Williard D. Rowland Jr.

Dean's Message
Board resolves to move forward

It was an important moment, perhaps one of the most significant in the history of the School. No, it wasn't the accrediting team's preliminary report, nor was it the faculty's debate and initial vote on the question of the move to the Armory. Rather it was a few quiet, but telling remarks by Phil Karsh (‘57), chair of the School's Advisory Board, at the dinner for the Board graciously hosted by Mary Ann and Doug Looney (‘63) the evening before the Board's fall meeting.

Phil pointed out to the Board something about its history and the changes that were coming for it. He noted that the Board's mission statement calls for it to serve three purposes: one, to give advice to the School on program and other matters; two, to represent the School's interests before University and external constituencies; and, three, to help in fund raising and development. Phil suggested that most of the Board's work so far has been devoted to the first two goals and that, while it has done a fine job in those respects, it was his intention to place a whole new emphasis on the third.

This was not news to the Board, nor was it unwelcome. For some time the Board has been preparing for this shift in role. Over the years we have continued to make notable additions to the Board, fleshing out its membership in important national and even global professional realms. Three of its members — Chris Bittman (‘85), David Cheever (‘60) and John Winsor — now serve on the board of directors of the CU Foundation, and several others have been working closely with me and the School development directors on a number of key funding projects. During the past two years the Board also has met with President John Buechner and Chancellor Richard Byyny to better understand and prepare for the School's role in CU's impending $500 million Total Learning Environment Capital Campaign.

But up until this year the Board's development role has been relatively light and informal. Since becoming chair last spring Phil's objective has been to change that condition, and the work of the Board at the fall meeting was largely devoted to the task of defining a much stronger fund-raising focus. Chief among those activities was the articulation of a dual development strategy for the School. The first part of this plan is to develop a marketing message for the School. The second part is to prepare a program of prospect identification and visits to test and refine that message and to begin to seek explicit financial support for it. Both of these tasks will be coordinated by joint committees of the Board and faculty, and those committees and the full Board itself will be meeting frequently in the months ahead.

The all-important, overarching significance of these developments is that the School now has a means by which its private support needs are going to be vigorously and systematically pursued. This step is essential if the School is to meet its goals in the TLE Campaign, and it promises to provide precisely the heft the School needs to raise the funds necessary for both its building and program goals. Our new development director, Jonathan Wanderstock, provides further insight into those plans in his own column, and future editions of Bylines will elaborate on them.

This is not to suggest that the issues involving the accrediting report and the relocation are not important. They are. There are structural, governance and facilities issues that the faculty and I need to continue to address. But we strongly disagree with much of the accrediting team's findings with regard to the two standards said to be out of compliance. Indeed, we feel that the team was flatly wrong on much of what it saw and asserted, particularly in overlooking or discounting all the hard work already under way in those two areas.

Further, because the team found the School in compliance in the 10 other standards, including curriculum, instructional quality, faculty competence, advising, diversity and so on, there seemed to be no connection between the two noncompliances and the overall soundness of the School. As a result, with the support of the campus administration, we are vigorously appealing the recommendation for provisional reaccreditation, and we will be reporting to the full School community on these matters as we go along.

For the moment School alumni and friends should know that there is nothing in the team report and the process that in any way seriously threatens the School's reaccreditation. The School remains accredited and, while it might take a little longer than we would like, and while it might be uncomfortable to go through the appeals and provisional review processes, the School will be reaccredited.

Meanwhile the most important development for the School in the fall of 1998 has been that its Advisory Board, made up of an extraordinarily dedicated group of alumni and friends, has turned a sophisticated eye to the School’s long-term resource interests, and it is preparing to pursue them with considerable investments of time and energy.

For our part, the faculty, staff, students and School administration are moving ahead with all the curriculum and program improvements already well under way, and we look forward to 1999 as a year of even further accomplishment in all aspects of the School’s life.