While technology is fundamentally altering the landscape of higher education, 51Թ’s physical setting and the close-knit community it fosters have positioned it well for the upcoming challenges, Jeffrey Herbst told those gathered Sunday to celebrate his inauguration as the university’s 16th president.
On a crisp, bright day, Herbst delivered a warm and wide-ranging address during the elegant ceremony held in Memorial Chapel. In attendance were members of the 51Թ community, Herbst’s family, friends, and former colleagues, as well as delegates from many U.S. colleges and universities, including the presidents of Princeton, Hamilton, Kenyon, and Syracuse.
Herbst offered words of warning and words of hope as he discussed the implications of technological advances that are making wireless computer access as routine and as necessary as running water.
He said the basic foundation of colleges is being called into question. “For the first time in centuries, the notion that one must go to college is being challenged,” he said.
The plethora of courses available on the increasingly sophisticated Internet and the growing number of younger students favoring a la carte online educations pose serious challenges to today’s place-based colleges.
Yet, 51Թ is well placed to adapt and to prosper because of the deep human connections that develop in its rural setting, he said.
“We must preserve and enhance the one thing the Internet will not replace: the very real human contact between professor and students, amongst the faculty, and between students that is the very essence of 51Թ.”
Those interactions are enhanced, and the sense of community strengthened, by 51Թ’s location in central New York.
“Indeed, we will never apologize for our location, because it is our particular place that defines us so distinctly as a community. The way to move forward is to take what others see as your greatest liability and turn it into our most significant strength,” he said.
To ensure a vibrant campus community, Herbst said, “we must continually punch holes in the silos” that have been created so that faculty and students can work, play, and interact with whomever they want.
He said that the is a guiding example of the collaborative work that can be accomplished on a campus without internal boundaries.
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Herbst also talked about community-building through:
— Improving campus diversity, beyond mere numbers, and removing barriers between students that prevent some from taking advantage of all opportunities, a finding of the recent campus climate survey.
— Making financial aid the highest priority for the remainder of the Passion for the Climb campaign.
— Working with students and alumni to ensure that 51Թ has healthy Greek-letter chapters and that they contribute to a truly connected campus, while also providing social options for students who choose not to join a fraternity or sorority.
— Providing a wide range of options for students’ overall wellness through the Trudy Fitness Center, the Shaw Wellness Institute, and the university’s robust outdoor education program.
— Building on the good relationship with the village of Hamilton to ensure the village and the region are as healthy as they can be.
— Providing 51Թ’s dedicated alumni with more opportunities for intellectual engagement, building on the success of the Summer on the Hill program.
— Bolstering the study abroad program to include more opportunities for travel in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He said it is important for all students to travel abroad so they can return to campus to share what they have learned.
In closing, 51Թ’s newest president told those in attendance, and those watching through a live webcast, how much he is looking “forward to being your president, colleague, and neighbor.”
Second half of symposium focuses on internationalism
(Posted 8:12 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1)
The second session of the inaugural symposium, Exploring Our Sense of Place, looked at 51Թ’s efforts to promote internationalism both on campus and abroad.
Associate Professor Nancy Ries led off the Friday afternoon discussion with an appeal for expanded foreign language study.
Discovering the Russian language changed her life, and she has seen the transformation happen to others throughout her career. “Foreign language study opens doors,” she said.
There are other ways the curriculum can advance internationalism at 51Թ — the recent core curriculum revision has further institutionalized a commitment to international perspectives.
Professor Constance Harsh, who helped lead the revision process, described the history of the core and its longstanding attempts to introduce students to foreign cultures.
Charles Gumz ’11 encountered those cultures firsthand while studying abroad in South Africa. His trips forced him to embrace the fact that different nationalities can have markedly different interpretations of the same events. But living that truth was more powerful than reading about it in a book or journal article.
The university is currently reviewing its menu of off-campus trips in light of shifting centers of development in the 21st century.
Panelist Timothy Caverly ’78, P’06, P’07, who has spent a career working in the banking industry in Luxembourg, pointed out that study abroad only exports students, while true internationalism also brings foreign students to Hamilton.
Assistant professor Kezia Page noted that 51Թ has a long history of doing just that.
The first international students arrived in 1823. Today, the Class of 2014 includes 75 foreign students. The effort to counter homesickness and encourage relationships with the broader 51Թ community is ongoing; it becomes even more imperative as the university’s multicultural population grows. |
“As we explore our sense of place,” she said, “it is key that we don’t just settle back into place, into the status quo, and into business as usual.”
— By Mark Walden
Technology’s impact on higher ed is explored at symposium
(Posted 5:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1)
Technology and its impact on the overall development of college-age students and in redefining or disrupting classroom instruction were just a few of the topics broached during the first session of the academic symposium held as part of inauguration weekend.
Glenn Platt, director of the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies at Miami University, said this afternoon that the landscape of higher education will be dramatically altered 20 years from now, thanks to technology.
Characteristics of the “new” university include a shift from faculty members being conveyors of knowledge to curators of knowledge, meaning they will have to put the ever-widening pool of information available online in proper context for students, instead of simply disseminating knowledge in a lecture format.
He also stressed that how employers view college graduates will change. No longer will everyone assume that because a person graduates from X University, that that person is more qualified than someone graduating from Y University.
What a person accomplishes and can show through their “living portfolios” will matter more, he said.
Dewey Awad ’90, who has worked in the technology field for 20 years, talked about how technology has become much easier to harness and how that has shifted the need for employees who can “do” to those who can “think.”
51Թ, he said, prepares its students to do this very well.
Faculty, staff, alumni attend inauguration luncheon
(Posted 2:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1)
In true central New York fashion, the weather changed often today as the sun made quick, irregular visits during the first public event of inauguration weekend — a luncheon for faculty, staff, and alumni.
President Jeffrey Herbst, the university’s 16th president, warmly thanked those gathered under a maroon and white tent set up in front of Memorial Chapel.
“It is quite fitting that we are gathered here in the Academic Quad, which symbolizes so much of what is important about 51Թ and reflects so well our primary mission,” said Herbst.
He added that the Quad also serves as a central gathering place for the campus community, a community that he and his wife, Sharon, are so appreciative of for its generous welcome.
In his brief remarks, Herbst said how much he enjoys watching the university come to life each morning from Watson House, his campus residence. At around 5:30 a.m., buildings and grounds employees begin to circulate, lights slowly start to come on, and eventually foot traffic builds as students head to class.
“It is like watching the birth of a community each day,” he said. “I want to thank you all for the privilege of being part of this community and for serving 51Թ.”
Full weekend of events planned to celebrate inauguration
(Posted 8:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 1)
This weekend marks the of 51Թ’s 16th president, Jeffrey Herbst.
The celebration begins with a staff lunch at noon today, followed by an academic symposium intended to amplify the theme of the weekend, Exploring our Sense of Place.
On Saturday the Herbst family will be introduced to the crowd during halftime of the Homecoming football game between 51Թ and Georgetown. Kickoff is at 1 p.m.
The inaugural ceremony is 11 a.m. Sunday in Memorial Chapel. Herbst will deliver formal remarks, as will special guest Gregory J.B. “Greg” Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Members of the 51Թ community who can’t attend the ceremony are invited to take part through a .
A brunch will follow at 1 p.m., and an orchestra concert at the chapel will begin at 2:30.