We need to bring all of our outstanding campus initiatives together as a coherent whole. We have talked about carving out a niche and striving for excellence for the past two decades and have made significant inroads during that time period. We are in the midst of innovative General Education reform that is helping us to redefine our undergraduate experience, and we have begun serious discussion of redefining the junior and senior year experiences of our students. That said, the Fisher report is correct about our need to define who we are and what we are striving for in order to enhance the reputation and quality of this institution. As I said when I interviewed last spring for the position of Provost, and throughout my fall semester campus presentations, this will require administration working with faculty, students, and staff to define what we need to do to make Illinois State a recognized institution of excellence.
Students are the key to our agenda for excellence.
Although the Fisher report does not focus significantly enough on students, in my opinion, we need as an academic community to identify the profile of students we are going to recruit and define the type of students we are graduating. Students need committed faculty mentors and Illinois State is recognized for its strong outstanding faculty. While the Fisher report focuses on the graying of our faculty, in ways that as President Strand has pointed out are not appropriate, the real challenges identified in the report are how to improve faculty compensation and rewards so as to improve recruitment, morale, and retention. This, rather than the graying of the faculty, is the key issue facing Illinois State. The Fisher report is correct in noting that we need to clarify how we evaluate and develop our curricular and research programs.