Fast forward 15 years
By Holly G. Miller
A “brick and click” environment (classrooms equipped with technology) may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean the “sage on stage” (professors delivering traditional lectures) is obsolete. “Predictive modeling” may be one way of recruiting a well-balanced campus population, but serious students from any “cell” will always be welcomed into the mix. These are the assurances of President Jim Edwards, chief architect of the plan that will guide Anderson University from this year’s 85th anniversary toward its centennial celebration in 2017.
Jargon — new labels for new concepts — peppers any discussion about the future of higher education. The hard part, according to Edwards, is picking through the possibilities and discerning the innovations that deserve a place in the long-range plans of “institutions like ours with neither deep pockets nor large endowments.” As the marketplace steps up its expectations, many schools are tempted to accelerate their efforts to deliver the goods. “It’s like the treadmill in the old I Love Lucy candy-factory episode,” says Edwards. “The pace becomes quicker and quicker.”
However careful his decision-making process is, Edwards sees AU, at age 100, as a campus marked by significant changes.
Shifting demographics
As the size of AU’s student body inches toward Edwards’ projected 3,000, continued growth in the adult-learner population is likely. This shift will affect academics — professional programs such as the MBA typically attract adults — and AU’s commitment to resident life. Nontraditional students won’t live in campus housing, and since “we’ve made major investments in updating facilities that will be here for the next 50 years, we’ll find new ways to use them.”The student body of the future also will exhibit the independent spirit that Edwards has seen emerge in the current generation. “They want to participate; they’re interested in experiential faith and experiential learning. They care more about spirituality than religion. They’re not necessarily concerned with sustaining a denomination, a headquarters or those other things that defined us in our early days. They’re going to continue to press us and test us.”
Expanded use of resources
The AU of the future will be open for business more than 150 days a year. “I’m not sure how long we can continue to invest in a plant that basically is a half-time facility,” says Edwards, referring to the eight-month, Monday-through-Friday academic calendar. He also sees benefits in collaborating with other universities to expand learning opportunities for students and avoid dropping classes with traditionally small enrollments. Among the schools that top his list of potential partners: “The Church of God has four accredited institutions, so our chances to cooperate with our ‘cousins’ are good. They need our strengths and we need theirs.”Typical of this collaboration is an experimental course currently in the design phase that will involve students from several campuses, including AU and Warner Pacific, in a cross-discipline look at the Reformation. It will culminate with a cultural tour of Germany with an emphasis on theology, history and the arts.
More diversified leaders
Although AU has reaped great rewards from having familiar faces in key leadership positions, Edwards hopes for more diversity in gender, ethnicity and experience within the next generation of faculty and administrators. “We have to intentionally decide that the future is going to be different. I’m deeply grateful for the people who have given their lifetimes to AU, but I’m not sure we ought to see years of service as our hallmark. I’m a ‘long-termer’ — only the fourth president in 85 years — and that makes me feel pretty good. But it’s also an issue. We need a youth movement. In the future we’ll need new perspectives from people who have been someplace else.”Accurate marketing
While some educators eschew the need to market universities, Edwards argues that projecting an honest image is part of a school’s obligation to the public. Communicating the distinctive qualities of a campus to prospective students is likely to take on additional importance as the range of choices grows. “We’ll have to find new ways to talk about ourselves so students who come here will say, ‘Yes, AU delivered what it promised.’”An accurate depiction should convey the idea that “this is a place where creative people have room to grow,” says Edwards. “We’re not a fundamentalist community. But we also need to stress that we don’t compromise when it comes to the values and standards that are basic to our culture.”
Commitment to excellence
Edwards refutes predictions that small private colleges won’t be able to compete with large public universities over the long term. His best argument: “They work,” he says simply. “They help young people make the transitions in life that are important.” He cautions, however, that AU’s continued success depends in part on its willingness to make some transitions of its own. “We have to come to grips with the fact that institutions ultimately are driven by customer demand. You find a need and you meet it. Our faculty may not feel comfortable with that kind of talk, but it’s a reality.”In such an environment, flexibility will play an increasingly important role. AU is up to the challenge, says Edwards. “I think we’re more agile than people have noticed. It’s one of our secrets. We’re like a cat; we know how to land on our feet as long as the drop isn’t too far. We know how to change programs and directions with amazing agility.”
One thing remains the same: the university’s commitment to young people in the church. Why does the church still need a mission of higher education? “We birth the future and we walk on the journey with our young at an absolutely critical time,” Edwards explains. “The church needs prepared leaders. What more could be said? We are vital.”
As the lone senior administrator whose undergraduate degree is from a public university and not Anderson College, Mike Collette, vice president for enrollment management and information systems, often reminds his colleagues that their alma mater — the AC of the mid-’60s — doesn’t exist anymore.
“For an organization to have a future, it has to have a past and a present, but the past also can be an anchor that holds you back,” says Collette. “Anderson University will never be the Anderson College of 1964. We’ll never be that liberal arts institution of 1,400 students with a campus that was totally residential and where the majority of the students and faculty came from the Church of God.”
Instead, Collette sees the AU of the future as a school that decades ago shed its image as “that isolated college up on the hill” and now promises to carry the best of its past into its second century. The mission and ethos of the campus will remain intact, and students from the sponsoring church will still be the primary target of recruitment efforts, although non-Church of God students will make up a significant percentage of the campus population. The curriculum will continue to offer a blend of liberal undergraduate courses and a handful of professional tracks modeled after the successful MBA program.
“Our recruiters tell us that when they attend college fairs, prospective students visit our display at the recommendation of other schools. Our competition is saying, ‘If you’re looking for the best business program, you need to talk with AU.’” Other disciplines also are growing in stature. “Our music and arts programs are attracting regional and national recognition, and our accreditations in social work and athletic training are adding to our reputation.”
Accolades such as these take on increased importance as the competition for enrollment intensifies. No longer is it good enough merely to fill all the slots in an incoming freshman class; now the goal is to achieve intentional diversity and balance within the class. Tools designed to help “shape” a campus population are becoming more sophisticated. “Right now if we see a decline in students from the church, or in athletes, or in a special subpopulation such as minorities, or in specific academic-ability strata, we make corrective adjustments.” These tools scrutinize family data and create financial-aid packages that are so customized to students’ needs that the likelihood of matriculation is heightened.
In the next 15 years, Collette says he hopes to utilize predictive modeling methods to build a stronger Hispanic community on campus. “This is important for a couple of reasons. Hispanics make up a significant part of our sponsoring church, and they are a growing segment of the Indianapolis market.” Particularly among adult students, he’d like to see AU earn the designation as the “college of record” for the northeast side of Indiana’s capital city. Another goal is to recruit more academically gifted students. “We’re talking about raising the bar. This means some students who would have been admitted in the past might not be admitted in the future for academic reasons. It’s a delicate discussion.”
The discussion promises to be ongoing and lively. Being an “outsider” — even one who has been on campus for 25 years — has its advantages, according to Collette. “I still have the ability to challenge the notion whenever someone says, ‘Well, we have always done it that way … .’”
Anticipating a “fair turnover” of professional staff in the next 15 years, Carl Caldwell, vice president for academic affairs, faces the challenge of determining the ideal makeup of AU’s faculty of the future. “To what extent should we systematically look for AU graduates or persons who have connections with the Church of God?” he asks rhetorically. He agrees with President Edwards’ assessment that candidates from other traditions bring fresh perspectives to campus, “but we also need to keep the stories of this institution alive. I’d like to see a healthy mix, perhaps 50-50, that will include people with a working knowledge of the church and the university.” Future faculty also should culturally “reflect the world that students will enter” and be able to “talk the language of faith in an intelligent, articulate way that doesn’t trivialize it.”
Fine-tuning the academic program is an ongoing goal, and one that may require some tough decisions in the years ahead. Whether or not AU can continue to offer more accredited programs than any other private school in the state is a “hot-button” issue with budget implications. One way Caldwell suggests the university stretch its institutional dollars in the future is to encourage donors to endow academic chairs. This practice, popular at many schools, generates funds that translate into better compensation for faculty across the board. Another strategy is to bump up the faculty-to-student ratio from the current 13-to-1 to the more typical 16-to-1 ratio.
“We have certain programs that cannot take an increase in ratio because of accreditation requirements,” he explains. “This means that faculty will have to accommodate slightly larger numbers in lower-level classes. We still can run a very good program at 16 to 1.”
He acknowledges the trend among schools such as AU to become “boutique” institutions. “Unless schools have huge endowments, they pick out niche departments and make an agreement that they will be the very best in those particular disciplines. They identify their strengths, bolster them and become known for them.”
Sometimes students, rather than administrators, encourage the development of these niches by gravitating to certain majors that are coveted in the job market. “In my time on campus, our business faculty has grown by three full-time positions and other fields have shrunk by one or two,” notes Caldwell. This trend, he says, is likely to continue.
Another trend that shows no signs of dissipating is the need to stay current with technology. “Sometimes we joke about the black hole of information technology. You can throw every dollar you have into its mouth and it’s still hungry. Yet we all understand our dependence on it. Today’s students expect a ‘port for every pillow.’”
In spite of the challenges that confront most small private institutions, Caldwell feels AU is well equipped to continue offering a first-class education in a Christian setting. Students who choose to attend AU don’t have to make an either/or choice — either a strong academic program or a less-rigorous program delivered in a Christian environment. “Our graduates walk away from this place feeling that their faith has been enhanced as much as their minds.”
In her 27 years at AU, Sena Landey, vice president for finance and treasurer, has seen the university’s budget grow from under $6 million to over $41 million. Expenditures have changed dramatically — in 1975, technology didn’t exist as a line item — but some challenges have remained constant. “On the one hand we have the pressure of keeping tuition affordable for the students, and on the other hand we have the pressures of replacing or maintaining 50-year-old facilities, staying current with technology and paying competitive salaries to our faculty and staff,” says Landey.
These challenges are likely to continue as buildings age, technology evolves and human resources turn over. “As baby boomers retire, the projection is that the number of persons in the pipeline to assume teaching positions will not keep pace with the demand. That will further drive up salaries,” says Landey.
To prepare for the future, AU has created a long-term strategy for debt reduction and, simultaneously, has a multi-year plan in place to move $10 million into the school’s endowment. These two actions will help accomplish an administration goal: to lower debt to less than 5 percent of the operating budget. “We are constantly working to reduce the cost of doing business without sacrificing service to our students. We’re always asking, ‘How can we do this for less without it being apparent to the end user?’”
Landey says her role, as part of the executive team, is to “take the president’s vision and determine how the financial side of the institution can support that vision.” If, for example, the administration’s vision includes gradual growth in the student body, Landey’s task is to foresee the funding needs and challenges attached to a larger student population. She cites additional housing and an expanded food-services facility as top-of-the-list requirements if residential students caused the growth spurt. However, parking might be a priority if the number of nonresidential students were to grow dramatically.
“Right now we aren’t equipped to handle more students; we’re at capacity,” she notes. “As we anticipate future growth, we know we’ll face some challenges. But what great problems to have! A lot of universities would love to cope with the dilemma of accommodating a larger student body.”
As an AU alumna herself — “I am a graduate of the Glenn Falls accounting regimen,” she jokes — she’s sensitive to the school’s traditions and is determined to honor them, even while helping to build new traditions. “As we continue to expand, it’s critical for us to focus on what our mission is and to stay true to who we are and what we are here to do.”
Anderson University’s campus master plan, the document that envisions how the school’s physical plant might evolve over the next decade, is a blend of reality, dreams and “what-if” scenarios. Updated and unveiled more than a year ago, the plan answers such questions as: What might be the needs of a 3,000-member student body? What is the condition of our existing facilities? How flexible are our academic buildings? What will it take to maintain a first-class learning environment in the future? In addition to identifying needs, the plan prioritizes projects and proposes a timeframe.
“We hope to address some of the needs in the next 3-5 years and, in other cases, 5-10 years,” says Ron Moore, senior vice president. Not all projects are contingent on growth in the campus population. “For example, the plan proposes a building east of Hartung Hall that would have several uses. It would bring together the communication department, provide for a small level of conferencing and offer some guest rooms as well as a performing arts center.”
For now, Moore is content with putting finishing touches on the Wellness Center, the most ambitious construction undertaking in the university’s history and one he describes as “a major capstone project that will have an unbelievable impact on the campus.” The building continues a tradition that Moore traces back to AU’s first president, John Morrison. When it comes to facilities, “Do it right; don’t cut corners; don’t make short-term decisions that you will pay for in the long term,” he summarizes. “This has become one of our guiding principles.”
It’s a principle that seems to be endorsed by the university’s alumni and friends. Although the Wellness Center cost $17.4 million, it was paid for entirely by gifts. More good news: May 31 marked the completion of a record year for AU in terms of contributions. Donor dollars exceeded all previous years, including fund-raising campaign years. This fact, coupled with the news that fall enrollment is at an all-time high, are indicators of a promising future.
“I can honestly say that I have never felt better about the University — its programs, its faculty, its student body and its financial strength. Our future is brighter today than it has ever been,” says Moore. “In some ways, higher education is like any business. It has products and niches, and the people who run it have to know the market, understand how to sell the product and deliver quality service. We’re doing that, and as a result, our prospects are very, very good. Is there competition? Are there challenges? Yes, but that’s what brings us to work every day.”
