Winter 2008
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HIHE Alums Report Wide Variety of New Year Resolutions

Just before the holiday break, we solicited HIHE alumni views on key institutional and personal challenges for 2008. We were surprised (and gratified) by the number of you who took the time to share your “resolutions.” While resource challenges and implementing various planning initiatives were reported by many, considerable breadth was also evident in your responses. Many exciting issues await HIHE alumni in the coming year—fundraising/capital campaign challenges, managing budget deficits, staff recruitment and development, increased competition for students, improving undergraduate teaching, introducing curriculum reform, enhancing student diversity, improving institutional quality, managing technology, launching new capital projects, and forging new strategic alliances. Unfortunately, we were unable to include all responses in the Alumni Bulletin. A complete listing of all contributions follows:
IEM 03	Thomas S. Edwards, Thomas College (ME)
Our top challenge for 2008, which coincides with my own professional goals: developing and implementing the next stages of the Thomas College strategic plan given the fluid nature of enrollment and recruitment, fundraising for a capital campaign, and increasing the endowment. Any college's strategic plan has to address the issues that are now foremost in the national conversation: access and affordability in light of the rising cost of education; the impact of technology in terms of teaching, learning; the role of an integrated library and IT services department; and the emphasis on accountability and documenting student learning outcomes.
MDP 07	John Omachonu, College of Mass Communication (TN)
The most pressing challenge for me as the chief academic officer for my academic unit is funding. We need funds to strengthen existing programs as well as upgrade production equipment. Our field is technology-intensive and in many areas we are now in the replace or upgrade phase.
ACRL 03	Kevin Mulroy, USC Libraries (CA)
1. Professional goal: Meeting the costs of library acquisitions inflation while trying to grow the collections; and trying to convince faculty that the current model is unsustainable and that we need to work together to develop new channels for scholarly communication 2. Personal goal: To be of real service to people in all walks of life who seek to teach, learn, and conduct research.
IEM 99	Jerry E. Flanagan, Saint Michael's College (VT)
1. Professional goal: I believe our biggest challenge is to use our limited financial resources, in the form of our endowment or discount rate, to help the students we admit be able to afford us. This will be especially difficult when institutions like Harvard and other well endowed institutions announce such generous offers of assistance to their students. I wish we could do the same. 2. Personal goal: My goal this year is to do what I can to make our new president as successful as he can be, especially in his first year with us.
MDP 07	Diana Rogers-Adkinson, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater
1. Professional goal: Our institutions biggest challenge is yet another Chancellor search. This will be our 3rd since 1999. Our last chancellor was here for two years. The previous chancellor created a very negative climate and when our most current chancellor came she began a very important healing process across campus. She also helped begin implementing a new long term strategic plan. There is much angst regarding the direction our next Chancellor will steer us. A majority of the institution supports the new strategic plan. A new chancellor may start the process anew leaving us feeling like all we do is plan and never go anywhere. 2. Personal Goal: To secure a budget for the learning communities that is double our existing budget. Or to remember what I learned this summer at MDP and to continue to implement it.
ACRL 05	William Curran, Concordia University (Quebec, Canada)
The most pressing matter is the recruitment and retention of highly qualified academic librarians, that is, professionals with vision, determination, ethics and a strong commitment to providing excellent service. The impact of the exiting baby-boomer cohort is upon us and the competition to recruit the "crackerjacks" graduating from library schools is stiff. We need recruitment policies, retention incentives and mentoring programs—issues that have not been on our collective radars for decades.
IEM 98	Sam Shaw, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (Canada)
1. Personal goal: My goal is to plan an exciting administrative leave (beginning in June) that will include research and teaching as well as attending some seminars. 2. Professional goal: Securing government's support for our $1.5 billion expansion. Personal goal: Stay ahead of the crowd.
IEM 97	Sam Schuman, University of North Carolina, Asheville
At my institution, a public liberal arts university, our most pressing challenge is (internally) maintaining our focus upon our core mission of undergraduate liberal learning, and (externally) convincingly articulating the continuing importance of such an educational option at state-supported schools.
MLE 07	Renny Christopher, California State University Channel Islands
1. Professional goal: Managing growth in a time of shrinking state support for the institution (a California State University campus). As a new institution, we’re on a steep growth curve—and, indeed, demand for spaces in the CSU system is growing, even while the state’s budget crisis threatens the level of support provided to the CSU to meet that enrollment demand. 2. Personal goal: We’ll be hiring a new Provost this year, following the retirement of our current and much-beloved Provost, and as part of the Provost’s management team, my main goal is to help the new Provost with his or her taking up the leadership role, and making sure that the transition is a beneficial one for the campus.
IEM 01	Brian Fahnestock
I attended the course in 2001 when I was VP of a community college in Santa Barbara, CA. One of the primary challenges I had then was the inability of the college to retrieve useful and timely information out of its ERP (finance, HR and student) system in order to make well-reasoned decisions. In July 2003, I joined a very small (2-person) software firm to address that challenge. We started out with one client—today we have hundreds. I visit schools of every size all year and regardless of their size or sophistication they all seem to struggle with converting data into management information. We live in the Google-era where we can ask any question at home (from finding the best restaurant to how to fix a transmission), but at work we as decision makers often go without real information.
NP 07	Allan Cahoon, Royal Roads University (British Columbia, Canada)
1. Professional goal: targeting an 11% growth in enrolment (facilitate and manage) undertake the planning and construction of three new campus buildings (the first since 1975) 2. Personal goal: continue to build my leadership team (cabinet), also will be building capacity and working relationship with a Board of which over 1/2 of the members will be new, trying to find balance between administration and my ongoing interests in occasional teaching and graduate supervision and my ongoing research.
IEM 95	Michael Dahlin, University of Colorado System
1. Professional goal: The most pressing challenges for the University of Colorado are (1) the change of leadership as our current President of the CU system Hank Brown retires and is replaced by a new President and (2) the ongoing need to solve the fiscal crisis in the state created by constitutional amendments that interact with each other to ratchet down state funding to the point that public higher education will be in danger of going under in 2010. 2. Personal goal: My goal is to learn all that I need to know to be an excellent AVP for Corporate and Foundation Relations at the University of Colorado Foundation. My 24 years on the academic side of CU helps, but my knowledge of corporate and foundation fundraising in very basic. I have been assisted by many wonderful staff at CU, and also by the CFR offices of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan who were incredibly generous in sharing their insights and experiences with me. Raising private money to replace declining state dollars seems a very fine third career for me.
ACRL 04	Beth Layton, University of Florida
1. Professional goal: We are looking at continual budget cuts. We are unable to fund a reasonable level of service now and I shudder to think about how we will handle the new-year and beyond. 2. Personal goal: Further, I have been an interim director for almost 10 months. It's been extremely difficult but truly a great learning experience. I am finally ready and committed to being a director. Getting there, that is getting a job offer and working through the negotiations and moving is a difficult process.
MDP 97	Rosemarie S. Hughes, Regent University (VA)
I attended a session at the AAMC (American Association of Medical Colleges) meeting, entitled: "Who's on Your Personal Leadership Board?" One idea/concept they talked about was the first 100 days of being a new leader/manager. This might be something that your program could talk about. 1. Professional goal: Institution's challenge—relevancy of mission and vision in an ever changing, fast paced world 2. Personal goal: adhering to goals I have set and not the ones others set for me.
IEM 02	Alfred J Guillaume, Indiana University, South Bend
1. Professional goal: Student retention and recruitment of faculty of color. 2. Personal goal: Aligning strategic planning, assessment and budgeting.
ACRL 03	Susan Logue, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
1. As an interim associate provost, it will be finding ways to resolve faculty union grievances in a manner that is amicable 2. Personal goal: become the successful candidate for permanent associate provost position.
MDP 05	Mitch Gartenberg, Syracuse University (NY)
My most pressing challenge is to provide effective leadership during times of increased demand, shifting priorities, and a documented need for increased funding. Successfully navigating the matrix of structure, resources, and politics as I newly lead one of the most complex university departments of its kind in the entire nation.
NP 03	Linda Edmonds Turner, Urban College of Boston (MA)
1. We are a private, low-income nontraditional student based urban institution. By far the most pressing challenge is increasing our fundraising and funding base to serve our growing student population. We now serve over 1,200 students each year. 2. I'd like to get more involved in international education policy. I feel we as a nation need to be more focused on worldwide education policies and challenges to remain competitive. In April 2008 I am participating in a New England Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation visit to a K–12 private school China. (FYI, the Urban College of Boston is 52% Hispanic with a large immigrant population primarily from South American countries. Additionally, eleven percent of UCB students are Asian Americans.) One of my dreams is to give Urban College of Boston students and staff mini one or two week study abroad experiences focusing on early education and care models.
NP 02	Shirley C. Raines, University of Memphis (TN)
1. For the University of Memphis, "Resources, Resources, Resources" are the most pressing challenge. In times of economic downturns, we are a resource for reinventing the future. Helping students, their parents, alumni and donors recognize the great value found in American public higher education is a top goal. "Great educational value at low comparative cost" is not just a slogan; it is a way of life at the University of Memphis.
IEM 03	Flemming G. Andersen, University of Southern Denmark
1. Professional goal: As one of eight Danish Universities our main challenge will be that of positioning ourselves in an increasingly competitive national and international marketplace AND at the same time playing our coordinated role in fulfilling the government's general university policies for 2008. 2. Personal goal: Managing human resources in a context of change, encouraging academic excellence in a context of limited financial resources.
ACRL 00	Christine Godin, Northwest Vista College (TX)
1. Professional goal: Retention of students—we have an exponentially increasing enrollment but still struggle to retain and graduate students from our community college. This is a national trend. 2. Personal goal: Opening a new facility in summer of 2008 and making sure it meets the needs and desires of the current crop of students.
MDP 06	Carolyn Bliss, University of Utah
1. Professional goal: The University of Utah's most pressing challenges are those facing most institutions: maintaining enrollment, increasing retention, and finding ways to provide data on student learning that will allow stakeholders to compare our institution's performance to that of others, while avoiding some sort of one-size-fits-all institutional assessment.