President Sidney Ribeau (center) chats with James T. Jackson Sr. (left), multicultural and academic initiatives, and Tierney Bates, residence life, before giving his State of the University address Feb. 26.

Reconnect with colleagues, savor achievements, Ribeau
tells campus

If people at BGSU are feeling a bit fatigued these days, there’s a good reason, President Ribeau told the audience at his ninth annual State of the University address on Feb. 26. It’s because as a community we have accomplished so much since he took office in 1995.

Even though there is more to be done, the campus’s efforts have largely paid off, he said, and now it is time to savor accomplishments and reconnect with one another. “Turn off your cell phones, delete those emails and get rid of your Palm Pilots—just for a short period of time so we can actually talk to one another,” he told the crowd of about 500 people in the Lenhart Grand Ballroom. “Enjoy who you are and what you’ve achieved.”

The president led listeners through the history of the University’s community-building efforts up to the present.

“Many here today might not have been here in 1995 when we first began articulating what we wanted Bowling Green to be in the 21st century,” he said. “If you don’t look at where you’ve been and where you are, it’s difficult to know where you want to go.”

He described how, in 1995, he established the University Task Force on Building Community, aimed at promoting a spirit of participation and collaboration among faculty, staff and students. The larger goal was to build a community that would make a difference in Bowling Green, northwest Ohio, the state and eventually the nation.

“If we were truly a community of scholars committed to the life of the mind, it should have an impact on the nation,” Ribeau said. “We wanted to create a community rich with ideas, information and, most of all, a passion for learning.”

The committee was charged with evaluating the campus climate and making recommendations for improvement of the work life of faculty and staff and the study life of students.

Ultimately, nearly 2,000 people contributed their input, and for many, it was the first time anyone had asked what they wanted from BGSU, the president said. “So often we spend our time acting out scripts that have been written for us by somebody else,” he said. “But at some point in the maturation process, we have to ask ourselves what is best for us. Likewise, institutions have to ask themselves the same thing.”

Eventually, 19 high-priority recommendations emerged from the discussions. Ribeau listed some of the key elements:

“People wanted us to clarify our mission. If we were heading somewhere together, where was it? And why would we go there?”

People wanted to know what was expected of them. They suggested the establishment of standards of behavior or cultural norms. “They felt we needed to set standards for recognitions and rewards, and expectations of civility,” he said.

People wanted to break out of their silos. They suggested the establishment of community-building spaces that encouraged peer-to-peer interaction. The need for this became obvious to him at his first Cabinet meeting, the president said, when each vice president had a plan for his or her area, but none had read the other plans. “How can you be responsible for the success of our organization if you don’t know what your teammates are doing?” he asked.

People wanted better service, not just for students but for faculty and staff as well.

We learned that people appreciated the approach we were taking with respect to inclusiveness and diversity, he said. Women, in particular, suggested the University could provide more and better resources to help them succeed.

All those things, and some we had not anticipated, have been addressed, Ribeau said.

The College of Arts & Sciences "is our largest college, and its faculty are on the cutting edge of interdisciplinary innovation,” Ribeau said. They have addressed the “silo” issue by creating more collaborations between fields of study.

The College of Business Administration offers 16 specialized career paths taught by professionals in small-class settings. Our students told us they wanted their education to be more personal, and the college responded. It also has an exciting new entrepreneurship minor that is generating tremendous interest and support, Ribeau said.

The College of Education and Human Development partners with other colleges and the community to prepare teachers with the skills and knowledge to become educational leaders. Bowling Green still prepares more teachers than any other institution in the region, the president said, and recruiters come from all over the country to hire our students.

The College of Musical Arts attracts some of the nation’s most talented future performers and music educators. Its students and faculty can be compared to those at the best music conservatories and university programs in the state, he said.

The College of Technology provides each of its students with a three-semester-long cooperative work experience, earning on average enough to pay tuition for each of the three semesters. The co-op program is the largest in the state for a university without an engineering program, Ribeau said.

The Graduate College actively promotes and supports research by faculty and students and now showcases their discoveries in the annual BGSU Research Conference. Although top-notch research is necessarily of the funded variety, it is a barometer of BGSU’s success that funded research has increased significantly each year.

Continuing and Extended Education expands our learning opportunities well beyond the campus borders. It takes education to the communities where people reside, the president said.

The BGSU Firelands campus has grown to nearly 2,000 students. “Who would have imagined this in 1995,” he wondered, adding that Firelands provides a vital service to people in the region, of which the University is very proud.

“And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our libraries,” he added. With its special collections and dedicated faculty and staff, University Libraries continues to set standards that are emulated across the state.

“By any standards, we have addressed the recommendations of the building community committee,” he concluded. The crucial part is “what we did and the difference it makes in the University and in the community.”

He pointed to programs such as COSMOS, Partners in Context and Community, GEAR UP, and the Teacher Quality Success Initiative, which not only directly benefit the students we teach and the students our graduates teach when they go on to become educators, but also allow us to be active participants in defining what public education should be in the state of Ohio. Collaborative efforts like these have allowed us to partner with others who are also concerned about the quality of education, Ribeau said.

This is important, he said, because “a lot of the criticism that’s been heaped on higher education is deserved.” We get a lot of public funding, and “part of our mandate as a state-assisted university is a public mandate, to use the assistance provided to us to improve the life of the community.”

It’s easy to criticize—whether government or business or education—but what are we doing to make things better, he asked. We must use our fiscal resources and intellectual capital to train a principled financial officer, and a public teacher able to lead students, and researchers who will address important problems like AIDS and cancer, Ribeau said.

While academic interaction is necessary to the germination of ideas, Ribeau said it is important that the eventual outcome is that “we make a difference... Knowledge is power when it is accessible,” he said. “We must make it available to those in our community.”

The same is true for teaching, he added. The best teachers are those who not only know their content but who create an environment that excites students about learning. Helping one another and students to develop their potential will have an impact on society.

The way historians will view the way we treat one another will also tell whether we achieved our mission, he said. In addition to accomplishing our departmental goals, “it is as important for you to know who your colleagues are—and you don’t have to like them—but you must know them and can agree to disagree,” the president said. By respecting one another’s opinions, we can accomplish more together than we can individually.

A technological breakthrough that has helped enhance collaborative efforts on campus and enhanced student learning is the BGsupernet, Ribeau said. Even though installing the campuswide network, with its 43 miles of cable, made the campus look like a demilitarized zone while it was in progress, the BGsupernet “was worth it,” Ribeau affirmed. Perhaps no other project has done so much to contribute to a culture of collaboration and the implementation of Web-based services for students, he said.

“It has allowed us to become a different kind of leaning institution,” he said. "And more faculty are using technology in their teaching than I ever could have imagined." While it is not an end in itself, the supernet is a tool that enhances the quality of what we do, he said.

The many new services have definitely improved the quality of student life, he said. Students can now register for classes, pay bills, sign up for housing and meal plans, obtain parking permits and check their progress toward their degrees online.

There is other evidence that BGSU’s achievements have not gone unnoticed and are being validated: Our residential learning communities have enhanced active and collaborative learning, earning Bowling Green national attention; alumni and friends have increased their giving significantly, and students want to attend BGSU. Applications are up, and our enrollment numbers are the highest they have ever been, Ribeau said. “Our applications are higher this month than they were last year, and last year set a record,” he said.

There is affirmation within the campus community as well, he said. Support for the Family Campaign has grown from 23 percent of employees giving $223,000 in 1998, to 51 percent contributing $817,000 last year. “Our own people believe in our institution and have chosen to support it.”

An important goal for future development as an institution will be to develop cultural recognition for achievements and accomplishments of all kinds, the president said. For example, the women’s volleyball team had the highest GPA of any volleyball team in the nation and should be recognized for that.

“We’re very linear. We have metrics for measuring success,” he said, but there are other kinds of success besides research funding and publishing, especially making a difference in the lives of students and the community. Ribeau stressed that these rewards should be real and not just a pat on a back. “We need to be able to say to faculty who are engaged in mentoring students ‘The rewards are there for you, too,'” he said.

Lastly, Bowling Green “needs to tell our stories about our goals and achievements to students and the community,” he said. “Probably the richest source of information about a culture is the stories that it tells.”

Though we haven’t completed our work and the evolution of Bowling Green State University, “we’re good. We have a capable faculty and energetic students,” Ribeau said. We need to take the time now to enjoy our achievements and get together with colleagues in order to avoid “organizational fatigue—the burnout and exhaustion that can happen after which you can get no better,” he counseled.

His own goal, he said, is simply “to leave this place a little better than when I came.”