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Mary Reap, I.H.M., Marywood University
September 5, 2002
Good morning and welcome to the 88th official opening of Marywood University.
I particularly want to welcome all the new members of our community, including
the new members of our staff and faculty. We especially welcome the new
undergraduate and graduate students. There are some 1,260 students who
have joined us since last year, almost evenly divided between undergraduate
and graduate. Their addition brings our overall enrollment to more than
3,000, and I thank all those who helped make it possible.
We begin the year not only with new people, but with a new building as
well. The Keith J. O’Neill Center for Healthy Families is ready
and open. It houses our Nutrition and Dietetics programs; the Human Performance
Laboratory with its new director, Ken Rundell; Marywood’s Research
Institute; Health Services; and the Northeast Pennsylvania Women’s
Health Alliance. The official dedication will be on October 18th, but
please take a tour anytime, and enjoy our latest addition.
We also begin the year with a new off-campus site in Danville. Continuing
Education began offering courses there this summer, and GSAS program in
Health Administration, and The School of Social Work are offering courses
there this semester. Our new program in Biotechnology also started this
Fall with a larger class than anticipated, so I congratulate all those
who have participated in these new initiatives and who have added to our
enrollment numbers.
We begin this year with many positive indicators, with much to celebrate,
and with a sense of excitement of what is to come. Yet, we must acknowledge
that we also begin this year with the realization that we are a different
community than we were a year ago, and that the events of the last year
seem to be ever present in our minds and in our hearts.
At least three events of the last year have caused us as a nation to raise
doubts and questions about our life as Americans and about the beliefs
we hold about the structures that traditionally have served as the foundations
for our way of life. September 11 destroyed not only the lives of 3,000
Americans, it shattered forever our belief that we were beloved by the
rest of the world, and it raised deep questions about the value of human
life, values that we had believed to be universal. At this time, our community
is commemorating last September 11 and reflecting on all that it has meant
to us and to our nation. I encourage you to participate in the events
on campus each day, and particularly on September 11th to attend the special
morning liturgy and the evening memorial concert.
Other major events of the past year have also changed our lives. The recent
revelations of greed and corruption at the highest levels of corporate
America have shaken our belief in the integrity of those in whom we entrusted
our financial futures, and the scandals of some in the Church have been
violations of the most sacred trust of all… the trust of our spiritual
lives.
Even as we gather here this morning, the threat of war with Iraq hangs
in the air like a dark cloud waiting to burst open with more suffering
and loss for so many people.
Events such as these serve as painful reminders to all of us in this
community that what we do here is serious work. They remind us that the
world is hungering for the very ideals and way of life we try to teach
here. The tragedies of our times are caused by the absence of moral and
ethical principles that are the foundation of any civilized society. More
than ever, we need leaders who will act courageously by these principles
in their personal lives and in their work place. Our mission of meeting
human needs and of making a difference for our world are perhaps more
vital today than ever before.
Despite the pain of these events, there is much goodness in the world
and much to hope for the future. We must never lose sight of the fact
that many times new hope is born in great suffering. These recent events
can serve to renew our energy as a university community to be even more
faithful to the principles of Catholic higher education and to our identity
as a Catholic university, and to be more determined than ever to make
them central in our teaching and in our daily interactions with each other.
These principles form the basis of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the Church document
on higher education, and they under gird the values of this university.
The national and international tragedies of the last year should renew
our energies to examine the extent to which our work here, both as students
and as educators, reflects and communicates these principles. Faculty,
in particular, carry the responsibility of sustaining and revivifying
Catholic identity through a mission-focused curriculum and through an
educational approach based on these principles.
The agenda for this year will provide opportunities to reexamine how
mission-focused we are. It is timely, perhaps, that one of the major tasks
this semester is for us to review and to restate our Mission, goals, and
objectives. We actually began this work last semester when I established
a Task Force to review our current Mission statement and to gather suggestions
from focus groups of students, faculty and staff. That work has been completed
and a draft document has been prepared for the next phase of the process.
As a community, we will determine whether the proposed Mission document
expresses clearly the essence of what it is we hope to do at this University.
Additionally, the University goals will be examined to determine whether
they reflect the new Mission Statement, and finally, a new set of objectives,
stated as student outcomes, will be generated.
The Mission statement should be a public statement of what we are about.
It is, therefore, important that it is clear, that we all accept our responsibility
to use it to guide our work and decisions, and that it is evident to all
who come here that it is a living document. I hope, then, that you will
participate in the process of review this year.
Our Strategic Plan is closely linked to the Mission Statement. It both
flows from, and informs, the Mission. Last year we selected four goals
as our priority areas for the next four years: Our first goal is to increase
our effort to create a more culturally diverse and global educational
experience to prepare students for the 21st century. Secondly, we have
agreed to develop the identity and niche of each college as a comparative
advantage for the college and its programs. This goal is particularly
important for the academic area. This afternoon, the faculty will meet
to continue the work of reorganization into four new colleges for the
next academic year.
As part of the restructuring, we have put forth a third goal: to increase
the emphasis on faculty and student research and community collaboration,
in order to deepen our identity as a university with four colleges. And
finally, in order to better live the principles of our Catholic identity,
we have a goal to increase the spirit of community among ourselves. Following
the liturgy this morning, we will enjoy a picnic and some social events
planned by John Coval and others, which will contribute to the building
of community. I encourage all of you to join us.
As we look to the future on this September morning in 2002, it is important
to remember that there have been many Septembers since the founding of
Marywood University. One of the most important ones for us to recall is
September 8, 1902. On that day, one hundred years ago, the Congregation
of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, walked to this
site and blessed for the first time the very arch we walked through on
our way to this convocation. Those pioneer women had a vision of a great
Catholic university. As we experience these days of remembrance, and particularly
as we ask God’s blessing on this year, we should remember them and
all who have carried on their vision over these 88 years. It is now our
turn, so let us also pray for ourselves that we, too, will be faithful
to their vision and to the mission entrusted to us.
With hearts filled with gratitude, with anticipation, and with great
joy, let us stand and join Father Jim in the 88th opening liturgy of this
university.
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