In address, president says UA poised to be a national university

UA has all the pieces it needs to be a national university with an international reach, President Scott L. Scarborough said during his first State of the University Address on Tuesday.

A committed faculty and staff.

Programs of great renown.

Strength in research, the arts and humanities.

Add to that a polytechnic designation, which in a single word tells prospective students near and far about our historical strengths, our excellent career-focused programs, our commitment to active, applied learning, our connections to industry and our technology-infused curriculum. In short, polytechnic is not what you learn, it’s how you learn.

Now we have one more special ingredient: The Power of Many.

The many includes LeBron James, the centerpiece of a commercial that debuted during the address.

The many also includes students, faculty and staff who spoke passionately about the University and its place in their lives during videos played during the address.

History repeats

Scarborough recounted the university’s history, its growth from a religious private college to a municipal college, then a state university, and now, aspiring to a national stage.

He noted that each leap to a higher plane carried risk and drew criticism -- especially when UA moved from municipal to state status.

But UA survived and thrived on each platform, he added, and it is poised to do so again.

Hub-and-spoke strategy

Scarborough said the Akron campus will become the hub of this national university, buoyed by an ever-strengthening Honors College and an attractive campus for traditional students and researchers.

Arrayed from the hub will be our satellite locations – currently Wayne College, Medina, Lakewood and others – as well as a larger presence in the digital space, appealing to a growing number of working adults, veterans and others who are not physically able to travel to us.

The need to reach beyond Northeastern Ohio is driven by two factors:

• A decline of high school graduates across Ohio and the Midwest in general, projected to extend through 2025 at least, and
• declining per-student state support, including a change to the funding formula that puts greater emphasis on graduates than on enrollment.

Several of the building blocks necessary for an elevated national stature are in place, he said.

UA’s enrollment strategy has two parts:

• strengthen our traditional base of Northeast Ohio, and
• expand into new markets across the Midwest for this recruitment cycle. He said the polytechnic positioning will add more meaning to the University’s name in markets away from Northeast Ohio, where students and parents are not as familiar with our strengths.

Polytechnic positioning

He acknowledged the concerns raised by the new positioning.

“Some are concerned that when we characterized the educational experience [as polytechnic], we might diminish what takes place in the humanities and the arts,” Scarborough said. “That’s why we led with the announcement about the National Center for Choreography with DanceCleveland and the Knight Foundation, to show that these kinds of hand-on experiences are available across all of our disciplines.”

He closed his address with an appeal for teamwork.

“Become a part of the Power of Many,” he said to the 700+ in attendance, “and help us make this transition from a regional state university to a national university -- the university we are destined to become, so we can lift this city and this region…to a higher ground.”

Related:

• President Scott Scarborough

2015 STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY ADDRESS