First Year Provost

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One Year Later...

July 1 marks the completion of my first year as Provost of Mary Baldwin University and I am grateful everyday to the whole MBU community for the privilege of serving in this role. One year on, as we prepare to welcome the largest residential first year class in the 176 year history of Mary Baldwin, it seems the appropriate time to look back at what I learned about my new university during this eventful academic year.

The Campus

First, I think it is inappropriate to apply the verb “learn” to what everyone sees when they visit Mary Baldwin: a beautiful campus on the edge of a lively downtown neighborhood brimming with arts and culture, perfectly situated in an actual valley with actual mountains in three directions.

However, I did learn how sweet and clean the air is in the Shenandoah Valley. When you walk or run on Bells Lane in Staunton, you are reminded that the city is in the country, too. (Bells Lane, a realized vision of local conservationist and landowner John Moore, has markers and nesting boxes maintained by the awesome Augusta Bird Club.)

I discovered that Montgomery Hall Park has mountain biking trails and disc golf. Gypsy Hill Park, a few blocks from campus, is ideal for an evening run or walk, or a concert in the bandshell (gazebo-shell?).

The Visulite Cinema two blocks from campus hosts Downtown Movie Madness when MBU students see a show for free each month (plus all those other movies they decide to pay for).

The Farmer’s Market every Saturday and Wednesday from early spring to late fall on the Wharf downtown offers the MBU community a variety of fresh and local produce, goods, and crafts.

The view from Humpback Rock, on the Appalachian Trail, is always worth the hike and it is so close to campus I feel like I should be there every weekend.

Restaurants? Don’t get me started. 

Chicano Boy Tacqueria

Snapdragon Pho

Newtown Bakery

Shenandoah Pizza

Baja Bean Co.

Farmhouse Kitchen

Gloria’s Pupuseria

Thai Staunton

Taste of India

...And the glory of Beverly Street, the place I take every single visitor I can, open noon to 11 pm everyday, the Split Banana Company with new flavors of gelato handmade in the store each week. If I weren’t already Episcopalian, I might convert to Split Bananaism. 

So, throughout the year I was reminded that Mary Baldwin is a great place set in a great place.

The Community

I also arrived back at the conclusion that I started with last year, the reason that I came to Mary Baldwin in the first place: the people who make up the campus and the relationships you form there are what give every college its distinctive character.

And Mary Baldwin is a community proud of its diversity. Proud of our students and faculty and staff from underrepresented groups who make our campus, as we proudly note in our viewbook, one of the most diverse for a college of our type in the country. Signature multicultural programming through our Office of Inclusive Excellence leads the way in supporting students from diverse backgrounds, with campus events like the annual Kwanzaa celebration.

But we are also proud of our programmatic diversity, of the non-traditional students in MBU Online who are completing their studies off campus, our graduate students in Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Physician Assistant studies at our Fishersville campus in the Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, our fearless Shakespeare and Performance students, the talented young women starting college early in our Program for the Exceptionally Gifted, and proud of our cadets who come to us from all over the country to be a part of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership.  

But what does all this diversity look like? Even at commencement, where the provost has a great seat, you can’t really take it in.

The Latin root of “university” carries the idea of many turning into one. A university is not a melting pot, but a community made up of communities brought together for a purpose. So our diversity defies encapsulation in a single photo, or a simple summary, but you also can see it every day, in classrooms and meetings of two or three on the sidewalk in front of Carpenter Academic and Pearce Science Center, at a basketball game or a softball game, on Apple Day, at an alumni event, in a late night discussion in the new Wenger lounge.

I learned this year that the best part of being a provost is the chance to be connected to all of these amazing people and communities, working together to change the future one person at a time, empowering leaders to pursue lives of purpose and professional success in a changing world.

And so, after the first year of the journey, Scout and I look forward to next year with great expectations...

[mbufirstyearprovost]

Why Being “U” is a Good Thing

As I was preparing my remarks for a session with parents at our recent record-setting Accepted Students Day, I came across a study that I had noted a few years ago but somehow had let pass from my memory.

What a mistake that was!

For those of us who have devoted our professional careers to small, teaching-centered institutions, the 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index offered validation for what we passionately believed and always hoped was true. If I don’t quote the text directly, someone may accuse me of making it up, because the results are so clearly in line with the way that Mary Baldwin is built. So here’s an excerpt straight from the executive summary:

“Findings from the inaugural administration of the Gallup-Purdue Index — which includes interviews with more than 30,000 U.S. graduates — yield important insights for colleges, educators, employers, and students on the factors that contribute to these outcomes for college graduates.

Chief among these is that where graduates went to college — public or private, small or large, very selective or not selective — hardly matters at all to their current well-being and their work lives in comparison to their experiences in college. For example, if graduates had a professor who cared about them as a person, made them excited about learning, and encouraged them to pursue their dreams, their odds of being engaged at work more than doubled, as did their odds of thriving in their well-being. And if graduates had an internship or job where they were able to apply what they were learning in the classroom, were actively involved in extracurricular activities and organizations, and worked on projects that took a semester or more to complete, their odds of being engaged at work doubled also. Feeling supported and having deep learning experiences means everything when it comes to long-term outcomes for college graduates.

That these six elements of the college experience are so strongly related to graduates’ lives and careers is almost hard to fathom. When it comes to finding the secret to success, it’s not “where you go,” it’s “how you do it” that makes all the difference in higher education. Yet few college graduates achieve the winning combination.” (p. 4, emphasis added; available at: http://news.gallup.com/reports/197141/4.aspx)

While these findings provide welcome guidance to all students and families preparing to make their choice of college, they should hold special resonance for undecided students.

What is the best way to find out if you are interested in a subject? 

Spend time with someone who is passionate about it. Ask them questions. Let them ask you questions. Try out the field.

That can be a difficult task at midsize and larger universities where even undergraduate students who know early on their chosen field still must compete for faculty time with graduate students and strenuous expectations for faculty research.

How much more important is it, then, for undecided students to choose an institution that places its highest value on the educational experience of its students?

Let’s let that be a rhetorical question.

Professors who care about you as a person, who encourage you to pursue your dreams.

A campus that creates deep learning experiences for its students from their first semester through their senior capstone.

If you are an undecided student, I hope that you will come to campus and see what Mary Baldwin University has to offer.

[mbufirstyearprovost]

That Queen City Vibe: Coffee Shops, Part 2

My earlier entry on coffee shops was Starbucks-centric, which is a weakness of mine. To correct this bias, Scout and I stopped into the Downtown Staunton Visitor Center to ask about other coffee shops. Gloria was exceptionally friendly, but recommended three that I already knew.

The first is Blue Mountain Coffees, on “the Wharf” as the locals call it, about three blocks from campus, where the farmer’s market happens on Saturday mornings from April through November. 

Lots of space to study here.

The second is a stylish new French cafe that opened just a few months ago, Reunion Bakery & Espresso. About two blocks from the south edge of campus, Reunion serves pick-you-up-and-drag-you-to class espressos and excellent pastries of which they are justifiably proud.

The last coffee shop I’ll mention is my personal favorite, and the one at which I am typing these lines into my iPad now, in the back at the long counter with the tall stools. The By & By Cafe (and Beer Garden—not relevant to this entry) has a great vibe. Good espresso drinks and sandwiches, lots of wooden tables and comfortable reading chairs, ideal for finishing an assignment or studying with friends. 

I schedule meetings here regularly because it’s less than a block away from my office as the crow flies and, frankly, the coffee is much better that I can get from the Keurig machine down the hall.

One of the best parts of frequenting The By & By is meeting owners Michael and Clare, who regularly bring 11 month old Louis to work with them behind the counter. Here’s Michael with Scout:

It’s hard to find a time of the day when an MBU student or professor isn’t sipping a latte with a book or pile of papers in front of them at this coffee shop. 

It gets busy right before show times at the Blackfriars Playhouse just around the corner, but I’ve always been able to find a chair. Besides, some regular activity is an important quality in a good college coffee shop, because it helps you to get your work done without feeling like you’re missing out on life.

[mbufirstyearprovost]

That Queen City Vibe: Coffee Shops, Part 1

Staunton, home to MBU’s historic residential campus, is a sly, you-think-you’ve-seen-it-before-but-really-haven’t, little town. I’ve lived in cities three times the size of Staunton with easily less than half its culture. 

That’s why USA Today gave Staunton fourth place in its national rankings of “the best main streets in America,” for “beautiful architecture, a sense of history, locally-owned business, and community-centric spaces.” There’s something going on all the time: from the annual Harry Potter weekend to weekly farmers markets, from seasonal festivals to live music, with more restaurants, ice cream joints, bars, music stores, and...that most essential of college town locations, coffee shops, than a visitor would ever imagine.

In my view, the coffee shop is an important part of the contemporary college experience, for a very particular reason. What most students find in college that they did not have in high school — and will not see again for fifty years or so — is unstructured time. You have a lot of studying and work to do, and maybe a campus job and practice to juggle, but in general, you get a great deal of choice about where you do that work.

Enter the coffee shop.

Great for extroverts and introverts, the low hum of focused activity and casual conversation at a good coffee shop is the ideal complement to that other time-honored study location, the university library.

As I’ve gotten to know Staunton, I’ve been impressed by the coffee options we have here. On our own campus, in the Pannill Student Center, you’ll find a Starbucks close to home, a great option for picking up a latte on the way to class:

And Staunton has another Starbucks a few miles from campus, with a drive-through and lots of tables for studying, even a few outdoors, where dogs are welcome:

One block south of campus is Cranberry’s, a good place to get coffee or breakfast or lunch or my favorite, their signature smoothie, the “Crancherry.” Cranberry’s calls itself a “Grocery & Eatery,” but you can get a booth and a latte and plow through five chapters of The Brothers Karamazov any time of day, and so it’s a coffee shop in my book.

Notice the sign next to Scout: $2 coffee all day. A college student’s dream.

 To be continued...

[mbufirstyearprovost]

Scale and Access, Part 1: The Theater

So one of the challenges of being a first year provost is choosing which of the many worthy campus events to attend each week. There is so much going on at Mary Baldwin, one person cannot be present at more than a small fraction of the guest lectures, concerts, sporting events, film series, fundraisers, international festivals, readings, poetry slams, holiday parties, and the dozens of other cultural events taking place on campus. Sometimes I don’t have time to open the email that lists all of the campus activities!

Fortunately, my wife Jody and I were able to walk over to Deming Fine Arts Center on a recent Sunday afternoon to catch the the last matinee performance of the comedy, “Almost, Maine” by John Cariani, in the newly-remodeled Fletcher Collins Theater. The program stated clearly that photographs of the performance were not allowed, so here is a picture of the set right before the show started:

Having spent my entire adult life on college campuses large and small, I have seen my share of student theatrical productions. This one was exceptional for being nearly flawless. 

A very strong ensemble cast, under the direction of Assistant Professor of Theater and Shakespeare and Performance J.P. Scheidler, lit up the black box theater with wit and charm in an unusually confident and assured performance for an undergraduate company. The whole cast deserves mention here: Dayna Janson, Danielle Festa, Joellen Ogunmuyiwa, Maeve Edwards, Keith Taylor, Tyler James Haggard, and Logan Davenport. Great comic timing, and a gift for creating sympathetic, believable characters from brief, sometimes fanciful material. 

And then, shortly after, I found myself under the stars at the beautiful outdoor Oak Grove Theatre for the first night of the biennial Blackfriars Shakespeare Conference, with scholars from all over the world gathered together in Staunton to watch a new play by Mary Baldwin’s own Dr. Paul Menzer, Professor and Director of the MLitt and MFA program in Shakespeare and Performance. “Robin Hood is Dead,” was equal parts Monty Python and Jonsonian masque (worth googling that), with a Tom Stoppardian love of wordplay and winking allusions that made it fun to watch and try to keep up with from beginning to end. I got permission directly from the playwright to use this photo:

Two examples of great theater. 

So here’s the question: why is a university like Mary Baldwin a great place to learn the craft of acting and study Shakespeare, as an undergraduate or graduate student? Because of scale and access. 

On any university campus, it’s not difficult to be in the audience for a show, but making it on stage is another matter. At Mary Baldwin, our small theater department creates an incredible number of opportunities to learn the craft for our small student body, so that first year students who may not be majoring in theater get roles that aspiring actors wait years for on other campuses. And Professor Menzer? He spends his time with his merry band of Shakespeare graduate students to be sure, but he also helps lead the Shakespeare and Performance Living Learning Community, where first year students get deep exposure in community to performing and studying the bard. Scale and access. Small classes, great faculty, lots of opportunities to be on the stage and in the conversation, where the learning happens.

[mbufirstyearprovost]

The U Word

I ran across this quotation recently in a Forbes column on undecided students: 

“Sometimes families believe--or have been told--that undecided young people should go to larger universities that offer many different programs from which to choose. I disagree. Larger institutions are far less likely to be able to provide the personal care, attention and advising that smaller colleges offer. Undecided kids in large universities often drift aimlessly from program to program, major to major, sometimes having to spend additional years once they settle on a focus because they can't immediately schedule the courses they need to graduate." 

This observation, from Chris Teare, Director of College Counseling at the Antilles School in St Thomas, Virgin Islands, sounds right to me after twenty five years of university teaching.

Why? All universities offer academic advising of some kind, intended to help students get from point A to point B. But even the best map only helps if you know your destination. 

To figure out where you are and where you want to go requires a different approach. It requires an advising relationship. 

Like everything else at Mary Baldwin, academic advising is designed with the student in mind and on a scale that works for first year students who think they know exactly what they want to study, and for those — especially those — who are interested in looking around at their options first.

We are a great destination for undecided students because our faculty and staff care about their students’ learning and their educational and life goals, and because we deliver a remarkable range of majors and programs once a student is ready to decide.

Because our classes are small, people on campus are fond of saying that no one gets lost at Mary Baldwin. It’s perhaps more true to say that we are a campus on which students find their way.

[mbufirstyearprovost]

Welcome to MBU

Welcome to MBU, and to my first year as Provost here. It’s exciting to be the new person in a welcoming community, and this fall, on the Mary Baldwin campus in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, is no exception.

So, first, what’s with the dog? I learned from Patricia Menk’s history of Mary Baldwin that the founder for whom the university is named was a lover of animals, and that Mary Julia’s dogs “accompanied her everywhere, the bells on their collars giving notice of her coming” (To Live in Time 14). And one of my favorite places on campus is the front porch of the administration building where Ham and Jam — two sculpted dogs modeled on Mary Julia’s favorite companion — have kept watch for over 125 years.

So – meet Scout – our one year old golden doodle. He has quickly found a campus home where he loves to meet students. Here he is with a group of accepted students last week in front of Deming Hall at MBU’s first open house of the fall semester. 

He’s really loving all that Staunton has to offer, especially here at Gypsy Hill dog-park, his second favorite place to spend the day and meet new friends. 

As he makes his way in the world, Scout brings people together. He is a kind of one-dog welcoming committee and I am hoping he can fulfill that role here at the start of MBUFirstYearProvost.