Select Page
Interim Chancellor Petra Roter addresses faculty and staff gathered at UW Oshkosh’s Opening Day assembly on Sept. 2.

University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Interim Chancellor Petra Roter shared the following remarks during Opening Day 2014 ceremonies in Reeve Memorial Union at 9 a.m. on Sept. 2, 2014: 

 

Good morning. I am honored to welcome you today to Opening Day of our 2014-15 academic year at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

For me, Opening Day has always felt similar to New Year’s Eve. Granted, this is a different kind of New Year, a different sort of start. But, just like Dec. 31 or Jan. 1, this is a time to reflect on what we have accomplished in the year past and an opportunity to look forward to the initiatives and projects in the academic year ahead. It’s a time to start anew. And this year, for some pretty well-understood reasons, we will be starting anew in a very dramatic and historic way.

It is my privilege to serve as your interim chancellor between the retirement of Chancellor Wells and the formal start of our next – the eleventh – chancellor of our cherished UW Oshkosh. It is a tremendous responsibility, but, like all of you, having watched Chancellor Wells during his many years of service, I learned so much about being a devoted steward of our campus, of this great, good place, of its mission and values, of its many public resources and, most importantly, of its people and their diverse knowledge, gifts and talents.

Of course, one of the most prominent updates to provide for you this Opening Day is how well we are progressing in our search for a new UW Oshkosh Chancellor. That does not happen by accident.

I want to take a moment to express our deep appreciation and offer a sincere thank you to the 21 members of our Chancellor Search and Screen committee, led by Professor Barbara Rau of our College of Business. These colleagues, students and community partners have met weekly this past spring semester and all through the summer, thoughtfully – and with great foresight — supplying time, talent and energy within the Chancellor Search process. It is a tremendous responsibility and sacrifice, and I would now ask the members of the search and screen committee who are here today to stand and let us show our appreciation…

More than ever, our campus community, the city of Oshkosh and the entire region of the New North look to the Chancellor of UW Oshkosh as a critical leader whose vision and collaborative spirit can have a tremendous impact on our region’s prosperity and quality of life. So, not to add any weight to that which has been already foisted upon the shoulders of our search and screen committee members,… but know that you are a not just helping us find a new executive; you are helping a big part of Wisconsin also find a new trailblazer. Again, we are grateful for your service to UW Oshkosh.

I understand that there will be an announcement later this week as to the five Chancellor finalists that will be brought to campus, and these finalists will be visiting campus the second and third weeks of this month.  There will be opportunities for the campus and community to meet with the finalists.  I realize that this will be short notice, but I encourage your involvement and engagement in this most important process.

No question, we are in a period of great transition, great change here. Beyond our chancellor’s departure, we know there are many new faces in your departments and, in some cases, vacancies.  However, this is no more than any given year. We understand how the retirement of Chancellor Wells may heighten that feeling of uncertainty, that “things are in limbo.” I assure you, we plan to move forward with purpose.

Change has been all around us. But we would be fooling ourselves and undoing all the incredible, transformative good that we have, together, cultivated at UW Oshkosh in this still-new century if we just turned a page and filed away the many things that remain priorities, commitments and hallmarks of our strong and respective reputation. Because our leaders change, does not mean what we collectively value and hold important does.

As Victor Hugo wrote, “Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.” I think he was right on. Now more than ever, our roots remain strong – we cherish and value our commitment to inclusive excellence on this campus, ensuring in all we do that people of all backgrounds, races, ethnicities, identities, and abilities have an equal opportunity to write a story of success. We prize what we have accomplish in terms of sustainability – realizing that what we teach in the classroom is just as critical as how we build our buildings, conserve energy and lessen our impact on the earth. We remain a collaborative powersource in our community and region, helping neighbors and partners solve problems while providing our students unmatched educational opportunities in the process. And, of course, we continue writing the story of general education’s transformation. We are about to embark on a new phase of the University Studies Program that will flip the classroom like never before.

I think this idea of “changing our leaves but leaving our roots intact” is an incredibly important idea and theme for this transition period we find ourselves in. Before I invite my fellow vice chancellors to update you today on accomplishments and initiatives in their divisions, I want to share a bit about what priorities we remain dedicated to at UW Oshkosh through this exciting period of transformation.

We begin this year stable enrollments with projections that we may be slightly up in headcount enrollment – we may just break the 14,000-student mark.  Keeping in mind student demographics and the very competitive market, this is outstanding news. Credit and thanks go out to all those who have been actively engaged in the recruitment and retention of our students.

I am happy to report that we are well underway and right on, if not ahead of, schedule in our Higher Learning Commission quality initiative and re-affirmation process.

The Quality Initiative is a three-year initiative that we are right on target with. It involves the implementation of our University Studies Program, which, as you all know, and as I referenced earlier, enters “Quest III” this fall.  The other, HLC-related process scales up this fall. We will be launching campus committees to begin some of the analyses and initial report writing for our 10-year re-affirmation with the HLC. Provost Earns will have more on this initiative and its timeline ahead.

This fall, UW Oshkosh welcomes the start of our new Engineering Technology degree programs. We announced the official green light for this trio of mechanical, electrical and environmental engineering technology majors in spring, joined by U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin at our Environmental Research and Innovation (or ERIC) labs.  These programs are a testament to our identity as a responsive, collaborative institution. Faculty worked side-by-side with colleagues from the 13 Northeast Wisconsin Educational Resource Alliance’s universities and colleges. Regional manufacturers also helped shape and steer the programs’ development. The initiative has earned some early press and praise, and we’re very happy to see it the programs get underway this fall.

When our UW System Board of Regents visited campus two weeks ago, we had an opportunity to sort of turn a page on our Campus Master Plan and announce our efforts to begin another planning process. I’ll leave more details for Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Sonnleitner’s report to you today. Suffice it to say, the physical transformation at UW Oshkosh since 2000 has been nothing short of sweeping and breathtaking. We are very excited in the new year to begin a new master planning process that will engage the campus community and begin to shape the vision for University’s next plan – a touchstone and compass for our work to continue UW Oshkosh’s growth, orderly development and sustainable strides I the years to come.

Now, I know you all read this in your last Strategic Plan Update and Annual Report… but consider: Since 2000, our campus has added four new buildings and recycled and renovated many more, boosting gross square footage to nearly 3.4 million square feet, up 24.7 percent. Here’s a point of pride: Classroom space is the largest category: up 38.7 percent and lab space has increased by 5.8 percent. You can see how important our next master plan will be to the next 10 to 20 years of continued transformation at UW Oshkosh.

Another big change we will all see this year is the transition to our University Personnel Systems, or UPS… not to be confused with Brown, the package-delivery service or our very own, beloved University Studies Program (or USP)… Anybody’s head spinning yet? I know…it is waaaay too early for all these acronyms…

The goals of the UPS are to QUOTE: take the aspects of the unclassified and classified service that work best and create one system of university employment.” As UW System describes, “The goal is to develop a process to identify personnel policies that have worked well – and that will continue to work well when more authority is delegated to the UW institutions. The systems will also maintain commitment to and the integrity of the UW System’s ongoing goal of a diverse and highly qualified workforce.” Equally important, the UPS will AND-I-QUOTE: protect existing employee rights and establish a compensation structure that enables the UW System to recruit and retain the best, most diverse, and most qualified employees UNQUOTE. The system is scheduled to start up in July 2015.

That’s a perfect segue for me to briefly address compensation here at UW Oshkosh. As I mentioned earlier, while we’re going through a period of leadership change, we remain strongly committed to addressing compensation for our faculty and staff. In 2014-15, we face an approximately $3 million budget cut – our share of the much larger UW System, $62 million cut. In making an approximately 4 percent base reduction – meaning some very hard decisions and sacrifices in each of your colleges and departments – we did not veer away from our commitment to fund three critical priorities: $500,000 in base funding for our University Studies Program, $500,000 in one-time funding for the Student Titan Employment Program (STEP), which we are proud to say is continuing, and $1.5 million toward compensation. The salary-equity compensation adjustments and discretionary merit compensation adjustments we made were first steps toward closing gaps. We have much, much more work to do to close those gaps, and we made sure we shared the story of our hard work and focus with the Board of Regents and UW System administration two weeks ago during their Regent meeting at UW Oshkosh. We all know there remains a steep, uphill climb ahead of us. What is encouraging to see is the willingness of our Regents to hear the story of “how-we-did-it” and the progress we have made. We are not backing off our commitment to compensation. We appreciate all the feedback, knowledge and collaboration our faculty and staff have provided to make sure we do this fairly and thoughtfully and to keep this a top priority.

Finally, today, and in welcoming our Provost to the podium, let me just share how excited I personally am, and I know many of us are, about the next phase of our USP just a day away from taking another landmark step forward.

Actually, we are now hours away from launching Quest III. Sophomore students and our faculty members are poised to help launch a slate of new courses specifically designed to connect and collaborate with community nonprofits, other organizations, farms – the array is pretty incredible. These courses and their related community and civic-engagement experiences represent one more unique and nationally-recognized innovation in general education. Hundreds of students will be venturing out into the community as they supercharge their learning and connect it. We are very proud of what we have accomplished so far. Can’t wait for tomorrow…

So,… I am, strangely, both happy and sad to report to you that these – my first and likely last UW Oshkosh Opening Day remarks as a Chancellor – are coming to a conclusion. Again, I have such a tremendous respect, honor and feeling of responsibility for the job UW System President Ray Cross assigned me back on May 1. I give you my word I will work hard on your and UW Oshkosh’s behalf. You can all find me in the Chancellor’s offices on the second floor of Dempsey and out and about on campus and in the community. For however fleeting my time there may be, rest assured my door is open. I am ready to lead and serve you and our institution as we continue through this period of transition together.

I realize there is some angst and uncertainty.  That is part and parcel of change and a new beginning.  We may encounter a few bumps in the road. But, as my oma used to say in our family’s German-American restaurant, “If life gives you cabbage, make sauerkraut.”

I think we all agree that there are far smoother and more thrilling stretches in the road ahead. I am so very proud of the way we have all worked together at UW Oshkosh to lay down solid roots in a campus community that shares the values of collaboration, service, leadership, sustainability, inclusion and scholarship — roots and a foundation that have allowed us to strengthen and advance UW Oshkosh’s regional and national reputation.

Thank you again, and Happy New Year.

 

Learn more: