Investiture Speech, Aug. 22, 2024
Chairman Smith and Vice-Chairwoman Howard, thank you and the Board of Trustees for the honor of being selected to serve as the eleventh president of Brenau University. As the university embarks on its 146th year of serving the needs of the communities of northeast Georgia, I am humbled and excited to lead Brenau as we approach the sesquicentennial anniversary.
Thank you to all my colleagues from Breanu, other colleges and universities, professional organizations, and local community members for your support through your presence and the hundreds of congratulatory cards and emails that I have received over the past few months from across the nation.
Thank you, students, for being here today. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you in person or via the internet, and I am honored you chose to be part of this ceremony. It is with you in mind that those gathered around the room in their academic regalia spend most of their lives creating learning experiences that prepare you for success serving in places yet unknown.
Thank you to my wife Kimberly, my children, extended family and friends who are here today. Your support throughout my professional academic journey over the past several decades has sustained me by offering encouragement and grace along the way.
Over the past year, I have heard the thoughts, hopes, fears and ideas about Brenau University from across the broad spectrum of our community. Groups and individuals talked about Brenau and its place and presence in the world.
I met with students from as near as Hall County or as far away as Nigeria, speaking about their desires. I interacted with adult students in undergraduate and graduate programs on one of Brenau’s campuses or online and heard about their encounters with Brenau and the faculty and how they connect with their colleagues as they prepare for their next experiences.
I met with staff employees who talked about engaging in meaningful work and attaining professional fulfillment in a post-pandemic world. As many of you understand, the nature of work in higher education often differs from that of other professions in which our friends and acquaintances work.
I talked with academic leadership and faculty about how the nature of teaching, research and practice is changing. Social media competes for their attention. Students describe reality as virtual. Generative AI is becoming normative at an accelerating pace. Yet their students express a desire for individual attention, sometimes related to the educational experience and sometimes not. Amidst all this, faculty seek to engage students in and out of the classroom to deepen their understanding of the materials they teach with the hope they will find fulfillment in their chosen profession.
Alums, donors, Board members and community partners have shared their ideas about new opportunities to explore, concerns for ensuring the health and stability of the organization, and the desire to grow the influence and reputation of Brenau across the region. They also want an evolution of Brenau that does not extinguish time-honored traditions.
Consistent themes expressed by these groups provide evidence of their commitment and hope for Brenau. The hope to engage in meaningful work and learning communities. The hope that Brenau is sustainable over time. The commitment to invest their time, talent and treasure to ensure valuable outcomes and recognizable positive change for Brenau.
In other words, A Thriving Future.
A Thriving Future is an expression of hope anchored in the sentiment of the university’s mission: Brenau challenges students to live extraordinary lives of personal and professional fulfillment. More broadly, as expressed in our vision statement, we want our students’ extraordinary lives to meet the changing needs of our community. The hope for A Thriving Future exhorts us to engage in the academic enterprise with a commitment to excellence motivated by a strong sense of purpose.
Chris Brink posed two questions in his book The Soul of the University that can serve us well as a catalyst to advancing A Thriving Future for Brenau. For my grammarians in the audience, I apologize in advance for the quote, but the questions are of paramount importance. “What are we good at?” and “What are we good for?” It is by finding equilibrium between these questions that Brenau can move toward A Thriving Future.
A Thriving Future is a bold statement for Brenau. Some may even view it as too lofty. Acting with the purpose to serve the needs of the community creates an institutional narrative that’s bigger than any of us individually, becoming a cornerstone for softening internal and external voices of doubt. How can Brenau attain it?
The Greek word prassein is translated as praxis in English, expressing the meaningful practice of art, science or skills demonstrating expertise in a subject matter put into use in a purposeful way. H. J. Pearce’s line in the Brenau Ideal of “being rather than seeming” is grounded on this concept. He believed that we should be continually moving from a focus on merely acquiring knowledge toward putting that knowledge into practice in purposeful service.
A Thriving Future is a call to action. It is the outcome desired by those hoping for meaningful working and learning communities and a sustainable Brenau. But it is an outcome that can only be achieved if we all commit to actively engage with our time, talent and treasure in the practices that move us from being known for being good at things to modeling being good for things.
It happens at the nexus of pursuing academic excellence with meaningful, purpose-driven practice. For a university that seeks to meet the needs of the communities we serve, our research, teaching and practice must lift and impact individuals and communities where we live and work in order to thrive.
A Thriving Future emerges when we strive for academic excellence in research, teaching and practice and pair that with demonstrating our excellence in these fields. In turn, this enhances institutional reputation in the academy and its relevance in the communities where students, faculty and graduates practice their crafts.
The academic discipline of practice permeates the programs of Brenau; applied academic research is equally important as pure academic research. We often limit the concept of community praxis to the fields of education and health sciences, but I contend it is equally important in business and fine arts and humanities. Active, applied research is essential for effective community service. I agree with Brink, who postulated that “pure research may transform the subject, but applied research transforms the world.”
A Thriving Future will be achieved if Brenau maintains its commitment to meeting the changing needs of the community and expands its presence in the broad array of local needs that align with Breanu’s excellent programs.
Across northeast Georgia, the need for clinical healthcare practitioners is growing exponentially in primary, secondary, tertiary and mental healthcare. The region’s burgeoning population is an impetus for a broad diversity of businesses that need people with the business acumen and skills to support an array of business operations and industries.
Local and state school systems are struggling to fill teacher and administrator vacancies in K-12 education as we grow in population and density. Thousands of teachers are needed to fill current vacancies in Georgia, and hundreds are needed in this region.
The blossoming construction industry in the region needs space and interior designers. The expanding entertainment industry needs performing artists, production specialists, and technical and artistic designers.
Brenau’s growing enrollments in these high-need areas this fall surpassed 1100 graduate students, with 41% of those enrolled in terminal degrees. Undergraduate enrollments in Brenau’s traditional programs increased 11% this fall. But those numbers are not nearly enough to meet the needs. Expanding programs in these areas will continue to yield highly qualified graduates who can meet these ever-expanding needs, but we must find ways to offer more.
These examples are drawn from a much broader comprehensive list but offer a glimpse of community needs Brenau addresses through in-field learning with students, graduates entering the workforce, and strengthening our community partnerships. The service opportunities are numerous, and many are aligned with the signature programs offered at Brenau.
It is incumbent upon us to approach preparation opportunities for students with urgency in both quality and purpose to deliver on the value proposition touted at the university. This is the essence of the Brenau experience, which focuses on a value-added view of higher education.
Connecting student preparation to purpose stretches graduates to travel intellectually during the learning process. Students who develop a connection between their purpose and their degree tend to stay with it over the long haul. The Brenau learning experience is infused with the tenets of its mission of offering a “curriculum enriched by the liberal arts” to add that additional value to our experiences. Through broad global thinking about a wide array of topics, value is added to the individual student experience and elicits their consideration of the “why” question alongside the “what” question.
For faculty and staff, connecting daily experiences with community-serving purposes adds fulfillment to our work. Brenau seeks to prepare students for “lives of professional and personal fulfillment” and a “lifetime of intellectual accomplishment,” which we share and model through our work.
Providing excellent, high-quality programs that produce highly qualified, purposefully driven graduates enhances the communities we serve. Bringing value to the community is how Brenau serves the places where we study, work and live. My hope is that a purposeful board, faculty and staff work collectively to inspire students to learn and practice what they are good at while finding purpose so they know what they are good for in their communities.
Our motto, “as gold refined by fire,” speaks to Brenau University igniting a fire in the minds of future innovators and cultivating transformative leaders for northeast Georgia and beyond. Through our pioneering programs in healthcare, education, business, and fine arts, Brenau empowers individuals, doing so in a community that incorporates service as the practice method shaping the region’s future. Brenau’s commitment to personalized learning and community engagement fuels a vibrant hub of intellectual exploration and social impact, fostering a generation of changemakers meeting the challenges of tomorrow.
Why do I believe Brenau University is embarking on A Thriving Future? Striving for excellence through purposeful praxis intersects at the confluence of applied research, a growing community of ever-expanding needs, and the hope this learning community shares.
I am confident that a A Thriving Future is attainable for Brenau, for our students, for our faculty and staff, and for our community because I believe in the good work we are capable of achieving. From the conversations I have had with many of you and others across our community, we share some common beliefs that propel us toward that end.
The belief that timeless truths exist and revisiting them helps us find purpose.
The belief that when research is applied to novel problems, new discoveries are attainable that can meet community needs that often seem unsolvable.
The belief that educational accomplishment can serve individuals and communities as a great equalizer.
The belief that the college experience is worth the investment because knowledge combined with purpose can serve the greater good of the community and that creates true value.
The pastor of a church I once attended concluded each service with a benediction that challenged the congregation to risk something big for something good. As I conclude today, I echo those words. I believe with every fiber of my being that if we collectively dare to dream big, with a focus on meeting our communities’ needs through the investment of our time, talents, and treasures, A Thriving Future is truly on our horizon
