is project director of the New Media Summer Institute for secondary students funded by PepsiCo. He will be honored next month by the Chancellor with other outstanding professors from the SUNY system.

Now I want to announce an important milestone in the history of this College: At the end of this academic year or when his successor is appointed, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Gary Waller will step down and return to the faculty. I have asked Gary to continue to be in charge of the Learning Communities and their expansion - which both of us feel very strongly about - and he has agreed.

Nine years is a long time for someone to serve in the position of the Chief Academic Officer and Gary's accomplishments over that period of time are equally impressive.

Let me review some of them:

1. Strategic Planning. When Gary arrived planning was not part of the culture at Purchase College. Dr. Waller organized the Strategic Planning Committee and superintended the College's first strategic plan, which was published in 1997. The second Strategic Planning Committee is currently meeting, itself testimony to the success of the first Plan.

2. Enrollment Management. In 1995, when Gary Waller took over, Academic Affairs was disorganized and dispirited. Enrollments had been falling steadily, and by 1995-6, the decline had reached crisis proportions, resulting in a loss of state operating funds and tuition. With the help of enrollment management consultants from Noel-Levitz, Dr. Waller engineered the development and implementation of a comprehensive enrollment management plan.

3. Enrollment and Selectivity Increases. The results of the enrollment management plan were a 25% increase in enrollment and the beginning of a rise in selectivity, with increased high school averages and a rise in SAT scores of about 30 points. By Fall 1999, Purchase's turnaround was so successful that it was ranked as the top liberal arts college in the north by U.S. News and World Report. Selectivity at Purchase College continues to increase, and over the past few years, is moving Purchase into the ranks of the most selective four year colleges in the SUNY system.

4. Elevating Purchase within the SUNY System. More than anyone else, Dr Waller also succeeded in making Purchase "one College". Through his membership on various System Administration task forces and committees, his tireless attendance at countless meetings, his work most recently chairing the SUNY Chief Academic Officers group, Dr. Waller has enhanced Purchase College's status and reputation within the SUNY System.

5. New Academic Programs and Planning. In conjunction with these efforts, after years in which virtually no new academic programs were developed, Dr. Waller, moved quickly to develop new programs, especially in areas like dramatic writing, new media, cinema studies, and journalism, which not only build on Purchase's strengths, but also provide opportunities for more interested students to receive non-conservatory training in the arts. Equally importantly, Dr. Waller started building a distinguished and committed group of new faculty who represent the future of the College in years to come.

6. General Education: Dr. Waller played a leading role on the Provost's Advisory Committee on General Education which turned the Board of Trustee's General education mandate into a series of student learning outcomes, and then quickly legislated itself out of existence, restoring autonomy on general education course approval to the campuses.

7. Faculty in Residence and Learning Communities. In another direction enhancing the experience especially of first-year students living on campus, Dr. Waller has taken a personal interest in strengthening the Faculty in Residence Program and in developing a series of different learning communities, both key programs in bonding students to the College and to address retention. As I noted I have asked him to continue to direct the learning committees.

8. Perhaps the greatest of Gary Waller's contributions goes beyond all these and many more concrete achievements-and I refer not just to his leading by example, to his perennial good cheer, unfailing generosity of spirit, and perpetual willingness to be yelled at-and amounts to a decided change in the direction and culture of Purchase College. As Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Gary Waller forced the College to do its academic business differently, to re-organize itself as an institution dedicated to learning-whether through the annual retreats, meetings to bring different constituencies together, or encouragement to improve the production of student learning in its classrooms and academic achievements by faculty and staff.

9. Gary had and still has a reputation as a leading scholar of the Renaissance, especially in Shakespeare and Women's Writings, and he wants to return to that, but he is also a dedicated teacher. He has taught a course, usually a large course, every year and I know looks forward to returning to the classroom.

Please rise and give Dr. Waller our appreciation. At an appropriate time later in the year we will celebrate his accomplishments.

Now I want to come back to what I hope will be a theme for many discussions during the course of the year. RESPECT. Or as Aretha Franklin said so many years ago, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

As you know, I have asked Vice President Herron to undertake a number of projects under the category of Civic Engagement, including overseeing an important grant from the US Department of Justice for $200,000 involving violence against women.

While the grant's major focus is on women, it also includes targeted efforts to eliminate violence against all those who are victimized - international students, gays and lesbians. The violence I speak of is not only that which all of us would immediately recognize and find reprehensible - that is, acts of physical violence, date or acquaintance rape, or sexual assault--, but also the kind of verbal assault and verbal disrespect that is hurled, which also hurts and hurts deeply.

The ultimate goal of this effort is to empower victims to "speak out", to be heard, and to have the confidence that, when they do, their words will be taken seriously by the College, and that action can and will be taken. I am 100% supportive of this effort and urge each of us in the College community to participate in the grant's sponsored activities - to make Purchase a place where respect for the individual is paramount and where men and women alike speak out, strongly, against violence of any kind.

This grant is the beginning of what I hope will be many projects that relate to respect.

We live in a time where lack of respect for differences presents literally nuclear dangers. I believe too little time is spent on this and other College campuses to deal with respect. This College and other colleges often resemble islands rather than centers. Yes, it is true; we are situated in the wealthy suburbs of Westchester. But even on this campus are many people who could use our help - help in learning English, help with tutoring, help with babysitting when trying to get a College education with children to take care of.

And as we look around the wider community to Yonkers, White Plains, Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, The Bronx, there are many people who need our help.

We are not just educating our students for lives as artists or business people. We are educating citizens. And citizens, by definition, belong to a larger whole. What has been called in the Educational setting – “The Scholarship of Engagement”* or as the SUNY motto says - "To Learn, to Search, to Serve."

So I am asking that in this difficult period in our nation's history, we, on this campus, begin a dialog on Respect and Civic Engagement: Respect for our own environment, respect for our differences, respect for our weaknesses as well as our strengths and respect for the larger community in which we live.

I call upon the Student Government, the staff and the faculty to begin these conversations. I ask Vice President Herron to engage the entire community in a new dialog and that two years after September 11th with wars still raging around the world because of the lack of respect, we on this campus begin a new venture for respect and civic engagement. Let the arts flourish and let scholarship open our eyes to new worlds. But let us go forward respectfully and committed to the greater whole in which we live.

Have a good year and again, thanks to the Affiliates for what has become a “traditional” contribution toward the lunch that follows.

*Boyer, Ernest L., “The Scholarship of Engagement,” Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1996.