Doing justice to goals

Kenneth Perrin

IU South Bend Chancellor

The Monday before my Installation on Sept. 14, I was surprised to hear a local radio station broadcast the news that the ceremony had taken place the day before.

Although they were wrong and premature by six days, I found myself sighing with relief. "Whew. I'm glad that's over!"

Those of you in the university who have planned and participated in an installation surely know what I and the campus community were feeling at that point. But even at the height of pre-event anxiety, the joys I have discovered at IUSB kept me, and still keep me, on track. I have come to a remarkable institution at a remarkable point in its history, one in which circumstances light a very clear path.

For one, our student enrollment has increased in the middle of one of the healthiest economies our region has seen in a while. Non-traditional students still give this campus a commuter flavor. But they, along with an increasing number of traditional-age students, have come to demand a university experience rich in opportunities. They want to make their mark on the campus, and they expect IUSB to serve as a springboard to their professional and civic lives.

You saw the students' dedication, and that of our alumni, as they lobbied the General Assembly for planning money to start a Student Activity Center. Likewise, our alumni also are diving enthusiastically into a major new scholarship campaign and organizing a program to mentor current students. The student demand for service and internship possibilities and alumni interest in volunteerism naturally gave rise to the establishment of a new office for community outreach discussed in today's Home Pages special South Bend focus section. We call this outreach Community Links.

I also have joined one of the greatest faculty and staffs I have ever had the pleasure to know. In these pages earlier this year, you read about the Victorian-style children's playhouse our service maintenance staff built as a community fundraiser. This, despite the fact that they and their colleagues have coped with increasing workloads and limited pay incentives for several years. While continuing with an impressive array of scholarship, research and creative activity, faculty members are expanding their roles as student mentors. After seeing the breadth of the staff and faculty's commitment, my pledge to create career ladders, to conduct salary surveys, to flatten the administration so that money is freed for faculty positions and to raise more private funds seems all that more important.

Setting the direction of the campus is, of course, the easy part. I am counting on the support of my campus and the university for the hard part -- doing these goals justice.