Morehead: Service, leadership critical
Continuing the university’s academic quality and enduring state budget cuts were two of the themes included in the remarks at the faculty convocation, held Aug. 25 in Wright Auditorium.
Andrew Morehead, chair of Faculty Senate, welcomed all, especially new faculty members, to the annual event marking the beginning of the new academic year. He noted the Faculty Senate will observe 50 years on campus with activities throughout the year.
“Today we are celebrating all the things we value as academics: teaching, research and creative activity and service,” said Morehead, who teaches in the Department of Chemistry.
“We live in an era when it’s increasingly common to question the value of much of what we do,” Morehead said. He heard someone in a news report question the benefit of another paper on William Shakespeare.
It would be easy to be angry or dismissive when often the public sees faculty as “underworked and overpaid,” Morehead said, but he encouraged his fellow faculty members to educate their students and the public about their work.
“Share with the students in your class your passion for the subject, make clear how your research and creative activity informs your teaching, that it is part of how ECU transforms the region, how it is a part of the whole of what we do.”
Both Morehead and Chancellor Steve Ballard addressed the economic issues facing the campus – again.
Morehead said, “Here at East Carolina University, as we face unprecedented challenges brought on by falling state support and declines in enrollment for some traditionally strong programs, university service and leadership by the faculty become ever more critical.”
In his remarks to the faculty, Ballard also spoke about the budget, noting that the university is in its eighth year of continuous cutbacks. “We’ve lost over $100 million in state appropriations” with analysts predicting further difficulties in the next budget cycle for 2015-16.
ECU’s expenditures will be reduced about $9 million for the current fiscal year, Ballard said. As a way of addressing the fiscal crisis, the university is implementing the 61 recommendations by the University Committee on Fiscal Sustainability.
Why? “The reason is we simply do not have the resources to maintain all of the organizational structures that we might prefer. We will do all we can to realize our mission, to protect student success, to build academic quality and to respond to numerous mandates such as efficiency requirements and performance metrics. Virtually everything else is subject to review, if not change.”
Ballard noted that every revenue source, whether recurring or non-recurring, is being examined. For example, the university focused on attracting more transfer students to campus. This fall, ECU will see an increase of 275 more transfer students than last year, resulting in about $5 million in new revenues.
He also spoke of the university’s new strategic plan – tentatively titled “Beyond Tomorrow: Our Commitment To The Future ” – that is being finalized. Included in that plan are three commitments: maximizing student success, serving the public and leading regional transformation.
Even through “some of the worst budgetary circumstances” he’s seen, Ballard said he has been impressed by the accomplishments on campus.
He gave examples of the “world-class work being done” at the university: the ECU Chamber Singers, the only choir from the Americas, earning second place in an international choral contest in Spain and faculty members receiving National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation awards.
As he closed his remarks, Ballard thanked the faculty for their work in “creating an excellent university” and being “a vital resource for Eastern North Carolina.”
“Together we will deliver on our commitments of student success, public service and regional transformation,” he said.
Also, recognized were Abbie Brown, recipient of the 2014 UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, and Margaret Bauer, recipient of the 2014 ECU lifetime achievement award for excellence in research and creative activity. Read more about their awards here:https://news.ecu.edu/2014/03/28/top-honors/ and here:https://news.ecu.edu/2014/02/26/notable-achievements-5/