I. Introduction Good afternoon. Today I would like to talk to you about Notre Dame College and its "voyage of discovery." First, however, to my family and friends; to my colleagues, new and old; to the Sisters of Notre Dame who built and nurtured this institution for almost 80 years; to our board members who provide guidance and insight; to Notre Dame College students of all ages; to our faculty, who give so much of yourselves to the College and its students; to administrators and staff, whose dedication to Notre Dame College enable it to prosper with scant resources; to our alumni, who with their careers and lives as examples, carry the College's mission out into the world - to all of you, thank you for being here today as we formally begin our great and shared voyage of growing Notre Dame College!
II. Thank You's On such occasions it is customary to give thanks to those whose help, whose counsel, and whose support brought one to this moment. Permit me an excursion into the deeply personal. I would like to thank my mother, Agnes Roth, who is here today, for everything she has done for me. If I had to enumerate all of them, I couldn't, but three come immediately to mind. First, she and my father instilled in me a work ethic that is - well - almost Teutonic. Second, she read to me when I was young and took me to the library and instilled in me a love of books that is central to who I am. As Thomas Jefferson said, "I cannot live without books." She was unwaveringly determined that her children would have a college education. Lastly, as a proto-feminist, a working woman in the 1930s and '40s, an admirer of Eleanor Roosevelt, a partner with my father in running their business in the 1960s and '70s, she demanded that women be respected and be treated equally. Thank you, Mom - I love you. If there is a bittersweet aspect to today's events, it is that my father, Andrew P. Roth, Sr., isn't here. He was the living embodiment of the truth of the statement, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish that counts." When I think about it, it is incredible to me that he died 15 years ago. The journey, the trajectory his life took, tells me that the voyage Notre Dame College has embarked upon will succeed, but more about that later. The first 30 or so years of my father's life reads almost like a movie script of the immigrant experience in America at the turn of the last century. It's still odd, isn't it, to refer to the 20th century as "the last century"? Born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, my father's mother, my paternal grandmother, took her children back to Europe. My father, from the age of six, was raised in a small village in the valley formed by the nexus of the Transylvanian Alps and the Carpathian Mountains. Forced to flee Europe by the rise of Hitler's Nazis, literally riding over a mountain on horseback to get his American passport, which my grandfather who remained in New Castle never permitted to lapse, he returned to America as a young man of 21. To make a long story short, through depression and war, during which he flew bombing missions with the famous 8th Air Force, served as an interpreter in the forerunner of the CIA, the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, and for a long period after, he never relinquished his dream of owning his own business - a goal that would have fallen naturally to him had he been permitted to remain in Europe. Finally, in partnership with my mother, he attained his dream. He owned his company, which, although now owned by others, is to this day a thriving business in Canton, Ohio. The point of the anecdote and the source of my gratitude is that I know that my father wanted me to follow him in his business. But he had a son who loved to read and who for some unknown reason wanted to be a college professor. As my father pursued his own dream, he permitted me to pursue mine. In addition, he and my mother paid for the education that made it possible! So, Dad, Mom, thank you! I am and will be forever in your debt! Thank you to my sister Kristine for being here today. She's a tax attorney in Washington, DC. Everyone who knows our family well knows that she is the one with brains! And thank you to my children my daughter Samantha, who is more like me than either of us are sometimes comfortable with, and her husband Gerry; my son Paul, who is embarking on a life of scholarship of his own in environmental sustainability and who just last night showed me his first accepted refereed article, and his wife Kate, who is about to make me a grandfather; and my son David, an archeologist who actually has a job as an archeologist and who made my first weeks at Notre Dame more of an adventure than either he or I might have wished. David had a stroke this summer, but through the miracles of modern medicine and the world-wide prayers of the Sisters of Notre Dame he is fully recovered. Equally precious to me, and most importantly, is my wife Judy. When I, living my life backwards, at a relatively late date decided to earn a fourth college degree, a doctorate in higher education finance, Judy encouraged and supported me! When I said I wanted to move back to Cleveland, she never flinched, but said, "Let's do it!" I love you! I love all of you! I would also like to thank my colleagues at Mercyhurst College for all they taught me in our almost too numerous to count years together. Every day I realize how much I learned from you and how good you are at what you do! And I would like to thank Dr. William P. Garvey, President of Mercyhurst College, for all the opportunities he gave me, the wisdom (particularly the spirit of "whatever it takes") and the shrewdness of the insights he so willingly shared over almost three decades of working with and for, for and with him! Thank you!
III. Sagas I'd like, today, to share with you some insights into Notre Dame College: where it came from, where it is today, where it is going, and why the going is important. It is a commonplace to ask: What do leaders do? The burgeoning literature on leadership suggests the answer is elusive. If there is a common theme, however, it is that the first George Bush might have had it right. What leaders do is the "vision thing." More precisely, I think, it's not so much "the vision thing" that leaders do as it is that a leader helps an institution discover its story, its saga, the narrative that makes sense of an institution's history and that gives focus and purpose to its actions. Burton Clark, in a work entitled The Distinctive College, suggested that the most important thing a President does is to help an institution discover its story, discover its reason to be, discover the answer to the question, "Why are we, why is it, here?" The leader then plots a course of action, a path to that reason's attainment. Most importantly, the leader then weaves all those threads into a story, a saga that transcends generations and gives voice to the institution's meaning and purpose.
IV. What is Notre Dame College's saga? What is Notre Dame College's story? Why is it here? This is the 200th Anniversary of the Voyage of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery, an undertaking many think was as challenging in its time as the Apollo moon missions were in our time. Although a touch august, if not presumptuous, somehow it seems an appropriate metaphor for Notre Dame College two years into its expanded mission to serve all students - women and men, young and old and the underserved generally. Like Notre Dame College, Lewis and Clark knew where they had come from. They understood their roots and their core values and, like Notre Dame College, they had a reasonable idea of where they were - at least as they began the voyage. They knew what they were good at and what they weren't so good at. Like Notre Dame College, they had only a vague idea of where they were going - to seek the Northwest Passage and an inland water route to the Western Ocean. As Notre Dame College has, Lewis and Clark encountered generous support along the way - the Mandan Indians, who housed them through their first winter, and the Nez Perce of the Columbia River Valley, who fed them during the second. Unlike Notre Dame College, blessedly, so far, Lewis and Clark also encountered "hostiles" who didn't wish them well, such as the Oglala Sioux of the Missouri Breaks and Spaniards who wanted the West for themselves. They also encountered others who thought they were just crazy and would soon perish in the woods from their own incompetence. Lewis and Clark also encountered profound shocks of the unexpected. None was more profound than Lewis's experience in the late summer of the second year, with autumn setting in, when he finally found the source of the Missouri River in what we now call the Bitterroot Mountains of southwestern Montana and northern Idaho. For months after they left the Mandan village, they had followed the Missouri River west in search of its source. They thought when they found its source they would have found the continental divide. At that point, they assumed, there would a short portage - the fabled "Northwest Passage" - to the other side and then they would find the source of a westerly flowing river and follow it down to the sea. When Lewis finally found the Missouri's source in a valley with the endless prairie behind him stretching east and a small hill before him, he thought over the gently rising slope to the west lay a fertile valley running down to the Western Ocean. As he began to climb the hill on a cloudless day he saw white in the distance and as he reached the summit he confronted the front range of the Rocky Mountains - as far as he could see south, north and west were range after range of snow capped mountains. He laconically wrote in his journal, "Mr. Jefferson - there is no inland water passage to the Western Ocean." Lewis had a more immediate problem, however. With autumn and then winter approaching he was in a life threatening quandary. He couldn't go back - it had taken months to reach this point and the Corps of Discovery could not outrace winter back to the Mandan village. He couldn't remain where he was, for they were running short of food and would starve if forced to winter in the valley. They had to find a path through the mountains; they had to find Indians who knew the trail and with whom they could trade for horses. As the Sisters of Notre Dame could have told them, Lewis and Clark encountered evidence of God's providential goodness. In a coincidence, which if one saw it in a movie one would not believe it as too contrived, too Hollywood, Lewis and Clark had traveling with them an Indian woman named Sacajawea. She had been kidnapped in an Indian raid by other Indians years before. Through a series of events, she had become married to a French fur-trapper whom Lewis and Clark hired as a guide. As the Corps of Discovery wandered into the mountains, they encountered a Shoshone hunting party, whose chief was Sacajawea's long lost brother! He showed the Corps the trail through the mountains and provided them with horses. Like Lewis and Clark, Notre Dame College is also on a voyage of discovery - a journey of becoming the new Notre Dame College. On its voyage, the College has met generous support, blessedly few hostiles, a few who thought (maybe still think) it crazy to embark on coeducation so late in its history, some unexpected shocks (and more will follow, I am sure) before we reach our journey's end, our Western Ocean. Hopefully, we'll encounter no shocks so traumatic as that of Lewis in the Bitterroots. We will both need and count on the Sisters of Notre Dame's prayers and God's providential goodness to provide us with serendipitous opportunities. Like Lewis and Clark, Notre Dame College knows where it came from, has a reasonable idea of where it is, a notion of where it would like to go and a strong sense of why the going is worth the voyage, why seeking our Western Ocean of becoming one of the finest, small, Catholic, residential, liberal arts Colleges in the Great Lakes region is worthy of our best talents.
V. Where did Notre Dame College come from? Where did its "Voyage of Discovery" begin? Notre Dame College's voyage of discovery began, its core values come from and remain those of the Sisters of Notre Dame. The Sisters of Notre Dame came to Cleveland from Cosfeld, Germany in the 19th century to establish a presence on Ansel Road and then for 80-plus years on this land in South Euclid provided educational excellence in the Catholic tradition as witnesses to: God's providential goodness, the truth that life is worth living and Fr. Bernard Overberg's philosophy of teaching rooted in the Catholic tradition. The Sisters of Notre Dame are a teaching order, but not simply a teaching order. They were founded to provide education to the poor and to those dislocated by the Industrial Revolution of 19th Century Europe. They carried this mission to America and it continues to this day at Notre Dame College, which has one of the highest percentages of minority enrollment among Ohio colleges. In fulfilling the mission of the Sisters of Notre Dame, Notre Dame College eloquently answers the great Hebrew sage Hillel's question: "If I am only for me, who am I?" Notre Dame College avows that we, it, the College is "one who serves," who serves the underserved and strives to change the world one student at a time. This promise must and will be preserved.
VI. Where is Notre Dame College now today on its voyage of discovery? It is surrounded by generous benefactors, a reservoir of community goodwill, and is poised to grow and prosper. That being said, however, Notre Dame College confronts some challenges, several of which are extremely serious:
Confronted by challenges, Notre Dame College also has many virtues:
In short, Notre Dame College is an institution in search of itself, in search of its story, in search of its saga, in search of its future!
VII. Where does Notre Dame College's voyage lead? What is its future? Like Lewis and Clark's and their patron Thomas Jefferson's vision of a continental United States when others thought them crazy, Notre Dame College's Western Ocean is to sustain the vision and values of the Sisters of Notre Dame by ensuring that in ten years (the Lord, the Board of Directors and the Sisters of Notre Dame willing) when I hand this over to my successor that Notre Dame College will be poised to become one of the finest, small, Catholic, residential, liberal arts colleges in the Great Lakes region. Is this "blue sky" silliness? No! This is a voyage worth taking, a destination both achievable and worth achieving! This can be done! We must exorcise what Notre Dame College alumna Diana Mashini calls the "Unholy Trinity" of fear, doubt and uncertainty. This can be done! It only requires that we have the imagination to envision it. What women and men can imagine, they can achieve, for, as Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Norman Cousins remarked, "The starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible."
VIII. How will it be done? How will Notre Dame College traverse its voyage? How will WE conduct our journey - our journey of becoming? How will Notre Dame College become a 21st century liberal arts college - one that not only prepares students to earn a living but also helps them learn how to live a life? How will it become a college anchored in its historic mission and roots but a college looking to the future? How will it remain a college that serves the underserved - both urban students seeking values and stability and small town students seeking the opportunity to grow? First, we will replace a culture of austerity with a culture of execution and achievement. No more there "aren't any resources" responses to challenges, but instead a spirit of meeting the challenge - the creative challenge of getting the job done with the resources at hand. Someone - actually he's in the audience today - once told me, "Anyone can do it with resources - if I had all the resources I needed then I wouldn't need you." The challenge, the fun, is to do it with what you have to create resources for the future. Secondly, we will do it by slow, steady, incremental growth. It'll take the entire college community. There is an African proverb that says, "A single head does not a council make." Someone else once said, "It takes a village to raise a child." Well, it takes an entire campus community to build a college. We must do this together! Thirdly, there are only four tools at our disposal - we must become masters of each.
Programmatic Creativity Curricular - I have asked and ask again for the faculty to dream, to be creative and to bring forth new proposals such as those already being explored in Nursing, Sports Management, the physical sciences and others. Co-Curricular - such as the recent innovations in student life that resulted in this year's 91% retention rate - a rate more typical of elite institutions. Extra-curricular - athletics is the most obvious - such as our recently announced plans to add (next year) men's and women's golf, women's lacrosse and men's baseball; but athletics is not the only option. Financial Creativity We must continue to increase the sophistication of our financial systems to ensure that a values-based Notre Dame education remains accessible to all.
Distributional Creativity The Spirit of WECO - Notre Dame College's pioneering experiment in Weekend College dating from the 1970s - must be reinvigorated and extended to other programs. Such as, for example, our recent taking of the Teaching Education Evening Licensure (TEEL) program to the Youngstown area. We must continue to grow our ability to deliver educational opportunities where and when students need them.
Recruitment and Promotional Creativity We must and are developing sophisticated, college-wide outreach systems - remember it takes a village - it takes an entire college community - to build a college. Not only can this be done, it is being done.
IX. Why? Why is this Voyage important? Why is Notre Dame College's "voyage of discovery," its journey of becoming, important? HOW we will do it is NOT as important as WHY we will do it, but do it we will! Why do it? The world needs its Notre Dame Colleges, colleges dedicated to providing a values-based education to not only the underserved, but to all students. Notre Dame College, as it pursues its "voyage of discovery," must guard, to paraphrase scripture, that while it gains the world, it does not lose its soul. It must remain Catholic, but with both a capital "C" and a lower-case "c". It must remain a college faithful to the Sisters of Notre Dame and to the Catholic Church, but also a college open and welcoming to all. Only about 17-19% of Catholic high school graduates attend Catholic colleges. Regrettably, Catholic high schools are becoming fewer and fewer. So, this is not only philosophically the right approach, it is also a practical necessity. How to maintain a values-based education in an increasingly diverse world? Every day the college, by its actions, must recognize the truth of the great 19th century philosopher of science T.H. Huxley's remark - "The purpose of education is ultimately moral. It is to teach what ought to be done and to instill the courage and the self-discipline to do it when it needs to be done whether one wants to or not." A very British, a very Victorian sentiment and still, today, a very true sentiment. Once again - "The purpose of education is ultimately moral. It is to teach what ought to be done and to instill the courage and the self-discipline to do it when it needs to be done whether one wants to or not." Note that Huxley, speaking to a much more homogeneous culture than 21st century America, never defined "it". He just assumed his audience knew what "it" was. One of the great values of a private college is that we can define "it". We can witness to "it" through our mission and how, every day, we carry out our mission. How does a college witness to such a mission in an ecumenical way (only about 55% of Notre Dame College's students are Catholic) while remaining true to its Catholic roots? It does it by recognizing that what makes it Catholic is not only adherence to Church dogma, but by living the truth that salvation comes from both faith and works. And works means every day witnessing to Huxley's dictum 'to do what needs to be done' in order to answer Hillel's "If I am only for me, who am I?" by serving all students, by providing an education for ALL that begins in faith and ends in service, by being true to the Sisters of Notre Dame's historic mission to bring a values-based education to all. This is a purpose, a vision, a mission that makes all, not to be too melodramatic, the blood, sweat and toil required to complete the voyage, required to discover, required to build a college worth the effort. To paraphrase Martha Stewart: "To build a college is a good thing!" No - it's a great thing! And it's a deeply, deeply American thing! It will not be easy! It will not be quick! It will be occasionally maddening and infuriatingly frustrating. In the end, however, it will be immensely rewarding! As I told the college community at the general meeting opening the school year, as I told the President's Club in September, as I remarked at Homecoming: "If you are afraid to dream great dreams then you are doomed to live small lives!" If my father could begin in the Transylvanian Alps and I end up here with you today, if Lewis and Clark could set out from St. Louis with only a vague sense that they were going to the Western Ocean and arrive at the Pacific Coast so that William Clark could carve on a tree "W. Clark, May, 1804, From the United States, By Land", then at Notre Dame College we will dream great dreams and live large lives so that in 10 years the next generation of leaders will find a college "poised to assume its place as one the finest, small, Catholic, residential, liberal arts colleges in the Great Lakes region." Like Lewis and Clark, we can reach our Western Ocean, but first we must have the courage to begin. We must have the courage to embark on a Voyage of Discovery - a great journey of becoming! Please join me… Thank you…
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