{"id":13235,"date":"2014-09-02T10:47:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T14:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/news\/article.php?ArticleID=13235"},"modified":"2018-09-27T10:49:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T14:49:15","slug":"13235_president-s-opening-day-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/president\/2014\/09\/02\/13235_president-s-opening-day-address\/","title":{"rendered":"President’s Opening Day Address, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

“No themes are so human as those that reflect for us, out of the confusion of life, the close connexion of bliss and bale, of the things that help with the things that hurt, so dangling before us for ever that bright hard medal, of so strange an alloy, one face of which is somebody’s right and ease and the other somebody’s pain and wrong. To live with all intensity and perplexity and felicity in its terribly mixed little world would thus be the part of my interesting small mortal; bringing people together who would be at least more correctly separate; keeping people separate who would be at least more correctly together; flourishing, to a degree, at the cost of many conventions and proprieties, even decencies, really keeping the torch of virtue alive in an air tending infinitely to smother it; really in short making confusion worse confounded by drawing some stray fragrance of an ideal across the scent of selfishness, by sowing on barren strands, through the mere fact of presence, the seed of the moral life.”<\/p>\n

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As my colleagues in the English Department will have recognized, without resorting to their smart phones, that is how Henry James described his vision of the child, the small mortal, he created in What Maisie Knew<\/em>: “…sowing on barren strands, through the mere fact of presence, the seed of the moral life.” Hold that thought. We shall return to it.<\/p>\n

Good morning, and welcome to the Opening Day of this new academic year. As we start this year, there are many new people and resources that have been assembled for our beneficial use and enjoyment. First and foremost, we have the annual blessing of thousands of new students. When we take the official count on Census Day, the 10th day of the semester, we anticipate that our total student population may have broken the 20,000 mark. That number will include approximately 3,000 freshmen, 1,500 new transfer students, 1,000 new graduate students and overall a total enrollment of approximately 16,000 undergraduate and 4,000 graduate students. Our students have come from every county in New Jersey, from 16 states and many foreign countries. The top choices of majors among enrolling freshmen who have declared a major are Biology, Psychology, English, and Justice Studies, and a large number of students continue to express an interest in pursuing teacher certification in their academic disciplines. All in all, we have attracted a very strong, highly diverse class of students, and I would note a 6 percent increase in Hispanic student enrollments, a 6 percent increase in African American student enrollments, and we are beginning to see an increase in our students from New York.<\/p>\n

I have mentioned in the past, that the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, assisted by the Office of Institutional Research, has been looking carefully over recent years at the characteristics of admitted students that are most predictive of success at the University. As a result of those on-going studies, the University, over a period of years, has been shifting its weighting in admissions decisions away from the SAT and ACT exam scores and more heavily toward the high school GPA. This summer, on the basis of these studies, the decision was taken to move to the final step and to make the submission of SAT scores optional for applicants.<\/p>\n

Effective this fall, the University has formally revised its freshman admissions protocol, placing primary emphasis on an applicant\u2019s high school GPA combined with close attention to the specific courses taken. We are now certain that the most powerful predictor of college success is a student\u2019s performance in high school and, in particular, the high school GPA and the rigor of the courses taken. In fact, a student\u2019s high school GPA is three times more powerful than the SAT in predicting a student\u2019s likely performance at 精品成人福利在线. In addition to being a better predictor of academic success, the new admissions protocol will better support our mission of serving a talented and striving student population that reflects the full socio-economic and ethnic diversity of New Jersey. Focusing on an individual student\u2019s actual accomplishments in high school, no matter which community the student grew up in, or which high school he or she attended, or whether or not the family could afford expensive test preparation courses, will yield a highly diverse freshman class characterized by determination, ambition and the demonstrated willingness to strive for success in 精品成人福利在线\u2019s academically rigorous environment. In becoming the first New Jersey public university to make this change, 精品成人福利在线 joins more than 800 of the nation\u2019s leading colleges and universities, a group that constitutes about 30 percent of the nation\u2019s schools that grant baccalaureate degrees and that includes Temple University, Wake Forest University, Wesleyan University, University of Arizona and George Mason University.<\/p>\n

In addition to new students on campus, we are once again fortunate in welcoming a new class of 33 tenure track faculty, and searches have been approved for 23 new faculty positions for fall 2015. Our new faculty members are a very exciting group of scholars, and I hope you will all get to know them. Their bios will be made available by the Provost online, but to give you a flavor of the new class of faculty, here is a quick introduction to a representative five of them:<\/p>\n

Marcos Balter<\/a>, Associate Professor of Music. Professor Balter received his bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees in Music Composition and Theory from Texas Christian University and his Doctor of Music Composition from Northwestern University. He is a composer whose artistic career has exploded in the past several years. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition, was a featured composer at Lincoln Center\u2019s Mostly Mozart Festival, and he has garnered a number of commissions, most recently from the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall Presents and the Orquestra Sinfonica Municipal de Sao Paulo. He comes to us from Columbia College in Chicago, where he built a very competitive program in composition.<\/p>\n

Renata Blumberg<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Food Science. Professor Blumberg received her BA in Anthropology from Columbia University, her MS in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis, and her PhD in Geography from the University of Minnesota. Her area of research has been in alternative food networks, spatialities, and livelihoods, particularly in reference to the Baltic states.<\/p>\n

Amir Golnabi<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Mathematics. He received his BS in Mathematics from 精品成人福利在线 and his PhD in Engineering Sciences from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. Prof. Golnabi comes to us from a Research Fellowship at the Harvard Medical School\/Massachusetts General Hospital Pulmonary Imaging and Bioengineering laboratory where he worked on bronchoconstriction in asthma. He has already published a number of articles in important journals, and he is passionate about teaching. Welcome back to 精品成人福利在线, Prof. Golnabi.<\/p>\n

Stanislav Mamonov<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Information and Operations Management. He received a BS in Biology from Bard College, an MS in Molecular Biology from Rockefeller University, an MBA from Baruch College, CUNY, and a PhD in Information Systems from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research focuses on privacy, intellectual property rights and factors which affect information exchanges in contexts such as social networking sites, mobile applications, and health management systems.<\/p>\n

Michael Robbins<\/a>, Assistant Professor of English. He received his BA in English from the University of Colorado, his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and an MA in Humanities and a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. Professor Robbins is developing a reputation as an important American poet. His work has been published in The New Yorker<\/em> and Poetry<\/em> magazines, and in 2012, Penguin published a very well-received first book of poems, Alien vs. Predator<\/em>. A second book of poems will be published by Penguin later this year. Michael Robbins is also a literary critic and committed teacher, who references Kenneth Burke in his statement that he teaches poetry as \u201cequipment for living.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there is a taste of your extraordinary new faculty colleagues.<\/p>\n

In addition to our incoming class of new faculty, we have a number of additions and changes to the University\u2019s administrative ranks, and among those:<\/p>\n

Katharine Brophy<\/a> has joined the University this September as Associate Vice President for Finance. She received her BS in Accounting from the University of Baltimore and her MS in Business from Johns Hopkins, and she comes to us from the University of Baltimore. Prior to that she was Chief Financial Officer of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University and Finance\/Reporting Project Manager for the Johns Hopkins Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation, similar to our OneMontclair project. Katharine Brophy brings more than 20 years of experience in higher education to 精品成人福利在线, having been engaged in all aspects of budgeting and finance, general accounting, endowment management, human resources, capital projects, sponsored research, and information technology projects.<\/p>\n

Judge Mark J. Fleming<\/a> has been appointed as University Counsel. Mark received a BA degree from La Salle College and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has served as a Superior Court Judge for the State of New Jersey for more than seven years. Prior to taking the bench, Mark Fleming was Deputy Chief Counsel to Governors James McGreevey and Richard Codey, where he oversaw day-to-day operations of the Governor\u2019s counsel office, managing a team of attorneys and support staff. Prior to that service, he worked in the Attorney General\u2019s Office for more than 20 years in increasingly responsible positions, handling important litigation for the State in a variety of subject areas.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Hollister<\/a> is serving this year as the Acting Dean of the School of Business. She earned her BSE, MSE and PhD degrees in Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds her professorship in the Department of Information and Operations Management, and she has served in recent years as the Associate Dean of the School of Business. Dean Hollister has been involved extensively in the School\u2019s recent initiatives to revise its curricula, increase experiential learning opportunities for students, prepare for the School\u2019s upcoming AACSB re-accreditation, and create new, market relevant academic programs.<\/p>\n

Luis Montesinos<\/a> is serving this year as the Acting Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He earned a degree as Psychologist from the Universidad Catolica de Chile, and an MA in Behavior Analysis and Therapy and Doctor of Rehabilitation, both from Southern Illinois University. He holds his professorship in the Department of Psychology, and he has served in recent years as the Associate Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dean Montesinos has been an active scholar in his field, and in his work in the College he has been engaged in enhancing service learning, global education initiatives, and enhanced uses of technology in the curriculum. He also served, for seven years, as the director of the New Faculty program.<\/p>\n

In addition to the new people, the news on the facilities front is exciting. Over the summer, the faculty and staff of the School of Communication and Media moved into their new home in the renovated Morehead Hall. The building contains beautiful offices, space for team project work, and great gathering spaces for faculty, staff and students in the School. The design of the renovation is exciting, creative, colorful and altogether terrific, and I congratulate Vice President Bressler and his excellent staff for a very successful transformation of that building. Please feel free to stop by and take a look; you will find that your colleagues in the building will be delighted to show it off. The design is close to completion for the next phase of new construction for the School of Communication and Media and some related spaces in Life Hall that serve Theatre and Dance, and that project is scheduled to be bid this fall.<\/p>\n

Construction of the Center for Environmental and Life Sciences and the new School of Business is charging along, on time and on budget. Those of you who have not seen the projects for a couple of months will be amazed at the progress. Both of these facilities are scheduled for completion this spring, so by this time next year, the new science building will be fully occupied, and the faculty, staff, and students of the School of Business will be in their new home. That process will empty out the School\u2019s old digs in Partridge Hall, and we will be ready to begin the renovation of Partridge, turning it into the first real center we have had for The Graduate School.<\/p>\n

Last March, the Center for Writing Excellence received a Writing Program Certificate of Excellence from the Conference on College Composition and Communication, one of only six writing centers to have ever received this award. In order to provide appropriate space for this program, we took the opportunity of renovations to Bohn Hall, one of the University\u2019s larger and older residence halls, to develop a permanent space for the writing center that triples the amount of its usable space and provides it with a very accessible and visible space conveniently located for students. The larger capacity will enable the Center to expand programming for the entire 精品成人福利在线 community, providing individual and small group tutorials and customized workshops for larger groups. More important, the design itself creates a sense of community for all writers. There is a lounge, an outside terrace, and a larger consulting space, all within an open floor plan surrounded by natural light. Please drop in and visit the Center in Bohn Hall. Its director, Dr. Melinda Knight, will be glad to show you around, and please make sure that your students are aware of the services provided by the writing center.<\/p>\n

Although it still feels new to me, the beautiful Kasser Theater, where we now sit, is, amazingly, getting ready to celebrate its 10th anniversary, which will occur at a gala scheduled for November 1st. The Kasser Theater has provided an extraordinary performance venue for the students and outstanding programs in the College of the Arts. In addition, the Peak Performances program, under the direction of Jed Wheeler<\/a>, has brought to the New Jersey\/New York City region a rich array of exceptional international artists, commissioning and producing 170 performances that have received regular notice in The New York Times<\/em> and in the world press, including among them 26 world premieres and 27 U.S. premieres. Last year, two of the Kasser Theater productions were ranked, number 1 and number 4 on The New York Times<\/em> list of the top 10 dance performances of the year. Not only has the work at the Kasser, both student and professional, enhanced the reputation of the University, but it has constituted a rich educational resource for students in all disciplines. Please take a copy of the 10th Anniversary season brochure with you. There is much in the season that would coordinate with many different course offerings, and please know that Jed Wheeler and his staff are always delighted to collaborate with any faculty member or student affairs professional in using the performance resources of the Theater to enhance your students\u2019 educational experiences.<\/p>\n

In the area of technology, the biggest change for the year was the August 31 phase-out of the Blackboard learning management system and the full transition to the Canvas system. 精品成人福利在线 is one of a small number of institutions that have adopted this first ever software as a service system, which offers greatly enhanced resources, a friendly and intuitive interface, dynamic interactive features, multimedia-integrated capabilities, and graphical analytics reporting. Among the other early adopters are Brown University, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas at Austin. A group of faculty began piloting the system for us last year, and most of the faculty has participated in the many training workshops offered by IT. For those few members of the faculty who may not yet have prepared to use the new system, Dr. Yanling Sun and her team will continue to provide a variety of opportunities for you to get up to speed. There are a number of basic core functions for which all faculty will have to use Canvas, but, of course, the real benefits of the system are in the potential of its rich instructional resources.<\/p>\n

Another new enterprise for this fall is the beginning of the University\u2019s 10-year re-accreditation process with the preparation of the Self-Study Report for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. In that regard, 精品成人福利在线 has been selected by the Commission to take a leadership role in a Collaborative Implementation Project that will guide the transition to the new accreditation standards which will soon apply for all Middle States institutions. The challenge for us this year will be to update all our academic and administrative program assessment plans, intensify our data collection activities, and produce the first impact reports on how we are using the collected data to inform program development, resource allocation, and policies and procedures in every sector of the University. The re-accreditation process is a University-wide initiative that will require the cooperation of the entire campus community, and the Provost will shortly be announcing the campus-wide leadership team for this process.<\/p>\n

And, of course, getting to the most critical subject, starting this year, 精品成人福利在线 has a new dining vendor, Chartwells, a major provider of campus dining services. The company prides itself on serving healthy meals with apps to support individual fitness and nutritional goals. And if that is of no interest to you, you will also have access to Au Bon Pain, Chili\u2019s, and Which Wich on campus. To make it easier for faculty and staff to get a good bargain, there are six meal plans available to you, all of which include perks for free coffee. You also will be able to order food on the go with the free Tapingo app on your smart phone. Just order from wherever you are and pick up when you are ready to eat. And a number of locations will feature \u201cOut Takes,\u201d a grab and go service of fresh items in a convenience store format. For the ruminants among us or the salad eaters, try \u201cChop\u2019d\u201d on the first floor of the Student Center, salads that don\u2019t require a knife (not that I don\u2019t trust you with knives). Even the food trucks have been overhauled, and are newly beautiful, and, of course, the faculty\/staff dining room in the Student Center will still be there for you. All in all, you will have 16 different locations to eat on campus, so bon appetit<\/em>!<\/p>\n

While we take note of what\u2019s new, it is also worth remembering that the extraordinary growth and development of this University has been accomplished through the years of work and effort of a large community of people who have been committed to its mission. Every year, we are aware of our many colleagues in the University who are clearly providing outstanding contributions day after day and year after year. As we begin this new academic year, I would like to recognize just a few among the multitude of campus heroes who, each in his or her own way with very different and distinctive responsibilities, makes this institution what it is.<\/p>\n