A Message from the President
President Mary A. Papazian
Dear Colleagues, Commencement season is behind us, and we look forward to a long summer of planning for the new academic year, welcoming our entering class to campus and hopefully finding the time for some well-earned rest and relaxation. Our three graduation ceremonies were a joyous reminder of our commitment to student success. And the success stories of our students — who are drawn from a range of backgrounds and circumstances, and in many cases have overcome obstacles to earn their diplomas — are the best testimony we can provide for a continued investment in public higher education. I thank all of you who contributed to our students’ achievements – our faculty for your mentorship and dedicated pedagogy, our staff for your support and guidance. Each of us has a crucial role to play in ensuring that a college
New Haven Mayor Toni Harp and President Mary A. Papazian chat for a moment with Ed Asner before commencement exercises at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport. Asner delivered this year’s commencement address.
degree is an attainable goal for all of our current and future students. Indeed, despite the very real concerns about spiraling student debt, current studies show that a four-year degree has never been more valuable for personal and professional achievement. A recent analysis of federal Labor Department statistics by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., found that the pay disparity between those with college degrees and those without continues to grow. Americans with four-year college degrees made an average of 98 percent more an hour in 2013 than people without a degree, the study found. This represents a continuing trend – up from 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s. And tellingly, the wage premium for individuals who have attended college without earning a bachelor’s degree, including community college graduates, has not been rising. This underscores the importance of our efforts to improve our retention rate and build closer relationships with our community college partners in CSCU. As the economy becomes more technologybased, the amount of education that people will need will inevitably rise as a result. And despite the fact that the recent recession saw a rise in the number of college attendees…“We have too few college graduates,” David Autor, an MIT economist, told The New York Times. “We also have too few people who are prepared for college.” Clearly, our emphasis on access, affordability and student success is not misplaced. At Southern, at the system level and through Governor Malloy’s office, initiatives are underway to ease the debt burden for graduates and continuing students, smooth the path to registration and graduation and encourage
individuals who have earned college credit in the past to return and complete their degrees. The statewide Go Back to Get Ahead initiative has been launched, offering a second chance for many people who, for one reason or another, started to get a college education but haven’t completed it. The Go Back program lets returning students take one three-credit course per semester for free at Southern and any of our 16 partner institutions in the CSCU system. The program is open not only to Connecticut residents who started earning associate or bachelor’s degrees and did not finish, but also to those who completed associate degrees and now want to earn their bachelor’s. As long as the student enrolls in any college in the ConnSCU system and has not taken college courses in the past 18 months, he or she is eligible. All of you are aware of the Transform CSCU 2020 program, which will move through the planning stages this summer. This multi-year initiative will provide an initial investment of more than $134 million across our 17 institutions, with an emphasis on access, affordability and retention – all themes with which we are intimately familiar here at Southern. The planning process presents Southern with the opportunity to strengthen our university’s mission and identity. And we will contribute to, and benefit from, a stronger system as we work toward our collective goals of access, affordability and excellence. Sincerely,
Mary Papazian, Ph.D. President
News from the Vice Presidents’ Offices ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
SouthernLife
Published by the Southern Connecticut State University Office of Public Affairs Patrick Dilger, Director Editor
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Tim Parrish – an author, professor of English at Southern and an architect of the university’s Master of Fine Arts in creative writing program – will be the featured speaker at the upcoming Forum sponsored by the Office of Faculty Development. Parrish will deliver a talk, “Living Writing,” on Aug. 27 in Engleman Hall, Room A120. The program will begin with an 8:30 a.m. continental breakfast and end with a noon luncheon. He has taught at Southern since 1994. Among his works is a memoir, “Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist,” which has been selected for the university’s 2014 Common Read. He also is the author of the novel, “The Jumper,” as well as a short-story collection set in his hometown of Baton Rouge, La. called “Red Stick Men.” Those interested in attending Forum are asked to RSVP by Aug. 19 using the online registration form. For additional information, please contact the Office of Faculty Development at (203) 392-5358.
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
Renovations to the Wintergreen Building may begin in earnest later this year, Executive Vice President James E. Blake has announced. Various offices in Wintergreen – including those in the business and human resources departments — will temporarily be relocated to Buley Library. Enrollment offices — such as Financial Aid, Bursar and Academic Advisement — will remain in the Wintergreen Building during the work. But they will move to different parts of the facility. Blake says that the relocation could begin
as early as November, though it is contingent upon the progress of the Buley Library renovation project. He estimates that the relocation will last six to eight months. Those offices relocated would then return to Wintergreen, though many would be in different locations than now. “This renovation and realignment will result in a significant improvement to the building,” Blake says. “It will make things easier for students, as well as look more appealing.”
INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT
In support of Southern and its students, 302 members of the university community have already contributed to the annual Faculty and Staff Campaign for Student Success — an all-time record. A “thank you” celebration was held on campus in May, complete with musical entertainment and refreshments provided by the Big Green Pizza Truck. Adding to the festivities, Southern’s faculty emeriti were invited to the event and learned about some of the latest developments on campus from interim Provost Marianne Kennedy and other members of the administration. If you have not yet joined this year’s campaign, you may do so by making a gift by June 30, the close of the university’s fiscal year. Contributions may be made online at Southernct.edu/giving/. You may also make a gift by contacting Jaime Toth at (203) 392-6514 or tothj4@SouthernCt.edu. In other news, an alumni gathering was held at the Giant Valley Polo Club in Hamden on June 8. Alumni and friends brought their own refreshments, meeting under a Southernblue tent before the match for an Owl-style tailgate. Highlights of the day included a hat contest for the “best” and “most outrageous”
creations, with a prize awarded to alumnus and SCSU Alumni Association Board of Directors member Marybeth Heyward Fede, an assistant professor of exercise science at Southern. Information on future alumni events is available at SouthernCt.edu/alumni/upcoming-events.html.
STUDENT AFFAIRS
New Student Orientation (NSO) continues to evolve, and this year the program includes new components for transfer students and nontraditional students (students over age 25). Tracy Tyree, vice president for student affairs, says that monthly orientation sessions for nontraditional students are now a feature of the overall orientation program, and transfer students are now required to attend either a regular NSO session in June or one of the special one-day sessions set up for them in July and August. “Orientation is an important community event,” says Tyree, “and we have really changed the nature of what it means to orient students to the university and welcome our new students.” Tyree says that because transfer students have already had a previous college experience, they may not recognize how important it is to be oriented to Southern, but they may have had a different kind of experience at other schools. Transfer Student Orientation (TSO) is “now a full-fledged orientation,” Tyree says. The goal behind revamping TSO is to help transfer students be successful throughout their time at Southern. Tyree says that along with Welcome Weekend and Welcome Week, both NSO and TSO represent efforts to create a more engaging experience for students when they return to campus in the fall.