DR. SIDNEY A. RIBEAU
AUGUST 19, 2005

President’s Welcome and Address
Good morning, Bowling Green State University! And welcome back to the 2005-2006 academic year. It’s great to be here this morning as together we celebrate the beginning of a new academic year.

Appreciation
And thank you, Professor David Okerlund, for leading our fall assembly, once again this year, with a highly inspirational performance of the National Anthem. It’s a wonderful way to open our annual fall assembly, and I appreciate the gift of your talent this morning to our academic community. Professor Okerlund is a faculty member in the College of Musical Arts – and we are grateful that he so graciously agreed to perform for us this morning, as he did last year on opening day, as well.
I would also like to express my thanks to Alena Gorina, who performed for us this morning on the piano, as we gathered together for refreshments and fellowship this morning. Alena is a graduate student in the College of Musical Arts, and we very much appreciate your taking to be with us this morning.
Please join me in a giving a round of applause for Professor Okerlund and Ms. Gorina.

Welcome to Firelands College Campus
I also want to extend a hearty welcome to our Firelands colleagues who are joining us this morning, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. Good morning, Dean Smith, and Firelands’ faculty, staff and students who are with us this morning.

Introduction of Constituent Group Leaders
Before I begin my address this morning, I would like to introduce the university’s constituent group leaders for the 2005-2006 academic year. As I call your name, would you please stand? I am pleased to introduce this year’s chair of Faculty Senate, Dr. Bob Boughton. Dr. Boughton is a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. I am also pleased to introduce Ms. Nancy Posey, chair of Classified Staff Council, and also Ms. Lona Leck, chair of Administrative Staff Council. This year our Undergraduate Student Government President is Mr. Aaron Shumaker, and our President of Graduate Student Senate is Mr. Zach Hilpert. Thank you for your willingness to serve the university in these leadership roles over the coming year. I look forward to working with each of you in the weeks and months ahead.

Distinguished Guests
I would also like to welcome and acknowledge our distinguished guests who are here this morning – including any members of our Board of Trustees, visiting alumni/ae, and other friends of the university who may be with us today. Would you please stand? Thank you for joining us this morning, and for your ongoing support of BGSU.

New Faculty, Staff and Students
I would also like to extend a special welcome to our new faculty, staff and students – who are joining us for the first time this fall semester. Would you please stand? Let’s give a round of applause to these new members of our campus community. It’s great to have you with us, and I look forward to meeting with you – and with our returning faculty, staff and students – during the days and weeks ahead.
This year I am pleased to say that 45 new tenure-track faculty have joined Bowling Green State University. I had the opportunity to meet with many of our new faculty last week during our New Faculty Orientation. We are fortunate to have such a fine group of new scholars join the BGSU learning community, and I have no doubt that each and every one of them will make a significant impact on the lives of our students and our university community.

Faculty, Staff, and Student Volunteers
I also want to thank the faculty, staff, and students who have volunteered to help with students moving back into the residence halls. This year we have approximately 200 volunteers, and each and every one of you serves as an important ambassador to our university with new and returning students and their parents as they arrive on campus to begin the new academic year.
In addition, I want to acknowledge the hard work and efforts of the Fall Implementation Team that has been meeting over the last year, and has been working closely with the Mayor’s Office, the City of Bowling Green, landlords, and other community constituents in order to enhance the integration of our students into the ongoing life of our campus and the surrounding community. This is an excellent example of a university and community partnership and collaboration that is designed to enhance the well-being of all members of our community.
A number of very creative new late night programming activities have grown out of this collaboration, including “Late Night at the Rec” tonight for our students from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., and a country dance and concert tonight at the Lenhart Grand Ballroom, starting at 10 p.m.
Tomorrow night, the university has teamed up with the community to offer a “Midnight Madness Shopping” event, from 8 p.m. to midnight, with shopping opportunities at the University Bookstore, Meijer’s, Walmart, and Kroger’s.

My compliments to the many faculty, staff, students and administrators who have joined together to make these events and collaborations possible, and my thanks to Dr. Wanda Overland, in the Division of Student Affairs, for organizing and leading this initiative.
I also want to congratulate the Orientation and First-Year Programs staff who have worked so hard to implement many of these creative and innovative programs.

If it appears to you that I am spending a lot of my time this morning congratulating faculty, staff and students on our campus, this is because the work that is being done in these areas is of very high quality and is very impressive.

Congratulations to BG Experience (BGeX) Faculty and Staff
I also would like to express my congratulations to the faculty, staff and students who have put together this year’s BG Experience program. For those of you who are new to BGSU, the BG Experience is a new program at the university that was implemented four years ago, as a pilot program, designed to introduce critical thinking about values into the academic curriculum.
Four years ago when the BG Experience program began, as a pilot program, approximately 125 first-year students participated in the program. During the second year of this pilot program, 350 incoming students participated. Last year, the program grew beyond its pilot program status, and 1,600 incoming students participated in the BG Experience program. This year, I am pleased to announce that 3,508 first-year students participated in the BG Experience program. This is a phenomenal undertaking, especially in a very short time, and I want to congratulate Dean Don Nieman, who has provided the leadership for this program over the last four years, as well as the many faculty, staff and students who have worked together to make this program such a major success. I know that the success of this program has also been dependent on the close collaboration between the Division of Student Affairs and the BG Experience staff -- particularly the Orientation and First-Year Program teams, and I congratulate all of you on your hard work and efforts to realize the success of this new program.
One of our core values at Bowling Green State University is “pride in a job well done,” and I invite everyone here to join me in giving a round of applause to the BG Experience team and the Division of Student Affairs staff who have worked so closely with them to achieve this tremendous success in such a short period of time.I also want to express my appreciation to the faculty who have made a commitment to provide their leadership in offering to lead classes and workshops in the new BG Experience program. I understand that this year, 80 additional faculty volunteered to lead BG Experience workshops, and that a total of 148 sections were taught by BGSU faculty. This is a significant undertaking by our faculty, who must arrive early on campus, before the fall semester of classes even begin, to provide their leadership and support to this program.
I also should note that the BG Experience program is also being implemented on our Firelands campus, under the direction of Associate Dean John Pommersheim. This fall, nine faculty on the Firelands campus will be integrating BG Experience concepts into the coursework of incoming students at Firelands. Because Firelands is not a residential campus, the BG Experience program will be modified to adapt to its particular institutional setting, however the basic tenets of BGeX will be alive and well on the Firelands campus.

Enrollment Data and Demographics
Let me turn my attention now to this year’s enrollment data, and comment on some significant demographic features of this year’s entering class.
This year we will enroll one of the highest cohorts of freshmen and transfer students in our history, for an approximate total of 4,375 new students. I am also pleased to say that the number of students in the freshmen class with an ACT score of 30 or above is the highest in BGSU’s history. In fact, over the last five years, the number of students with ACT scores of 30 or higher have continued to increase significantly.
The demographics of this year’s freshmen class also indicates that we are enrolling the highest number of students of color in our university’s history. In fact, our data indicate that over the last five years, the number of students-of-color admitted to BGSU has nearly doubled over the last five years. This year, 17 percent of our entering freshmen class is comprised of students of color. Five years ago, in the fall of 2001, students of color constituted approximately 8.9 percent of our entering freshmen class.
This is a significant increase, and we should be pleased with these developments, given the university’s commitment to recruit and retain the best and brightest among the diverse populations of our state and region.

Congratulations to the Admissions Office for their efforts to bring a strong academic and diverse group of students to join our learning community this year at BGSU.

Enrollment at Firelands College
Our Firelands College campus is also experiencing record enrollments and a significant increase in the number of under-represented students in this year’s entering class. I’d like to congratulate the Firelands College team (of faculty, staff, administrators and students) for your ongoing enrollment growth. You continue to do a great job in providing access to higher education for the residents of our state and region.

“Permanent Whitewater” --
Successes and Achievements/Challenges and Opportunities
As I begin my eleventh year as president of Bowling Green State University this year, I can’t help but think of the extraordinary accomplishments that year-after-year our faculty, staff, and students achieve at our university. Each year, over the last ten years, as I stand up here before you and summarize our achievements, I am more amazed than the year before by the quality and quantity of the work that is being done.
I am also aware that each year, as president of Bowling Green State University, it has been my responsibility – and continues to be my responsibility – to launch new initiatives that address the challenges and opportunities that face higher education both within our state, and across our nation. Many have referred to the last ten years as a state of “permanent whitewater” for higher education. And still there is no sign of this letting up. This is a time of unprecedented change for higher education, and here at BGSU, each year, over the ten years that I have been privileged to have served as your president – the faculty, staff and students of this university have stepped up to the plate and forged on with each new charge.
I recall the first year I arrived at BGSU, beginning with the 1995-1996 academic year. At that time, what I call the three “A’s” had just begun to emerge as challenges to higher education by the public and numerous state legislatures across the country. The three “A’s” are the challenges of access, affordability, and accountability.

In 1995, Bowling Green State University was slightly behind the curve in the area of assessment of student learning outcomes, and it was important that we begin to address these issues in order to meet the accountability requirements that the legislature required, and in other areas where accountability measures were moving ahead.
• I recall that a group of faculty, administrators, trustees and others boarded a small plane and flew off to Alverno College in Milwaukee to learn more about Alverno College’s student learning outcomes, and how they were assessed - and integrated - across the unique Alverno curriculum.
• During this same period, hundreds of faculty, staff and students worked together to develop a challenging and inspiring vision statement for our university, along with the core values that continue to shape our university culture up to this day.
Along the way, we faced the challenges to higher education head on, at that time, and we continue to do so up to this day.
• At Bowling Green State University, we made a conscious decision to refocus our priorities on teaching, and to place the student at the heart of the BGSU learning community.
• We decided to emphasis opportunities for active, engaged pedagogy and to establish small, learning community environments where students could interact more closely with one another and with our faculty.

Today, through the efforts of our faculty, staff and students, Bowling Green State University has emerged as a leader – across the state and also nationally – for the quality of the undergraduate learning experience that we provide to our students.
Across the nation we are now recognized as a model for successful student learning communities. In addition, our first-year student success programs, our emphasis on engaging the whole student in the learning process, and our emphasis on active learning, are areas that our sister universities throughout Ohio admire and seek to emulate. Our values initiative, our emphasis on student leadership, and our commitment to diversity, are also key areas that distinguish the BGSU learning community both here in Ohio, and across the nation.
As a result of these initiatives, and because of the hard work and dedication of our faculty and staff, I believe that we are well-positioned to take the next steps to meet the challenges that lie ahead. I say this with great confidence, as I observe that many of our sister universities throughout the state and across the country are just beginning to address the many challenges that have confronted higher education over the last ten years.

On our campus, both here and at Firelands, we have made great strides in key and critical areas. And although it continues to be important that we work hard to sustain these achievements, it is also critical that we now focus our energies on new and targeted, strategic initiatives that will ensure that our students and academic programs will continue to thrive in the years ahead.

The Challenges Ahead
This brings me to what I want to focus on during the remainder of my comments this morning. As many of you are aware, last year we launched the Engagement Initiative (EI) on our campus, as a major effort to connect the resources of the university with the social, economic and cultural needs of our community and region.
In April of 2004, the Governor’s Commission on Higher Education and the Economy released a report that called upon all of Ohio’s colleges and universities to work together with business and community leaders to fuel economic development and recovery efforts throughout our state and regions. The Commission recognized that higher education has a major role to play in transforming the state by using our resources to address societal needs, in order to improve the quality of life for all residents of our communities.
In response to this call, last fall we launched phase I of the Engagement Initiative on our campus. We developed and implemented an ambitious action plan, and this year we will continue to move the engagement agenda forward.

Let me provide you with a brief overview of our accomplishments during the 2004-2005 academic year, and then take a few minutes to update you on the next steps and what we plan to achieve during the current academic year.Accomplishments -- Engagement Initiative – 2004-2005
• On Opening Day, August 20, 1998, I launched the Engagement Initiative on our campus. It was clear that the needs of our state during the current economic downturn, would require the efforts of all public and private institutions in our state to work together to enhance the quality of life for the citizens of our communities and regions.
• It was also clear that our own Academic Plan, entitled “Inquiry, Engagement, and Achievement at BGSU,” emphasized the importance of scholarly engagement with the external community.
• And finally, it became clear to all of us that if we were going to promote and encourage the scholarship of engagement on our campus, then we would need to integrate the scholarship of engagement into the faculty recognition and reward structure at our university.
• In October, 2004, I appointed a 16-member Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement, chaired by Dr. Deanne Snavely, Associate Dean of the Graduate College, and with members that included academic administrators and faculty from a number of colleges and disciplines, as well as a representative from the Faculty Senate. The Task Force was charged with making recommendations on how best the university might move forward with the integration of the scholarship of engagement into the faculty recognition and reward structure at BGSU.
• Also in October of last year, we sent a team of faculty and administrators to Penn State to join with approximately 400 colleagues from 60 college and universities across the nation, who convened at Penn State for a national conference on outreach and the scholarship of engagement. Joining the national engagement engagement has helped us tremendously this past year as we have worked with colleagues at MSU, Penn State, the University of Georgia, and other campuses across the country in order to identify best practices, benchmarks, and other resources as we implement the engagement initiative here at BGSU.
• During the last academic year, we also held several open forums with deans, faculty, and department chairs and directors in order to begin to discuss the scholarship of engagement on our campus. In the fall, we invited Dr. Hiram Fitzgerald, Assistant Provost for Outreach and Engagement at MSU, to meet with deans, faculty, and chairs and directors, and share with us his experience of launching the engagement initiative at his own university. Dr. Fitzgerald is a national leader on outreach and engagement, and we are fortunate that he continues to be interested in working with us to provide support and expertise as we move forward with our own effort in this area.
• In the spring of 2005, we invited Dr. Lorilee Sandmann to address our faculty, chairs and directors, and deans - this time on the evaluation and documentation of the scholarship of engagement, as part of the faculty recognition and reward system. Dr. Sandmann is a faculty member at the University of Georgia, and she is a national leader in faculty reward policies related to the scholarship of engagement.
• In January of 2005, the Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement completed its final report and provided me with valuable recommendations on how, at BGSU, we might move forward with the scholarship of engagement on our campus.
In response to the Task Force’s report, I immediately identified 8 action steps, many of which were implemented over the course of the last academic year, in order to move forward with the engagement initiative on our campus. Please note that although there isn’t time to mention every action item in my overview today, a more comprehensive overview and details of last year’s action plan and achievements is available on the Office of the President’s website.

Additional progress and achievements that were made last year on the Engagement Initiative include:
• In March of 2005, this past spring, the Provost and I held a Deans’ Retreat, at which time the deans were charged with developing initial plans to integrate the scholarship of engagement into the faculty recognition and reward systems in each of their colleges. I was very impressed with the leadership provided by the deans at the March retreat, and the commitment they made to move the engagement agenda forward in their colleges.
• In March of 2005, we also moved forward with the appointment of a “Standards Committee,” whose main charge it was to develop guidelines for the evaluation and documentation of the scholarship of engagement. This Committee was chaired by Dr. Don Nieman, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and 10 faculty members served on the committee from March of 2005 until they submitted their completed report to me on August 1, approximately three weeks ago today. I met with members of the Standards Committee on Wednesday of this week, to thank them for their work, and to discuss with them the key recommendations they have put forward. I look forward to sharing the results of this report with you next week by email, as I draft my response to the report and indicate the directions we will be taking on campus this academic year, as a result of their deliberations.
Before I describe to you the next steps that we will be taking on the scholarship of engagement, let me first announce that at the June 24, 2005, meeting of the university’s Board of Trustees, the Board passed a resolution in support of the scholarship of engagement, instructing the Provost, deans, and myself to integrate the scholarship of engagement into the faculty recognition and reward structure at BGSU. Clearly the Board of Trustees believes that it is critical that we do our part as a public university to connect the academic talents and expertise of our faculty to the pressing societal needs of our community. The Board resolution is a clear mandate for us to continue to move forward in this direction. I will also forward a copy of the Board resolution to faculty and staff by email correspondence next week.

In addition to the many achievements and action steps that I have outlined above, other progress we made on the engagement initiative includes:
• During the spring 2004 semester, the deans conducted an initial survey of current engagement initiatives in their colleges;
• I established a Service Learning Committee that is currently being chaired by Dr. Bob Midden. We know from research studies that students who engage in service learning show an increase in academic achievement, interpersonal development, and that they are less likely to drop out, and are more likely to be retained and persist through to graduation. An initial survey of faculty last year on our campus indicates that approximately 59 of our faculty are teaching courses that include a service learning component, and that approximately 89 service learning courses are offered. It is the goal of the Service Learning Committee to increase our awareness of the pedagogical significance of including service into the academic curriculum, and providing the administration with recommendations on how we might promote and support additional service learning initiatives on our campus. I look forward to meeting with Dr. Midden and his committee later this semester.
• In May of this year our university was invited to attend an invitational conference at Michigan State University on the scholarship of engagement, as we continue to work at the national level with academic colleagues on issues related to outreach and engagement;
• We also established an Engaged University Council for faculty, staff and student constituent group leaders to work together to identify engagement projects and opportunities;
• In addition, the Provost’s Office, under the leadership of Dr. Mark Gromko, redesigned our academic program review to include the assessment of the scholarship of engagement.
• I am also pleased to announce that our Firelands College has established a new position to provide leadership to their campus on outreach and engagement. It was recently announced that Dr. Jim Smith, former Chair of Applied Sciences at BGSU Firelands, has accepted the appointment as Associate Dean for Outreach and Engagement for the Firelands campus. Congratulations to Jim on his new appointment.
• Another significant development is the ongoing discussion with the university’s General Education Committee, now called the BG Perspectives Committee, to include an engagement-designated course as part of the university’s general education curriculum. We will be hearing more about this development later this year.
• We are also sending a team of faculty and administrators to this year’s national conference on outreach and engagement which will be held at the University of Georgia in October;
• And we will be working with The Ohio State University to plan the fall 2006 national conference on outreach and engagement - which will be held at Ohio State and will possibly feature a special presentation by the engagement efforts at Ohio State, Kent State, BGSU, and the University of Toledo.

I am pleased to say that we are far ahead of many of our sister campuses throughout the state, in terms of the comprehensive nature of the engagement initiative we have launched and begun to implement this past year throughout our campus.
There are a number of additional achievements and action items that were implemented last year, however, in our brief time this morning I am not able to report on all of them. It is clear that we have made significant progress in a very short time, and that this year we are well-positioned to move into phase II of the Engagement Initiative on our campus.

Next Steps
Now let me turn to our next steps, as we move into phase II - or the implementation phase - of the engagement initiative on our campus.
• First of all, both the Task Force on the Scholarship of Engagement – and the Standards Committee – both groups recommended that the administration provide faculty professional development on the scholarship of engagement to assist deans, chairs and directors, and faculty who serve on tenure and promotion review committees in order to develop and apply guidelines that will help them to assess and evaluate the scholarship of engagement.
• I announced last year that I would appoint an Interim Director for Faculty Development in the area of the scholarship of engagement, and I am presently reviewing a number of recommendations for the interim appointment of a retired faculty member, or a faculty member who will be given release time, in order to fill this position during the current academic year.
• In speaking with the Provost and deans, we want to begin immediately this fall to offer workshops and professional development opportunities to chairs and directors, as well as deans, in order to integrate the scholarship of engagement into each of our colleges, and across all of our academic departments. I will be meeting with the Provost and deans on September 12 to discuss the details of how we will proceed this fall with this effort.
• As a result of the recommendations of the Task Force, the Standards Committee, and the resolution passed by the Board of Trustees, we have established December 2006 as the target date for the full integration of the scholarship of engagement into the tenure and promotion policies of each of our colleges and academic departments at BGSU.
• I will be meeting with the Provost, deans, and chairs and directors, as well as the Senate Executive Committee, to discuss their suggestions as to how we might best move forward this year and next, to meet this target implementation deadline.
• We will be bringing in external consultants to assist us with this process, and they will be available to provide workshops and consult with deans, department chairs and directors, and tenure-track faculty who are interested in developing faculty success plans that include the scholarship of engagement in their academic work.
• We will also be calling upon the Interim Director I will be appointing this semester, as well as a small group of campus-based faculty advisors and mentors who will be available to conduct workshops, provide consultation, and help us with our work in this area.
Please note that I will be providing additional details by Wednesday of next week, when I send out - by email - to all faculty and staff, a copy of the Standards Committee report, as well as the recommendations I have decided to act upon and how I suggest we move forward to reach our goals during the current academic year.I know for many of you, it will require additional information in order to better understand the importance of this initiative, and I will do my best to communicate regularly with you on this issue throughout the fall semester.

Statewide Presidential Leadership
This year I am serving as the chair of the state-wide association of public university presidents. We refer to this group as the IUC – the Inter-University Council of Presidents. Along with my presidential colleagues from across Ohio, we meet regularly and work together to assess and review the many challenges and opportunities confronting higher education in our state. In my role as chair of the IUC this academic year, I also represent my presidential colleagues on a number of committees in the state legislature, as well as with the Ohio Board of Regents.
Last week I attended the first meeting of the state legislature’s Higher Education Funding Study Council, chaired by Representative Shawn Webster (R-Millville). This legislative panel will be making recommendations for future funding formulae for higher education in the state of Ohio.
I can’t emphasize, strongly enough, the importance of public universities in our state demonstrating that we are doing our part, not only to provide access to increase the college-going rate in our communities, but to connect our academic resources to help improve the quality of life among the citizens of our state and regions.

Classified and Administrative Staff –
Participation in Engagement Initiative
Finally, before I close, let me say a few things about the engagement initiative and the participation of our classified and administrative staff.
There have been a number of significant engagement initiatives that took place during the last academic year. One of the most noteworthy activities was the University Bookstore and the student scholarship fund that was implemented to provide undergraduate and graduate student scholarships for students who will be involved in engagement projects in their academic programs, while working with faculty.
This is a tremendous initiative that not only promotes the engagement initiative on our campus, but also provides much-needed financial assistance to our students. I applaud the University Bookstore administrators and staff for their generous contributions on behalf of our students and for their support of this initiative.Work of the Engaged University Council
I also want to thank the members of the Engaged University Council for their work this past year in examining a number of models for the development of possible “Metrics for the Engaged University.” During Cabinet discussions this past spring, we discussed measures, or metrics, for evaluating our progress on becoming an engaged university, and I appreciate your efforts this past year to provide us with a number of models that we might use as metrics, and as benchmarks to evaluate the university’s engagement initiatives.

Service Learning Symposium
Finally, before closing, I also want to announce that the Office of Service Learning, directed by Dr. Jane Rosser; and the Service Learning Committee, chaired by Dr. Bob Midden – will be hosting a Service Learning Symposium on September 23 with Dr. Edward Zoltkowski, a national leader in the service learning movement. Dr. Zoltkowski is a faculty member at Bentley College and he also serves as a Senior Faculty Fellow at Campus Compact. The symposium on September 23 will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is open to all members of the university community. I hope many of our faculty and staff will plan to attend.

Closing Comments
In closing, let me say that I believe this will be an exciting and challenging year, with many new achievements. I am proud of what we have accomplished together over the last ten years, and although we face many challenges, Bowling Green State University is well-positioned to move forward in positive ways during the years ahead.
Thank you, and I look forward to working with each and every one of you during the days and weeks ahead.