To the Dickinson Community:
Happy fall! This is my favorite season, as the campus comes to life with the rhythm of faculty, staff and students beginning a new academic year. I’m sure all of you remember the excitement in the air well, and many of you likely still may experience it through your children, who may be at Dickinson or on another college campus.
In recent months, many people have asked me about my vision for Dickinson. Where are we going? What is my plan? Being new to Dickinson, I wanted to be patient, learn about the college and develop a strategy consistent with the culture of Dickinson before answering. Now that I have had time to do that, I want to outline my objectives for the year ahead for members of our community, both on campus and in the wider world.
The student experience
My biggest priority as president of Dickinson is the quality of our students’ experience, in and out of the classroom. This priority goes hand in hand with our core values, wrapped within a residential liberal-arts experience: academic excellence, a global mindset, sustainability, interdisciplinary study and active and engaged citizenship. The student experience can only be enhanced if we strengthen the connections among our students, staff, faculty, alumni and parents. I want each of us to feel tremendous pride as a member of this great and diverse community, and I want us to share that pride with everyone we meet.
Dickinson’s useful liberal-arts approach is more valuable than ever. Ours is an intensely social enterprise—it is the small, residential component of our model that makes what we offer so rare and so valuable. By building a stronger sense of community on campus and beyond, we will strengthen Dickinson’s position as a leader in higher education and increase our ability to thrive in a changing landscape.
Part of building a community is ensuring that members of that community feel supported. Student retention remains an important focus for us. Each year, 10 percent of our first-year students decide that Dickinson is not right for them. While the national average of students who leave college is three times that, we must do better. Beginning this year, all first-year students will have peer and adult mentors—including alumni—working with them for their entire first year, not just for the first several weeks. In addition, first-year students have been assigned to groups that align with their interests—bringing together new students from a variety of residence halls and majors to form additional shared experiences. We know that if we can help our students feel comfortable in this new environment, they will gain confidence, a sense of belonging and a network of friends and mentors who will support them through graduation and beyond. And we will ensure that this support continues throughout their journey here.
The evolution of campus and its culture
To fully benefit from the social experience we offer, we need well-designed spaces that encourage interaction. That’s why I am so excited about the Kline Center expansion, which greatly enhances our fitness space while also providing inviting spaces for informal gatherings. I invite any of you who live in the Central Pennsylvania area to join me in celebrating the completion of this project during a special open house from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5. The Kline expansion embodies our commitment to sustainability, wellness and the social experience—all key to our residential, liberal-arts experience.
Our ability to enrich our students’ experience in part depends on collaboration across administrative divisions, and we have been moving forward in this arena. In particular, the divisions of Student Life and Academic Affairs have been working together with a renewed sense of cooperation on our new system of student support and advising.
Faculty commitment and creativity remain essential for our students, of course. Academic Affairs remains dedicated to providing faculty with the time and tools they need for teaching, scholarship and service. Better support through the new advising system, additional funds for research and development and more effective faculty development regarding assessment of student learning are important dimensions of this effort.
Our on-campus efforts are only part of the story. As you know, the connection to Dickinson is not severed upon graduation. But to make that connection even stronger, we want to encourage our alumni to engage with us as active participants in the Dickinson experience, and initiatives such as One College One Community will strengthen those avenues for engagement.
This year, we have successfully completed our current capital projects. This is in large part thanks to generous donations from more than 8,700 donors totaling $9.7 million last year. You will be able to read more about these donors and their impact in the Report of Gifts, which will be printed and mailed later this fall, but for now, I’d like to thank you for your commitment to this community.
Looking ahead
Now it is time to turn our attention to defining our next priorities. The all-campus committee on space utilization has met throughout the summer and will help us make good decisions about where we must next invest in the infrastructure of our campus. A new residence hall and renovations to the HUB and Allison Hall, the former Allison United Methodist Church, already have been the focus of much conversation, and I look forward to engaging the community about these priorities.
Because I want to give the Dickinson community regular updates on our progress, I will be holding a series of brown bag lunches throughout the semester. The first of those lunches will be held from 12 to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 19, in the Allison Hall Community Room. If you are in the area, I encourage you to attend.
Please understand how vital your role is in continuing to move Dickinson forward. By sharing your pride in Dickinson when talking with friends and families, and by simply staying engaged with your alma mater, each and every one of you can help support the transformative work of our college.
Thank you for your continuing commitment to a strong Dickinson. When we come together as a community, Dickinson is unstoppable.
Nancy A. Roseman
President and Professor of Biology