Notes/Remarks of Welcome
First Faculty/Staff Meeting—Monday, August 26, 2002
Daniel F. Sullivan

Welcome back to continuing faculty and staff, and welcome again to our new faculty and staff. The excitement in the room on this opening day each year is palpable. We are about to have a fresh new beginning to the best work in the world. It’s great to be here with you to undertake it.
Custom is that the president is supposed to say something at the first faculty/staff meeting about the state of the University. I can’t approach this task without recalling the first time I was asked to do it—the fall of 1986 at Allegheny College. I was new, wasn’t really sure I knew what the state of the college was, and just couldn’t seem to put any remarks together that made any sense. I was sitting at the kitchen table early in the morning of the appointed day getting nowhere when Adam, then 6, came down for breakfast. He said, “Hi dad, what’s up?” I said, “Adam, what do you think the state of the college is?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he said: “Pennsylvania,” and my writer’s block went away.
We’re about to start our seventh year together here, and so I think I do know something about the state of the University beyond the fact that we’re in New York. While I’m cautious about some of the challenges ahead, I very much like what we have accomplished together in the last several years. It sure would make me feel better, however, if the stock market would strengthen solidly and for a long time.
Before I share with you some of the news from over the summer, almost all of it good news, let me get my two introductions out of the way. One of them is obvious because he’s up here with me on the stage. Professor of Philosophy Grant Cornwell is almost through his second month as Vice President of the University and Dean of Academic Affairs. He used to be 6’7” tall, but the weight of the issues he’s been dealing with in his first two months have brought him down now to 6’5”! At 1” per month, think of where he’ll be a couple of years from now! Please welcome Grant Cornwell.
And my second introduction is another outstanding internal appointment. Mike Archibald, formerly Director of Major Gifts, was appointed last spring to the post of Vice President for University Advancement. His job is about fund raising, alumni and parent relations, and university communications. Please also welcome Mike Archibald.
Now let’s turn to the news.
The admissions numbers for opening today continue to be very strong. We are expecting between 620 and 625 new first-year students to join us today. While we are again providing need-based St. Lawrence grant aid to over 75% of these new students, ensuring a very diverse class from a family income point of view, we have been again this year more attractive to strong students who can afford our full tuition. Sadly, the class will not be more diverse with respect to students of color. Working on this for the Class of 2007 will be the top priority for the admissions office in the coming year. We have expected to see better results in this area by now. I urge all of you who are concerned about diversity on campus to identify ways in which you can help in these efforts.

Transfer deposits are at 27, about the same as last year. On July 26 we held for the first time a very successful summer visit day, with 73 families and 169 total in attendance. Some of you participated, and we are very grateful. All of our measures indicate that interest in St. Lawrence by increasingly strong prospective students continues to grow steadily. Terry Cowdrey will tell you more about the class in her remarks at Matriculation later today.

We won’t know final retention numbers for a couple of weeks yet, but so far they look strong also. Fewer students, on a percentage basis, are leaving St. Lawrence before they finish their degrees. The graduation rate, in other words, is going up.

Final fund raising numbers were also very strong. Total fiscal 2002 gift income from private sources was a best ever $18.8 million, up from $16.0 million last year. The Campaign St. Lawrence total grew from $100.4 million to $122.3 million, partly due to the stupendous $10 million pledge from trustee Sarah Johnson, the largest gift commitment ever for St. Lawrence, only $4 million of which is counted in these numbers. For newcomers in the room, this gift makes the first phase of our science and mathematics facilities possible. Our goal was to get to $120 million in Campaign St. Lawrence the end of last academic year, and we did that. To be where we want to be in fund raising, gifts at the level of Sarah’s gift need to happen with some regularity. I believe her gift will help make that happen.

The annual fund—for the most part unrestricted gifts that go directly into the operating budget—finished at $3.98 million, up over 9%. Of that total, $3.41 million was from alumni (up 8%) and $508,000 was from parents (up 22%). In addition, alumni donors grew by 502 from 7,114 to 7,616 (7%). In the face of September 11 and the yearlong bear market these numbers are extraordinary. We have only anecdotal information on how other liberal arts colleges did this year, which is that most colleges were flat at best. So perhaps we have made up even more ground in fund raising relative to the colleges to which we compare ourselves.

As you will recall, and probably have been following in the local newspapers, we have been seeking to have the Village annex several of our properties into it to facilitate key facilities projects or Canton Initiative goals. After some rocky months of difficult local politics, things recently have been more favorable. Both the village and town boards voted unanimously to annex about 100 acres of our property bounded by the edge of the golf course, the Little River, and the Grasse River. Part of the property, behind Lee and Eben Holden, is the site for the senior townhouse project we are about ready to begin. We needed the annexation in order to obtain village water and sewer.

A second annexation—the property we own north of East Main Street and west of the P & C grocery—was also approved. In addition, we had great cooperation from the village in helping us to expedite the acquisition and renovation of 48 Park St. for student residential space. Still in limbo is the annexation of our Grasse River property near Appleton Arena where we hope to partner with a local developer in the construction of 8 town houses. The village has approved the annexation, but we are still in negotiation with the Town of Canton. Hopefully, that annexation will also be completed soon. Kudos to Kathy Mullaney and Tom Coakley, whose patience has been sorely tested often during this process, and many thanks to our mayor—Professor Emeritus Bob Wells—who has been a rock of rationality throughout.

Last year at this meeting I announced that the Canton Day Care Center had learned that its application to the state for $750,000 to build a new, larger, and more comprehensive center on property donated by the University had been approved. Then came September 11, and it was unapproved. We are in this year’s competition again. If the grant is successful St. Lawrence will not only contribute the land, but will also make a cash contribution, and I will help raise the balance so that the Canton Day Care Center will not have a mortgage on the new facility. The economic base of the village is especially vulnerable right now. The Kraft plant may close, Corning is in economic difficulty, and of course Ames is closing. Our Canton Initiative has never been more important and urgent.

As has been true for the last several summers, construction projects abounded on campus, and all moved forward satisfactorily. Even without the emergency need to find additional housing and the resulting purchase of 48 Park Street the schedule was daunting, but our facilities staff managed it with wonderful skill and spirit.

In the student life area the new student center project is under way, and the refurbishment of Sykes Residence and Sykes Common Room was completed. The renovation of 48 Park St.—the property we were able to acquire earlier in the summer to aid in housing our unexpectedly larger enrollment—was also accomplished.

In the recreation and athletics area, the final phase construction of The Robie Squash Center was undertaken. Three additional courts are being added, for a total of nine, and a gracious entry and common area. An early summer gift from Mike and Ginny Ranger, and another from Allan and Kate Newell, allowed the construction of a new boat house for our crew teams in the Village of Waddington, on the St. Lawrence River. Finally, additional work, leading hopefully to completion of our new baseball field is also under way. Some new gifts have given that project a burst of energy. While not yet fully funded, we are working hard to find the final dollars needed. Recall that additional projects in recreation and athletics are only being undertaken when we receive restricted gifts for such purposes.

Our science project architects have been to campus for extended stays to talk with science and mathematics faculty members about their needs and about where science and mathematics education is going at St. Lawrence in the next years. Reports from the architects were that our faculty members were wonderfully prepared for these meetings. The planning of the last several years is paying off now. It remains our hope and plan to begin the first phase of that project in the summer of 2004.

In addition to all of this, the facilities staff managed 49 separate other capital projects budgeted at $1.3 million emanating from the annual capital plan—all this in the short time between reunion at the beginning of June and the opening of school today. Claude Banker and his crew deserve our deepest thanks.

An issue has surfaced that I think I should serve up in this setting, and that is the resignation, or potential resignation, over the last 6-8 months of several junior women faculty members. The specifics are different in each case, but they all, in one form or another, involve an inability to find a satisfactory balance of professional and family/spouse-partner commitments, and/or an inability to find or construct a satisfactory professional life in the North Country for a spouse or partner. While some of this is impossible for us to control or affect, Grant and I believe we need to take a deeper look at what we are able to do for and with professional couples. We will have more to say about this, and perhaps some proposals, in the weeks ahead.

Finally, on the financial front, despite the fact that last year’s class was smaller than we expected, we did in fact manage to balance the budget on a cash basis. That was accomplished largely by cutting or delaying over $1.6 million in costs and achieving our other revenue targets. Needless to say, this year looks far more positive financially given the size of the incoming class and improved retention. On the other hand, as you would expect, our endowment market value declined just about 10% last year, and that will affect endowment spending going forward. How to continue to finance the investments in people, programs, and facilities we so badly need will be a greater challenge in the immediate future. I am nonetheless very bullish on our ability to keep moving forward.

But the real state of the University has to be measured in terms of student outcomes, not financial and facilities successes, though they are of course related to our ability accomplish the student outcomes we seek. Here the data and indicators we have send us mixed signals. There is no question in my mind that our students are far more satisfied with St. Lawrence than their predecessors of several years ago: they tell us so informally every chance they get, and our steadily improving student retention data also tell us so.
On the other hand, results from our second administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement—a survey that focuses directly on the extent to which our students experience an environment here characterized by the features research and our own common sense tell us produce the most learning—show us roughly in the same place relative to our competitors as we were a couple of years ago. We await results from last May’s administration of the senior survey to see if the news there is any better. I know and you know that the changes we are making together in St. Lawrence will have positive effects, but there is always a time lag. To get to a different place as an institution, we must find ways to get better faster than the competition gets better. The data do show encouraging improvement in a number of areas, but I would like to see even more improvement in the outcome measures that I know you would agree matter in these surveys relative to our comparison schools. In the long run, getting better faster than other institutions get better, more than anything else, will assure St. Lawrence’s future and the futures of all who are a part of the St. Lawrence community.
This year, of course, we will be producing our five-year Middle States Periodic Review Report (PRR). Our plan is to use our PRR as an opportunity to look closely at the outcomes assessment data we have, and to have a conversation within the faculty and staff, and then with the trustees, about how we think we’re doing where it matters most— with our students. More than any other liberal arts college I have known, St. Lawrence—and especially the St. Lawrence faculty—is introspective and self-analytical about these matters. You take the data straight on, constructively, without rose-colored glasses. That is one reason why I am so confident about our future. It’s a real pleasure to work with you. Let’s get to it! Thank you!