Slouching Toward A Global University: The Enlightenment 2.0
 
Opening of the 2009-2010 Academic Year, Nanjing Campus
 
NYIT 2009 State-of-the-Institution Address: Transformation Revealed
 
Salute to the Class of 2009, Amman
 
Salute to the Class of 2009, Abu Dhabi
 
Salute to the Class of 2009, Bahrain
 
Salute to the Class of 2009, NYCOM
 
Salute to the Class of 2009, New York: Celebrating Knowledge Capital
 
A Welcome to the U.S. Secretary of Education
 
Opening of the 2008-2009 Academic Year, Nanjing Campus
 
Universities and Technology: Models and Experiences of Innovation in the Education Process
 
Renewable Energy Energy-Efficiency: Designing and Implementing Sustainable Energy Projects
 
NYIT State-of-the-Institution Address
 
Welcome Address at NYIT's International Water Conference at the United Nations
 
Banishing Barriers and Borders: 21st-Century Classroom Technology and the Changing Face of Students and Professors
 
Salute to the Class of 2008, Abu Dhabi
 
Salute to the Class of 2008, Jordan
 
Salute to the Class of 2008, Bahrain
 
Salute to the Class of 2008, New York
 
A Conversation about Educational Globalization
 

 

NYIT State-of-the-Institution Address
08/28/2008

Welcome to all of you-whether joining us physically or virtually-to this 2008-2009 academic year at New York Institute of Technology.

Most colleges and universities begin the academic year with convocation, but they come in many different shapes and sizes. NYIT's version of a state-of-the-institution, glimpse-into-the future, celebration-of-the-past, pride-and-community-building gathering was established by NYIT's founding president, Alexander Schure. In his day, he was a powerful presenter … a dynamic speaker with a strong voice, rich vocabulary, and impressive fluency. He spoke for an hour seemingly without notes. Only after I moved into his office many years later did I learn that he went through draft after typed draft until he almost had the speech memorized.

He was a dreamer - and to some extent we are living inside his dream. For some a scary thought, akin to the Red King's dream in Alice Through the Looking-Glass … what if he wakes up? Scared yet?

I share this remembrance because it is part of our collective heritage, an NYIT tradition, and because for quite a few years now, it has been my privilege to maintain and enhance this tradition and deliver the presidential address. Thank you for that continuing opportunity, and thank you all for everything you do to help grow our institution and fulfill our mission within the world of higher education.

Our university and our world are increasingly global and partially virtual. It is one of NYIT's characteristics and one of our 2030 goals. In this context, how do we bring our convocation further into the 21st century and build community among students, faculty, and staff spread across all of the world's time zones? Those people who e-mail us at 2 a.m. from New York and Bahrain? And who upload YouTube videos at 3 a.m.? Let's talk about that world for a moment because building connections and speaking the same language to today's audiences through vehicles that reach them is one theme I want to explore.

Over the past decade, we have been working to develop a clear identity for NYIT that differentiates us and communicates our qualities and accomplishments. We make a little progress each year, but this year we are going to see transformative efforts to raise our external and internal awareness.

Last year, I emphasized quality and sustainability as our theme while transforming NYIT into a new, model university for the 21st century, and it remains so: it has been introduced into the big novel we are writing. This year's added themes and charges are data, outcomes assessment, and integrated communication. I hope you will come to appreciate that we need to generate more objective data and then act on that data to make quality and systematic improvements to teaching, learning, and student service. And we need to all speak in the same voice throughout outlets from the classroom to the media in presenting and promoting NYIT. Such practices are part of an overall cultural change in the world of higher education, and NYIT has no alternative but to embrace them if we are to grow and thrive in the years ahead.

Remember the two American gymnasts who won the gold and silver medals in the women's all-around? Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson? Shawn was born and raised in Iowa, and Nastia was born in Moscow but raised in Texas. Her American coach, her father, was a Russian gold-medal-winning gymnast before emigrating to America. Shawn's coach was a Chinese gymnast before emigrating to America. An interesting and distinctive confluence of people, talents, and cultures, but a very American 21st-century story to me. How would it have seemed 30 years ago? In three words: unlikely or impossible. China? Russia? Coaches?

Remember when Michael Phelps reached out to the wall and by one one-hundredth of a second won the 100-meter butterfly and his seventh gold medal? Great drama and excitement, and an example of 21st-century technology. The person he beat swimming for Serbia was Milorad Cavic, a United States native of Serbian descent who graduated from U.C. Berkeley. And, I might add, he has an impressive Web site and a literate blog. I don't know if Michael Phelps has a blog, but he did have 7,000 Facebook friend requests and 5,000 text messages in the days following the race. One of those texts? Michael's sister read his lips on the giant Jumbotron screen telling a teammate during a medal ceremony he did not know where his mother was. His sister immediately texted him where they were in the stands.

That's our world in 2008. And if we are mailing letters or bills to our students, we should text them and let them know to open and read them. But why are we putting things in the mail - isn't it so 20th century? Our students, the millennials, learn, socialize, and live their lives via collaboration and use of interactive technologies.

In his recent book The Way We Will Be, pollster John Zogby discusses the need to adapt to changing times. He calls the students in our classrooms today the "First Globals" and asserts they see what other age groups do not. Their lives are public and interconnected in ways not possible in pre-Internet times. To hear him tell it, this group will usher in a new era of sanity, substance, and citizenship. He also warns businesses about these First Globals and says, "If you can't market successfully to this amazing crew, find another line of work."

As I said earlier, welcome to this 2008-2009 academic year at New York Institute of Technology. I will speak about how we reach and teach this generation of students. I will speak about about data, outcomes assessment, and accreditations; about integrated marketing; and about the economy and our financial position.

First, I want to touch upon what an outstanding year we have just had at NYIT. Three years ago, we set the groundwork for a 25-year path that would result in NYIT becoming a model 21st-century university. We are going to continue to define what that means. However, every achievement I am noting here resonates with the six core visions of our 2030 plan.

At the risk of omitting some important milestones, but in the interest of getting you out of here in time to enjoy your lunch, let's recall that last October, NYIT opened the first-ever American undergraduate campus in Nanjing, China. We also became the first American university licensed in Abu Dhabi. We have just received a five-year approval from the Canadian ministry for our Vancouver campus. We were reaccredited by Middle States. We have begun to be a recognized leader in global higher education. Witness a February front-page article in the Sunday New York Times. And just last week, U.S. News & World Report reaffirmed our top-tier ranking. And we even edged up a bit.

Our three interdisciplinary graduate centers have begun to establish themselves as thought leaders and have made good strides this year. The Center for Global Health, under the direction of Professor Ed Gotfried, held its first-ever joint conference with the medical school at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, conducted an exploratory visit in Nigeria to establish a relationship that could lead to medical clerkships in that country, and sent several NYCOM students to China as part of a medical research project. Our Center for Metropolitan Sustainability received a federal grant that will support a campus master plan that includes recycling initiatives and carbon emissions monitoring at all campuses, as well as research in biofuel and solar carports. Earlier this month, Professor Frank Zeman joined NYIT as the center's director. The Center for Gerontology and Geriatrics, under the direction of Professor Dennis Kodner, held its first gerosymposium this spring and next month will hold a major conference in Old Westbury.

NYIT has continued to make strides in student services, though we can and must do more to validate that we are a student-centered university. We've enhanced student outreach in our learning and wellness centers and implemented an updated "early warning system" for at-risk students. Career Services' new one-stop online shop, NYIT Career Net, makes it easier for everyone at NYIT seeking career opportunities and guidance online.

We open this year with some major physical improvements. Though we have not yet succeeded in acquiring more space for our Manhattan campus, we are close. We added a remarkable new building and quad to our beautiful campus in Bahrain. Here in New York, we have spent many millions repaving, re-roofing, enhancing our networks, and implementing infrastructure and aesthetic enhancements. I hope you find the campuses looking and functioning better than ever. We even installed a state-of-the art motion capture lab in Old Westbury that we utilized in completing a research contract with NASA. To get ready for this new academic year, we added scores of new computers and more digital signage on every campus - in fact, the plasma screens here and in Manhattan that we are using for this presentation will find homes on campus. They'll soon feature an improved digital display system that will allow us to streamline and manage our messaging better and more attractively. We also implemented an emergency text messaging system.

Speaking of emergency preparedness, forty-nine percent of students in the U.S. say their school is just somewhat or not that prepared if an attack akin to Virginia Tech occurred on their campus. We need to assure our students that we are prepared and continue to build upon the work we did last year.

One of the ways is through a 20-person task force I appointed, chaired by Dr. David Broder, that is working toward taking the emergency procedures that are in place - many of which were spotlighted at last year's Emergency Preparedness Seminar and are posted on the intranet - and improving and combining them into university-wide and campus-specific plans. New elements include crisis shelters and command centers - we're currently equipping one in Old Westbury and one in Manhattan - and evacuation plans, protocols for types of emergencies we can anticipate and prepare for, and robust communications messaging and vehicles. Plans are being developed for our global campuses. Expect drills, tabletop exercises, communications tests, and the like as our ever-evolving preparedness is developed, tested, and refined.

The committee wanted you to be aware of one of the most highly effective personal alert systems available in this high-tech world … the whistle.

You'll be able to pick up yours on the way out.

As a far-reaching global university, I believe we should strive to become an exemplary steward of the environment and set an example for all of our communities. We have roles to play as teachers, researchers, practitioners, and models for environmental sustainability. I am pleased to report that we are increasingly playing our parts at NYIT from increasing our conservation and alternative energy practices to sponsoring conferences, such as the International Water Conference we so successfully held at the United Nations this summer. It was a proud moment for many from NYIT walking into the symbolic crossroads of the world and seeing NYIT signage in the lobby and throughout the halls of the U.N. Through this and other events, NYIT has established itself as a thought leader on some of the most crucial issues of today. We held our third Energy Shock conference here in June, and as I mentioned before will hold a major conference in the area of geriatrics and gerontology, and next spring, will host the second NYIT-JUST global health conference here at Old Westbury.

At our New York campuses, we have gone green by using recycled paper products, initiating green-cleaning policies among the custodial staffs, buying local, organically grown food for our dining facilities, and creating fleets of hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles to service campuses.

We are beginning to establish a baseline for greenhouse gas emissions, measuring electrical use and BTU fuel consumption, and installing occupancy sensors for classrooms and water-saving fixtures in campus buildings. We are even beginning to recover cooking oil from our restaurants for use as biodiesel fuel. This fuel will be consumed in our campus vehicles and provide a supplement to our boiler fuel during the heating season.

Today, we are working at making our Long Island sites centers for plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicle use. The power we intend to use for electric car charging would be solar. The NYIT campuses will also serve as testing and demonstration sites for manufacturers of new battery and photovoltaic cell technologies and the creation of solar-energy carports. In the past two solar decathlons, our students designed and constructed homes totally powered by a combination of photovoltaic cells and, in one model, an additional hydrogen fuel cell. The energy systems allow the homes to run typical appliances by drawing energy from the sun.

We are going to increase feeding energy produced by the sun into the electric grid that runs this campus, something we started back in 1995. And some 1,000 yards across this campus from where I speak, we're adding solar panels to the roof of the newly christened "Green Lodge," the sight of a former greenhouse.

A good year, yes. And hundreds more accomplishments I could mention … hopefully you caught many of them in the Weekly Update. Many are individual accomplishments of the faculty and staff that collectively enhance NYIT. Thank you and congratulations for that. People are our greatest asset.

But here’s another moment of pride I don’t want you to miss:

  NYIT Video Gallery: Lacrosse Champions

National champions yet again.



ASSESSMENT AND ACCREDITATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

We are living in a new age of accreditation and assessment, and this year pointed out how much higher education has changed. We need to ramp up our talent and embrace this new culture. We had our Middle States visit, of course. The New York State Education Department made its ten-year visit and assessment - very complimentary, I am happy to report. We also had a successful accreditation visit in Vancouver and are now completing visits in Jordan and Bahrain. These are no less rigorous, perhaps more so, than we face at our other locations. We've submitted our self-study for NYCOM and will be visited this fall at our College of Osteopathic Medicine. State Ed visited nursing, and our engineering program in Abu Dhabi was put through the ringer by the licensing and accreditation branch of the Ministry of Education. Business and Interior Design will be visited there in October. Keep in mind, these are full-blown visits, like ABET or ASCSB or CIDA with full visiting teams from around the world. Work and more work for lots and lots of people.

We certainly are all hearing more and more about assessment. It's the subject of academic conferences, articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and was a major topic in the debates surrounding the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Perhaps initially, assessment in higher education was driven largely by external forces - federal and state agencies and legislative bodies, accrediting organizations, and professional associations - many of which are concerned with accountability. And for the next decade for sure, we can be certain those political bodies will stress accountability. Mostly off the record, accrediting body leaders, including the regional accreditors such as Middle States, will say that unless we get more serious and tougher in addressing standards, Congress will step in and legislate report cards, national standards, and national competency exams. Second scary thought of the morning.

We learned a lot from our recent Middle States visit and report, which reflected where we were at one single moment in time. And while we may pat ourselves on the back for how good and improved we are, Middle States had some blunt words on where we're not where we should be in some areas, especially relating to outcomes assessment. And we'll provide Middle States with a follow-up report on how we actually did what we said we were doing, and then they'll send some people to check what we said is how they see it too. All about data, process, and outcomes. Also about good communication. We need to take more time and put more talent toward expressing what we do and have done into documents more effectively.

In the words of a 2008 study and report by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, to meet the challenges facing the world today:

"…we in higher education must constantly monitor the quality of student learning and development, and use the results both to improve achievement and to demonstrate the value of our work to the public. We must not settle for anything less."

That's right. We in higher education - everyone in this room or watching - care about the quality of what we do or we wouldn't have chosen this work. And when you care about what you do, you keep track of whether it's working. When you care about what you do, you constantly take steps to improve. When you care about what you do, you can explain your results. That's assessment.

Here are some of our assessment plans we'll implement this fall.

1) We will set and report on numerical goals and targets for the 2030 plan. The senior administration, with the 2030 Steering Committee, will complete the 2030 Scorecard so that it contains not only metrics but numerical goals and targets. We will then report to the NYIT community regularly using the defined metrics and take corrective action when necessary.

2) We will collect the various levels of assessment that we do at NYIT into a single Institutional Assessment Plan. It will cover the many ways we track progress toward our goals from our strategic plan to department and school plans aligned to the institutional plan to academic program reviews.

3) In response to suggestions from the Academic Senate's Assessment Committee that NYIT needs to make more robust training available for our faculty, this fall there will be a full schedule of workshops on various aspects of assessment. We need to imbue our institution with the knowledge and culture of contemporary practices, and I have also asked the provost to arrange for faculty members to travel to conferences on assessment toward that end.

4) We will devote substantially more resources to support faculty efforts to assess student learning outcomes. What you in the faculty have to do is step up and take advantage of these new resources, and let us know what else you need to do the job well.

Here are some previews:

We will add staff with strong assessment credentials and a history of supporting faculty with assessment activities, including in the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

The Center for Teaching and Learning has added Dr. Francine Glazer, an active scholar in pedagogy and learning outcomes who possesses extensive experience in all aspects of faculty development and assessment of academic programs.

The Office of Global Academic Programs has added Dr. Patricia Burlaud, who also has a great deal of current knowledge and accreditation experience. Among her responsibilities are coordinating assessment activities at our global campuses, plus ensuring they employ parallel practices with what we are implementing and following here.

By the way, the next time Congress and other politicians point to the increasingly high cost of tuition, we can point to the now unavoidable high cost of meeting reporting, compliance, and accreditation requirements.

Two other helpful developments will take place this fall: .

1) A Data Warehouse system is launching and will be expanded upon over the next few years, providing all of us with improved access to data and numerous reports about assessing and managing the effectiveness of schools, programs, and other units.

2) We will generate more survey data than ever, including from the results of two surveys needed for our 2030 Scorecard metrics: The National Survey of Student Engagement and the College Results Inventory. The former should give faculty and student affairs professionals information about the impact of their programs on current students and how well they are doing compared with other schools; the latter is designed to assess our impact on alumni five years after graduation.

Let's remember that research has shown that students perform better and are more satisfied at colleges committed to their success and that cultivate positive working and social relations among different groups on campus.



TEACHING THE MILLENNIALS

The 21st century celebrates the idea of education without borders. The millennials are everywhere. How do we reach and teach them efficiently and effectively? We must teach the 100 million students who seek college degrees in a world where only one in six humans live in a developed nation. As I've noted before, the greatest increase in degree seekers will naturally come from students living in developing nations. As we gear up to teach these 100 million students, a number expected to reach 125 million in 2020 and as many as 200 million by 2030, we have to invent new paradigms and erase old notions of geography. Existing and emerging technologies are embedded in meeting the challenge, and NYIT is well-positioned for this post-secondary education in a flattened global digital economy.

So here we are, teaching the Web 2.0 generation - where social networks, wikis, blogs, open source software, and global collaboration drive rapid and constant change. The growth of popular new sites has been staggering. YouTube was founded only three years ago - and now attracts 50 million inbound links from other Web sites. More than 100 million people worldwide each month visit Facebook, the sixth most trafficked Web site in the world. Not bad for a Web site that is less than five years old. How quickly things change.

Did you know that today a vast number of teenage girls in Japan type faster with their thumbs than with all their fingers? More than half of all American youth online use social networking sites. Fifty percent say they use informal language instead of proper capitalization and punctuation when writing school assignments: 38 percent use text shortcuts such as "LOL" and 25 percent have used emoticons in schoolwork.

And did you know that 50 percent of Internet users with a college degree consult Wikipedia for their encyclopedic answers?

I confess I am one of them.

But guess what? Eighty-six percent of teens believe that good writing is important to success in life, so all is not lost to the forces of Internet shorthand.

Clearly, the 21st-century teaching and learning process has to evolve to reach this multimedia, multitasking, multilinked mobile generation of students. If not, we will be committing intellectual and academic hypocrisy by choosing channels of communications that are ineffective and a form of major disconnect with our audience.

With technology more embedded into our world than ever, professors with their backs to the class writing on a simple black or whiteboard are not going to cut it. Don't kid yourselves. We must adopt the technology that tomorrow's students know, the technology that will allow us to connect with them. And in doing so, we will see a new definition of what a classroom is, and will experience the shifting and expanding boundaries of our institution, as technology allows us to rethink our role in a wired and wireless global society.

We've seen an extraordinary change already in education, with the so-called "smart" classroom becoming an expected part of the educational process. But the "smartness" of any technology, of course, depends on how it is used. "…[T]echnology is not something you simply plug in," Lee Schulman of the Carnegie Foundation has said, but rather it requires much thinking about how it may best be applied to the classroom, and how the curriculum and methods of instruction should change. The greatest danger is that faculty will continue to do as they have always done, merely replacing the old-fashioned blackboard with slides on an electronic whiteboard, offering little advantage to students.

Along with the expanding boundaries of today's classroom and growing possibilities for useful collaboration, interesting advances in the area of information management are indeed emerging and promise to have a significant effect on the classroom directly and indirectly, both in the form of "mashups" and sophisticated data analysis.

By taking two or more video clips and sometimes additional audio, mashup artists combine other works to create a new artistic expression, which raise questions about what constitutes an original work. What are the implications for how we assess and reward creativity?

One of the things I like about accreditation visits is that objective eyes can point out the obvious items that we pass by innocently. We talk a lot about becoming a better student-centered university and about our goal to improve retention, but I was startled a couple of weeks ago when our Middle States liaison helped me realize that we do not use segmentation of the data we collect on student satisfaction, needs, and desires. What do commuter students in Manhattan or Long Island think about NYIT meeting their needs? Dorm students? Athletes? What do students studying architecture think overall and on each campus? Business students in Amman? I could go on. We hear the squeaky wheels and think they represent the university. But if we used the objective data we collect on these segments, don't you think we might address their needs and improve retention?

We have been focusing on retention efforts for several years and have made some notable changes. But we need to do more. The value of an NYIT education and the strength of our programs should be reflected in higher - and sustained - retention rates.

There are simple day-to-day solutions for increasing retention and minimizing drop rates that we all know and try to practice. Everything from knowing the name of each student to e-mailing a student when he or she is absent.

Again, the important thing here is establishing the connection - we know these millennials thrive on interaction, collaboration, and socialization, so meet them on their own playing field.

As we continue to establish new resources and shore up our existing services, it is up to each of us to act as a "connector," and not just to those who appear to be struggling.

Perhaps most importantly, hold yourself accountable for student learning. Get feedback from your students on their perceptions of your style and approach, and make sure they know your coursework is relevant to the real world and relevant to the careers they are seeking.

And, of course, find ways to show your students that you want them to stay at NYIT!



INTEGRATED MARKETING

What is integrated marketing, and how is going to change our lives? Glad you asked. Simply stated, it's a management concept that offers a holistic approach to all communications. It integrates online and traditional communications with a consistent message that gets more results, often for less money than with a traditional, isolated marketing plan.

Last fall and winter we enlisted the help of Stamats, a team of marketing professionals who helped us take inventory of our marketing and how much we spend on what.

They told us that we have some very good materials and people, but they observed that our marketing is insufficiently reflective or responsive to the goals of our 2030 plan or to emerging communications technologies. We're text-heavy and often seem to talk to ourselves rather than our students. We also need to consider how best to attend to the communications requirements of multiple, global campuses.

In general, Stamats found insufficient integration of marketing communications across media and believe our internal audiences should be more carefully and strategically addressed.

They believe that our public Web site, over time, must be positioned at the alpha. Other media and channels must drive traffic to the Web, which first and foremost should serve prospective students. Our portal will serve current students and the rest of us. At the present time, the site is trying to do too much. As a consequence, it is doing little very well. The way all roads used to lead to Rome, today they lead - or should lead - to our Web site. But our Internet presence must be something worth visiting.

Many of our staff and consultants worked over the summer to help develop an integrated two-year communications strategy and baseline of activity. To lead the integrated marketing charge, it is my please to introduce our new vice president for communications and marketing, Marc Warner, who comes to us with an undergraduate degree from Harvard and an M.F.A. in film and television from NYU, and most recently from the major corporate world at Emblem Health/GHI. Attuned to our current needs, he has major expertise in new media, marketing, interactive advertising, and brand management.

Here's a glimpse of our emerging strategy:

1) The strategy advances the themes we developed in branding colloquia (careers, teaching, and value) in the context of our aspirations for the future. It focuses on three elements of our 2030 vision:
  • Leadership in global education and a model for 21st-century learning;
  • Profession-ready education;
  • Academic quality across distinctive academic offerings.
2) The strategy is designed to communicate our choice differentiating assets:
  • NYIT is an institution on the move and focused on the future;
  • NYIT's signature academic offerings in medicine, architecture, engineering, health professions, and management prepare students to compete in a global career marketplace;
  • NYIT students are increasingly sought after among recruiters and employers.
We'll need to develop and all learn a 15-second "elevator speech" with some pop that sets us distinctly apart from what other universities might say.

3) The approach defines our priority audiences, and the order of these prime groups can be juggled.
  • Current students
  • Faculty
  • Alumni
  • Prospective students
  • Business leaders
  • Recruiters
  • Media
You'll notice that priority is given to internal audiences, recognizing their importance in influencing others. The central message is adapted for each audience and is presented with evidence to support it.

4) The approach puts NYIT's Web site and digital communication channels front and center and takes the best parts of online marketing such as Web sites, e-mail newsletters, search engine optimization, and online advertising to make traditional, offline efforts such as advertising, events, and public relations even more effective. This may be as simple as making sure that the Web site has the same key words as our radio advertising and that our catalogs or classified ads have the same message. It also means more ties like Alumni Affinity Circles social networking.

And here are two other ideas to serve our current students:

1) A student life blog on nyit.edu to generate a sense of pride and community by allowing students to publish their experiences and to allow prospective students to experience NYIT's virtual community first-hand, without the "spin" contained in paid advertising and marketing.

2) Student feedback panels on technology and student services to open new channels of communication and involve students more in helping create a model 21st-century university.



FINANCIAL ENVIRONMENT

Before concluding, I want to say a few words generally and specifically about the economy and its impact on our financial performance.

Here's some good news: Last year, in 2007-2008, NYIT had its best year ever financially. The fiscal year we are just finishing has been solid and our cash position remains strong, and our endowment untouched and growing. Our capital budget has allowed us to make substantial capital investments in our infrastructure, our buildings and on the grounds of our campuses, our computer labs, classrooms, and other facilities.

In the current economic environment, however, we are much more guarded and conservative about the upcoming year.

We are not in the unfortunate position of SUNY and CUNY and many public universities with layoffs and big budget cuts. Nor are we in the situation that the University of Iowa is in, looking at selling a valuable asset, in this case a rare Jackson Pollack painting, in order to pay for facility repairs. We are in a pretty enviable position.

But we live in the same world. Our students take loans and many pay for gasoline and mass transit. How will this impact on our enrollment? As an institution, we face unprecedented hikes in the cost of energy and other commodities, and economic downtrends pose a challenge.

We did get hit big-time by the credit crisis and are confronted with much higher monthly interest payments on our bonds. Like many universities and non-profit organizations, we will need to refinance our debt or live with substantially higher payments. So during these times it pays to be a bit more prudent. Let's say like at dinner after a healthy appetizer and main course, thinking before having dessert. And remember we are only talking about being careful about extra calories.

Demographic projections suggest relatively flat overall enrollment at our New York campuses in the future based upon regional recruitment. Thus, we will concentrate here on things that will make us a stronger institution - adding beds in the dorms we have, exploring new dorms at our Old Westbury campus, and looking at our international enrollment here, a burgeoning growth sector we actually have not focused on compared with other New York colleges and universities but are especially well-positioned to do so. And, of course, we anticipate further growth abroad.

While we remain tuition-driven, with about 86 percent of revenue last fiscal year coming from tuition, we have made strides to increase our non-tuition revenue. Improved retention helps as well.

As Ellis College moves, as long-planned, to an independent status while continuing to provide a financial return to NYIT, we'll ramp up NYIT Online, another good opportunity.

Seventy-nine percent of the nation's 15 million college students live off campus, and with the cost of gas soaring with no drop in sight, it's easy to predict that more students will look at online options. At last count, 20 percent of all students in the U.S. take individual courses online. NYIT is an established leader in online education, adding value to the institution overall. We can leverage this as the online education market is poised to exceed $69 billion dollars by 2015.

But in comparison, the global education market today accounts for an estimated $2.3 trillion. Our global locations are also experiencing sound growth, and we must enhance our role in offering educational opportunities to stay competitive in this rewarding marketplace.

Our development efforts are beginning to pay off and have a considerable upside. We won a number of large corporate grants this past year, and philanthropic giving - even in this tough climate - is growing meaningfully, especially through a number of trustee gifts and major donors.

And for the NYIT community, here's always good news: virtually all of you who have been with us more than six months will receive handsome raises next week.

We have the tools and opportunities to continue our NYIT upward journey, which, of course, begins with the incoming class.

Our incoming freshmen in New York are up a tick from last year, especially in Manhattan, and their solid academic records are on par with previous years. At NYCOM, there were 18 applicants for every seat in the class, and their academic profile is the strongest it has ever been. We'll know more about overall enrollment in the next weeks, but new students in our other graduate programs are also tracking ahead of last year.

All of our jobs are to support those students to have a rich and successful educational experience and to graduate from NYIT. By taking a nimble, creative, synergistic, and collaborative approach, we will - collectively and individually - insure NYIT's promise as a model 21st-century university.

In conclusion, thank you for your patience and attention, and your continuing dedication and good work. And let me note that my presentation was shorter in duration than an average class. That's the third scary thought of the morning.

Good luck and, again, thank you.



  NYIT Video Gallery: Greetings from NYIT's Nanjing campus (played during Convocation 2008)