As all of you know by now, this will be my last “State of the University” address, as I leave office on July 1st after about eight years of service. I look forward to returning, after a sabbatical year, as a member of the faculty and to engaging students and my colleague professors. For a decade prior to my arrival at Cleveland State University, I led a seminar on the American College and University Presidency for graduate students in the higher education administration program at Kent State University. What made the opportunity to become the President at CSU so very attractive was the chance to find out if what I was teaching bore any resemblance to the reality of the position. It was a reality check of some real importance to me, and I was not disappointed in the outcome. Among many other things that my students and I discussed was the tendency of presidents, over time, to identify so strongly with their universities that their entire sense of self became totally determined by that one role – the presidency. I described it as over identification, and it has real consequences. It becomes difficult to step back to see the institution as it really is and to make objective assessments about it. It isn’t healthy to believe that one lives in a perfect world. Well, this was by no means a perfect world when I arrived, and it most certainly will not be one when I leave. But while there remains a great deal yet to do, we have traveled a long distance together, you and I, and we have been building a fine institution - a fine comprehensive university that serves our students, the region, and the State of Ohio very well.

Consider some of the things that have happened here. We divided our largest, most unwieldy academic unit, the College of Arts and Sciences into two colleges which are simpler to manage and lead and which give better, clearer identity to their component departments. The advances in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and in the College of Science are many, and the leadership given to them by Deans Bonder and Sadlek and by the Provost is paying big dividends for faculty and students alike. Among other things, I should note that back in the deep dark recesses of the old and larger college was a program in theater that had all but disappeared for lack of attention. It is back, it has fine leadership with Professor Michael Mauldin, it has sixty-five majors, and we look forward to a time when it is housed in a proper theater of its own. The School of Nursing had also disappeared in that densely packed college, and now it is much more visible as part of the College of Education and Human Services. The College of Science has stepped forward with a real commitment to growing the other health professions and the biomedical sciences and to enhancing our research and graduate work in collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute.

We formed the University’s first Honors Program, and it has been a substantial success under the very expert leadership of its Founding Director, Professor Barbara Margolius. She will return to teaching and research at her request, but let me say that what she has accomplished on behalf of the superior students that she has brought to us and on behalf of a faculty happy to receive those students has been nothing short of remarkable. Professor Margolius has shaped the very character of the Program, made it successful, and a grateful President salutes her for this major contribution to the University’s academic life. And while this program was developing, it became clear that there is a large cadre of students who are just on the edge of qualifying for the program but not quite at that level. For them we have fashioned the Scholars Program.

At the same time, given the very capable leadership of Professor Peter Meiksins, we have re-examined the program in General Education, making it clearer, less redundant, and considerably easier to navigate for the students and their advisors. As part of this re-examination, Provost M.J. Saunders and Vice Provost Gitanjali Kaul made the idea of “Learning Communities” a reality for our students. It is an opportunity for cohorts of students to connect with each other and with their professors as they study together around courses united in a common theme. It is a good method pedagogically to show our students the utility of multiple ways of inquiring into common questions. It also helps us to address the retention problem. We are, as with all we do academically, challenged to evaluate our work, and the issue of assessment of learning outcomes of General Education rests in the capable hands of Vice Provost Kaul. Assessment of General Education outcomes is a difficult assignment, but she is certainly up to the task.

As you may also know, our Provost reached into her reserves for the funds to develop an undergraduate research experience for students and their professors in the summer. It has gone on for the last two years, and the results are stunning. If you were able to see the poster presentations of the summer research projects, you would have been impressed by the work that was done by the students and by the skill of the professors who directed that work.

Now, we have added a common reading experience for entering students and for all the rest of us who come into contact with them. There has been no lack of attention to the undergraduate program at this university. In the College of Business Administration, thanks to a grant from the Key Corporation of $150,000 which was matched by the CSU Foundation, our students now have a sum of real money to invest as they hone their skills. I hope they are doing better than I am. From the Levin College of Urban Affairs which has turned its attention to its undergraduate program and the need to show students that there are real career opportunities with a degree from that College, across the campus to the Fenn College of Engineering, undergraduate education has taken the center stage that it should always have had. The appointment of Professor Rosemary Sutton as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies puts a fine point on our commitment to our students’ academic progress.

And the quality of the students who come to us continues to improve. This year is the first year when students must meet all three of our admission requirements. Last year, entering students had to meet two of the three standards. I was told with great certainty by some that our numbers would decrease as would our diversity. Well, last year we had a bigger class than the previous year and it was more diverse. This year, we held onto those gains; our enrollment is up as far as headcount is concerned and our number of credit hours is up as well. We showed substantial improvement in the number of students who transferred to us and in our graduate enrollments as well. This year, the freshman class brought a class average GPA from high school of 3.09. The number of freshmen was down slightly from a year ago, but we did turn away 350 applicants who failed to meet our standards; we directed them to the region’s community colleges, saying that we would welcome them after they had successfully completed whatever developmental work they needed and showed that they could complete collegiate work as well. We are a better university because we have had the courage to say to our students that this is a University and it requires serious preparation if you are going to thrive in it. And we are a better university because Vice President Mike Droney took on the functions of enrollment development and management. He is a superior leader and planner. Let’s never forget that he is the one who rescued the university in the PeopleSoft “situation.” Whatever challenge has faced us, he has always stepped up.

In addition to all of the above, by act of the General Assembly, Cleveland State University is now officially a part of the consortium of Universities affiliated with NEOUCOM – the free standing medical school in Rootstown, Ohio. Unlike the other members of the consortium, our plan is to admit some students who are “career changers.” These are students who are already in the workforce but who are considering a career change. An engineer, for example, may decide that he or she would prefer a career in medicine. (Incidentally, there may be some MD’s who would like to consider a career change into engineering. They would be more than welcome here as well.) But whatever the case, our emphasis will be on finding students who wish to pursue careers in primary care medicine and who especially are dedicated to serving the underserved in this city. That is called “engaged learning”. I am pleased to report as well that when we approached The Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve University about our need for clinical training sites, each of those organizations welcomed us and agreed to help provide those sites. CEO Cosgrove, CEO Zenty and President Snyder were more than gracious in their welcome of Cleveland State to regional medical education efforts.

We are doing any number of things very well. Our professors are dedicated to their students and to their disciplines; they earn marks of distinction all of the time. Some, like Professor Duffy in Civil Engineering, are named fellows of learned or professional societies. Others like Professor Angelin Chang of the Department of Music are invited to perform in prestigious venues. She will, for example, appear in New Delhi to receive the Outstanding Young Person of the World Award given by the Junior Chamber International. Then she will travel as an honored guest to Tsinghua University in Beijing, to open and perform on the occasion of the From Lausanne to Beijing Exhibition of the Academy of Arts and Design. Then she goes to Shanghai to perform at the Shanghai Grand Theatre as piano soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic. Other professors have been selected for named chairs endowed by generous donors to the University. Another of our professors, Michael Kalafatis, may just have a cancer cure within reach, and another one, Taysir Nayfeh, may have found a way to recover much of the electricity that is lost in transmission. I have a list of awards made through the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research just since last April that includes Professors Bette Bonder, Ned Hill, James Salzman, Maria Angelova, Charles Phelps, Ziona Austrian, Barbara Margolius, Joanne Goodell, Yan Xu, Jeff Dean, Cheryl Delgado, Mark Tebeau, Majid Rashidi, Surendra Tewari, Dan Simon, Siu-Tung Yau, Collette Hart, Valentin Boerner, Wenbing Zhao, Roman Kondratov, and Barsanjit Mazumder. These awards and training grants are important signals of our efforts. And in the many disciplines where such research grants are not readily available, the level of creativity and scholarship is no less impressive. Every time I walk across this campus I meet another professor who is involved in exciting research, some of which can have culture changing consequences, some of which illuminates the past, some of which lets me learn through the exploration of feelings that the arts make possible. Wasn’t it about seven years ago that someone in the local media said something about this place “wallowing in mediocrity?” I think its time to invite him over for lunch and a second look, don’t you? It is time for this entire region – in fact the State of Ohio – to become better acquainted with this gem in downtown Cleveland. It’s time for our fellow citizens to “engage with our learning.”

Now, of course, there is the danger of becoming just a little too self-congratulatory. It is one of the warning signs that the President has stayed too long. But I am terribly proud of what the faculty, staff and students have achieved here, and all of you should be as well. We transform the people who, in turn, transform the economic, civic and cultural life of the region. It is true that, as Vice President Anagnostos is fond of saying, the state of Cleveland depends on Cleveland State. No matter where you go, no matter what you do in this region, you are bound to find some connection to us. It has taken a while to see it, but we are at the core of the region’s life.

The physical face of the University has changed, for the better I think, and there is much more to come. The hole in the ground on Euclid Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets looks better than the building that was once there. Soon, a magnificent Student Center will rise up. When I first arrived here, I promised two students, Ruth Ramos and Erin Wells, that the day would come when they would have a proper student union building and a proper student recreation center. I promised that we would treat our students as they deserve to be treated. That promise is nearly fulfilled.

The new building for the College of Education and Human Services will serve as the campus gateway on the east side. Dean McLoughlin labored long and hard for that building, and, as I said at the ground breaking, “The diaspora is over.” That College is critical to the region’s health. The time is coming when someone will crack the code with regard to teaching and learning for children who are euphemistically called, “at risk.” The critical need for teaching of and research into the mysteries of the teaching of mathematics and science to children and adolescents must produce more students who will become scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Old and outdated understandings of Colleges of Education have to be dismissed. There are critical challenges ahead for those who labor to understand teaching and learning in a knowledge based society. Illiteracy is a blight on the entire society, and has to be eliminated. Not a small challenge to be sure, but serious work requires a serious and respectful environment.

The new face of the Cleveland Marshall College of Law opens that great profession up to the public and welcomes them to come in and grapple with an understanding of justice. Dean Mearns has demystified the College for all of us, and Mrs. Iris Wolstein and her late husband, Bert, made most of that possible with their great gift to us. The law faculty followed their own plan to improve the performance of their students on the bar examination with stunning success. More than ever before, The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is a crucial element in the functioning of this dynamic enterprise called Cleveland State University.

A new parking facility is going up on the old Z lot, and one day, parking will be less a problem than it is now. The plans call for more growth and campus change, and I look forward to watching the progress. But there is one person largely responsible for all that you see going on around you. He is Jack Boyle, Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance. He has been the single driving force behind all of this. Very kind people often credit me with this changing campus face. I figure that I’ll take the credit for it even though I didn’t do it because I know that I am going to be blamed for a lot of things I didn’t do, too. But Jack Boyle is the master mind, and all of us owe him our thanks in a very public way. And by the way, Jack earned a Master of Urban Planning, Design and Development at the Levin College. That is where he learned how to pull this off.

Now the question is how are we going to be able to continue to drive our university forward? There will be precious little new money from the State of Ohio in the near term; perhaps there will be less, and we will be urged to do everything we can to hold the line on tuition increases for our students. We don’t need much urging on that front, as we are all aware of the financial stress that the students are facing and have faced over the years. There are three answers to this problem. The first is that we must grow by attracting many more highly qualified undergraduate and graduate students. That shouldn’t be too great a problem as the University becomes more attractive physically and academically, and as we are able to provide more and more housing opportunities on our campus. But it will also require many more scholarship dollars than we currently have available. Second, aside from growth in student numbers, we will have to be absolutely certain that we use every dollar as efficiently as we possibly can. There never has been any room for waste or inefficiency, but now the times cry out for even smarter management, energy efficiency, and intelligent commitment to our future by every employee of the University. And third, we must undertake a major private fund raising effort.

Vice President Anagnostos has developed the effort which we are calling “The Campaign for Cleveland.” The University’s Trustees and the CSU Foundation Board of Directors have been parties to the discussions and planning. Our goal is to raise at least $100,000,000. The funds raised will support three primary goals. The first and most critical of these has to do with scholarship and fellowship support for our students, both undergraduate and graduate. No well-qualified student should ever be turned away from our university because of an inability to pay. There is not so much talent in this region that we can afford to waste some. These scholarship dollars must be seen as an absolute guarantee of our region’s future. Because of our clear emphasis on serving the community, Vice President Anagnostos and I have been talking to stake holders in the community to assess the needs of businesses, industries, governments, health care organizations, other non-profits including arts organizations, and educational institutions, to learn what their needs are. We are trying to learn what those perceived needs are so that we can bring the resources of our University to bear on those needs and problems. With many more scholarships dollars, we can draw more talent into the University with the aim of producing highly educated and well trained people who will address those problems directly. It is, in fact, a Campaign for Cleveland even more than it is a campaign for Cleveland State University. Vice President Ned Hill, who is widely acknowledged to be a leading light in the field of economic development, will tell you as he has told me that the single most important thing that this or any other university can do to foster economic growth and development is to produce a large cadre of people who have highly educated intelligence. We need many more people with baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degrees. That’s the business we are in. We need help to do it well; we need private philanthropic help, and we won’t be the least bit shy about asking for it.

At the same time, it is imperative that we continue to develop the excellence of our faculty. We will seek private support for named, endowed chairs. We have a few of these now. Professor Brudney in the Levin College occupies the Levin Chair, Professor Sawicki occupies the Bentley and Muszynska Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering. We have received an endowment for another chair in engineering for alternative energy. There are a few such chairs in the College of Law – Sheldon Gelman holds the Baker & Hostetler Chair; Susan Becker holds the Calfee Halter & Griswold Chair; and Kathleen Engle holds the Plevin Chair. The Rosalind Z. Wolf Chair in the College of Education and Human Services concentrating on urban teaching is held by Professor Ralph Mawdsley. These are very important, but there are too few of them. We need to be able to draw the best talent in all of the disciplines from all over the world, and that takes a great deal of money. We can’t expect the State of Ohio to provide it. We will have to seek that help from our fellow citizens who have the wherewithal and the foresight to help us to draw that talent to us.

A third element of our campaign for Cleveland has to do with physical facilities. We need a few things. If we are to make our own contribution to the civic and cultural life of this community, then we have to join with the other organizations that have made Cleveland famous for its devotion to the arts and culture. In terms of “quality of life” issues, there are few if any cities of our size that can compare. But to be quite frank about it, I am ashamed of the way the University houses its faculties and students in art and theater. We simply must replace our terribly outmoded facilities. We are a comprehensive university. The Chancellor has demanded that a high quality comprehensive education be available to all students on all campuses. A comprehensive education requires the study of the arts in one form or another. We can’t provide that in a slum. We also have to take our place in one of the most vital and vibrant arts communities in the United States. To push the facilities point further, it is absolutely miraculous that our professors and students have such successes as they have had given our laboratory spaces in the sciences. We need a science facility that could easily cost another $100,000,000, and that may have to be a campaign in and of itself. But let there be no mistake about it. If we are to put our resources into the health theme, emphasizing the health professions and biomedical research, and if we are to grow and develop the Center for Gene Regulation in Health and Disease, we will have to have a major capital commitment from the State of Ohio for related projects. We can and should do our part by finding some share of that funding. But the State needs to come to our aid as well.

Finally, let me make a few observations and suggestions for our future. I have, only half jokingly, said on a number of occasions that I have one of the best presidencies in all of higher education. I do not have a medical school or a football team with which to contend. Well, half of that is about to disappear with our joining of the NEOUCOM consortium. There may even be a physical presence of NEOUCOM in Cleveland in the years to come. There goes half the deal. Now, and I think that this will cause some of you to question my current mental state, I also happen to think that the time has come for us to examine very carefully the idea of having a football team. And to that end, I will appoint a blue ribbon commission to study the matter in the hope that their recommendation – one way or another – will come to my desk before the end of my term as President. Let me explain this briefly.

We have done a fine job of beginning the development of a more residential campus. Students need a real campus culture; they need some traditional campus life. They need multiple sources of pride in their university, and football in the fall is part of traditional campus life. It is possible to hold the costs down by playing non-scholarship football. It could also draw more students to us both for the team itself and perhaps also for a marching band. But there are many complex questions to be answered in all of this. Perhaps the commission will say that this is a bad idea; perhaps it won’t. But the time has come to look into the matter carefully. Enough of our students and enough of our alumni have asked about it that it is only fair to look into it. You know me well enough to know that I would never pursue this idea if it would draw funds away from our academic work. But if it were revenue neutral, it might be time to play football. And if it could add income to us, so much the better.

Finally, ever since I have arrived at this University, I have repeatedly heard from people who believe that we should change the name of our institution to The University of Cleveland. And I have always brushed the idea aside, having in my mind that we had a lot more to do than worry about a name change. But think about how far we have come in the last seven years. This university is hardly recognizable compared to the older one. It is amazingly different both academically and physically. Perhaps the time has come to tie a ribbon around the old Cleveland State University, set it aside with gratitude for all that it has done and all that it has provided, and to realize that the direction is different, it is new and it is more promising than ever. Our announced emphasis on the health theme and the celebration of our most successful partnership with the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic shows a vital connection to the region’s bioscience emphasis and its demand for skilled people in the health professions. Our joining of the NEOUCOM consortium points us in the same direction. The health theme cuts across every one of our colleges and defines us in a very new way without turning us into a vocational school or some sort of polytechnic institution. We are a new university; we are different from what existed here seven or more years ago. The Cleveland State brand served us well. But now it is clear that we are, as a university, striking out in new directions with new vigor and new purpose. This is a new university. Our commitment to our city and the Cleveland region is more than a little clear. We have engaged with those entities. Let our name reflect that. I will suggest a discussion of the name change with the Trustees in the very near future and I would appreciate hearing from each of you about the idea. Let me know what you think either by letter or by e-mail. I have already quietly consulted with a substantial number of people of real stature in the region, and with only two exceptions, I have found substantial support for the idea. At the same time, I really don’t want to make the mistake made at another institution recently. Help me with your thoughts. I’m going to commission some careful quantitative study of this idea and am asking our Assistant Vice President and Director of Marketing, Rob Spademan, to begin the study at the earliest possible moment.

Finally, this is the last time that I shall address you as the President of this fine university. The time has come for new energy, new understandings, new vision, and the pursuit of our new and continuing directions. I look forward to joining my colleagues of the faculty in driving the university forward under the leadership of my successor. You have been good friends as well as good colleagues. Your support has meant a great deal to me and to Joanne. We are most grateful to you, and our deepest affection for you will always be in our hearts. Your kindness and generosity of spirit have overwhelmed us, and while I shall miss the Presidency, having more time for Joanne, our children, and the grandpa business will keep my mind fully occupied, I’m sure. Again, let me say we are building one helluva fine university. We can make it a great one. Thank you for listening to me over the years.

Michael Schwartz
President