Ladner presents state of AU address

By Linda McHugh

AU President Benjamin Ladner convened the campus community in Kay Spiritual Life Center last Tuesday to discuss the Middle States evaluation, the status of the 15-point plan project team, and the overall progress of the university. Summarizing a good news address Ladner paraphrased the comments of a member of the visiting Middle States team saying “There is a great deal of momentum at AU; you seem to know what you’re doing and where you’re going.”

In recent years, individual units and schools, such as
Kogod School of Business and Washington College of Law, have undergone accreditations, and their evaluations have served as indicators of the forward progress of the university. The Middle States evaluation, which is scheduled to be completed this summer when the Middle States Commission votes on AU’s accreditation for the next 10 years, will provide even grander proof of a bright future. As the Middle States process nears its conclusion, Ladner remarked on the noticeable gains the university has made in the last decade, and he urged the university community to read the report. “It is a summary of a sort that I don’t think you will find anywhere else of the last 10 years of this institution,” he said.

In his 90-minute address Ladner reviewed other areas of excellence ranging from faculty salaries to the immense athletic successes in the Patriot League to the progress of the project teams working on each of the 15 points. Highlights of Ladner’s good news included:

The record $200 million capital campaign, which Ladner termed the single most important goal of the university, has kicked off in fine fashion. “The feeling on the board and national volunteer committees that Al Checcio and his staff have organized is that we can do this, that it’s worth doing,” Ladner said. The campaign will provide for facilities enhancements, including new buildings for the School of International Service (SIS) and School of Communication and an addition to the Kogod building, and funding for key academic initiatives, including faculty research needs and lowered teaching loads.

Excellent financial news and reviews are helping drive AU ahead. For the first time in the history of the tuition-driven university, the endowment has exceeded $200 million. AU also received A ratings from the financial agencies Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s with reviewers from the financial institutions commenting favorably on the leadership, vision, and dedication of the university.

Increasingly selective admissions and talented classes have landed AU’s colleges and programs in the forefront of many national surveys including US News and World Report, which put AU in the top 100 schools nationwide. A record 12,000 freshman have applied for admission in 2004 and will vie for about 1,250 spaces, enabling the school to improve upon last year’s record low 59 percent admit rate.

The report of the University College project team, which addresses the undergraduate experience, is under review. The team, headed by Nanette Levinson, SIS, is seeking to draw upon AU and Washington, D.C.’s, resources to provide a challenging, cohesive, first- and second-year experience. The process has raised questions concerning the college’s relationship to the general education program, the distribution of faculty loads and other key components of the existing academic structure. Praising the superb work of the project team, Ladner also noted, “It’s not an easy document or proposal.”

Long a leader in international education, AU is addressing the changing global environment since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “I think we will be living with the redefinition of what it means to be ‘international’ for many years,” Ladner said. The president pointed out the many successes enjoyed in the seven years since AU helped build a university in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and then introduced the campus to the university’s newest partner, Felix Obadan, the coordinator of the newly formed ABTI-American University in Nigeria.

Obadan came to AU last week to begin work with faculty, staff, and administrators on the new private university AU is helping to build in Yola, Nigeria. Ladner emphasized the new undertaking in Africa as yet another example of the leadership role AU will fill in the future.

“Our higher education system, the world now knows, is the secret link to creating not just good jobs, but an educated citizen who thinks and acts on the basis of education,” Ladner said. “My guess is as we look out 10 years, AU will occupy a unique position because of our ability to use our faculty and staff in an extraordinary way.”