State of the College - Spring 2012

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State of the College | March 15, 2012

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State of the College | March 15, 2012

It is perhaps the understatement of the year to suggest that the six months since the last State of the College address have been “interesting times for higher education.”     

dramatic and continuing cuts in state aid to public institutions across the country federal higher education grant priorities shifting away from four year institutions 50% default rates for on-line programs offered by for profit institutions challenges about the Return on investment on higher education from the campaign trail and scandals in Division I sports almost too numerous to mention (the most significant of which continues to unfold just 40 miles from our campus).

Sounds more like the fabled Chinese curse--“may you live in interesting times”—than anything that might grab our attention in a positive way.

And so it is. I googled “cost of higher education” and got 108 million citations in exactly 32 seconds.

Common phrases on the google list of articles include: “Crisis in Confidence in Higher Ed,” “Erosion in Higher Ed,” “Rising Price of Higher Ed,” “Higher Ed on the Brink,” and “Costs Price Out Middle Class.”

In general, the focus remains on affordability and on access.

Three quick points to help balance all the negatives you read on this topic: First, the Mt Aloysius example of affordability has been held up as a model in PA. Thanks to the work of my predecessors and to our Board of Trustees, Mt Aloysius remains one of the best bargains for private higher education in the state and nationally. While other institutions are taking bows for lowering their tuition (N.B., not room and board or fees, just tuition alone) below $30K, Mt Aloysius’ total package (tuition, room and board, fees) will remain below that number for 2012-13. In fact, only nursing students--with lab and other fees--will pay a dime over $28k. At a recent meeting of the Governor’s Business Leadership Council, Mt Aloysius was singled out for praise on our management of costs by the Chair of the Council. Three different trustees have told me that Mt Aloysius is cited as an example of how to “do higher education right” by the governor and two different members of his cabinet.

Second, the other key issue in the national debate has been “access”—access for mature students, access for lower income students, access for career-minded students (2-year and vocational programs). On those issues as well, the record you have built at Mt Aloysius is exceptional. Though our percentage of traditional aged students has trended up in recent years, 35% of our students don’t begin their studies until at least five years after high school (accepted definition of “mature”)—that’s access for mature students. At Mt Aloysius, almost 40% of our students are in two year career directed degree programs, like nursing, surgical technology, medical assistant, radiology, and physical therapy—that’s access for the career-minded. At Mt Aloysius, 1 in 5 students comes from a family with

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total income less than $21,700, and 2 in 5 from families with total income less than $37,000—that’s truly access for lower income students.

Third, our work on both affordability and accessibility has been noted at the national level as well. After writing to the US Secretary of Education about the extraordinary efforts of my predecessor and her team to keep education affordable and accessible here at Mt Aloysius, I met with the Undersecretaries of the Departments of Education (one on one) and Labor (joined

by President Sister Rosemary Jeffries of Georgian Court University). I was glad to hear the recognition for the educational efforts here, but I also took the opportunity to make the case that the Administration’s proposed $8B education/job training program should be made available to schools like Mt Aloysius and other Mercy Colleges and not only to community colleges (as proposed in the State of the Union address). I argued that we graduate students at a far higher rate, that we keep costs down, that we educate 35% mature students, that we serve 64% Pell-eligible students, that our students default rate is less than one-third of the national average, that 76% of our students work at least part time jobs, and that 100% of our students perform community service—all priority points in the national debate on funding higher education. Both meetings were encouraging, but we shall see.

POSITIVE COVERAGE ABOUT MT ALOYSIUS While the national focus on higher education in general has not been very positive, the public focus on Mt Aloysius has been uniformly uplifting.

Both inauguration panels ran on the statewide public affairs channel—PCN--as well as on the local public access station, and I actually got a lot of comments about that—the PCN airing was a first for our college. PCN liked them so much that they asked our statewide association—AICUP--to send a letter to its membership to see if there were any more programs like ours that they might broadcast.

And when one of our senior leaders was in Bucks County over Christmas, the son of a friend--a young college student—told her that he had “heard” of Mt Aloysius. She asked him how—and he told her that his school was using the PCN version of our symposium on Civil Discourse in their class as a teaching tool. We used it in all our CLS classes as well.

The good work at Mt Aloysius also caught the eye of a national TV program, one that is moderated by the old actor Lou Gossett, Jr.--a monthly program called The Profiles Series. The program looks for outstanding and innovative examples in business and in education, and then they do a “profile” on

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them. They were on campus in the fall, and I thought I would take a few minutes to show you their work product—their “profile” of Mt Aloysius.

The only other college so far profiled in PA is the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia—so this is a first for central and western PA. And all of you who taught Liz Hogue during her four years here might want to take a bow—I think she was the best interview in the whole piece, and completely off the cuff.

Bottom line from my first few minutes of remarks today—there is lots of increased scrutiny on higher education, with a real focus on rising costs and as a result, limited access. That is at the national and the state level. But in general, the Mt Aloysius story remains a very positive one, as regards the important national concerns about affordability and access, and as regards the good work and good examples that abound here.

Now, as a sort of stakeholder’s report, let me try to capture a baker’s dozen worth of updates for you in the next few minutes.

ADMISSIONS As matter of FTEs, enrollment at Mt Aloysius has increased 60% in the last decade. And the news continues to be encouraging even as the available pool of high school graduates has dropped 16% in just three years.

Frank Crouse’s new structure is working well—with four directors reporting to him: Financial Aid, Freshmen Admissions, Transfer and Adult Freshmen and Graduate and Con Ed. He likes them, they like him, and the numbers speak for themselves.

The entering spring class grew by 31 as compared to last year, +24%. Next fall numbers show continued increases in applications (+14%), in acceptances (+4%), and most importantly deposits (+5%) as of March 2, though it is still early. Slow and steady, even with the smaller pool, the increase in

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State of the College | March 15, 2012

competition and gas prices (a real factor when 40% of your students come from families with federally classified “low” incomes).

Thanks to Frank and his terrific team, who have broken their own record for open houses, school visits and personal phone calls to prospective students this year.

CONSTRUCTION If you’ve been anywhere near the athletic fields, you will have seen that we are about to finish the ten year old plan for those fields—the “Mountie Stables” and the baseball and softball dugouts. The “Stables” are bathrooms, changing rooms (without showers—those will be in the Convocation Center), and a real live press box— the last of which is a bonus we hadn’t counted on when we set our maximum price. All that work is possible because of a fields fundraising campaign led by Jack Anderson and kicked off by a very generous donation of $50,000 from Mike and Astride McLanahan which amount has now been more than quadrupled—led by substantial gifts from Jack himself and his wife Cathy and a recent gift from Jack and Jenny Calandra. Anyway, restroom deprived fans won’t have to use the woods at halftime, and our student athletes will have a place to take cover from lightening!!

The bigger construction news is the Athletic Convocation and Wellness Center. I want to show you a couple of different looks at the facility, so you have a sense of its possibilities. 86,467 square feet— more than twice the square footage in Cosgrave. Two NCAA regulation gymnasiums, a wellness center, a high-tech classroom and two classroom-sized and suited all-purpose spaces, a large all- purpose conference room, home and away locker rooms, weightlifting center, athletic training quarters, public and student-athlete restrooms and –sorry about this Ryan Smith and company— very small offices for our Athletic Director, staff and coaches!!

We have made a lot of changes since the drawings you may have seen a few years ago. We took out a 1,000 seats to maximize classroom and multipurpose space--we can still seat 2500 people in there for Convocation and Commencement. We cut back bathrooms and concession areas and substituted mobile concession stands as well. We downsized offices and upsized the Wellness Center aspect, and we cut out a lot of the outdoor reception areas—they looked nice on the architect’s renderings but just didn’t see the College getting much use from that space since most of our large audience activities

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will be during the winter months. Those cuts allowed us to maximize the space and spend our resources on the inside of the building.

Lots of the underground work has been done. The first of eight bid packages was awarded last week, and the official groundbreaking is April 19. Under the terms of our state RACP grant, we have to finish construction by the fall of 2014, and we will.

NEW DEGREES Two more faculty have joined the ranks of the terminally degreed (that sounds ominous)—Dr. Patricia Meintel, and Dr. Bonnie Knoll. When state regulations on nursing changed a couple of years ago, mandating more Ph.D.s on staff, these two women undertook the program at Carlow, met every deadline for degree attainment, and never dropped a single class here at the college. They deserve a special hand.

NEW FACES We have several new full time faculty as well.

Amber Lenhard is our new Instructor in Radiology. Amber served as a radiology technologist in the Air Force and will actually complete her MAC MBA this spring (along with our son Matt).

Kierstin Muroski is the new Assistant Professor in American Sign Language. She has her Master’s in ASL from Gallaudet, and extensive teaching experience in Bloomsburg University’s ASL program. She has been an adjunct since 2004, and has made a quick adjustment to full time status this spring.

Dr. Elizabeth Mansley will be an Assistant Professor of Criminology, starting in the fall, filling the big shoes of Dr. Lou Garzarelli. She has her Ph.D. from Delaware, has already taught 11 different courses in criminology and sociology, won a college teaching excellence award, has several journaled publications to her credit, and has delivered presentations on her extensive research fields to professional societies on over 20 occasions.

Finally, on the faculty side of the house, Rebecca Zukowski is our brand new Associate Dean for Nursing. Originally a Navy nurse, she trained at our sister institution Carlow, got her Master’s at Marquette and will receive her Ph.D. in December. After service at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital in the eighties, Beckie built a career in the fields of research (over 20 publications), strategic planning (in both public and non-profit sectors) and patient care. She served most recently as the Senior Research Associate at the National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health in Rockville, MD and as the Business Development, Operations and Tech Group Executive Officer at the IUP Research Institute.

She is well known in the area, serves on the SERMUSA (research) Board at SFU and she and her husband (also a nurse) and two grown sons have a home in Penn Run. Thank you to all our colleagues on the nursing faculty who facilitated this extensive and successful search effort and who kept all the engines running this past year.

Thanks especially to Regina Barr, to Jackie Beck and to Sharon Kisel who stepped up in leadership capacities during the transition. And congratulations as well to Regina, who had the term “interim” removed from her title as Director of the Associate Degree program, a post she has filled admirably

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this past year and on several previous occasions. Regina, that was actually one of Associate Dean Zukowski’s very first decisions, and it is a good one.

Finally, on the non-faculty side of the house, Jack Coyle is the college’s still new Director of Communications. Jack has a thirty-five year career in the communications industry, counts last year’s commencement speaker Father Byron as one of his personal references, and comes to us most recently from a Mercy Hospital in Scranton. He is a fine writer, a careful editor and apparently a darn good harmonica player--you can him this Friday at PJ’s just up the street. He has also dramatically increased our footprint in the local media since he arrived—which makes Frank’s recruitment staff very happy.

And Brianna Baker is the new Assistant Athletic Director for Service, Recruitment and Academic Success--the first woman to serve as Assistant Athletic Director at this 13 sport institution. The College won a very competitive NCAA grant designed to promote women in athletics, after three tries.

Brianna is a highest honors, double major, double sport graduate of the Mount, a three student athlete of the year, who has coached and volunteered here since her graduation. In her free time, she has served on 17 mission trips to Honduras with her church. She will continue as Head Women's Volleyball Coach and she has already twice managed to get the Mt Aloysius community service work featured on the Conference website.

AWARDS Several recent awards to the College. Several of these are first time honors.  US News and World Report ranked College for 12 consecutive years. Ranked again this fall 2011 as a “top Northeast Bachelor Degree College.”  Listed and voted as a “College of Distinction” for fall 2011 for “engaged students, great teaching, vibrant communities, and successful outcomes.”  Named to the 2012 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service, one of three schools in the area in our five county area.  Enrollment Power Index rated the College Admissions Web Site as a top 100 in the United States of America with an A rating. Also listed as #9 in the United States North! The only College in the region to have this honor, based on accessibility of admissions, quality of materials and web presentation.  Named a 2011 Military Friendly School by G.I. Jobs and consistently since the inauguration of the program. The list honors the top fifteen percent of colleges, universities and trade schools that are doing the most to embrace American’s veterans as students. Mount Aloysius College received this honor for the third year in a row and was the first regional College to be honored.

Also in the category of awards, 80 student athletes were named last week to the AMCC academic honor roll, meaning they have 3.2 GPAs. That is more than 50% of all student athletes, is the highest number and percentage since the AMCC stared this program, and is a 15% improvement over last year.

20 of them will be inducted into the sports Honors Society, also a record for Mt Aloysius. We won’t know until next week, but we think we may have the highest overall percentage in the conference.

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DEVELOPMENT Which Jack Anderson and I know is a nice word for fundraising. The College conducted one fundraising campaign in its history, and Jack was at the helm then too. It raised $8.3 in five years. Fundraising for higher education is much more complicated than simply finding appropriate donors and soliciting their generosity. So far, Jack and his team have  restructured the whole advancement function here at the College  organized focus groups (in which many of you participated)  developed appropriate themes and project goals  conducted a feasibility study (interviews with regional leaders)  recruited a campaign leadership team  built a database of potential donors and  prepared campaign literature.

We have built the campaign around five themes that emerged from the focus groups inside and outside the college:  Center for Civic Engagement  Excellence in Health Sciences  Faculty Achievement  Preparing High School Students  Athletic Convocation and Wellness Center We have yet to decide what our final goal will be and we haven’t really started to solicit beyond our Board of Trustees and the President’s Advisory Council but the results are already very encouraging.

Of course, the first $10M came from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Community Program, the largest PA grant by a factor of ten that the College has ever received. That money is in the bank and must be used in its entirety on the ACWC. But we have already generated another $2.4M in five year pledges, and the good news is that every bucket has some money in it—the donors see value in each of the five themes.

Much more work to be done but this is a great start. Thanks to Jack, Michael and Sally who have done lots of heavy lifting already.

STRATEGIC PLANNING The Mount Aloysius College community deserves congratulations and thanks for careful focus on the six themes and many tasks of the now five year old Strategic Operational Plan. We have engaged a firm to help us with a new strategic plan, and will kick off a planning meeting with them next week under the leadership of co-chairs Tim Fulop and Sister Helen Marie Burns. Our last plan received high praise in the most recent Middle States review and we will aim for the same outcome. We have identified at least four themes so far: Excellence in the Health Sciences, The “Complete” Student Experience, Academic “Futures,” and New “Horizons” (the last of which is all about recruitment and admissions).

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We are grateful for the service of all of you who worked on the last plan and will be in the market for new recruits between now and the end of the semester.

TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL In my inaugural remarks, I outlined what I called the “Mt Aloysius Compact”—and outlined the proposition that we would endeavor to produce graduates who are “job-ready, community-ready and technology-ready.” Dean of Faculty Tim Fulop has appointed a committee of faculty and staff to work at the third of these three commitments. The College has long been known for producing graduates who are ready to work on day one, and who understand what it means to be of service to their communities.

It is the strong feeling of many that in this internet age the complete education now requires a demonstrated facility with communications technology. It will be the purpose of this committee to define the phrase “technology-ready” in practical terms and then work with me and others to ensure that we meet the promise here at the Mount. They are hard at that assignment and I hope to give you their report at this gathering in August.

DIGITAL GROTTO Not unrelated to the Mt Aloysius Compact, we held our grand opening of a project I announced at this time last year—a social media center here at the College. Some of you have dared to venture to the Digital Grotto—otherwise known as Sam’s Lair--beneath the stage in Alumni Hall. For those who haven’t, here is a quick introduction.

This lab will serve as a learning facility for interested students, a production ground for faculty and staff, and a studio in which the message of Mount Aloysius can be distributed globally. The equipment you saw in the video allow our students to film three-camera interviews in an eight person controlled setting with advanced recording, prompting, lighting and set control (students used this equipment to film the inaugural symposia). The lab will provide green screen capabilities allowing editors to inlay custom backgrounds or

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graphics to match the speaker’s message.

Post-production equipment includes multiple video editing PCs for student and communications staff use. Our overall goal is for the lab to meet and expand the multimedia goals of the college as well as keep pace with the technology of our competitors.

This is one step on our path to graduating students who are “technology ready.” As you saw in the video, we are using the arsenal of technology tools down there to introduce blending learning, to build tutorials on things like FASFA and human anatomy, to produce camera ready interviews for wider dissemination—let’s just show a little of Doctor Jones interview on peace marches from Derry in 1968 to the Arab Spring last year.

Or you can just use this to help us all get a laugh on occasion as Sister Nancy and Heather Low did in this clip.

Stay tuned and check out the YouTube offerings on the website every once in a while. I have it on good authority that Heather and Sister Nancy are planning a sequel.

COMMMUNITY SERVICE Community Service is alive, well and prolific at Mt Aloysius. Last fall, we completed our first survey of community service through CLS classes, clubs, team and other organizations on campus. More than 800 students (over 50% of all FTEs here) performed 4,733 hours of service with 123 separate community organizations. All of that just during fall semester—these are truly astounding numbers. And I say that as someone who spent the 12 years prior to Mt Aloysius as CEO of arguably the two largest volunteer organizations in the entire state.

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The “street” value—yes, Virginia, there are formulas for this kind of thing—is over $105,000. That’s $105,000 in volunteer work by Mt Aloysius students in one semester.

Most of the work is done right here in the Southern Alleghenies. Some of these volunteers travel much further to share their talents--to Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. 13 students, 2 faculty and one staff just came home Saturday from Georgetown, Guyana, where they spent their spring break working with three different Mercy programs. 16 students, 2 faculty and 2 staff spent their fall breaks in Biloxi, MS where Mt Aloysius students have been helping to rebuild homes ever since Katrina hit seven years ago.

It is not just the numbers that impress here. Our two out of state projects have “legs”—meaning they are not “one off” efforts. In Guyana, as in Jamaica before, we work with long established Mercysponsored initiatives and can be confident that our students’ work is essential and timely. In Biloxi, we work with a faith based group that does an excellent job on these trips and I know from our son Matt that their time was well used, and their muscles well tested.

Almost by definition, many such trips are more beneficial to the volunteer than to the recipient— volunteers are flown to different, usually more hospitable climates, their time is neither well organized nor their energies well spent, and it’s one week or weekend or day, a slot on the resume and never repeated again. In the case of the Mount’s trips, they are neither disguised vacations nor “one and done” enterprises—without real long term value. These mission trips are well planned, they fit neatly into a long term plan of Mercy sponsored work in the area, and there is an important spiritual dimension built into every day.

We thank Sisters Nancy and Helen and all the faculty and staff who help to ensure that dimension. We also thank all of you who have joined these efforts over many years. We thank all our CLS instructors who pound home the message of community service and we thank all in this audience who are volunteers in your community.

One last thought. This survey is only step one. We will complete two more surveys in the next six months—one on all the service learning work that goes on at this institution, and the other survey on the volunteer efforts of our staff and faculty. The latter survey will take place in the next month or so; it will come to you as a Monkey Survey instrument. We don’t need to know your name unless you want to tell us. But we would like to gauge the total and types of community service in which people at this institution engage in the region and beyond—to your churches, your fire departments, your girl scouts, little leagues and anything else.

I think this kind of info is central to the story of Mt Aloysius and of its reach beyond the front gate. So please take a few minutes to complete the survey and give us a chance to fill out all the dimensions of our story.

STUDENT ACTIVITIES 40 plus clubs and organizations are in operation this year, and there is a much ramped up level of student activity—in the dorms, in Cosgrave, in the gym—that are keeping more and more students on campus nights and sometimes on weekends. If you haven’t been to a “MAC’s Got Talent” yet, you are missing both talent and fun—we’ve had over 200 students at those along with occasional surprise guest judges.

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So far this year, Jane and Elaine and their teams have hosted 92 “events”—everything from comedians to poets, game nights to talent shows, dances to ink parties (tattooing). We’ve had on our campus, in the last six months—  A guy who played drums with Santana and the Allman brothers  A dating coach  A winner of the John Lennon songwriting contest  Two comedians from the TV show Last Comic Standing  An HBO broadcasted Performance Poet  A Cosmo Magazine Female Rock Star of the Year  The funniest Asian Indian Comic in America (that’s what he told us!)  Campus Activity Magazine’s National Comedy Performer of the Year  An opening act for P Diddy and Dave Chappelle  A Nigerian American guitarist comedian calypso singer (yes, I saw him and he was all that) and  An America’s Got Talent impersonator who brought Ellen DeGeneres and Sarah Silverman to campus in a single night Last comment on this subject--what I find especially compelling in Student Affairs generally is the way our students leaders, both of the SGA and the CAB, have really taken charge in some instances, actually designing and carrying out all this activity and holding their fellow club members accountable to the letter of their charters--which each include a commitment to service. And by the way, those student leaders now serve on the President’s Advisory Council.

I bring all this to your attention, because despite the plethora of wall hangings and notices announcing these events, I know that I miss a lot of it myself. But it is all happening right here, and it’s not just for students.

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SPEAKER SERIES Michele and I told each of our sons before they went to College that there were three ways to learn— in the classroom from your professors, outside the classroom from your fellow students, and from the activities and speakers that came to visit. I still think that is true.

There has been substantial news coverage of our outstanding Spring Semester Speaker Series, with an Olympic Head Women’s Basketball Coach (Theresa Shank Grentz), a documentary filmmaker (Maurice Fitzpatrick), a human rights honoree (Thomas Griffin, Esq.), and a prolific author (Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamison) who will deliver the annual Moral Choices Lecture—and it’s only midMarch. Before May 8, we will also host our Spring Ecumenical Lecturer, an outstanding alum at our spring honors ceremony, and Judge D. Brooks Smith at Commencement. I want to thank our new Lecture Series Committee, Drs. Fulop, Grassadonia and Burns, and CFO Donna Yoder.

Perhaps the nicest aspect of all these visits are the small group meals and the classroom visits with our guest lecturers— over 40 of those this academic year alone.

CIVIL DISCOURSE Our Civil Discourse Initiatives at College have come in both praise and imitation—and we are happy for both. As you may recall, we have been working to incorporate the topic in everything from orientation to commencement, as the slide indicates. At the recent meeting of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU-240 colleges), we were surprised–but happy--to find Mt Aloysius at the top of the list of colleges who had “sponsored innovative and effective programs on this topic.” In the ACCU “top ten” list of best practices on the subject, Mt Aloysius was cited twice, including as the first “best practice” highlighted—for our year long program on the subject.

ACCU President Michael Galligan-Stierle said that “Mt Aloysius has done superb work in the past 12 months to advance civility on their campus. I was quite impressed with the level of engagement introduced to students by using the topic of civility in the classroom and speaker presentations on campus.” The Altoona Mirror interviewed Galligan-Stierle who said that “the association applauded

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the Mt Aloysius President along with leaders from the University of Notre Dame, Fairfield University and Duquesne University for addressing issues requiring civility publicly—and often.”

Thanks to o Dr. Michael Jones who spent time with me over the summer so that we could build a useful CLS segment on the topic o Elaine Grant who led the charge to incorporate the theme into freshman orientation o Drs. Anthony Dragani and Ryan Costanza, who organized the Fall Faculty Honors Symposium around the topic o Judge D. Brooks Smith, and Drs. D’Emilio and Smith, who helped steer the Inauguration Panel on the subject, o Dr. Barbara Cook and Senior VP Dr. Fulop, who adapted the spring and fall honors lectures to the subject and o Sister Helen Marie Burns, who worked with me to bring perhaps the leading commentator on the subject in the last three decades to campus for our annual Moral Choices Lecture next week.

Now, a few words about the Penn State debacle.

It is not necessary to have formed an opinion about the guilt or innocence of Jerry Sandusky to understand that this is a very important learning opportunity for all of us in higher education— trustees, presidents, faculty and staff. Like many of our colleagues, at Mt Aloysius we took this tragedy as a learning opportunity.

At Mt Aloysius, we already provide continuous education for our faculty and staff about how to prevent violations of any policies and how to report problems. We are also bound by the federal law on campus crime reporting (the Clery Act) to report crimes and threats, which we do routinely.

With advice from our Trustees and deploying the skills of our senior leadership team, we went back to the drawing board and asked the obvious question: understanding that our first responsibility is to protect the human beings on our campuses, what more can we do to prevent tragedies like this?

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On the screen, you will see ten improvements to our whistleblower and ethics hotline procedures, to our investigative capacities and to our reporting process—all part of our continuing effort to best protect children and prevent harassment of any kind.

I would ask that everyone visit our website and spend thirty minutes familiarizing yourself with these procedures. Check out the security badge icon in the lower right corner—it takes you to all the safety and security policies. And this link takes you to everything else. Tonia has sent notices about this to all of you, but in separate pieces. At this time, I want to draw your attention briefly to steps 8, 2 and 10.

In 8, we combined all campus regulations and policies about children into a single easily accessible web site, with language that will also appear in hard copy handbooks like the standard first year orientation document.

In 10, we updated the summer camp policies, because we recognized that is the time when we have the most children on campus. Criminal background checks and child abuse clearances are now mandatory for any staff at any summer function with children.

In 2, we significantly revamped the EthicsPointe hotline service that has long been available at the College. We expanded access, so that now students, and not just faculty and staff, have access. We also greatly expanded the range of concerns that can be reported through this third party source— including anything that concerns personal or campus safety and any cases of questionable and/or criminal conduct. The website contains a laundry list of reportable items.

The bottom line on this issue is that you must Trust your own instincts. “If you see something, say something” is not just a line in an anti-terrorism campaign ad. No person in a position of authority on a college campus can just sit back and say that it’s someone else’s job to intervene. I said earlier that our first responsibility is to protect the human beings on our campuses. Our first responsibility—all of us.

The alleged abuse at the heart of the Penn State debacle is not a fender bender or statutory level offense. With the type of alleged conduct in the Penn State case   

failing to express immediate concern, failing to stand up at the scene and failing to do everything possible to make sure any victims are cared for properly

is simply unacceptable--in the extreme. At the end of the day, the big question before the highest court of all is whether we did the right thing for someone who is hurt, suffering, vulnerable, defenseless—and right in front of us.

No one in this room needs a lecture from me on the topic—everyone one of you adopted the mission statement and the core values of Mt Aloysius when you came to work here. You understand exactly what I am saying, and I know that you will all act appropriately to protect the least among us should that ever be necessary.

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INAUGURATION Let’s not finish talking about problems somewhere else. Let’s finish with something positive about Mt Aloysius— the fall inaugural events which we only get to do about every 15 years.

We had a terrific three days all built around our inaugural goal—“to share the history of the College and of the Sisters of Mercy and to tell the stories of our students.” We did that with more than 20 events including:  Five Art and Cultural Exhibits o the history of the Sisters of Mercy at the College in Wolf Kuhn o a collection of Colleen Browning paintings on loan in the library o the recent history of "service" at the College in Cosgrave Lobby o a collection of College-owned paintings also in Cosgrave lobby o a collection of memorabilia related to inauguration in the library  Four Walking Tours (each with its own brochure and an IPhone App) o stained glass at the College o buildings and other artifacts on campus o Old Main history and artifacts o Nature/bird watching out and about the campus  Three Entertainment Venues o Ihmsen Lawn (music Thursday and Friday afternoon and evening) o Alumni Hall (“Theatre and Musical Revue” by area artists, Friday) o Cosgrave Dining Hall (“MAC’s Got Talent” by student/alums, Thursday)  Two Symposia (on issues central to our mission, aired statewide on PCN) o The University’s Role in the Social Fabric o The University’s Role in Civil Discourse  An All Campus Haiti Relief Project and an  All Campus Liturgy, during which Father Mark built his “Sermon on the Mount” around the importance of “Civil Discourse” on campus and in life.

Finally, you should know that this was a 21st century ceremony in every way—

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State of the College | March 15, 2012

 the handy “pocket guide” tri-fold that we prepared listed five options for our guests to participate in a "virtual" way—Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  And Sam Wagner created a first rate inauguration website where you can view the symposia, pictures from each event, and even the inauguration ceremony itself. The link is http://www.mtaloy.edu/inauguration. The link straight to the Inauguration photo galleries is http://www.mtaloy.edu/inauguration/galleries.

We are very grateful for the work of the entire inaugural committee and especially five trustees --the honorary chair Adele Kupchella, the arts chair Ann Benzel, the Symposium Chairs Judge Smith and Sister Helen Marie Burns and Ceremony MC Dan Rullo.

Sister Helen Marie, Doctor Jess Rost-Costanza, staff assistant Tom Fleming and Registrar Dr. Chris Lovett worked through the summer with all our committees to pull this together. Suzanne Campbell and Elaine Grant were unsung heroes on the details—everything from seating to parking to scheduling and production— for so many of the events.

Thank you all for participating.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as our guests did.

Let me finish with some lines from Langston Hughes, beautiful words, tuned to our mission and to the work you do every day. He wrote Bring me all your dreams You dreamer, bring me all your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too rough fingers Of the world.

Thank you for taking such good care of all our dreamers at Mount Aloysius and of their dreams.