Thursday, December 19, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Bethany College Trivia
Q: What program garnered national attention for Bethany during the 1959-60 academic year?
A: The "Education for Responsible Citizenship" program, which began during the spring semester in 1960, garnered nationwide attention as the "the first down-to-earth, precinct level course in practical politics ever offered by an American college." President Gresham developed the program to give emphasis to both theoretical political science and practical politics. Dr. Gresham appointed C. William O'Neill, former governor of Ohio, as professor of Public Affairs. Gov. O'Neill gave a series of 16 lectures to the entire student body.
A: The "Education for Responsible Citizenship" program, which began during the spring semester in 1960, garnered nationwide attention as the "the first down-to-earth, precinct level course in practical politics ever offered by an American college." President Gresham developed the program to give emphasis to both theoretical political science and practical politics. Dr. Gresham appointed C. William O'Neill, former governor of Ohio, as professor of Public Affairs. Gov. O'Neill gave a series of 16 lectures to the entire student body.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
A
Bethany welcome to our new head athletic trainer Roger Olean (center).
He has over 20 years of experience as an athletic trainer and comes to
Bethany after serving the last year at Salem International University.
He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree
in Allied Health from Slippery Rock University and his master's degree in
Physical Education from Springfield College. At left is Brian Rose,
Director of Athletics and Recreation.
Enjoyable dinner at Christman Manor last night in
honor of our two exchange students from Heidelberg, Germany. Pictured
(from left): David Black, Provost; Sven de Jong, Senior Vice President;
Annie, Nada Markovic, Yannick Niedworok, Joe Lovano, Professor of World
Languages; Harald Menz, Professor of World Languages/Director of
International Studies.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Bethany College Trivia
Q: In what year was the Steam Plant built?
A: The Steam Plant was built in 1911 after President M.M. Cochran bought the land. The Steam Plant allowed the buildings on campus to have central heating.
A: The Steam Plant was built in 1911 after President M.M. Cochran bought the land. The Steam Plant allowed the buildings on campus to have central heating.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Holiday Blessings Abound at Bethany
(The President's Letter, December 2013)
This is the time of year when our College pauses to evaluate the hard work of the fall semester. Thanksgiving break has come and gone, and the final few frantic days before the Christmas season are filled with bringing the semester to a close. Seniors look forward to presenting their senior projects and preparing for comps, and almost all students are busily finishing papers and studying for exams. Some will return for January Term, while others will take trips abroad to other nations—a Bethany tradition as part of our global-studies initiative.
The Office of Enrollment Management hosts its final campus tours for the year, and Institutional Advancement counts year-end gifts from alumni and friends. Some student-athletes take a breather from competition, while for others, the full winter and spring schedule looms ahead. The campus sees its last round of receptions and special events, including concerts and exhibits, Light-Up Night’s tribute to the many ways this season of light is celebrated, and other commemorations of the waning days of fall term and the approach of the winter season.
It’s a special time of the year for paying tribute to those whose devotion to the College makes all the difference in our success.
First and foremost, we thank our faculty for their outstanding commitment to good teaching, advising, and mentoring of our students, as well as their own scholarship as professional academicians. At a time when the climate of higher education remains volatile, with the emergence of online courses, branch campuses, and new learning technologies, the heart of Bethany College remains its faculty. In every department of the College, faculty members excel as leadership role models, invaluable career counselors, and sources of lifelong guidance and wisdom. We add to this expression of appreciation our emeritus and retired faculty, many of whom remain in or close to Bethany and whose continued devotion to the College takes many forms.
The College cannot function without administrative support. These staff members keep our historic campus in good condition, house and feed our students, coach and train our athletes, offer counseling and learning resources, recruit incoming students, maintain our technology and equipment, raise dollars for scholarships, and care for many other areas of the operation. Often the unsung, invisible heroes of Bethany, they are critical to the delivery of our educational mission and student services. We thank our tireless administrative staff for their professionalism and attention to the many details that define our institution.
We thank our students for enriching our lives with their energy, intellectual gifts, volunteer service, and artistic and athletic talents. Honored that you chose Bethany College for your academic careers, we pledge to you again our commitment to your life and career success, and a truly lifelong relationship with Bethanians across the generations.
Bethany enjoys the generous support of alumni and friends throughout the world. Their financial commitment helps us to close the gap between what we can charge in tuition and fees, and the true cost of a quality liberal arts education. They have entrusted their dollars to a winning educational tradition of nearly 174 years at Bethany, and like most institutions of higher education, we simply cannot keep the doors open to the College without private giving. To all who support our College in this way, we send a special and heartfelt thank-you for your support in 2013. And we invite your renewed giving during the closing days of this year and in 2014.
To our special friends in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), our founding denomination, we say thank you for a year of exceptional engagement with the College that Alexander Campbell founded so long ago. From Buffalo Seminary programming for Church leaders and those who participated in the Scott Lectures, to the volunteers who help to care for Campbell Mansion and the Disciples Men who constructed the new Prayer Labyrinth, we say thank you, and we look forward to working with you in the new year to reaffirm our historic commitment to the Church.
Finally, Bethany College benefits immeasurably from the talent, time, and treasure of its Board of Trustees and Alumni Council. Led by Bethanians Greg Jordan and Robert McCann, the Trustees have provided significant leadership during 2013, and offered complete support for the educational enterprise in ways that are historic, lasting, and wise. The Alumni Council, led by Bruce Fahey and Patrick Hosey, has developed innovative programming and a strong leadership presence among Bethanians, including a growing roster of individual class agents. We thank our alumni leaders for their love of the College that is expressed through conscientious service to Alma Mater.
To everyone, Annie and I thank you for your friendship and support. We offer our warmest greetings for the holiday season, and our sincere hopes that the new year will bring you back home to A Small College of National Distinction.
This is the time of year when our College pauses to evaluate the hard work of the fall semester. Thanksgiving break has come and gone, and the final few frantic days before the Christmas season are filled with bringing the semester to a close. Seniors look forward to presenting their senior projects and preparing for comps, and almost all students are busily finishing papers and studying for exams. Some will return for January Term, while others will take trips abroad to other nations—a Bethany tradition as part of our global-studies initiative.
The Office of Enrollment Management hosts its final campus tours for the year, and Institutional Advancement counts year-end gifts from alumni and friends. Some student-athletes take a breather from competition, while for others, the full winter and spring schedule looms ahead. The campus sees its last round of receptions and special events, including concerts and exhibits, Light-Up Night’s tribute to the many ways this season of light is celebrated, and other commemorations of the waning days of fall term and the approach of the winter season.
It’s a special time of the year for paying tribute to those whose devotion to the College makes all the difference in our success.
First and foremost, we thank our faculty for their outstanding commitment to good teaching, advising, and mentoring of our students, as well as their own scholarship as professional academicians. At a time when the climate of higher education remains volatile, with the emergence of online courses, branch campuses, and new learning technologies, the heart of Bethany College remains its faculty. In every department of the College, faculty members excel as leadership role models, invaluable career counselors, and sources of lifelong guidance and wisdom. We add to this expression of appreciation our emeritus and retired faculty, many of whom remain in or close to Bethany and whose continued devotion to the College takes many forms.
The College cannot function without administrative support. These staff members keep our historic campus in good condition, house and feed our students, coach and train our athletes, offer counseling and learning resources, recruit incoming students, maintain our technology and equipment, raise dollars for scholarships, and care for many other areas of the operation. Often the unsung, invisible heroes of Bethany, they are critical to the delivery of our educational mission and student services. We thank our tireless administrative staff for their professionalism and attention to the many details that define our institution.
We thank our students for enriching our lives with their energy, intellectual gifts, volunteer service, and artistic and athletic talents. Honored that you chose Bethany College for your academic careers, we pledge to you again our commitment to your life and career success, and a truly lifelong relationship with Bethanians across the generations.
Bethany enjoys the generous support of alumni and friends throughout the world. Their financial commitment helps us to close the gap between what we can charge in tuition and fees, and the true cost of a quality liberal arts education. They have entrusted their dollars to a winning educational tradition of nearly 174 years at Bethany, and like most institutions of higher education, we simply cannot keep the doors open to the College without private giving. To all who support our College in this way, we send a special and heartfelt thank-you for your support in 2013. And we invite your renewed giving during the closing days of this year and in 2014.
To our special friends in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), our founding denomination, we say thank you for a year of exceptional engagement with the College that Alexander Campbell founded so long ago. From Buffalo Seminary programming for Church leaders and those who participated in the Scott Lectures, to the volunteers who help to care for Campbell Mansion and the Disciples Men who constructed the new Prayer Labyrinth, we say thank you, and we look forward to working with you in the new year to reaffirm our historic commitment to the Church.
Finally, Bethany College benefits immeasurably from the talent, time, and treasure of its Board of Trustees and Alumni Council. Led by Bethanians Greg Jordan and Robert McCann, the Trustees have provided significant leadership during 2013, and offered complete support for the educational enterprise in ways that are historic, lasting, and wise. The Alumni Council, led by Bruce Fahey and Patrick Hosey, has developed innovative programming and a strong leadership presence among Bethanians, including a growing roster of individual class agents. We thank our alumni leaders for their love of the College that is expressed through conscientious service to Alma Mater.
To everyone, Annie and I thank you for your friendship and support. We offer our warmest greetings for the holiday season, and our sincere hopes that the new year will bring you back home to A Small College of National Distinction.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Bethany College Trivia
Q: When did Bethany join the Presidents' Athletic Conference?
A: Bethany,
along with Allegheny, Thiel and Washington & Jefferson Colleges,
joined the the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) in 1958. The PAC,
created in 1955, was composed of Western Reserve University, John
Carroll, Case Institute of Technology, Eastern Michigan and Wayne State
University.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Presidential Perspectives
(This
month's issue of Presidential Perspectives, a presidential thought
series, published by Scott D. Miller and Marylouise Fennell with support
of Aramark Higher Education).
This month's chapter is titled "Elevating Sustainability Integrating Sustainability: Universities and the Urban Environment."
http://www.presidentialperspectives.org/current_chapter.asp
This month's chapter is titled "Elevating Sustainability Integrating Sustainability: Universities and the Urban Environment."
http://www.presidentialperspectives.org/current_chapter.asp
My Monthly Huffington Post Column
The Relevance of Discussion on Liberal Arts Relevance
In January, I will serve as a panelist for the Council of Independent Colleges Presidents Institute on the theme of "Building Value--Linking Classroom to Career." The seminar is designed to illustrate ways in which the kind of education offered by Bethany College and other national liberal arts colleges can translate into real value for our graduates.
It's a conversation that I welcome having with veteran and newcomer college presidents alike. After all, we work hard to ensure the continued vitality of our institutions. We devote many hours to student recruitment and retention, fundraising, the formation of parents' associations, alumni engagement, career counseling and much more. And when we talk about "real value" for our grads, we're really referencing successful career placement in those first critical jobs that bring with them healthy starting salaries and abundant opportunities for rapid advancement.
Given the cost of college these days and the growing sense of entitlement that students and parents have about the value of their tuition dollars, we as educators need to think and plan strategically to position our colleges for success beyond the current career climate. That climate, like that of the Earth, is volatile and not always predictable. There are things we need to do as institutions to prepare.
A recent article in the Leadership Exchange publication of NASPA, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, puts it bluntly: "In the minds of many critics and supporters of higher education, getting a job has become the ultimate measure of both student and institutional success in today's turbulent economic and employment climate." The authors of the article conclude that "the highest quality liberal arts education" is the way to go for achieving lifetime, as well as career, success.
I couldn't agree more. The challenge, of course, is to match students' career plans and expectations with relevant experiential learning. Although a workable and desirable concept, it can be labor-intensive. But it often offers the best formula for matching liberal arts skills of communication, research and synthesis of information with practical career applications. Think study-abroad opportunities that enrich students' understanding of the global community they will join as career professionals. Our students at Bethany College consistently rank international, academically oriented travel as the single best learning experience of their four years with us.
Yet apart from the obvious excitement of hiking through the Amazon or strolling in the world's greatest museums, defining exactly how a liberal arts background can be useful to career-focused graduates is more than an exercise in college marketing. It's the key to our survival as institutions.
This means that many colleges and universities -- especially those embracing traditional liberal arts missions -- will not only have to rebrand themselves in a promotional sense; they'll have to redefine their operational model.
The new calculus for such institutions will rely on career-enhancing skills of information gathering and synthesis of data; analysis and problem solving; team dynamics in non-traditional work environments; networking and career-centered communication and social interaction; a working knowledge of languages, and a practical understanding of world cultures within a business context. And guess what? All of these recommend a liberal arts approach.
Yet higher education can be slow to change and adapt, even when its survival is challenged. Moreover, college curricula can be confusing in providing the kind of foundation students need. Writing in Forbes (November 7, 2013), George Leef points out that "at many schools, the curriculum has become so unwieldy that it is possible for students to graduate without ever taking any of the courses that we would formerly have regarded as pillars of a college education." He suggests that useful general-education requirements that give students a broad, critical-thinking foundation may be absent or compromised by what is more fashionable or appealing to students.
I believe that the classical, liberal arts genre of education should survive, that it deserves the best kind of critical and creative thinking that can save it (perhaps even releasing it from embedded tradition and practice) and that having a radical discussion on its future possibilities should go forward -- urgently. The residential, personalized, professor-intensive model has unlimited value, as well as diverse implications for our society and the demands that confront our next generation of leaders.
If we do not act to save the liberal arts, if we do not employ the most sophisticated tools at hand to broaden our students' intellectual experience which should also be enriched by a secure foundation of the liberal arts, we will pay heavily as a society. We may have a hardworking, talented, enthusiastic but one-dimensional workforce to whom the most complex issues of our time, and theirs, will be deeply, and perhaps unnecessarily, frustrating. They will miss out on the life pleasures of general knowledge. We will miss out because of their unrealized intellectual capacity to solve problems.
We deserve better than that and, frankly, so do our students whom we are entrusted to teach.
Dr. Scott D. Miller is president of Bethany College and M.M. Cochran Professor of Leadership Studies. Now in his 23rd year as a college president, he serves as a consultant to college presidents and boards.
In January, I will serve as a panelist for the Council of Independent Colleges Presidents Institute on the theme of "Building Value--Linking Classroom to Career." The seminar is designed to illustrate ways in which the kind of education offered by Bethany College and other national liberal arts colleges can translate into real value for our graduates.
It's a conversation that I welcome having with veteran and newcomer college presidents alike. After all, we work hard to ensure the continued vitality of our institutions. We devote many hours to student recruitment and retention, fundraising, the formation of parents' associations, alumni engagement, career counseling and much more. And when we talk about "real value" for our grads, we're really referencing successful career placement in those first critical jobs that bring with them healthy starting salaries and abundant opportunities for rapid advancement.
Given the cost of college these days and the growing sense of entitlement that students and parents have about the value of their tuition dollars, we as educators need to think and plan strategically to position our colleges for success beyond the current career climate. That climate, like that of the Earth, is volatile and not always predictable. There are things we need to do as institutions to prepare.
A recent article in the Leadership Exchange publication of NASPA, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, puts it bluntly: "In the minds of many critics and supporters of higher education, getting a job has become the ultimate measure of both student and institutional success in today's turbulent economic and employment climate." The authors of the article conclude that "the highest quality liberal arts education" is the way to go for achieving lifetime, as well as career, success.
I couldn't agree more. The challenge, of course, is to match students' career plans and expectations with relevant experiential learning. Although a workable and desirable concept, it can be labor-intensive. But it often offers the best formula for matching liberal arts skills of communication, research and synthesis of information with practical career applications. Think study-abroad opportunities that enrich students' understanding of the global community they will join as career professionals. Our students at Bethany College consistently rank international, academically oriented travel as the single best learning experience of their four years with us.
Yet apart from the obvious excitement of hiking through the Amazon or strolling in the world's greatest museums, defining exactly how a liberal arts background can be useful to career-focused graduates is more than an exercise in college marketing. It's the key to our survival as institutions.
This means that many colleges and universities -- especially those embracing traditional liberal arts missions -- will not only have to rebrand themselves in a promotional sense; they'll have to redefine their operational model.
The new calculus for such institutions will rely on career-enhancing skills of information gathering and synthesis of data; analysis and problem solving; team dynamics in non-traditional work environments; networking and career-centered communication and social interaction; a working knowledge of languages, and a practical understanding of world cultures within a business context. And guess what? All of these recommend a liberal arts approach.
Yet higher education can be slow to change and adapt, even when its survival is challenged. Moreover, college curricula can be confusing in providing the kind of foundation students need. Writing in Forbes (November 7, 2013), George Leef points out that "at many schools, the curriculum has become so unwieldy that it is possible for students to graduate without ever taking any of the courses that we would formerly have regarded as pillars of a college education." He suggests that useful general-education requirements that give students a broad, critical-thinking foundation may be absent or compromised by what is more fashionable or appealing to students.
I believe that the classical, liberal arts genre of education should survive, that it deserves the best kind of critical and creative thinking that can save it (perhaps even releasing it from embedded tradition and practice) and that having a radical discussion on its future possibilities should go forward -- urgently. The residential, personalized, professor-intensive model has unlimited value, as well as diverse implications for our society and the demands that confront our next generation of leaders.
If we do not act to save the liberal arts, if we do not employ the most sophisticated tools at hand to broaden our students' intellectual experience which should also be enriched by a secure foundation of the liberal arts, we will pay heavily as a society. We may have a hardworking, talented, enthusiastic but one-dimensional workforce to whom the most complex issues of our time, and theirs, will be deeply, and perhaps unnecessarily, frustrating. They will miss out on the life pleasures of general knowledge. We will miss out because of their unrealized intellectual capacity to solve problems.
We deserve better than that and, frankly, so do our students whom we are entrusted to teach.
Dr. Scott D. Miller is president of Bethany College and M.M. Cochran Professor of Leadership Studies. Now in his 23rd year as a college president, he serves as a consultant to college presidents and boards.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Light Up Night Meeting
Bethany Dean of Students Jerry
Stebbins (right) and I met with Katherine Warren, Chair of Light Up Night, to
discuss final details of this year’s event. Light Up Night and Charity
Christmas Tree Auction will be Dec. 5 at 6:30 p.m. in Commencement Hall. The
evening begins with the official lighting of the tree, and includes a charity
tree auction, a choir performance and a variety of holiday presentations.
The trees that are up for auction will be decorated in various holiday themes,
and all proceeds will go to Bernie’s Kids. The charity, which is named in honor
of the late Brooke County sheriff and commissioner Bernie Kazienko, provides
Christmas presents for needy children in the county. Children in
attendance can write a letter to Santa, and can also get their picture taken
with him.The Bethany College Choir will perform holiday songs, and educational
presentations will be held on some of the major holidays including Christmas,
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Cram A Van Underway
Friday, November 8, 2013
Faculty Emeritus Dinner
Bethany College Faculty Emeritus and their spouses met at
Christman Manor Nov. 7 for dinner. Dr. Larry Grimes spoke about his new
book "Hemingway, Cuba, and the Cuban Works" that will be available in
January, and is available for preorder through Amazon. Dr. Robert Paysen was
recognized as the newest member of the group and received an engraved Bethany
rocking chair.
Top right: Dr. Grimes
and President Scott D. Miller. Center right: Dr. David Black, Provost; Dr.
Paysen; and Dr. Miller. Lower right: Kathleen Keegan, Robert Paysen, and James
Keegan. Left: Annie Miller, John Cole, and Dr. Robyn Cole.
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