Fall Convocation 1996SANTA CLARA: A COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS Introduction I invite you to reflect on "Santa Clara as a Community of Scholars centered on Student Learning." By way of introduction to that theme I first want to say a few words about strategic planning, including something about the environment in which we find ourselves. The last school year was one of transition and accomplishment. We moved from a plan, developed in the late 1980s, to a new strategic plan. The new plan was a significant step toward Santa Clara becoming the best Jesuit and Catholic university it can be. The 80's earlier plan helped us improve our academic quality and strengthen our Jesuit identity. It also served as the foundation for a successful capital campaign, raising $134M, $9M more than our original goal. Roughly 50% went to endowment and 50% to operations and infrastructure like technology, equipment and renovations of Kenna and the Chemistry building. I am happy to report that we have grown the endowment by almost $40M - to around $218 million. The increase came from a combination of managed growth and solicited gifts. The Case for Strategic Planning: As important as our earlier plan was, strategic planning is even more important as we progress towards our 150th anniversary in the year 2001. The services we developed over the last three decades, as we became a more full-service university, need to be recast both to strengthen our distinctively Jesuit education and to respond to a changing environment and trends affecting us. For example:
These and other trends like globalization and economic conditions are challenges, yet they can become catalysts for improvement. More than ever, careful planning will focus our energies, guide how we use our resources, and determine the academic programs and services we offer. In May, the Trustees approved our new plan. Now the more difficult task of implementation lies ahead. Let us begin this task, not as weary skeptics, but as colleagues -- committed to developing a University even better than it is today. I firmly believe that successful implementation of the four major strategic plan initiatives will do more for Santa Clara than the last plan. The initiatives, which came out of countless conversations and surveys in which the majority of you generously participated are: building a community of scholars, promoting integrated education, striving for continuous improvement, and generating resources for excellence. Let us consider what it means to be a community of scholars at Santa Clara. First, it means we are a community, second, that we are called to a distinctive type of scholarship. Community of Scholars centering on Learning Community: What sort of community are we at Santa Clara? I think of a community as a group of persons -- with a common goal -- who act together to achieve it. The central goal which unites all our efforts at Santa Clara is student learning. That purpose defines what kind of community we are. Many other universities focus on a different purpose: for example, to teach job skills, to foster pure research, or to serve the needs of a specific industry, like agriculture. Some universities develop distinctive communities, committed to one of those goals. And, many universities never become communities at all because they are unfocused and tend to lack a defining purpose. Santa Clara is a community drawing on the Ignatian tradition of Christian humanism. We believe in integrating learning with living so that our students become women and men of competence, conscience and compassion in service of society for the greater glory of God. That demanding ideal makes us a distinctive community and a distinctive university. A Variety of Gifts for the Common Good: The community at Santa Clara begins with the recognition that students, faculty and staff have a variety of gifts and abilities which contribute to the common project of intellectual inquiry and learning. The community of scholars arises from the fact that learning is a common good not a private good. Learning is a common good because it is a value we all share and a goal we have all decided to pursue together. A community committed to learning as a common good is comprised of many individuals whose own good is very closely tied to the good of the whole. Each of us contributes to the common life -- and the common good -- of this community through our individual gifts and talents. We depend upon others and they depend upon us to make our contribution. Faculty could not teach unless the admissions staff recruited talented students. They would not be able to enroll without the services of those in financial aid and student development. And, unless the Development Office raised funds, those in financial aid would be reduced to grief counseling. Obviously these same functions occur in any university. Are they any different at Santa Clara? They will be if each person shares the common vision which the strategic planning process has helped to focus. Learning as our Central Focus: Through two years of campus wide conversations we have become clear about our mission. "Santa Clara is a Catholic and Jesuit institution that makes student learning its central focus, [and] promotes faculty and staff learning in its various forms...." One of our Trustees listened to us and then articulated that task very well. He urged us to be clear, then said, and I paraphrase, "envision Santa Clara as a community of scholars offering an integrated education centered on student learning. Drive that vision in the ground like a stake and tie everything you do to it. That's your central focus." Each person has a key role to play in the work of this community: faculty must be teaching scholars, staff must be educators, alumni and friends must integrate learning with life, and students must gain a passion for life-long learning. A word about each of these. Scholars fostering Learning Teaching Scholars: Santa Clara is a community of scholars led by a distinctive type of faculty who I call teaching scholars. They challenge the assumptions of the current "teaching and research model" which has dominated American universities since they adopted the German university system at the end of the last century. Under that model, "research" produced knowledge, while "teaching" transmitted it to the unlearned. "Research" was rewarded by recognition in the professional guilds while teaching paid the rent. I see this dichotomy as artificial. Vital university faculty are committed to a life of learning, of intellectual inquiry and disciplined expression. They have a calling to be scholars, which goes beyond career or profession. Professor Robert Bellah distinguishes between job, career and calling. While a job is just work to earn a living, a career involves a commitment that shapes a way of life. A calling goes beyond the self-interest of career to a commitment to the common good. A teaching scholar has a calling which is rooted in the love of learning. It means being thoroughly professional about one's work without being defined by the career expectations of the professional guild or imprisoned in narrow specialization. I endorse the shift from a narrow focus on teaching or research to that of the teaching scholar. In many universities, researchers are often rewarded by being freed totally from obligations to regular teaching and university service. Those who can, write. Those who can't, teach and go to committee meetings. But the best of our teaching scholars have taken a different course: many of our most brilliant and recognized scholars are also our finest teachers and most generous "good citizens" in university service. Santa Clara has been blessed with teaching scholars since our founding: from the early Jesuit scientists who came from Europe and John Montgomery with his experiments of controlled flight at the turn of the century, to Father Austin Fagothey who sparked the ethical awareness and intellectual sophistication of Santa Clarans for almost forty years. Father Fagothey was nationally recognized for his writings on ethics and respected as a superb teacher and an outstanding university citizen -- and he did parish work on week-ends as well. We are even more fortunate today. There are any number of current faculty who exemplify the ideal. A few examples will illustrate the meaning of "teaching scholars." And I hope not to embarrass them. There are others I could have chosen. The first set of faculty recently came to Santa Clara with established records as teaching scholars. The second set of faculty have developed their exemplary records while at Santa Clara. Don Chisum (Law & Technology) was appointed full professor because he is internationally recognized as a distinguished scholar in Law and Technology. Denise Carmody (Religious Studies), Pat Hoggard (Chemistry), Ron Hansen (English) and Emile McAnany (Communication Department) were appointed to endowed professorships because they were recognized as distinguished scholars in their fields. Each is a scholar who is dedicated to partnering with students in learning and who incorporates a sense of spirituality or ethical responsibility into their courses. Each has an abiding dedication to students, a willingness to be an active university citizen, and a commitment to the distinctive mission of Santa Clara. Many of you have different gifts and talents and, in different ways, reflect the ideals of a teaching scholar. Each is a dedicated scholar, committed to student learning. Each works collegially to improve Catholic and Jesuit education at Santa Clara as a university citizen. The question, then, becomes what do these and other teaching scholars at Santa Clara have in common? To address this question, I'd like to draw from the late Ernest Boyer's work in which he presents four interrelated dimensions to scholarship, namely, the scholarship of discovery, integration, application and teaching. His implicit assumption is that every form of scholarship creates community and leads to enhanced learning. However, I will put a Santa Clara twist on this interpretation.
The generation of new knowledge cannot be confined to empirical reality. The mind's search for truth needs to stretch to the moral, ethical and spiritual realities which give meaning to the here and now. We build a bridge to the community of the future by drawing wisely on the extended community that speaks through history and tradition.
Personal interaction between faculty and student is essential to the education we offer. New and exciting uses of technology enhance this interaction, when they also enrich personal attention - the classic Jesuit cura personalis - as the effective means of helping young adults achieve a complex set of goals. Ten years ago, the statement on faculty responsibilities put it simply: faculty have "a unique calling, one that seeks to nourish the minds and hearts of student[s]." This means teaching scholars at Santa Clara will, to some degree, be engaged in all four dimensions of scholarship. By pushing the questions in their own disciplines, they will naturally come to the intersection with other disciplines and turn to others whose work borders on their own. They have a breadth of curiosity and a passion for learning that breaks out of isolation and fosters integrated learning. Fresh approaches to questions, new perspectives, and a more humane appreciation will emerge from this honest and challenging dialogue which is the life of a community of scholars. Staff as Educator: Staff also have more than a job or a career at Santa Clara. They share the calling to create a unique community of learning. Staff educate by example through a commitment to genuine professionalism in their work, to constant improvement in their service, and to their visible involvement in building a more humane and just community. Staff, working as caring and demanding professionals, improve the life of learning at Santa Clara
The personal interaction between staff and students is essential to the education we offer. Many staff are directly responsible for students developing a moral sense of right and wrong, good and bad; for developing leadership skills for the common good. And even when these efforts -- just like correcting papers and going to committee meetings for faculty -- seem more like a job than a calling, let us not lose sight of the fact that all staff do indeed build the community of learning at Santa Clara. Alumni and Friends as Learners: Likewise, alumni and friends, parents and benefactors become active members of the community of scholars when they choose to affiliate and participate in this University as a place of learning, culture, art and sports. By attending lectures and concerts, art exhibits, plays and sporting events, they add to Santa Clara's culture and intellectual life. By generously giving of their time, talents and resources, and by getting involved in "back to the classroom" programs and Alumni for Others, they advance our purpose. A number of our supporters are not alumni but have been attracted to the vision and promise of Santa Clara. A surprising number of leaders in the Silicon Valley and cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle have made this university their honorary alma mater. They appreciate the Jesuit tradition of education which asks how scholarship can have consequences for a life of faith and a society of love and justice. Like our roughly 50,000 alumni, they are bringing the values of this community into the board room, the newsroom, the courts, hospitals and homes. Over their life time, our graduates will reflect the best -- or the worst -- of their Santa Clara education. How they live and contribute to their various communities, how justly and humanely they act toward others especially those who are most fragile and neglected in our society will redound to us. Remember these graduates were once our students. Students Learning for Citizenship: Santa Clara has nourished and challenged students to learn for more than 145 years, students who have come from many places and cultures - from the Californio and European families who sent their sons to Santa Clara in its early years to the women who shattered tradition in 1961, from World War II veterans to the newest arrivals - students of many races and cultures who are entering Santa Clara today. Every generation of students has new questions for its teachers, which will shake up the accepted ways of doing things and demand fresh ideas for new problems. Twenty years ago students were eager to challenge institutions, including the university, but today one hears that too many undergraduates will not speak up for what they believe. One of the greatest challenges to being a community of scholars is the muted voices of our students. No conversation between the generations can occur if only one side is speaking. Do students stifle the deeper questions and treat their years at the university only as preparation for a career? How do we create the space for genuine intellectual community to develop among students so that ideas are not quarantined in the classroom? Efforts like the Freshman Residential Program, the Casa Italiana and Unity House, and the Eastside Project try to address this problem, but they are only a beginning. We have to encourage the students of the nineties not only to get a job but to get a life -- to seek not only work but their own calling. The anxious pursuit of private goods can obliterate any interest in the common good of society. The messages our students hear from so many different sources engender fear, evoke defensive reactions even racism and sexism. These reactions stifle the generosity of spirit which should welcome others for what they offer, rather than repel them for what they threaten. Our community must prepare these students for the communities of society into which they will enter. When we declare that we are "preparing students to assume leadership roles in society..," we are saying something about ourselves but more so about our Catholic and Jesuit education and our graduates. To the extent Santa Clara graduates act as men and women of competence, conscience and compassion, will be our measure of success. That success is not found just in the knowledge acquired but how well our graduates will use their knowledge and talents for building up the common good for the greater glory of God. The ultimate validation of a Santa Clara education is not a diploma but a life well lived with and for others. This puts students as future citizens at center stage, with the horizon beyond commencement -- to citizenship in the 21st century global village. IV: Conclusion Even with such ambitious ideals, our impact must be broader than the individual students we graduate. This community of scholars itself must affect for the better the larger communities that surround it. The attitudes we seek to develop in our students are precisely those which are essential for the Santa Clara community to "serve as a voice of reason, conscience and compassion in society." Let me end by suggesting some goals that help us move toward our vision:
Implementation means more than merely tinkering around the edges of the status quo. Rather than be trapped by an inertia bred by our relative success over the past twenty years, implementation calls us to realize our full potential as a great Jesuit university. The management guru, Tom Peters, made a telling point about planning, namely, "talking is fine, planning is nice, but only action gets the job done." Planning is people. And, Don Dodson deserves much credit for guiding the planning process. Don, please stand, for a hand. Implementing the strategic plan is integral to our WASC accreditation visit in the Fall of 1998. Our response to WASC will be around the four initiatives, which adds to the importance of this year's work in planning. One essential element of both our plan and the accreditation is for us to measure and substantiate (assessment of learning outcomes) that students are, in fact, learning what we say they are.
One concrete indication of moving the community of scholars initiative forward is increasing the number of endowed chairs by a dozen over the next five or so years. These chairs will be in three general categories: to reward the best of our current faculty, to recruit additional distinguished teaching scholars, and to provide scholarly opportunities for faculty members actively pursuing the ideal of the teaching scholar. Also, to this end it's a pleasure to inform you of three new chair holders:
Like last September when I announced the $5M gift from Mike and Linda Markkula, it's a pleasure to announce today a new gift of $5.5M from the Schmidt Foundation. Part of the gift will be used to establish a new endowed chair and the remainder added to the endowment for student financial aid. In a month or so, we will add, from past gifts and other funds, $12 to $14M to a special endowment for facilities, which means our total endowment will jump to around $235M.
We will also consider the construction of a new residence hall that is responsive to the challenge of connecting students' course work with their lives outside the classroom. Over the year, we will also look at future projects like expansion of Orradre library. These projects will be funded by some combination of funds from gifts, currently undesignated funds, a return on the special endowment fund, and debt. In the end, the process of implementing our strategic plan will give us a unique opportunity to become what we want to be: a community of scholars offering a Jesuit education centered on student learning. And I believe if, as a community, we drive that stake in the ground and tie our hopes and actions to it, we will have profound and far-reaching effects on our graduates and ultimately on society. Thank you. Bibliography Astin, Alexander W., and Mitchell J. Chang. "Colleges that Emphasize Research and Teaching: Can You Have Your Cake and Eat It Too?" Change, September/October 1995, pp. 45-49. Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. Massy, William F., Andrea K. Wilger, and Carol Colbeck. "Departmental Cultures and Teaching Quality: Overcoming `Hollowed' Collegiality." Change, July/August 1994, pp. 11-20. Oakley, Francis. Scholarship and Teaching: A Matter of Mutual Support. ACLS Occasional Paper No. 32. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1996: 1-11. Zemsky, Robert, and William F. Massy. "Toward an Understanding of Our Current Predicaments." Change, November/December 1995, pp. 40-49. |
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