State of the College - Fall 2012 - Mount Aloysius College

ContentsAdmissions .................................4Construction ..............................5Awards ........................................6Development ..............................7Alumni ........................................8Strategic Planning .....................8Technology Council ..................9Digital Grotto .............................9Library Technology ................ 10Children On Campus ............. 11Commmunity Service ............ 11Speaker Series ......................... 13Hospitality ........................... 14Convocation ........................ 14Harrisburg/Washington ...... 15Final Comments .................. 15

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State of the College | Fall 2012

It is very hard to know where to begin after all the excitement in the six months since the last

State of the College Address. Let me pick a few highlights from the spring semester at Mt Aloysius College:

Our faculty produced an outstanding Undergraduate Research Symposium, including the work of two students on their way to Med School, one to Ph.D. Pharmacy School and three more to law school, as well as a record number of submissions from health to environmental sciences, from Marcellus Shale to marketing plans for brave new business ventures. Thank you Dean Fulop, Symposium Chair Dr. Natalie Von Breuklyn, Sciences Chair Dr. Merrilee Anderson and all our health sciences and other faculty who made this a priority.

Our student leaders put on a dazzling array of Spring campus events, entertainments, competitions and assemblies, from another great MAC’s Got Talent, to Dancing with the Students, from Vox Nova’s concert with 58 local high school singers to several coffee houses (poets, musicians, comedians), craft and game nights, as well as Friday Night Movies,

etc. Thank you Elaine Grant, Dr. Jane Grassadonia, Chris Koren, Nancy Way and all who helped organize this impressive roster of events.

Our administrative team arranged a truly “Grand” Opening of the Mountie Stables (and new dugouts) and staged the official Groundbreaking for the 87,000 square foot Athletic Convocation and Wellness Center (ACWC), both events within one month. Thank you Suzanne Campbell, Shelley Campbell, Bill Trexler, Gerry Rubritz and all members of their teams.

Our student athletes won the AMCC Conference Dean’s Cup, signifying the outstanding GPA and academic standing of athletes from all sports and tops among all ten schools in our conference. Thank you Associate Deans D’Emilo, Farcus and Zukowski and indeed all our faculty for your close engagement with our students, thanks to our athletic staff and most importantly, congratulations to our student-athletes!

Several of our new summer projects came in for substantial local media coverage—the St. John’s Bible exhibit at the Library, initiated by Sister Helen Marie, was the subject of cover stories in both major papers (and Sister Helen Marie was the “cover girl” in one of them, great picture and excellent quotes from her); the FBI/State Police course, Camp Cadet, coordinated by Suzanne Campbell, with help from Mt Aloysius criminology students, was the subject of a very positive piece on WTAJ just last week; and the recent mass disaster training exercise—with first responders from all over the county and region—attracted good stories on TV and in both major newspapers. Thanks to Jack Coyle and his team.

Turning to graduation, the second at Mt Aloysius for Michele and I, some personal highlights:

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President Tom Foley | Mount Aloysius College

» Eight Pinning/Anointing Ceremonies: Michele did the anointing for the Medical Assistants’ ceremony; I was honored to attend the nursing event with Trustee Kupchella—where we heard from a fabulous student speaker (a 30-something mother of 3, chosen by her classmates, who was both funny and poignant), then were treated to a beautiful prayer lovingly recited by Sister BJ, and then watched as every single nursing faculty member played a part in the ceremony. Thank you Nursing Associate Dean Zukowski, and Directors Regina Barr and Dr. Bonnie Noll for such a well-organized and moving event and thank you to all our Health Sciences chairs who ran the other seven pinning ceremonies.

» Graduate Toast—the Dean of Faculty, the campus leader of the Sisters of Mercy, the head of Alumni Relations and I took turns roasting and toasting our about-to-be grads following a light breakfast reception the day before graduation. I had some

quiet moments with them during their formal rehearsal.

Read this speech and more at: www.mtaloy.edu/president/

» Amber Lenhard’s Invocation: this Air Force veteran, mother of two, wife of a Navy Seabee who also graduated (and whose mother graduates in December) part recited/part sang beautiful verses appropriate to our mission—and by one who so exemplifies the Mt. Aloysius story.

» Judge Smith’s Commencement Address on “Listening”—every ear at full attention, the perfect close to our nationally recognized year-long focus on “Civil Discourse.” His words close out the monograph produced by the College on Civil Discourse. That monograph now sits officially in the US Library of Congress.

» Baccalaureate Mass—Bishop Mark left us a message not soon forgotten

with a story about a young man and an old brick, and there were seven MAC students on the altar for the service; but the true highlight was the choir (including Michele), with little time to practice under Sister Eric Marie, terrific nonetheless, with a harmonic and lilting rendition of the Irish Blessing to close out our service. I mentioned in closing remarks that God has been sending that sunlight through those same stained glass windows for over 100 years. Enough said.

» Baseball Graduation on the Field of Dreams—Michele and I (and Dean Tim and Dr. Jane) came to MAC’s Smith-Calandra Baseball Field on Saturday night (after their grad day tripleheader) and formally granted degrees to ten seniors. We lined them

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up on the third base line, with their parents around them, and Michele gave each one flowers, I pronounced their degree, Tim awarded their diploma and Jane handed over their commencement package and program. Right at sunset!!! And by the way, their team GPA was an honors level 3.2, which is why I thought Dean Fulop needed to be in attendance!!!

Let’s take a look at our 2011-12 Mt Aloysius Year in Review. Available at: www.youtube.com/mountaloysius

Thank you Sam for that first rate video. At this point in the last two State of the College Addresses, I talked about the Penn State “Debacle” (and it is clear now that word is appropriate) and about the “Big Two” Challenges to

Higher Education in America—Access and Affordability. I invite you to go back to the President’s Page on our website to review those discussions. Suffice it to say that the approach we have taken at this College in response to both these issues has been prescient, to say the least. Mt Aloysius is way ahead of the curve on access and affordability (and we have been recognized as such), and our response to the PSU issues—and I will briefly discuss that later—was quick, inclusive and appropriate.

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.

AdmissionsAs 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 almost 20% since 2008.

The entering fall class is again a record setter. 1654 students will join us in a week or so—compared to 1574 one year ago. For PA Department of Education purposes, we have to count dual enrollments, part time, etc., so

our number on their books is well over 2,200. Some schools use that number when asked the enrollment question, but we think it is best to use the FTE number, which will be 1654 this year—subject to some last minute “melt.”

Freshmen Admissions are up 12%, Adult and Transfers up 7%, Continuing Education is up 18%, and Grad school, though still very small, went up 28%. Even Summer School finished up 8% in total enrollment.

Slow and steady, even with the smaller pool, the increased competition in some of our subject areas and gas

Freshman Admissions Up 12%

Adult and Transfer Up 7%

Continuing Education Up 18%

Graduate School Up 28%

Summer School Up 8%

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prices (a real factor when 40% of your students come from families with federally classified “low” incomes). The only down number is returning students who want residential housing, though that has been more than compensated by the size of the incoming residential freshman class. As of today, we remain overbooked for dorm space—a very good problem which many of our competitors wish they had.

We are also more aggressively pursuing a new market in admissions—over 100 high schools in the Harrisburg region—District III of the PIAA for

those of you who track the state that way. We created a full time position in admissions last year to work this market, did over 125 school visits there last year and have almost doubled—to just under 40—our freshman deposits from this market. I believe that there is a lot more potential there, because there is no school quite like Mt Aloysius in that region—with our combination of faith-based origins, two and four year degrees, especially strong health sciences and mission-centered education. We have a good story to tell, a beautiful campus, attentive faculty and staff and we are only about two hours away—so we will keep looking to grow in that market.

Thanks to Frank and his team, who have broken their own record for open houses, school visits and personal phone calls to prospective students again this year. Last note, we just hosted our first Open House for the class of 2013 on July 27—many of you were on hand to help out—and we had 25% more kids there than last year (over 100 prospective students), with fully one third coming from more than two hours away on a hot summer mid vacation day.

ConstructionSenior VP for Administration Suzanne Campbell will give you a more detailed analysis. But two quick updates.

First, the Mountie Stables—where some of you will gather for an informal reception (and perhaps a faculty softball game later today)--have been open for business since the spring athletic seasons. These new facilities—and our new baseball and softball dugouts—got plenty of use over the summer as the local Cresson girls softball team and a whole host of baseball clubs from Cresson to Johnstown—including the premier AAABA League—were delighted to come to play at Mt Aloysius. All of that exposure is a good thing if you work in admissions or the athletic department.

We had a very nice grand opening event for the Stables, which some of you attended and which was widely publicized. The “Stables” are bathrooms, changing rooms and a real live press box. They and the dugouts were the last remaining undone pieces of the original field development plan from ten years ago. All that work was possible because of a fields’

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fundraising campaign kicked off by a very generous donation of $50,000 from Mike and Astride McLanahan which amount has now been more than quadrupled—with recent gifts from original sports field donors local businessman Jack Calandra and very successful car dealer Mike Smith—both of whom truly understand the mission as it is practiced here at Mt Aloysius. Anyway, restroom deprived fans don’t have to use the woods at halftime, our student athletes will have a place to take cover from lightening and both fans and athletes have been respectful in their use of the new facilities!

Second, the bigger construction news is the Athletic Convocation and Wellness Center. I want to show you a couple of recent 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 multi-purpose 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 will be during the

winter months. Those cuts allowed us to maximize the space and spend more of our resources inside of the building.

All of the underground work has been done. We fixed a host of long time underground issues—sewer, gas, water, electrical and otherwise—in the course of all the prep work. As of this moment, most of the bid packages have been awarded; the official groundbreaking is done, and under the terms of our state RACP grant, we have to finish construction by the fall of 2014. And so far, we are right on target and under budget. Yes, that deserves a hand—Suzanne and Gerry, please take a bow.

AwardsSeveral recent awards to the College that are of note:

Listed a second time as a “College of Distinction” for fall 2012 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 our five county area.

Named a 2012 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 fourth year in a row and was the first regional College to be so honored.

The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference named more than 80 student athletes to its spring Academic Honor Roll, meaning

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they have 3.2 GPAs. That is more than 50% of all MAC student athletes, is the highest number and percentage since the AMCC started this awards program, and is a 15% improvement over last year. 20 of them were inducted into the sports Honors Society, also a record for Mt Aloysius.

Finally, Mt Aloysius was the recipient of the first Dean’s Cup for the AMCC, awarded to the member institution with the overall highest percentage of its student athletes on the league Honor Roll. That was an unexpected honor, and one that will be hard to duplicate in this ten member conference. This result is the cumulative work of many of you sitting before me—the extra time you put in with your students, the emotional and intellectual support you give to them daily. And I want to ask that you give yourselves a hand for such terrific work over many years—it is just nice that your long time work is finally recognized in the form of this truly quite groundbreaking honor.

I should also note here that two Mount Aloysius College grads will be heading for medical school, another to pharmacy school this fall. Attending medical school will be Daniel Conner and Derek Harshaw. Alysa Conway is heading to pharmacy school. All three majored in biology. Congratulations to Chair Dr. Merilee Anderson and to all our science and math faculty. And thank you to all who mentored these fine students. Jack Coyle did a little press release on this and Dr. Anderson’s words were especially appropriate. She said, “The Science Department is proud to have these three students

as ambassadors of Mount Aloysius College...They are hard workers who also personify the spirit of Mount Aloysius with their service to others and dedication to learning.”

We also have at least three students entering law school in the fall—at Duquesne, Catholic and Southern Universities. Congrats to them and thanks to their mentors, Dr. D. and Drs. Smith and Jones.

It is also worth noting that our nursing class is again well on the way to a 100% job placement rate and that the NEXUS pass rate is holding steady at 93%. That is just excellent, congratulations to everyone in our health sciences area and especially to our nursing faculty. That pass rate competes with and surpasses the rate for many institutions whose incoming classes carry far higher SAT and ACT scores. And the same can be said for so many of you who lead our health sciences degree programs, who continue to produce excellent pass rates on state exams.

DevelopmentWhich 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. That campaign

raised $8.3M in five years. Mt Aloysius is a very tuition dependent institution and these campaigns are the only way for us to finance all the new construction on this campus in the last ten years, the only way to pay for great advances like the Simulation Labs in Nursing, and the only way to increase our investments in enrollment, community service and faculty excellence.

We have built this campaign around five themes that emerged from the focus groups on which many of you participated:

» Center for Civic Engagement » Excellence in Health Sciences » Faculty Achievement » Preparing High School Students » Athletic Convocation and

Wellness Center

We haven’t really solicited much beyond our Board of Trustees and the President’s Advisory Council and the commitments are over a five year period, but the results so far are encouraging.

Much more work to be done but this is a good start. But we don’t want to conduct a campaign outside the College without everyone inside the College understanding why we have to do it. I invite you to review the brochure Expanding Horizons: The Campaign for Mt Aloysius. It is a most

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impressive document, will be shared with potential supporters near and far, and is reflective of your solid work every day. We have copies down front for those interested. Thanks to Jack, Michael and Sally who have done lots of heavy lifting already.

AlumniJust a few words to keep you in the loop of our increased engagement here.

First, Jack Anderson, Michael Greer and their team just produced the best alumni weekend of activities at Mt Aloysius in many years, with over 300 alums in attendance at 30 plus events, including 41% of the entire 50 year 1962 reunion class. Elvis was here, along with at least one bad comedian and one very good 60s band. We had a continuing education nursing seminar, a symposium on “Understanding Millennials: A Primer for Grandparents” and another on “The Past Present and Future of the College.” Attendance at the seminars was low, but the content was excellent. Here’s a snippet from the weekend. Available at: www.youtube.com/mountaloysius

There were three other highlights of

the Alumni weekend. First, we had an absolutely beautiful liturgy, with Sister Eric and Sister BJ handling the details. There was a soulful tuba solo by a blind graduate and a jazzy harmonica player (our own Jack Coyle) who snuck his chords into several of the hymns from an alcove stage left.

Second highlight, we inducted a class of 5 Distinguished Alums who came back to us from North Carolina, Washington, DC, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and all the way from Portage, PA. Good people, nice stories, and they all loved their time here—back in their day and over the weekend.

Third, the newly reconstituted Alumni Council introduced three “honorary” alums—each of whom brought with them to Cosgrave that night a truly compelling story. Mike and Astride McLanahan were honored as a couple—none of their children matriculated here, no relative ever went to school here, but they believe fervently in the idea of our school and Mike has served on the board for almost 25 years. Father James Coveney has a forty year beloved relationship with Mt Aloysius, as local pastor, as faculty member and as the celebrant at dozens of special occasions on and off campus for Mount graduates. And the last new “honorary Alum”--Sister Eric Marie, 15 year faculty member, 40 year Sister of Mercy, long time music director, until recently Institutional Advancement staff member and still loyal volunteer. Let’s give her a special hand.

We are attempting to increase our connection to our alums—whether they are academy, junior college or college grads—and using social and other media to bring them back to the fold. Stay tuned for our next Alumni Magazine, and please let us know any ideas you may have to better connect our past with our present here at the College.

Strategic Planning We are hard at work laying the groundwork for a three year strategic plan, and will kick that off with several faculty panels this week. We have seen four themes emerge from a round of internal and external interviews so far completed: the need to continue to excel in the Health Sciences; the new

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and “Complete Student Experience” required for an increasingly residential population; the importance of continued focus on fields of study that tie directly to jobs of the future; and attention to both new trends and old fashioned leg work in recruitment and admissions efforts.

This strategic plan is on a May to December track, is intended to guide us for the next three years. At that point, with the current ten year Campus Master Plan then complete, we will go back to the drawing board and develop a ten year plan that includes a new Campus Master Plan. That will require considerably more investment of time by all of us.

We are grateful for the service of all of you who worked on the last plan; we thank the new generation which

has stepped to the table for this new plan; and I am especially grateful to Dean of Faculty Tim Fulop and Vice President for Mission Integration Sister Helen Marie Burns for chairing this enterprise. Would the members of the new Strategic Planning Steering Committee please stand so that your colleagues will know who to pigeon hole for updates and suggestions. Thank you for your service to the College and to our students.

Technology CouncilIn 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 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 in this internet age that the complete education now requires a demonstrated facility with communications technology. The Council has formulated a definition of “technology ready,” about which we will dialogue in the coming months. In addition, they have completed an inventory of technology learning

resources at the college. It will be the continuing purpose of this committee to update the meaning of the phrase “technology-ready” and then work with me and others to ensure that we meet that promise here at the Mount.

Digital GrottoWe don’t keep a guest log down there, but I know that many of you have visited the Digital Grotto, in the basement of Alumni Hall. I like that you have to walk through all the costumes for our school plays to get to the grotto itself—because I think the Digital Grotto represents a similar opportunity for transformation—of people or ideas. It gives us new tools with which to teach both in the classroom and in other less traditional forums, and I hope that you will take advantage of this resource. Three updates.

First, we have again expanded the resources available down there, in terms of equipment and of people. There are two new learning stations in place now, and two bodies to fill them. We have brought on two graduate assistants who have monthly assignments from Sam and Jack but who are also available to work on projects that will help you teach with

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Library Technology Acquired (since 2010)ABI/Inform - Includes 4 databases:

» ABI/INFORM Global » ABI/INFORM Trade and Industry » ABI/INFORM Dateline » ABI/INFORM Archive

Content - over 3,000 full-text journals, 25,000 Dissertations, 14,000 SSRN working papers, key newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, as well as country-and industry-focused reports and data. Its international coverage gives researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.

Cochrane Library - includes 6 databases

» Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews » Cochrane Central Register of Controlled

Trials » Cochrane Methodology Register » Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects » Health Technology Assessment Database » NHS Economic Evaluation Database

Content - contains different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making including peer reviewed systematic reviews, articles, controlled trials, assessments and reports.

CQ Researcher - One report weekly.

Content - in-depth, single topic reports on current issues featuring more than 12,000 words of text and extensive bibliographies.

R2 Ebooks - Full text, completely searchable ebooks in the field of Nursing.

Content - We currently have 26 books that we have purchased through this vendor completely accessible on and off campus for students. We consult with the Nursing Dept. to make new purchases for the collection.

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even greater effect.

Second, I want to repeat a paragraph from last spring, because this is still a relatively new phenomenon for us at MAC and in higher education. 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 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.

Third, this is just one step on our path to graduating students who are “technology ready.” We are trying to use the arsenal of technology tools down there and across the campus—especially at the library:

» to introduce more blended learning

» to build tutorials on things like FASFA and human anatomy

» to deliver themed products for Admissions and events like the 50th reunion of the Class of 1962 and

» to tape interviews for wider dissemination.

Let’s just show a little of those last two products Sam. First, a clip from our most recent Admissions video. And now a snippet from the “Past Present Future” conversation, the third in our series of “Mt

Aloysius Conversations” now available on the website.

The library has a grant to incorporate 25 IPads into information literacy learning opportunities, and check out the YouTube offerings on the website every once in a while. Here is a master list of just the new Grotto and library products since 2011.

Videos available at: www.youtube.com/mountaloysius

Children On CampusIn response to the child abuse scandal at Penn State, we undertook a thorough review of our own practices and procedures, following an excellent session with the Board of Trustees on the subject. Though we didn’t find any significant gaps in our policies at the College, we still adopted a seven point

action plan, and every single step has been implemented. Most importantly, there is now a single icon on the web page that will take you directly to all policies concerning children. Thank you, Senior VP for Administration Suzanne Campbell and HR Director Tonia Gordon for playing a lead role in this effort.

Commmunity ServiceCommunity Service is alive, well and prolific at Mt Aloysius. In May, we completed our first year long survey of community service at Mt Aloysius. More than 900 students performed 7,153 hours of service on 195 projects with 141 separate community partners. 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

Children on Campus | Seven Point Action Plan

Instituted a Quarterly Report to Educational Life Committee of the Board on Clery Act cases at the College.

Revamped Ethics Point Hotline System to encourage student reporting in addition to faculty and staff. Expanded reportable issues to include safety, security, and much more.

Set up Trigger events for automatic reporting to Board of Trustees (complaints about the President, etc.).

Reviewed Whistleblower Policy to ensure language exists as to

reporting to the Board of Trustees.

Combined all campus regulations and policies about children on campus into a single, web-accessible document.

Initiating training for key employees and employee groups who will work with minor children to recognize signs of abuse and understand how and when to report suspected abuse.

Instituted new Summer Camp Policy to address the College’s handling of camps for kids and requirements for those individuals working these events.

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state.

The “street” value of all that work—yes, Virginia, there are formulas for this kind of thing—is almost $200,000. That’s $200,000 in volunteer work by Mt Aloysius students in one school year.

Most of the work is done right here in the Southern Alleghenies. 97 of the local projects promote health and wellness activities, 45 expand economic opportunity in some way, 33 involve education and 19 of them address the needs of our veterans or the environment.

Some of these volunteers travel much further to share their talents--to Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. And besides now traditional service trips by over 30 students to Guyana and Biloxi, three students went to China in June with Director of Campus Ministry Sister Nancy and Director of Student Success Heather Low, where they worked in a faith based mission.

It is not just the numbers that impress here. Our customary fall and spring break, out of state projects have “legs”—meaning they are not “one off ” efforts. In Guyana, as in Jamaica before, we work with long established Mercy-sponsored 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 Mt Aloysius 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.

Sister Helen Marie and her team also completed our survey of faculty and staff community service and the results were equally impressive—

» 93 of you responded, and » reported your service on the

boards of 45 different non-profit organizations,

» calculated your volunteer hours with 91 different organizations and

» indicated your financial support of 112 different non-profit groups.

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Your gave your time, your talent and your treasure to the

» Portage Library Board » Project Soar » WISE Women of Blair County » Zion Preschool » Lutheran Social Ministries » Toys for Tots » VFW » Alzheimer’s Walk » VA Hospital » Girl Scouts » Boy Scouts » Habitat for Humanity » Catholic Charities » Human Rights Campaign » Mennonite Disaster Services » Central PA Food Bank » Bedford Humane Society » Altoona Symphony » Carolltown Fire Company » Goodwill » Harbor House » Episcopal Relief Fund » Autism Speaks » Mercy Volunteer Corps » and dozens of others

We thank Sisters Nancy and Helen Marie and all the faculty and staff who help to ensure this dimension at Mt Aloysius, so fundamental to our history and to our mission, to this day. 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. I think this kind of info is central to the story of Mt Aloysius and of its reach beyond the front gate. Thank you.

Speaker SeriesOur year of Civil Discourse Initiatives at the College have come in for much praise and some imitation—and we are happy for both. The last two events were both outstanding: the

Fifth Annual Moral Choices Lecture in April and the Commencement address in May by Federal Third Circuit Justice D. Brooks Smith on “Listening.” I should say lectures, because indeed University of Pennsylvania’s Director of the Annenberg School Kathleen Hall Jamison made two completely different and outstanding presentations in her afternoon and evening sessions of the Moral Choices Lecture. And Judge Smith’s remarks brought to a perfect close our year of exploration in how to practice civility in both our personal and public lives.

We also put together a monograph—now available on the shelves of the United States Library of Congress--which contains the text of our inaugural symposium on the topic, selected readings by people like Dr. Amy Gutman, P.J Forni and other scholars in the field and pieces by practitioners like Judge Smith, former Congressman Jim Leach and others. Copies are available in front for anyone interested.

The opening video has a great montage of the guest speaker talent that has graced our campus in the last 18 months.

Before moving on to the subject of this year’s Speaker Series, I want to thank the numerous people who played significant roles in this signature endeavor: Dr. Jones, Dr. D’Emilio, Tom Fleming, Dr. Cook, both Drs. Costanza, Dr. Dragani, Dr. Smith, Dr.

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Rohlf, Jeff Sunseri, Lauren Coakley, Dr. Lovett and Dr. Fulop all of whom helped with individual lectures and some of whom helped incorporate the topic into our CLS curriculum; Elaine Grant and Jane Grassadonia who built the topic into orientation, RA and other activities; and Sister Helen Marie Burns who arranged and hosted her fellow Midwesterner Dr. Jamison. Can we give them all a hand. Thank you.

HospitalityWe have had a small committee that will expand—watch out because we are now going to ask for volunteers to help plan the spring series—working on the Fall Speaker Series: Drs. Fulop, Burns, Grassadonia, Director of College Communications Jack Coyle and CFO Donna Yoder. We had some fascinating—to me at least—and “civil” discourse about what our theme for this year should be. We looked at easily a dozen topics, finally focused on the four core mercy values, and settled on what I had thought at the start was the least likely theme around which to build a series of speakers—

“hospitality.”

We looked at the term broadly—you will see a bulletin board in the basement of Cosgrave that reflects one of those broad definitions—“Hospitality: Creating Home in a Changing World.” And we went for it with gusto.

Some other elements of the Hospitality Speaker Series include:

Fall Honors Lecture entitled “The Hospitality of Writing,” jointly delivered by Pulitzer Prize winner David Shribman and his wife Cindy Skrzycki , an award winning writing instructor at Pitt.

Faculty Honors Symposium will look at “hospitality” from perspectives as diverse as psychology, religion, government and English. Thank you Drs. Dragani and Costanza and company.

Fall Orientation Program has several skits and programs built around the theme and it is part of RA training as well. Thank you Elaine, Chris and Dr. Jane.

CLS curriculum will expand on existing elements on the hospitality of immigration, its spiritual dimension and related themes. Thank you Dr. Jones and colleagues.

Constitution Day Program will revolve around the theme as well, with young reps from various political parties and the two national campaigns addressing the theme “is there a home for young people in the political status quo?” Another thank you to Drs. Fulop and Jones.

We will need your help to create other programs and topics that will allow us to expand on the theme in the spring.

ConvocationThe 2012-13 Convocation Address will be delivered by John Granger who has built an international audience with his evocation of home, hospitality and Christianity in his prolific analyses of two series that have unprecedented appeal amongst millenenials—Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. He is author of 10 books and a score

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of journaled articles and op-eds, has keynoted events at such diverse locations as the Princeton Theological Seminary and the St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Center in Ligonier and has spoken at Colleges all over the world from St. Andrew’s in Scotland to the University of Ottawa in Canada, from Yale to Youngstown, from Washington and Lee to LaSalle and from Penn to Pepperdine.

This short review on the screen now gives a taste of our Convocation speaker and his connection to this year’s Speaker Series theme of “Hospitality: Finding Home in a Changing World”:

In this winsome but critical exploration of The Hunger Games’ artistry and meaning, Granger reveals the story’s core value, sacrificial love; he details that Katniss and Peeta’s victory over the Capitol, even over death, is won by the altruistic and selfless choices they make, choices informed by classical and Christian virtues that lead to meaning and finding a home in an otherwise inhospitable world.

Granger is an unusual choice, but we are hopeful his impact can match that of another unusual choice, Dr. Kenneth Miller, who made such an impression as our convocation speaker in my first year here 2010.

Harrisburg And WashingtonGovernments and political leaders are speaking out early and often on higher education issues, whether any of us like it or not. Some of that trend grows out of public disappointment about inflation in higher ed costs—which I discussed at some length in last spring’s State of the College

address. Some of it grows out of the ever increasing levels of debt foisted on students by for and non-profit institutions. And some of that concern comes because—let’s face it—government has a pretty big stake in the financial pie of higher education. For example, at our largest state institution just up the road, tuition accounted for $1.4B in revenue in 2011, government funding came in at $900M and all other donations accounted for $300M. That means state and federal funding accounts for 34.6% of all revenues at Penn State in an average year. And that is to support an average student bill of $27,714 at Main Campus, just a shade less than Mt Aloysius (where government aid is a much, much smaller percentage of the pie.)

Interestingly, Mt Aloysius just drew down the first $1M of our $10M state Redevelopment Assistance Community Program grant. That grant is the largest donation by a factor of ten that this College has ever received and tied for the largest grant to any institution of higher education in PA in this two year cycle. Today, I want to remind you why we got it.

Mt Aloysius’ approach to access and affordability was the subject of the Profiles Series—the Lou Gossett, Jr. program which I showed you last spring at this time and which aired nationwide on the Discovery Channel in April. Our approach began long before I got here—and that approach is also the reason that I met with top officials at the US Department of Education last spring. But this College’s continued efforts to keep costs down and access open has gotten attention in Harrisburg as well, from the State Department of Economic and Community Development and from the Governor’s Committee on the Future of Post-Secondary Education, before whom I testified in May. We were the only local college asked to present before that latter

body.

When I spoke with the Governor and many others in pursuit of the RACP grant, I always highlighted three points: one, that our total cost per student was only slightly more than that offered at state related institutions; two, that our percentage of Pell-eligible students with significant financial need was much higher; and three, that a Mt Aloysius education was an excellent value, centered in very concrete ways on the issues of life long values. All three points are critical—we keep costs down, we serve the hard to serve, and we don’t abandon the promotion of lifelong values in our teaching model. And all three points have helped Mt Aloysius to be seen as a model of how to do higher education right—and I thank each and every one of you for your role in driving that model every single day.

Though my general attitude is to keep our heads down in regards to Washington and Harrisburg oversight, you should carry your heads very high as representatives of an institution that has been profiled nationally, and which has been asked to testify statewide about its model—both in just the last six months.

I will try to keep you up to speed on the intersection of government and education in these addresses, but I think that is enough Harrisburg for today.

Just two final comments. First, about the year. 2011-12 was another extraordinary year for Michele and I at Mt Aloysius. We appreciate all your support, both personal and professional. I recently completed my second performance evaluation for the Board of Trustees, and as a result of that formal, metrics-focused process, I

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can tell you that I

» Participated in over 300 events on our campus last year—from Mercy Scholar socials to Education Department Mock Interviews to formal lectures for four classes in three different departments

» Delivered formal remarks at over 50 campus events—open houses and Mercy Scholar Banquets for our prospective students, Honor Society Inductions and Student Athlete Banquets for our current students, President’s Appreciation Dinners and Alumni Awards Banquets for our alums and donors, and Retirement Lunches and new doctorate celebrations for our faculty and staff

» Visited with over 150 community partners in the past year from local arts groups to Rotaries, Chambers and other non-profits, to Presidents from a dozen competitor institutions and

» Keynoted more than a dozen different major events in the region, from the Altoona High School Commencement to the annual meeting of high school Principals and administrators in Cambria, from the five county Inns at Court lawyers and judges symposium to the Blair County BASICS K-12 seminar, from the United Way Annual Meeting to the Sheetz Corporation Graduation (for its continuing education students).

So thank you for this extraordinary year, as we prepare for yet another.

Second closing comment—about our founders. This was an interesting year for women religious in America as the Vatican announced a new review of the work and status of their principle membership organization in the United States—the organization that represents almost 80% of all women religious in this country. Some

religious leaders want to proscribe the permissible range of work performed by these women—who come from dozens of different religious orders and congregations—which if carried out would severely restrict their ability to fulfill their founding mission. Many of you have watched this debate as closely as have I. You may have noted the hundreds of profound public statements from many leaders of the Catholic and other faiths in support of their many good works, and of these Sisters personally.

I could not finish this State of the College address without reference to those incredible women who founded—and whose work and spiritual ethic continue to undergird—Mt Aloysius College. This is the story of the miraculous collection of extraordinary women who founded the order and brought its mission of service and justice, mercy and hospitality across these Allegheny Mountains, first to Pittsburgh and then to Cresson, Pennsylvania. My words are intentional—miraculous and extraordinary—but don’t just take my words for it.

Michele lent me a book on the life of “Frances Warde: American Founder of the Sisters of Mercy” written by Kathleen Healy (an occasional co-author with our own Sister Helen Marie Burns). In this year when the work of all women religious is under cross-examination, I want to read you two paragraphs on the history of those women religious who founded

Mt Aloysius, the Sisters of Mercy, from Ms. Healy’s book:

“The fact that by 1943 the congregation of Mercy had become the second largest congregation of religious women in the world, with a membership of thirty thousand and with the number of convents in the United States more than double those of all other Mercy convents in the world combined, indicates that the unprecedented expansion of the Institute of Mercy is due to neither temporal nor spatial factors. The elements that contributed to the unexampled growth of the Congregation were spiritual, structural, social, and personal.

The mid-nineteen century church was ready for an active/contemplative congregation of women; for a comparatively autonomous governmental structure and religious community; for a congregation that left its cloisters daily to minister the poor, the sick and the uneducated; for religious leaders capable of combining personal spirituality with a pioneering spirit of initiative and independence. Perhaps the last named element was the most significant in the development in the congregation of Mercy….”

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Let us hope that the current formal review results in a greater not lesser appreciation for all these qualities—service to the poor and uneducated, personal spirituality and pioneering spirits—that have worked so much to the benefit of Mt Aloysius over its 160 year history. And let us thank these Sisters, under the pressure of what some perceive as an attack on their way of life, but still never missing a day in service here.

Let me thank Sister Nancy for building our opening reflection around the theme of hospitality. And let me leave you today with an Irish Blessing that is also about hospitality and is especially attuned to our own mission—as we build new walls and cement old relationships. The toast goes like this:

Wishing you always: Walls for the wind, A roof for the rain, and tea beside the fire.

Laughter to cheer you, those you love near you, and all that your heart might desire.

Let’s all have another great year at Mt Aloysius.

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Documents

State of the College - Fall 2012 - Mount Aloysius College