UCA President Tom Courtway kicked off the first “Campus Talk” of the new year by outlining challenges for the university and informing the campus community of his expectations.
Courtway noted the appointment of UCA alums Elizabeth Farris and Brad Lacy to the UCA Board of Trustees. Farris, the daughter of the late UCA President Jeff Farris, and Lacy, the CEO of Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, were appointed by Gov. Mike Beebe on Jan. 13.
“I can assure you that both of these individuals that the governor has appointed care deeply about UCA and will do a magnificent job on our board,” he said.
Before taking questions from the floor, Courtway made the following remarks to students, faculty and staff:
Where have we been? We have been in a place where we had to borrow money to make our payroll. We have been in a place where we had to have a line of credit. We have been in a place where we had to get an advance or an allowance from our parent.
We have been in a place where many of you, and sometimes me, and sometimes all of us didn’t know what was going on. We have been in a place where we have been on an enrollment and sometimes an emotional rollercoaster ride. And we have been in a place where we had no clear direction as an institution. I don’t want to go back to that place again.
So, what are some of our challenges as we go forward?
We have to develop a clear, understandable enrollment strategy for this institution, and that’s going to start next week. We can grow our enrollment at a pace and at a level that will ensure we are the best university in the state; not necessarily in numbers, but in quality of instruction and most importantly in retention and graduation of our students.
We need to provide a comprehensive monitoring report to the Higher Learning Commission with the help of Dean Hattlestad, Dean Lee, Dr. Glenn, Dr. Wilson, Dr. Teague, Dianna Winters and others on that committee, and then regain our accreditation through 2020. That’s a challenge. We can do it.
We need to develop a prudent budget for the next fiscal year and continue to be careful with how we spend our money. We must manage our finances carefully, build our reserves, and secure the financial future for this university.
Never again do I want to have to go with a tin cup and borrow money or get an advance or grovel on behalf of this university. It’s not going to happen. We need to continue to work with the strategic budget committee and we need to adhere to the overall goals of the strategic plan. We need to constantly review and constantly adhere to those principles.
So how do we meet those challenges? And there are many more, those are just a few.
First, we need to communicate better. That starts with me. Not only from the Office of the President, but all offices up, down, and across the Univeristy.
Number two, we need to share the credit. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit. If it’s a good idea, UCA is going to win. If it’s a crummy idea, we know what the results are going to be or if it’s a crummy proposal, we know where that’s going to end up.
Number three, we need to recruit aggressively. We need to get the best students we can get from this state, and this region of the country and all over the globe.
Number four, we need to advise and teach effectively. We are already doing that. What does that mean? That means when students graduate from this place, they would have engaged in critical thinking, they will be armed with skills for whatever they may do in this life. They’re armed with the knowledge to gain employment, to improve our society, and work in a global economy.
I teach one course in the summer. I tell my students “I want to make you dangerous. I want you to be a dangerous person when you get out of this joint.” They look at me and ask: “Why?” Because I want you to be able to know enough to ask questions, and if something’s not right, you try to fix it. That’s what I mean by dangerous. So I want them to be dangerous in a good sense, when they leave our faculty. We teach effectively, we advise effectively, we’ve got to keep it up.
Number five, we’ve got to manage our finances efficiently. We are doing that, and we are going to continue to do that.
Number six, we must conduct ourselves ethically, and we will.
Number seven, there will be honest disagreements over procedures and policies of this university, and that’s helpful. No problem at all. We are not here to squelch speech and we are certainly not here to squelch ideas or thoughts. But, let’s resolve to ourselves, and more importantly, to our students and our alums, that whatever our differences, we exist to serve our students. Let’s keep our differences civil. Let’s discuss them. Let’s resolve them. And always remember, that each day we come to work, wherever we are and whatever we do, we are the face of UCA.
We are the face of UCA when you face that couple with their child or their loved one from Texarkana or West Memphis or wherever they may be. We are the face of UCA when you post something on Facebook. We are the face of UCA when we tweet, whatever that is. But every single thing we do, it’s not just me, we are all, each of us, individually, the face of this university.
Finally, to paraphrase David McCullough, who is my favorite historian, in his biography about Harry Truman he came up with six things about Truman’s life. The bottom line is this, each day: work hard, do your best, tell the truth, don’t pretend to be somebody you’re not, believe in something or someone other than yourself and have no fear.
So as we go forward, through this semester and this calendar year, let’s try to adhere to those principles. And I submit to you, that everything else is going to take care of itself. This is a great place, each of you know that, we all know that. The students who come here know that, their families know that. In all the trouble, in all the trials, all the tribulations that we’ve had all over the last few years, when you talk to people whose loved ones actually go here, or the students who are actually here on our campus, they don’t care. So, as long as we don’t lose sight of why we are here, and as long as we try to stick to these principles in whatever manner you want to try to stick to them, the University of Central Arkansas is going to be fine.