From the President

Town Hall Meetings—Fall 2007

9-11 am, Tuesday, Sept. 18
International Suite, Sewall Center, RMU Moon Twp.
Repeat programs:
3-5 pm, Wednesday, Sept. 19
Pittsburgh Lecture Hall (6th floor), RMU Downtown

3-5 pm, Monday, Oct. 22
International Suite, Sewall Center, RMU Moon Twp.

President’s Talking Points

Welcome to the first Town Hall Meeting of this academic year. This is a new tradition I started when I first came to Robert Morris to give my officers and me a chance to share updates with RMU staff, faculty and the community at large...and also to answer your questions and hear your comments on programs and priorities here at the university. I’m looking forward to continuing that tradition today.

You know, the start of the school year is just such an energetic time, isn’t it? And this incredible fall weather sure helps. It’s seasons like these that make you glad to work in higher education, don’t you think? I mean, coming “back to school” is bittersweet ... we all have to gear up for the pace of the fall semester, but we also thrive on the energy and promise that comes with the wave of returning students.

Last year, we used these meetings to keep you informed about new policies and, in particular, to keep you updated about the university’s strategic plan and the process we followed. Today, I want to focus on the Robert Morris strategic plan in action, because many of you on campus are now helping to turn these visions, these plans, into a reality. It’s a very exciting time to work at Robert Morris, I believe—and I hope you agree—because we are able to help this institution build on its history of success, but now to raise our sights and reach new levels of success ... to evolve or mature, really, as a university.

In a way it’s very much like the process we bring to our students...how the people and experiences at Robert Morris help these students, whether undergraduate, graduate or continuing, whether part-time or full-time, whether first-generation or practicing executives...how we help these men and women from increasingly diverse backgrounds realize their own potential and redefine their own futures so they, too, can establish new foundations for success.

So I want to start off by reminding us all of the six core values that really shape our institution. The characteristics and values that define the Robert Morris “personality,” if you will, and help set us apart from other great schools in the region. Then I want to remind you of the five strategic priorities that form the backbone of our strategic plan. These two elements work together, often seamlessly. So if you think of Robert Morris University as a person...made up of the energies, efforts and achievements of all of you and its extended community...the core values help describe ‘what we are’ and the strategic priorities help articulate ‘what we’re going to do.’ So let’s just take a moment to remember what we at Robert Morris really stand for and what we’re going to do with our talents and assets.

We happen to be part of a region that is blessed with many wonderful institutions of higher learning—in fact, this is one of the richest areas in the entire country when it comes to offering so many choices of schools, colleges and universities. But Robert Morris University does occupy a particular niche in this community. We have our own, distinctive approach to education and we are reaching out to a slice of our society and paying attention to social and industry needs in a way that few, if any, of our peers are able to do.

Robert Morris University gives a very special set of undergraduate, graduate and adult students opportunities and experiences that really do change their lives forever. And, even more importantly, allows them to change the lives of others. We do this through our set of six core values that defines our culture and distinguishes us from other schools. You’ll see the summary of these core values in a paragraph on materials here in this room and, increasingly, around campus...it’s an easy way to relate the set of six values and start to show how they play off each other.

For the last 90 years, Robert Morris has delivered ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE with a PROFESSIONAL FOCUS. Now, we are focusing on ENGAGED LEARNING and giving our students a GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE. Above all, we believe that INDIVIDUALS MATTER. Because of all this, Robert Morris is CHANGING LIVES.

For almost a century now, Robert Morris has been this region’s most trusted source of well-educated, high-performing professionals in the areas of business and finance, and now, most recently, in fields ranging from engineering and education to communications and health care. What sets us apart, though, among other great schools in this area, is the way we have been able to evolve and reshape the kind of education we deliver to meet the changing needs of the industries & society that surrounds us.

From a downtown Pittsburgh business trade school in the 1920s & ‘30s to a two-year professional school to a four-year commuter college with a second campus in Moon Township to an accredited comprehensive university in 2002, Robert Morris has consistently demonstrated its ability to transform itself in order to attract, prepare and support the kind of educated professionals our region needs most.

Most recently, we’ve focused on expanding and enriching our academic programs so that today we offer continuing education for adult students, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and doctor’s degrees ... not only in our core fields of business—the foundation of our success & reputation—but also in key disciplines where our unique approach to liberal-professional education can fill much-needed gaps. So RMU students today are choosing careers and demonstrating leadership not only in business, finance, marketing and management, but also in the areas of communications, education, engineering, health sciences, information technology and nursing.

Despite the way RMU has expanded and broadened its programs, though, some qualities have remained the same: our commitment to high-quality academics delivered by faculty who have both scholarly and professional credentials ... combined with a focus on developing strong communications skills for our students ... and giving them opportunities to learn and practice their skills outside the classroom, particularly through internships, coops and community partnerships.

This powerful combination of skills and experience is what RMU’s top employers cite again and again as the main reason they love to hire our graduates. They tell us it’s because RMU grads hit the ground running, they know how to work in teams and they know how to write and present themselves effectively on the job. We’re very proud of our successful graduates—and of our 94 percent plus placement rate—but we’re also very proud to see these accomplished graduates move into new fields and professions.

To better prepare tomorrow’s professional leaders, RMU has undergone another evolution upon becoming a comprehensive university just five years ago. Now, in addition to our long-established academics and professional focus, we realize there are other important assets we need to deliver to our students. Once of these is a global perspective.

We all know that our world is changing but at RMU we want to find the right way to help each of our students turn that platitude into a statement of purpose that will serve their own personal, career and intellectual growth. So we—and by “we,” I mean many of you there in this room today, by the way—we work with our students to help them open up their own worldview, to study abroad or participate in projects that allow them to interact with other nations & cultures. Perhaps they’ll work on a documentary in Germany. Perhaps they’ll travel with nursing students to Nicaragua. Perhaps they’ll do community outreach with an international organization here in western Pennsylvania. RMU offers dozens of ways for our students to expand their own world—and redefine their options for the future—by giving them a global perspective as part of the RMU experience here.

You know, I must say, this is one value that is near & dear to my own heart ... The next core value is another of my passions. These two here in the middle ... GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES and ENGAGED LEARNING ... really exemplify the areas where I think we are leveraging assets this university has long had. Perhaps out of our combined commitment to academic excellence but with a professional focus, Robert Morris has always brought in the realities of the outside world in addition to the more internal development of our students’ intellects. But now, as part of our plan, we are definitely grabbing hold of these characteristics and really working on building them up ... making them more structured, pervasive and formalized. So we’re building up these aspects of the Robert Morris “personality” in order to better serve our students and our society.

What I mean by engaged learning is the fact that no matter how profound your classroom experience may be—and it will be profound, not only because our faculty here are such experts in their fields and in the classroom, but also because we’re small enough and friendly enough that students actually get to know their professors and learn from them as people, not just as scholars---but no matter how strong our academics and professional partnerships are, what brings it all to life, really, is when these students get to put their own ideas, their own knowledge and their own skills into practice.

That’s where engaged learning in a nurturing—or mentoring--environment can take good students—even average students—and turn them into professional experts, capable leaders and valued performers in whatever they choose to pursue.

Engaged learning is when our curriculum extends beyond the classroom and into practical learning experiences. It’s not just about loading up on clubs or electives or activities for the sake of keeping busy.

It’s about taking a student’s book learning about rhetoric and labor relations and then putting them into project teams, having them work with an industry executive and actually conduct a labor negotiation that goes from 6 am Saturday morning to midnight.

It’s about collaborating with fellow students to form a band, produce a video, submit it to a national award program and then head to LA to accept an Emmy for Best College Music Video. It’s about taking a student’s new engineering expertise combined with the business and communications savvy they gain from their studies here, and winning an internship at Deloitte Touche. Then, because of their performance as an intern, that student earns a job offer for an entirely new practice in quality assurance assessment to counsel companies who want to acquire major manufacturing plants. It’s a group of students who travel to a third-world country with their nursing professors and spend several weeks actually diagnosing and treating a family of twelve who live in a dirt-floored shack and look up to these RMU students with all the trust in the world.

So, it’s taking the “education of the head” and adding in the “education of the hand” and, in our case, the education of the “heart and soul.” These are the experiences that will make our students’ years at Robert Morris truly unforgettable. And it’s experiences like these—and many others—that demonstrate to our students that here at Robert Morris, we know that individuals matter. Our students matter to us. Our faculty and alumni and employers matter to us. Our staff—all of you—matter to us. But, of course, it starts with nurturing and mentoring our students.

Because of people like you here today, our students and parents continue to tell us how they notice and value RMU’s friendly and caring community. At Robert Morris, our faculty and staff take the extra time to help our students get used to college life. We care enough and get to know our students well enough to push them when they need a push and to be there when they need a safe haven. Our students matter to us as individuals...but also, we want our students to go forward, knowing that other people matter to them.

By putting all of this together, by delivering to our students an academic excellence combined with a professional focus that will guarantee them career options they may have never dreamed of...and by ensuring that these students get the “value-add” of a global perspective ...and a “second transcript” of engaged learning accomplishments...that’s how we demonstrate that individuals matter here at RMU.

And that’s how we begin to change the lives of our students. But the real pay-off, the real goal that keeps us all inspired the most, I think, is that this package of values, this “character” that our students can acquire here at Robert Morris, is what enables them to go out and change the lives of others ... for the better. So those are the stakes that we commit our careers to and I hope you agree with me that it’s a job we can sure feel proud of.

Now, we’ve heard about what Robert Morris “is” and what qualities we bring to the table. Let’s talk for a moment about what we want to accomplish in the next five years by using these core values.

Our first initiative is to enhance our high quality academic programs to leverage our distinctive assets and meet emerging industry and social needs.

Our next initiative is a multi-faceted one TO MAKE RMU A “UNIVERSITY OF CHOICE” to a new generation of students who wish to rise to new heights of achievement whether here in our hometown or in hometowns across America. It includes the introduction of an “engaged learning transcript” this academic year and fully formed by Fall 2008, as well as how we are going to be reaching out to an even more diverse community of students in the years ahead.

Initiative number three is one that we’ve all seen ample evidence of this summer and fall ... TO ENHANCE THE RMU CAMPUS by building a campus environment of learning+living spaces to enrich the RMU culture of professional education in a high performance but nurturing community.

We all know that when you get started on those home improvement chores—especially new ones like remodeling the kitchen or adding a new family room or deck or garden—you’re going to have to suffer through some messy times before you enjoy the pay off. And, campus improvements have the same qualities. We’re seeing for ourselves the trials and rewards of improving our facilities and grounds, but I’m sure you agree with me that it’s all worth it when you see students outside eating lunch at the new Fire Pit Grill or enjoying the new multimedia classrooms.

Our university “master plan” — a specific vision for improving key areas on the Moon Township campus — will help us ensure that RMU will be a “university of choice” for new generations. And, let me assure you, that we are working up a similar plan and set of renderings to show how we’ll improve and support the downtown facilities as well. In fact we are hoping to receive public funds to assist us in that effort downtown.

Now we come to two initiatives that must be undertaken, not so much for their own sake, but as enablers to allow us to achieve the first three. These last two initiatives are “TO TELL THE RMU STORY” here at home and within the industries and regions we can impact and to “ENRICH RMU’S FINANCIAL FOUNDATION” so we can continue to change lives and build futures for the next 90 years. These two goals tend to work hand-in-hand with other initiatives or core values. So, for example, you are seeing some evidence around you today about how we hope to better “tell the RMU story” to people here inside the community as well as to new audiences in our region and in the industries and outside areas where we have already established our credentials or where we can have the greatest impact.

We actually hope that all of you will join us in this effort to “get the word out” about what makes RMU special and different among universities. And we’ll be providing you with the tools to help make this easier. We’ll be giving you some materials here today and we’ve launched an update of the “About RMU” Web site to help keep all of us—and our publics—up to date on the Robert Morris core values and strategic initiatives. One of the very best ways to build the RMU brand is through the success stories of our own faculty, staff and students. So I’d encourage each of you to share your favorite examples of the Robert Morris “personality” in action with the people you interact with. We can all be part of “telling the story.”

The final initiative is to build up the university’s financial foundation so we can realize the promise of the first three initiatives. Obviously, we all know how vital this is to the future of our university. Just as we’ve broadened our academic base to compliment our long-standing excellence in business to encompass other disciplines as well, so must we diversify our revenue base so we are not relying quite too heavily on tuition income alone. Like other universities at our academic level, we must build up our research enterprise, our share of government grants and, in particular, our share of income from private gifts. These investors can help us achieve our goals and make an even greater contribution to our larger community.

Thank you ... I hope this has proven to be informative and even inspiring ... we are part of a great university that is poised to leap forward and reach a new level of success. I’m very proud to be part of such a great community and to see so many dedicated teams ready to turn these goals into realities. Thanks to all of this ... and to all of you ... it will be a great year.

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