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President Turner's address at the Fall General Faculty Meeting

Fall General Faculty Meeting
August 29, 2007

It is always great to begin a new academic year. The enthusiasm of our new students is contagious, as is the joy of our returning students who have been away from campus over the summer. I know as you complete the first week of class, you are well aware of their excitement and all of the new beginnings accompanying another academic year.

Among the more important new beginnings was the arrival on July 1st of our new Provost, Paul Ludden, who comes to us from the University of California - Berkeley. As you know, he is a native of Nebraska, attending the University of Nebraska for his bachelor's degree and the University of Wisconsin - Madison for his PhD in Environmental Biochemistry. We are delighted to have him and his wife, Linda, joining us. Although many of you had the opportunity to meet him at his reception on the 21st, or at various faculty meetings, I hope you will continue to welcome him to campus. He is a great addition to the University family and will provide the leadership required to meet the ambitious goals of our Centennial Strategic Plan.

Since she arrived on June 11, Vice President for Student Affairs Lori White has hit the ground running and, hopefully, you had a chance to meet her earlier this week at a reception in her honor. She was Associate Vice President at USC after serving in student affairs positions at San Diego State and Stanford. If you haven't met her, I hope that you will do so today.

Finally, Christine Casey is joining us as Vice President for Business and Finance. She is coming from the System Office of the University of California, after spending much of her career in New Mexico. You will have the opportunity to meet Christine on September 25th at a reception in her honor. However, she is with us today to be a part of this event. Please give Chris her first SMU greeting.

With Paul, Lori, and Chris, we have dealt a heavy blow to California higher education! SMU 3; California 0.

I want to thank John O'Connor, who has once again served ably as Interim Vice President for Business and Finance over the summer after Dana Gibson left in June to become President of National University in La Jolla, California. John gives us many reasons to appreciate his devotion to SMU, but we are grateful for this latest important service.

At this time I will report on a number of issues:

1. SUBSTANCE ABUSE TASK FORCE

Those in Enrollment Services, the Provost's Office, and Student Affairs have been very busy with AARO Programs and other activities, putting finishing touches on the recruitment of our first-year class, and have now begun to recruit next year's class. With the very disturbing loss last year of three students, we are painfully aware of the importance of our programs regarding substance abuse prevention, education, and enforcement and our communication of these to students and parents. Last spring semester, I appointed the Task Force on Substance Abuse Prevention to review our policies and practices. The Task Force met four times over the summer to gather information and has established six working subgroups. Certainly you as faculty members will play an important role in helping us address this issue, and the Task Force welcomes your ideas. Some relevant topics include issues such as class workload for students, class schedules, and helping all of us become more aware of the signals of distress among students and the resources available. You will be hearing about ways to offer your perspectives. An example is the op-ed published in The Daily Campus by Professor Dennis Foster, a Task Force member. Our goal is for the Task Force to report recommendations by the end of the semester. I am assuming it will have campus-wide recommendations that will improve an already diligent effort to provide needed support for students and help them make wise lifestyle decisions.

2. FALL ENROLLMENT

I am pleased to report that our preliminary enrollment numbers for the year are the following: First-year students 1,309, transfers 282, and the average SAT of our entering class is 1230. As you know, our average SAT has increased approximately 86 points over the last decade and we certainly want to continue that trend, although each point becomes harder to achieve as the overall average continues to rise. My congratulations to Ron Moss, all the Enrollment Management staff, and recruitment staffs within the colleges and schools, and all of you who helped with the recruitment process. Now our jobs are to retain, educate, and graduate these new members of the SMU family.

Our graduate and professional programs continue to do well. The entering class in the Dedman School of Law will have its highest LSAT: 164. In addition, applications for the evening law program remain very strong.

3. CENTENNIAL CAMPAIGN

As most of you know, we completed a successful major gifts campaign in 2002, and, typical of higher education these days, there is not much time between one campaign and another! So, for the past few years, we have been planning our upcoming Centennial Campaign and have completed the first year of the "quiet phase." Current plans are to kick off the public phase in September 2008. Already, we have received significant commitments, which will help us in determining the campaign's numeric goal. We will be announcing new gifts throughout the year, but two should be of particular interest to you.

The impact of the late English Professor Laurence Perrine will live on through a bequest from the estate of his wife, Catherine. The $3.3 million bequest will provide funds for student scholarships and an endowed faculty chair in creative writing in the Department of English.

And it's not unusual for dedicated students to honor their mentors. But a new gift to SMU reverses that pattern — the mentor has provided funding to honor his former student. A $250,000 research endowment fund honoring Anthropology Professor Robert Van Kemper has been established through a bequest from his late mentor and teacher, George M. Foster, Jr., at UC-Berkeley. The endowment will provide funds for training and field research for graduate students in anthropology.

Next week, we will see another visible sign of the success of this "quiet phase" within the Perkins School of Theology, which has received a $6 million gift from Elizabeth Perkins Prothro and the Perkins-Prothro Foundation. We will break ground for the Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Hall and the refurbishment of Kirby and Selecman Halls, a $13 million project in total. In the last Campaign, Perkins focused on endowments for fellowships and scholarships, and purposely delayed meeting facility needs until this Centennial Campaign. Dean Bill Lawrence and his faculty also have identified a number of endowed faculty positions and programmatic support as goals for the Centennial Campaign.

Based on our Centennial Strategic Plan, our goals will be aggressive and substantive and should provide primarily new endowments for scholarships, professorships and programs to recruit and retain additional outstanding faculty and students, with special efforts directed toward Dedman College.

Speaking of the Centennial Strategic Plan 2006-2015, I will be making our first annual report next week to the Board of Trustees on our progress toward implementing the goals and objectives of the Plan. Copies will then be distributed to academic departments and the libraries. I urge you to look through it.

4. BUSH LIBRARY

Negotiations with the Bush Foundation to locate the George W. Bush Presidential Center on our campus have continued over the summer. There have been countless meetings, many between our legal team headed by Leon Bennett and those representing the Foundation. We have made significant progress and are hopeful of reaching an agreement on all seven of the documents very soon. I know you left campus hearing me say those very words, but a business leader recently told me that every major deal he ever made was within two weeks of completion -- five or six times. Hopefully, this is the sixth and last completion deadline for us.

Any agreement would first be approved by the Board of Trustees before being submitted to The Bush Library Foundation Board. Any announcement would be under the direction of The Bush Foundation and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Many of the recommendations of the Faculty Senate regarding the relationship of the University with the Bush Institute have been incorporated into the draft documents. Assuming a final agreement is reached, I believe that the result will address many of the expressed concerns and provide the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship between the Presidential Center and the University across the decades.

5. HONORS TASK FORCE

One of the major goals for this academic year is analyzing the report of the Honors Task Force, chaired by Professor Harold Stanley. Parts of it are directly related to our planning for the creation of a sophomore residency requirement on campus. If, in fact, residential colleges, houses, or commons are to be established at SMU, this will be the time for their planning.

There are many issues to consider regarding an enhancement of our Honors Program. For example, it is very important that we respond to the changing character and higher qualifications of our incoming students, provide greater challenges to them, and offer more varied opportunities for advanced learning. If private support is to be attracted to our Honors Program, we will need to have a structure that can be communicated to potential donors and inspire their interest. These issues are on Provost Ludden's Top Ten List.

Although some progress has been made, any overview of our academic programs would quickly identify our need to recruit more women and minorities to tenure-track faculty positions at SMU. Provost Ludden has reviewed this goal with the deans, and we will be repeating its importance in the coming semesters. In an era in which the majority of doctorates in this country are being achieved by women and minorities, our continued under- representation of these groups within each recruitment class of faculty is unacceptable. A change will require a commitment by every member on every search committee. Provost Ludden will be working with the deans, department chairs and the search committees to emphasize the importance of a multi-year plan to improve the representation of women and minorities on our faculty. In addition, we will be analyzing the role of child care facilities and other variables that could add to our success in this area. Provost Ludden will be reporting our success in this pursuit at regular intervals.

6. EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

The tragedy at Virginia Tech last spring underscored the need for the entire University community to be alert to potential problems and for there to be clear methods of reporting alarming incidents.

CONCLUSION

This is the 93rd year of the University's holding classes. In 2011 we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of our founding, and in 2015, of our opening. There is much that continues, but also much that is new. We welcome again our three new vice presidents, new faculty and staff and 1,600 new students, first-year and transfers. We have important planning to undertake, projects to complete, opportunities to develop, and achievements to celebrate. We have momentum as an institution, which makes this a great time to be at SMU. I look forward to our work together.

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