From the President’s Desk

A WINNING STRATEGY

The feeling inside the Physical Activities Center was electric. With a conference tournament game on the line, I joined a capacity crowd of students, faculty, staff, parents, and friends on February 13 to watch our women’s basketball team surge, fight back, persist, scrap some more, and finally emerge victorious against North Carolina Wesleyan in a thrilling overtime win 114–108. We advanced in the tournament and netted two of the USA South Conference’s top three awards — Rookie of the Year for Leah Calhoun and Coach of the Year for Ross James. The moment, our first time hosting a conference tournament game, was historic. It was exciting. And in that final 60 seconds of regulation play, with the scoreboard locked at 99–99, each heart in that gym pounding, I couldn’t help but see that the success of the Fighting Squirrels this season is truly a metaphor for the incredible momentum we are all experiencing at MBU.

This win seemed to represent all the wins of the past year. Our strategy to invest in athletics, to dare prospective students to see themselves as part of a close-knit community — all culminated in the largest freshman class, the launch of new sports programs, and this emotional moment in which we all felt like one MBU family.

Exciting news and positive signs are around every corner. Coming off of a record-breaking year of undergraduate enrollment, right now we’re on pace to exceed last year’s matriculation. We graduated more students in MBU Online than ever before in the program’s 40-year history and look to repeat that trend this spring.

We’ve launched more opportunities for our students this year — including a new College of Visual and Performing Arts and a slate of new online offerings at Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences (p. 26). We continue to be impressed with outcomes of our alumni, like Cynthia Kirkland, a 2012 art history graduate who is living out her dream working on costume creation for the Walt Disney Company (p. 50).

With success as our backdrop, we have undertaken an update of the university’s strategic plan that will carry us to 2025. Our guiding principle is to live our mission, growing to 2,500 students, as a distinctive, student-centered small university.

Our changing world needs more Mary Baldwin graduates. And MBU is exceptionally well prepared to offer students the kind of education they will need to lead and succeed in the future. Our alumni are the embodiment of Mary Baldwin as citizens empowered to impact the world around them. Our updated strategic plan features as a key goal: engaging and equipping our alumni to pursue lifelong learning and to inspire the students who follow them. Please look for communication about the all-alumni survey we will distribute in May. We want and value the input of every graduate.

It will require hard work to continue to meet our strategic imperatives. But just like the Fighting Squirrels on the basketball court this season, I believe our MBU family has the strength, determination, heart, and belief in our own destiny to secure a winning future.

PHOTO BY NORM SHAFER