Leadership and committment

This past week the 17 members of the Dakota State Planning Council spent an entire day at a lodge near Howard, SD planning and thinking seriously about directions for DSU. We discussed our own leadership interactions and the needs for additional leadership education on the campus. This discussion also lead us to a point of determining 4 priority areas for the next year that will address our accreditation process (AQIP) and also our strategic plan. I will post more to my blog later about the four priority areas.

We also made a committment to more specifically define the continuous improvement process we want to incorporate into our decision making for the university. A recent review of our many activities on campus indicated that we needed to be clearer about the processes we use to define our priorities, set goals and accomplish tasks. Once we have outlined this process we will begin to apply it to the newly established priority areas for the year.

In addition, we had a chance to discuss our current budget situation and think about how this will be presented to the campus at our opening session for all faculty and staff on Aug. 24th.

Another part of our "retreat" was the examination of data from the National Survey of Student Engagement that DSU participates in every two years or so. Our data does give DSU some areas to be very proud of and some areas that we need to address. I have to point out that on the measures of student engagement DSU achieves a positive ranking relative to the other 5 regental institutions in SD on more areas than any of the other 5. We surpass national norms or score well in areas the are associated with collaborative learning opportunities and a supportive campus. Our areas of challenge (and our focus) center on academic challenge. As we examined this area we did realize that many of the questions that measure academic challenge are not so relevant to DSU due to the movement to more electronic means of communicating and learning. The Survey clearly is lagging behind the processes of learning that many institutions are adopting.

In 2007 we established our new Strategic Plan with 7 areas of focus. At the retreat we examined data relevant to our progress on these 7 areas. On many of the 7 we have made good or exceptional progres and on others we need to reevaluate the goals and the work we are doing to accomplish the targets we set. At the all university opening session in a week I will present this data to the campus and then post it here to my blog. (keep checking)

At the end of the retreat we discussed three additional areas of concern or focus. These were technology, athletics and leadership. We learned that there are many improvements to our technology infrastructure that students will experience this fall. We will also focus on a reevaluation of the directions and values that we established during the implementation of our WMCI (Wireless Mobile Computing Initiative) with the probable establishment of a Technology Committee to look at processes and new directions. Athletics is an area of focus this year and we examined data regarding student numbers, scholarship needs, recruiting practices and our committments to providing student athletes a supportive environment. Lastly, we looked at our own membership and determined that some additional members including a student member might positively impact our work together.

This was an extraordinarily candid and productive meeting and has clearly made me even more excited to start this new academic year. Many might not understand how much energy, hard work and thought go into making DSU an institution that is continually and fervently striving to be better and to provide students the extraordinary learning environment that is our goal.

As always comments and questions are welcomed here on the blog or in person.

Getting ready

It is amazing how fast a summer can go. Seems like just a few weeks ago we had commencement and now we are in the final stages of getting ready for the start of a new academic year. I spent some time walking around campus this past week and there are alot of things to get done before we welcome back the faculty/staff on the 24th and new student move in on the 30th. The residence hall projects (Emry and Zimmermann this summer) seems to have gone more smoothly and we are all confident that the major renovations will be completed although lots of clean up etc. There are some new sidewalks that have been installed - a constant update and we will have some new lights up around campus. Of course the major project we are preparing for is the total renovation of the Science Center. Everyone has been busy moving out and throwing out the accumulation of some 40 years. We will open bids for the project on Aug 13th and the actual work should start around Sept 1 with total completion of the project to take approximately one year. We are doing some work in Heston Hall - elevator retrofit or something like that. The student services center in the Trojan Center has been renovated and up dated and yes even the VP for Academic Affairs and the President's office are being painted and updated.

Before the start of the academic year we will also have newly designed banners up around campus with a new athletic logo unveiled. A new TROJAN mascot will be on the banners around the athletic complex. There will also be new billboards going up on Interstate 29 and a new lighted sign on HWY 34 is now welcoming visitors to Madison - Home of Dakota State University.

Our enrollment projections look very good for this fall with enrollment of new first year students and transfers up 11% compared to a year ago. I am confident that we will set a new overall enrollment record again this fall.

We are reinvigorating our DSU 2.0 Capital Campaign and will be spending a great deal of time working on establishing relationships and asking for investments in the university. I am also committing myself to more regular blogging!