Garland’s letter to the CSU community
By John W. Garland, Central State University President
Monday, October 17, 2005
Dear Friends of the Maroon and Gold:
There’s a word to describe the recent Labor Day weekend around these parts: classic. Golden sun in a perfect September-blue sky, the warm air, stripped of summer’s humidity, a caress. A pep rally, poetry, and jazz on Friday. Golf and a cookout in the park on Saturday with family and fellow Centralians. And on Sunday—the Invincible Marching Marauders on parade down Riverside Drive in Dayton, the stands at Welcome Stadium full of fans, 7,500 of them, cheering and smiling and singing, “I’m so glad I go to CSU.” The band was playing, the Belles were dancing, and best of all, the Mighty Marauders were out on the gridiron, playing football, once again.
Yes, football is back at Central State University. And nowhere was that more apparent than at Welcome Stadium on September 4, when the Marauders took on St. Paul’s College of Virginia in the Dayton Classic. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Marauder fans, after having no football team to cheer for the last nine years, were loving every minute. The Marauders lost 20-7, but the score was less important than the fact that Central State was back in the game. It was thrilling to see the maroon and gold in play once again. The Marching Marauders were also crowd pleasers, demonstrating precision choreography as well as their trademark musical virtuosity.
There were some other Classic winners as well. Book scholarships for $100 each went to 50 students, and the Office of Institutional Advancement awarded $1,000 scholarships to eight new freshmen. Contributions made by alumni and friends of Central State made these scholarships possible. A big thank you goes to all of you who have given so generously to the Marauder football campaign. You have also helped support this institution’s primary mission: the education of young women and men.
We intend to make the Dayton Classic an annual three-day event, and I’m already looking forward to the next one. It was truly a “classic experience.”
The Dayton Classic was the second game of a six-game season. Our next (and only other) home contest will be Homecoming, on Oct. 8, against Glenville State University. I expect to see many of you, especially all who live in the Dayton area, at that game. We’re depending on your strong and continued support to help ensure that Marauder football is back for good.
The remaining games are all away. For a schedule, see www.centralstate.edu/athletics/football/index.html. Please support Marauder football and attend as many games as possible this season. For those who cannot attend, games are audiostreamed on WCSU online at http://www.centralstate.edu/wcsu/stream.html.
It seems as if only yesterday I was sitting on the podium in McPherson Stadium listening to Tom Joyner Sr. encourage another class of newly-minted Centralians to dedicate themselves to service, to work hard, and dare to dream. And it’s not just that time seems to be on permanent fast forward for those of a certain age. We actually did begin earlier than usual this year because, after several years of planning and preparation, we made the conversion from quarters to semesters. With the beginning of classes on August 22, Central State began operating on the semester system.
Despite our best efforts to prepare students and their families for the conversion, we had a few calls from people surprised to hear that classes were beginning in August instead of September. There’s bound to be some confusion as people adjust to the new system, and we will continue to do our best to keep everyone informed about changes that affect them.
We held our annual Candlelight Ceremony for new freshmen on August 21. Our guest speaker, attorney Alvarene Owens of Dayton, reminded students of the importance of simple things like saying thank you. Her message complemented CSU’s emphasis on our core values of honesty, hard work, caring, and excellence.
The Rev. Al Sharpton had agreed to be the speaker for our first convocation of the year, but a last-minute change in his schedule, caused by Hurricane Katrina, forced a change in our plans. Tony Fairbanks, vice president for Institutional Advancement, stepped in and did an admirable job, talking about his formula for success. Take control of your own lives, he told students, develop a strong sense of self, work hard, project a positive image, be open to new experiences, and don’t be afraid to take risks.
“Dare to be great,” he said. “When you go for the top of the mountain, there will be people there to pick you up.” Good advice for all of us, not just students.
Our enrollment numbers this fall are disappointing. We have 1,623 students, about 11 percent less than we had in Fall 2004. There are several possible reasons for the decrease.
Many universities that change from quarters to semesters experience an initial drop in enrollment because of the perception that fees are higher, even though, overall, they are not. Any effect that semester conversion has had on enrollment should disappear by the end of the first year.
Increases in tution and fees as well as scarce scholarship dollars, both byproducts of state funding cuts, may also have discouraged some students from enrolling. We continue to urge the state to provide adequate funding for universities like Central State that serve families with limited incomes. I have also charged our division of Institutional Advancement with increasing the number and amount of academic scholarships available to our students. We need to be able to provide more awards than we have in the past if we are to attract and retain students.
Lastly, we had an all-time record high of more than 5,000 applications for Fall 2005, and this challenged our admissions and communications processes. We intend to devote more resources to our enrollment services departments to ensure an efficient and timely response to student inquiries. The new initiative I have written about before, Strategic Academic and Enrollment Management, should also strengthen the way we manage our enrollment and retention of students.
About 425 alumni showed up for the annual off-campus conference in Philadelphia at the beginning of August. It was great to see everybody, and there were activities aplenty, from informative to entertaining. I participated in a panel discussion about the challenges facing HBCUs with the presidents of Cheney, Lincoln, and North Carolina A&T universities. I can tell you, all of us find ourselves working harder to attract and retain top minority students, who are being aggressively courted by majority institutions with more money and resources to offer.
Funding is a constant concern for everyone. In June, Governor Taft signed into law a budget bill that reduced CSU’s funding by $1.6 million over the next two years. Since 2002, when Governor Taft removed Central State from fiscal watch, our state funding has decreased by almost 14 percent, from $19.3 million to $16.5 million in FY2006. We’ve had to raise tuition in response by 12.4 percent, from $4,444 to $4,994. Every increase makes a college education less affordable for young people from financially strapped families like the ones the majority of our students, and those from many other HBCUs, are from.
In 1998, the State of Ohio pledged to enhance Central State to make it as attractive as and comparable with other public universities in Ohio. This pledge formed the basis of an agreement that settled a decades-long investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) into the state’s non-compliance withTitle VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI merely embodies the findamental principles of the U.S. Constitution and the Brown v. Board decision, that educational opportunties should be equal for all citizens. As an Ohio university, CSU should have programs and facilities that are equivalent to those of our sister institutions.
After the 1998 agreement, CSU saw a significant increase in state funding for a couple of years, but most of that went to take care of deferred maintenance, itself the result of years of reduced state capital support. The reductions in funding since 2002 have limited our ability to do things such as start new programs, add new faculty, and improve our facilities. All play an important part in attracting and retaining students. We should be budgeting primarily for excellence and growth, rather than budgeting to balance the budget.
In December, with another budget cut looming, the CSU Board of Trustees directed me to write a letter asking OCR to reopen its investigation of the state’s treatment of Central State. The interim secretary of that office wrote back saying OCR would not officially reopen the case but would continue to monitor the state’s implementation of the 1998 agreement. He assured me in a follow-up letter that OCR “continues to place increased focus on the monitoring of resolution agreements” to make sure that they are implemented in a “fair and equitable manner.”
Citizens frustrated by state inaction in Mississippi andTexas filed and won federal lawsuits aimed at getting those states to comply with Title VI. We have tried a different tack, pleading our case before state leaders and policymakers. The results, so far, have been disappointing, not to mention frustrating. So I am grateful for OCR’s continued attention. I hope to have something positive to report in the near future.
The utter devastation set off by Hurricane Katrina’s ruinous rampage through New Orleans has been on everybody’s mind in the past week. It will be a long time before we forget the riveting images of a city and her people undone and in despair.
Thousands of people have been displaced, including students studying at universities in New Orleans and other hard-hit areas. CSU is opening its doors to up to 100 of those students. We will waive tuition for fall semester for all Ohio residents; out-of-state students will be asked to pay the in-state rate.
We have already received calls from students at Dillard and Xavier universities, and some have enrolled at CSU. We welcome them, and others who want to come here, and will do our best to make their stay a good and productive one.
As always, thank you for your support and, once again, I hope to see you at Homecoming.
Sincerely,
John W. Garland
President
.:. Top of Page