Aug. 24, 2018: Campus Update

Dear Faculty & Staff Colleagues,

As I reflect on the start of a new academic year together, I find myself pondering the philosophical question of why we, as a University, are here. There are myriad answers to that question, of course, but asking it brings me back to something I said to our newest students during my Convocation address, which you can find here.

"Pursue the hard problems. Accept, and embrace, the daunting challenges. Do not hold these ambitions for the future. Pledge to find a way to change the world, to make it a better place. Do well by doing good."

We are here to challenge and support our students in these pursuits and, indeed, to help them make the world a better place through their experiences at Bucknell. Thank you for your commitment to this noble endeavor.

Below is my annual end-of-summer update on University initiatives. As I enter my ninth year as Bucknell’s president, I am more sure today than ever before that this is a special place on its way to becoming an even stronger institution of higher learning. That is a testament to you and your commitment to our students’ success.

My best for a great year,

John

New Students


The Class of 2022 is a group of impressive individuals comprising 976 first-year students and 27 transfer students, 18 of whom are Bucknell Community College Scholars. They hail from 30 states, the District of Columbia and 47 countries. Our goal of creating a more diverse and inclusive student body continues, with this year’s class again among the most diverse in Bucknell’s history. The first-year student body includes nearly 21 percent students of color, almost 7 percent international students, and more than 10 percent first-generation students. About 8 percent of our new students are Bucknell legacies. I invite you to watch Dean of Admissions Kevin Mathes' inspired introduction of the class at this year’s matriculation ceremony. You can also watch this video highlighting the events of the week leading up to our first day of classes.

Faculty Appointments and Recognition


We have successfully concluded searches for 24 tenure-line faculty positions. Our students, and campus more broadly, will no doubt benefit from the varying perspectives and scholarly contributions of these individuals.

  • Shahram Azhar, assistant professor of economics
  • Evelyn Baca, assistant professor of education
  • Beeta Baghoolizadeh, assistant professor of history and Africana studies
  • Douglas Collins, assistant professor of chemistry
  • Erica Delsandro, assistant professor of women’s & gender studies
  • Sanjay Dharmavaram, assistant professor of mathematics
  • James Fry, assistant professor of mathematics
  • Ali Karjoo-Ravary, assistant professor of religious studies
  • Rachel Landsman, assistant professor of economics
  • Sarah Lower, assistant professor of biology
  • Jose Madero Munoz, assistant professor of mechanical engineering
  • Helene Camille Martin, assistant professor of French & Francophone studies
  • Neda Nasiriani, assistant professor of computer science
  • Christine Ngo, assistant professor of economics
  • Adam Schwartz, professor of management
  • Rebekah Slodounik, assistant professor of German studies
  • Sarah Smith, assistant professor of chemistry
  • Kate Suslava, assistant professor of management
  • Edward Talmage, assistant professor of computer science
  • Stewart Thomas, assistant professor of electrical & computer engineering
  • Nicholas Tymvios, assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering
  • Janet VanLone, assistant professor of education
  • Lucas Waddell, assistant professor of mathematics
  • Amine Zidouh, assistant professor of French & Francophone studies
  • Congratulations to these faculty colleagues. We wish you well and look forward to working with you to deepen the educational experience we offer our students.

I would also like to congratulate several other faculty colleagues for recent recognition of their teaching and scholarship. Professors Richard Kozick ’86 and Carol White have begun three-year terms as presidential professors. Professors Matthew Higgins, Ali Karjoo-Ravary, Janice Mann, Skip McGoun, Chinelo Okparanta, Adam Schwartz and Stuart Young have all earned new or renewed appointments to endowed academic positions. You may read more about our colleagues and these well-deserved appointments.

Administrative Updates


The role of chief academic officer is among the most important and challenging positions on any college campus, which is why I count among my highest priorities during this upcoming year the identifying and recruiting of an excellent candidate to serve as Bucknell’s next provost. Faculty Chair Bill Kenny and I will co-chair the search committee, which will be fully assembled by early September. We will be aided in this search by the highly regarded executive search firm Isaacson, Miller.

As I shared with you in May, Robert Midkiff has agreed to serve as interim provost for the 2018-19 academic year, and he will be instrumental in advancing our various University initiatives, including our strategic planning efforts. In addition, Tom Cassidy will serve as interim assistant provost and provide valuable support for Robert and the Office of the Provost during this period of transition. I want to thank both Robert and Tom for taking on these important roles, as well as everyone who is helping during this time of transition.

I hope many of you have had the opportunity to meet our new director of athletics & recreation, Jermaine Truax. Jermaine officially joined the Bucknell community in July from Loyola University Chicago, where he most recently served as deputy director of athletics. You can read more about him here. Jermaine brings to campus a passion and commitment to a true student-athlete model, and I am confident he will help elevate what is already one of the most impressive programs — academically and athletically — in the country.

We continue to be grateful for the generosity of donors who recognize the importance of supporting our faculty, including through endowed chairs and deanships. Such gifts not only enhance our ability to recruit and retain highly talented individuals, but also allow us to reallocate resources that would otherwise be needed to fund those positions. I am pleased to share with you that through the incredible generosity of the late Dick Garman ’56, we have officially established the Richard E. Garman Dean of Engineering. Dick received an honorary doctorate from Bucknell in 2007, and was a prominent figure in Buffalo, N.Y. Pat Mather, of course, will be the inaugural Garman Dean of Engineering.

One more administrative update of note is not about a single position, but an entire division: Development & Alumni Relations (DAR). While that name captures some of the essential functions our colleagues in DAR perform, they do much more on behalf of the University and in support of our mission. For instance, our Career Development Center and Office of Parents & Families are housed within this organization. As such, I am pleased to share with you that we have officially changed the name DAR to University Advancement. As Vice President for University Advancement Scott Rosevear has stated, Advancement better describes the work of the division while simultaneously signaling forward momentum. In keeping with our commitment to sustainability, the Advancement team will continue to use stationery and other items with the former DAR name until those supplies are exhausted, but please begin using University Advancement in all references moving forward.

Strategic Planning


Last September, I identified four strategic commitments paramount to our ability to strengthen Bucknell and fully capitalize on who we are as an institution. We then began our strategic planning efforts by holding a series of open forums designed to create a shared understanding of broad topics critical to Bucknell’s long-term sustainability. In advance of my presentation at the April forum, I articulated my priorities for each commitment. Allow me to reiterate what I wrote to you at that time:

Given the breadth of opportunity before us in these areas, and the urgency created by financial challenges and our competitive market, I have given significant consideration in developing the strategic commitments and priorities stated here … Although certainly not exhaustive, the priorities reflect my clear sense, as president, of what we must do; to that end, they provide an important framework as we move forward.

This summer, in collaboration with Faculty Chair Bill Kenny, and, in turn, the Faculty Council, we established a strategic planning Steering Committee and four Working Groups. The Steering Committee is responsible for providing opportunities for engagement of the Bucknell community throughout the process and also charging the four Working Groups, which were formed around the strategic commitments. Each of the Working Groups comprises faculty and staff members, and each is co-chaired by one faculty member and one member of the administration. An Executive Committee comprising a subset of the Steering Committee will be responsible for preparing the actual plan document. I am extremely grateful for our nearly 60 colleagues who have volunteered to commit a significant amount of their time and energy to advancing Bucknell through this strategic planning initiative.

By way of process, the members of the Working Groups will meet regularly throughout the fall 2018 semester, leading to their submission of written reports to the Steering Committee by Dec. 10. (The Steering Committee, which includes the co-chairs of each Working Group, is already scheduled to meet throughout the fall semester to receive interim oral reports from and provide feedback to the Working Groups through their co-chairs.) In mid-December, the Steering Committee will review the Working Group reports in order to provide direction to the Executive Committee in its preparation of a draft plan, which will be shared with campus for feedback in early February. We plan to present a final strategic plan for adoption by both the Faculty and Board of Trustees in April 2019.

We will, of course, provide regular updates on this important work as the process moves forward.

Digital Scholarship


This fall, we will celebrate the successful conclusion of a five-year, $700,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that supported our digital scholarship initiatives and helped fortify our position as a national leader in this space. (One expression of that success is our annual Digital Scholarship Conference, which attracts attendees from across the country. We will host our fifth such event this October.) Given the impact digital scholarship has had on our campus, I am happy to share that, although the grant has concluded, we are reallocating resources to continue funding the work of our students, faculty and staff in this area. My thanks to our colleagues in Library & Information Technology for their leadership and support in our continuing efforts around digital scholarship.

Campus Construction and Facilities Projects


You have no doubt noticed the cranes behind the library, as the construction of Academic East continues. As a reminder, the new facility will provide space for student and faculty research, laboratory instruction, design studios and offices for both the College of Engineering and our Department of Education. We expect construction to conclude in August 2019. As we shared in April, this project will impact parking on campus during and after construction. One permanent parking change worth noting here is that we have relocated parking for the University’s pool vehicles to Lot 1, which is located by our main entrance off of Route 15. The lot was recently repaved, and we installed new lighting and safety features as well.

A number of other construction projects and campus improvements were made during the summer, including:

  • renovating and upgrading areas of Bertrand Library. On the first floor, we made improvements to the lobby and added a new 24-hour study space for students. We will showcase these upgrades during an event on Sept. 9. Additionally, a new second-floor video studio designed for use by students and the Division of Communications is scheduled to open later this semester.
  • renovating the main lobby in Dana Engineering
  • replacing Bucknell Hall’s roof and repairing the exterior masonry, along with renovations to some of the office spaces inside
  • installing more than 20,000 LED light bulbs across campus, which not only improves the lighting quality in many spaces across campus but also reduces our energy consumption

Finally, I am also happy to announce that the central Pennsylvania chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council has selected Hildreth-Miza Hall for the 2018 "Rise to the Challenge" award in recognition of our efforts to renovate the 1941-building to LEED certification standards. We are currently pursuing LEED certification for this project. This is our second such award; our renovation of Roberts hall was recognized in 2017.

Winter Break


In closing, I am pleased to share that we will once again extend the winter break, which will begin on Monday, Dec. 17, and run through Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. Normal operations will resume on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019. Expanding the winter holiday period allows us to reduce University operations, which results in significant energy savings. Non-exempt (hourly) employees required to work during this period will receive a premium rate of pay for those hours. A special thanks to our staff who continue to perform critical functions for the University during this time.