RS Beam’s Address to the Faculty at the Fall 2008 General Faculty Meeting, August 13,
2008
Western begins with “We”
As I start my second term as your Chair of the Faculty, I wish to thank you for the
confidence you have expressed in me and I want to assure you that I intend to continue
to try to represent your interests to the best of my abilities. I don’t wish to keep you
long, this morning, but I would like to discuss briefly with you something which has been
on my mind quite a lot over the past two years, and which, I expect, will remain on my
mind as I serve out my final term as your Faculty Chair. This, I hope, will be of some
interest to those of you who are new to Western, but may be more important to those of
you who are continuing.
When I first came to Western in the fall of 1971, I confess that I wondered what I
had gotten myself into. I had been working for what was at that time the longest
continuously-producing children’s theatre in the country in suburban Chicago and, when
that theatre lost its funding in April of ‘71, I was, suddenly, in need of a job. I did a quick
job search and ended up interviewing for a position here at Western. I remember that
my wife and I flew into the Knoxville airport for that interview, and we were driven to
Cullowhee, through “the gorge,” on the then newly completed Interstate 40.
What we found here, where I accepted the position I was offered, was “a pretty
good little school” in a beautiful location in the Smokies. Then, the “culture shock” set
in. I confess that, at that time, it did at least seem to be, as we often said in those days,
that Western was “the most rural university in the country.” This place wasn’t much like
the suburban Chicago environment we had left. After all, I can remember when a trip to
Waynesville (necessary to get to a “real” supermarket) could easily take at least an hour
behind a massively piled log truck on a twisting, two-lane mountain road, and getting to
Atlanta was a major undertaking. Believe me, the opening of the four-lane to
Waynesville was a major event.
Well, we are still in a beautiful, if somewhat rural, location, but much has
changed. We aren’t as “little” as we were then and, thanks to new roads, the Internet
and other developments, we aren’t as “rural” as we were then. And there have been
many other changes, as well, more space, more buildings, more students, more faculty,
less parking (or so it seems) and on, and on. So, much has changed, but the changes
in campus size, the number of buildings, construction (planned and underway),
landscaping, etc., while obvious, only describe some of the physical changes to our
campus and our community.
What hasn’t changed a lot, I’m afraid, though, is the attitude that we are still just a
“pretty good little school” in the mountains. Maybe you have to have been here as long
as I have to appreciate it, but Western has changed a lot in the past 37 years, and we
continue to change, I think in a positive direction. We haven’t lost too much of the
personal touch we had then, but there isn’t as much awareness as I think there should
be of what Western has become.
Western, as an institution, isn’t just bigger than it was all those years ago; it is
fundamentally different. I think it’s better. Unfortunately, our attitude, our institutional
culture, remains, all too often, somewhat based on the idea that we are still just a “pretty
good little school.” I think that its time to consider a bit of a change in that attitude.
A couple of years ago, in his State of the University address, Chancellor Bardo
used the phrase, “We are Western, We can do better,” several times. When I dredged
that line up at some point last winter in a conversation with my wife, Bonnie, who works
for the Honors College, she came back with the idea that “Western begins with ‘We’.”
That phrase stuck in my head and has been rattling around there since that time.
By the way, she says she doesn’t remember coming up with this phrase, but she did. I
know I didn’t make it up, but it did stick with me. I believe what stuck it was that I think
that we have a great deal to be proud of at Western, but we, all too often, have the
attitude that “If Western can do it, it can’t be all that new, exciting, different, or
important.” You know, something has kept me here all these years, and I don’t think it’s
just inertia. I have always felt that there was something special about this place in the
“valley of the lilies.” I think that I have a reasonably healthy ego, so what is it that has
kept me here, in spite of opportunities to explore different challenges in other places?
I believe that a large part of it is that “We” that Western begins with; that is, you,
my colleagues, the people I have been working with all these years and the students
who have come here, who it has been my pleasure (most of the time) to know. So, I got
to thinking, “Who are ‘We’?” That suggested the need for a little research, and, with the
help of the catalog, some web browsing and some folks on campus, I have discovered a
number of interesting things about us which I’d like to share with you this morning. So,
this is just a bit of what I have discovered about us, based on the best data I could find
or could get from a number of folks around the campus. I’m sure that it’s incomplete,
but it’s what I could find.
We, as a faculty, number a bit over 700, with over 500 of us being full-time. A
few of us have been here a long time, but over 40% of us have been hired in the last
four years and that percentage goes up even more dramatically if you go back just a
few years more. The best data I could find says that we hold degrees from schools
from almost every state in the United States and from thirteen foreign nations, including
Canada, India, England, Korea, Macedonia, Lebanon, China, Russia, Australia, Italy,
France, Japan and Bolivia. We belong to at least 55 different professional organizations
and, in addition to being accredited, as an institution, by the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools, 34 of our Colleges, Schools, Departments and Programs are
accredited, or are candidates for accreditation, by 28 different accreditation
associations. Many of our colleagues or programs have received national or
international recognitions in the form of awards, election to major office in professional
organizations, recognition as national models, judges for international competitions,
competitive national rankings, and so forth. In just the last year, we received over five
and a half million dollars in faculty research grants.
92 of us supported well over 300 undergraduate research projects just in the last
year, with 27 of that number participating in more than one capacity. We generated
over 210,000 student credit hours (not counting summer school) and over 47,000 hours
of curricular or co-curricular “service learning” hours and, along the way, graduated
about 1900 students in the last year, including our most recent graduates of a couple of
weeks ago.
Last year, at least 350 undergraduate students participated in undergraduate
research projects, and we continued to have more of these student projects (47 last
year) accepted for the National Undergraduate Research Conference. That’s more than
any other UNC system campus, putting us, for the third straight year, in the top ten of
the 306 participating institutions.
We aren’t just teachers and scholars, though. More than 30 of our alumni have
been members of major professional sports teams and, in addition to the many
discipline specific awards, offices held, etc., which I alluded to before, and the many
campus or system awards that our faculty colleagues have won, we number among us,
nominees or winners of such widely known awards such as the Pulitzer, the Edgar, the
Emmy, and the Tony. In fact, we have multiple winners or nominees for several of
these.
I could go on, but that’s probably enough to give you some idea of what I have
found out. When you combine a record like that with the fact that we, as a faculty, are
leading much of the nation in adopting the Boyer Model in our evaluation, tenure and
reward process, are leading much of the nation in implementing a Quality Enhancement
Plan which demonstrates a long-term commitment to engaged education and are
leading much of the nation in making AASCU’s “Stewards of Place” model a central
feature of our planning and development, it should make us all stop and think. My
students will tell you that I’m not much on superlatives, but I think that’s doing pretty well
for a “pretty good little school in the Smokies.”
Maybe it’s time for us to reassess ourselves. Maybe we should pay a bit more
attention to what others are saying about us. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for us to
recognize that we are a bit more than just a “pretty good little school in the Smokies.”
I’m told that UNC President Bowles thinks Western is “pretty special.” I’m told
that the Governor’s office thinks we are something a bit “special.” I’m also told that they
aren’t alone in that. After all, a number of folks have commented that the recent, and
on-going, UNC-Tomorrow study seems to have been written to a considerable extent
with Western’s ideas in mind. Based on our recent accreditation report and the SACS
team’s response to our QEP, SACS seems to think Western is at least a bit “special.”
Based on what I have been told, the American Association of State Colleges and
Universities seems to think that Western is a bit “special.” Could it be that maybe we
ARE?
Maybe, as the Stamats branding people whom Western has been working with
have suggested, we should be a little less modest and start using the phrase “The Pride
of the Mountains” to refer to more than just our award winning marching band. Maybe,
it’s US! Maybe we should all take a little more pride in ourselves, and in Western.
Maybe we should wear the purple and gold occasionally. Maybe we should recognize
that we ARE something a bit special. After all, Western begins with WE, the faculty.
WE are Western. WE are DOING better! We have reason to be proud of ourselves and
of our university. We have come a long way just since the 70s, but I think we’re only
getting started. Personally, I can’t wait to see what we’re going to come up with next.
Thank you. Have a great year and come to the caucus.