Welcome to North Georgia’s 135th academic year. I hope you are refreshed and energized for the year ahead. My remarks today will focus on the four leadership themes we advocate as guideposts for North Georgia’s future. The themes are grounded in our board-approved mission, especially our designations as The Military College of Georgia and as a leadership university, and our reputation for academic excellence.

Much of the content of the themes draws upon work done by the 2006 Task Force on Institutional Identity and related consultations by the Fleming Group and Noel-Levitz. The consultants conducted extensive interviews with students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university.

Our ambition is to achieve national distinction in the practice of these forms of leadership rather than simply treating leadership as an object of academic study.

The themes provide a framework to revise and refine our strategic plan of institutional development for the next several years. That plan will identify a limited set of goals to which we will direct resources and devote our energy. 

Any process to imagine the future these days is fraught with uncertainty. We are blessed (or cursed as some may see it) with the challenge of an increasingly complex, ambiguous and unpredictable external environment. The students we educate will be deeply immersed in that environment. Our responsibility is to give them the tools and knowledge to succeed in this emerging world. We must take these circumstances into account as we choose our path.  

The presentations today are intended to expand this strategic inquiry and process. We want all of our faculty and staff to be familiar with the proposed strategy, and to participate in shaping and implementing it on behalf of our students and our mission. 

Later in the program the deans of our four schools will begin a dialogue on the themes that eventually will encompass our entire community. Our schools will be a vital resource and venue for accomplishing our strategic agenda and realizing our ambitions.

The deans’ contribution today symbolizes the centrality of our academic purpose. But they are not alone. Everyone in this room – faculty and staff – is critical to our ability to fulfill our promise. Each of us is an educator whose work contributes to the whole. We all can, and must, find ways to be a part of our vision. I encourage you individually, and within your organizational units, to embrace that responsibility and prospect.  

In fact, you already have begun to do just that. We spent some time this summer identifying activities, initiatives and programs now underway that exemplify the four leadership themes. I’d like to present some illustrations of how we are practicing these aspects of leadership. Time does not permit a comprehensive inventory, or a listing of all the individuals involved. Nor can I claim full knowledge of all efforts across the university. So I apologize to those of you whose good work is not cited. We will put the information we have accumulated on a strategic planning blog site as a “work in progress.” We invite your additions to the catalog of both activities and individuals. Our hope is to compile a complete record of contributions to the themes.

Let me turn first to teaching and learning innovations. Our primary obligation as educators is to learning. If our teaching does not result in learning, we have failed our profession. Fortunately, recent cross-disciplinary research on human learning offers insights that should enable us to strengthen our pedagogy to increase student learning. We now know what learning activities and environments will result in longer-lasting, deep learning. These features include active participation by the learner; context-based social and experiential learning situations; a mix of practice and reflection; and opportunities to connect different learning experiences.

We also are fortunate that advances in information and communication technologies can support and enhance learning – increasing access to information, enabling multi-sensory experiences, and expanding interactivity. Both experiential learning and these technologies remind us that learning is potentially boundaryless and unconstrained by time.

Many of you have already applied these insights into learning in your work as faculty and administrators. Since Fall 2006, you have created 20 learning communities, providing students the chance to see connections across disciplines, and to grapple with multiple, sometimes competing, perspectives on the same topic. In many of these communities, students engage in group learning, or develop shared skills through hands-on experiences and application. In some cases, the communities involve an intensive living and learning experience. These communities also give faculty and staff, who serve as teachers, a chance to learn another discipline and grow as professionals.

Other faculty and staff have done good work to change our core requirements, in recognition of critical skills and knowledge our students need. The general education committee’s emphasis on learning outcomes is admirable, as is the work of student affairs staff to embrace these outcomes in the co-curriculum.

With the encouragement of our Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, many faculty and staff have applied technological innovations to enrich teaching and learning. We now have courses that use blogs to encourage communication outside the classroom, or podcasts that enable interactions at any time or place. Some are employing social bookmarking to develop students’ information literacy skills and enable them to share knowledge with others. Some are using student response systems that stimulate student participation and provide immediate electronic feedback to the class.

The internet has expanded our learning environments exponentially. Some of you have developed on-line courses and programs to reach student audiences far beyond the campus. Others use this technology to tap into digital data bases that comprise a vast storehouse of art images. You have created virtual learning environments unique to your students’ experiences. Our North Georgia “island” of Auraria, for example, serves as a site for virtual field trips and hands-on experiments.

You have tapped into YouTube to showcase our students building robots. You have produced videos of students at work on statistical problem-solving exercises so that others can replicate them elsewhere.

Our information and instructional technology staff have responded to your inventiveness by providing increased capabilities in support of these technologies. Wireless is being installed this fall. Storage and backup capacity have expanded. Software is more readily available for classroom use. And our new library will function as a major resource center for course and courseware development, group and technology-based learning.

Some of you have designed experiential learning without the use of new technologies. Students are compiling oral histories through interviews with local residents, or writing narratives of their clean up activities at regional river environments. Other students are performing theatrical productions in their newly acquired second language, or working with small local businesses. Still other students are compiling an encyclopedia of a popular fiction series while also reenacting ceremonies from these works.

Some faculty have found imaginative ways to connect teaching to research. You have sponsored undergraduates to work in professional laboratories leading to publications. You have recruited colleagues from various disciplines to create problem-solving exercises for student apprentices and to train secondary school teachers to use them. You have conducted research on the extent to which new pedagogies have an impact on student learning.

These are exciting developments for our university. Our showcase this afternoon following the formal program will feature innovations in teaching and learning. We urge you to view first-hand the fruits of your colleagues’ labors. And we thank Irene Kokkala and her colleagues at CTLE for putting these demonstrations together.

Our second leadership theme is to educate engaged citizens. North Georgia can claim a national reputation for citizen-soldiers thanks to its corps of cadets. Wherever I have been across the country in association with military personnel, I have heard praise for the quality of our officer graduates.

The military leadership education we offer is a model of how to extend our commitment to cultivate engaged citizens. It is an intense, experiential learning program that offers students the chance to exercise increasingly demanding aspects and levels of leadership. It is explicitly centered on leadership for service, rooted in fundamental values and principles. It recognizes that leadership is essentially social, involving shared responsibilities and teamwork. And it reminds us that the arena for leadership in our times is global, requiring knowledge of other languages and cultures.

Many of you have used elements of this model to create new forms of citizenship education. Our cadet admissions office has spearheaded programs that bring young people to our campus to learn leadership and citizenship skills, including the Junior ROTC leadership, evaluation, assessment and development (or JLEAD) course and the national leadership challenge. Within our corps, the commandant and military science staffs have joined with student and academic affairs to develop new strategies for corps retention. And the University system of Georgia has recognized our exceptional military capabilities by appointing North Georgia as leader of a system-wide effort to expand educational opportunities for military personnel.

Globalism is an essential feature of citizenship in the 21st century. You have undertaken impressive innovations in international education for both military and civilian students. The new general education requirements for foreign language and leadership courses, and the added emphasis on globalization in the social science core, are notable contributions. The recently implemented major in international studies, and a grant to create a transatlantic studies program, are also noteworthy, as are expanded offerings in modern languages, including Chinese courses and minors in Chinese and German.

The newly created center for global engagement provides an increasing range of international experiences for students, augmented by exchange agreements with universities in China and Switzerland. The center was a major factor in North Georgia receiving the first University System of Georgia grant to internationalize system campuses.

Our third theme is leadership for regional development. As we call for active citizenship by our students, we too must be good institutional citizens. Our future is tied to the surrounding region, and we must help assure that its quality of life is sustained. Our mission as a public university demands that we relate our educational and cultural offerings to regional needs. Our leadership emphasis calls us to serve its economy, society and community.

Connections to the region offer valuable resources. For our students, the community can be a classroom, an arena for experiential learning and service, and a locale for cultural enrichment. For faculty, the region can be a source of research, applied scholarship and professional consultation. And for the institution, community partnerships can help finance and support campus programs.

Once again, you have realized the value of regional leadership through several university initiatives. Perhaps the most vivid example of this theme is our recent gift to establish the Cottrell School of Business. In accepting this generous donation, the university agreed to align our business programs and the school with the region’s development. We will create a Center for the Future of North Georgia to symbolize and pursue this agenda.

Academic Affairs has expanded its commitment to the region by launching the Office of Regional Engagement. This office houses our continuing education programs for the community, which last year served over 3,600 local citizens. The office also is closely involved with our expansion into Forsyth County.

Our departments and centers are valuable resources for community development. Nursing and physical therapy are providing professional clinical services to local residents who lack financial resources or health insurance. Accounting students and faculty provide tax service to the poor. Science faculty sponsor the annual Science Olympiad for school students. Education faculty participate in the Georgia Appalachian Center for Higher Education, working with 15 area high schools to improve college-going rates. The Center for Environmental Leadership is helping to eradicate a threat to the region’s forests. The Appalachian Studies Center celebrates regional culture through programs such as the Smithsonian America By Food exhibit, the Pick and Bow traditional music school, the Healthy Lumpkin partnership, the Mountain Ventures support of micro-businesses, the oral history project with Georgia Public Broadcasting, and the front porch blog for community information.

Many North Georgia faculty and administrators are active members of regional service organizations. And the university seeks opportunities to add resources to the community such as our upcoming parking garage and our new tennis facility built on county park land.

These examples of citizenship also express our fourth leadership theme – living our values. The institutional identity inquiry affirmed a strong consensus on the kind of community to which we aspire. We treasure our intimate social environment, and see ourselves as a caring community dedicated to the values expressed in our mission statement.

As educators, we strive to be a learning-centered community embracing all aspects of students’ lives. As professionals, we acknowledge responsibilities to ethical and moral standards and responsibilities, and to conducting ourselves as models for our students.

Our challenge is to incorporate these beliefs and perceptions of ourselves into our daily lives, to conduct our work and interactions with each other and all our constituents in ways that fulfill these admirable values. Here are some recent ways you have done so.

Your efforts in securing reaffirmation of our SACS accreditation, and in achieving professional accreditations for our business, nursing and education programs affirm your commitment to academic excellence. You have expressed this commitment in other ways as well – by cultivating our summer and academic year honors programs, changing our core requirements, enabling the transition to NCAA Division II athletics, and realigning our schools.

You have responded to concerns about academic support services by implementing block scheduling, mid-term grades, early interventions for at-risk students, and improvements to advising.

Administrative support staff have risen to the challenge of a disrupted campus by organizing ‘Team NG’, a customer service initiative to assist in the opening of school and beyond. You have simplified or improved administrative processes, including procurement, deliveries, library checkouts and budget decentralization. You have redesigned faculty evaluation and clarified and published university policies and procedures. You have consolidated I-T help desks, and supported new certifications for I-T staff. You have added enhancements to communications through e-mail, information blogs and a content management system.

Through these innovations to our organizational culture, you have demonstrated care for others, a service orientation, a desire to communicate more effectively, and an allegiance to professionalism.

Conclusion. One of the hallmarks of our profession as educators has been a belief in collegiality. We want to perpetuate that tradition as we envision our strategic future. Please join in the process. Help us to articulate and shape an inspiring future for North Georgia. With your participation in the strategic planning process, we can assure that this will continue to be a cherished community. Thank you.