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March/April 2016 – BizVoice/Indiana Chamber
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well-educated and develop a sense of conviction.
So we don’t get ahead by just ordering people
around; we have to initiate conversations and
dialogue that lead somewhere.”
He pinpoints the challenge further.
“We are in an environment where the
universities less and less can afford to simply
be these diffuse organizations whose existence
is unquestioned and their trajectory, their
vision and their direction is really kind of
unexamined. We just exist because we are an
important part of the landscape.
“We can’t do that anymore, we have to
be more focused and relevant – clear about
why we exist and what our niches are that we
serve – how we serve students better and
different,” Wright believes.
“To do that with a big organization that
is all sprawled out is very, very hard. It is
hard to bring focus and direction in that kind
of a setting and so for me the challenge has
been: How do you learn to lead at scale?
How do you learn to direct an organization
that isn’t all that interested in me just telling
them what to do? So that’s the personal
challenge, I think, of leadership.”
But the ultimate test, he contends, is
“how to produce common good for society
and how do we marshal the resources of these
wonderful populations we work with – faculty
and staff and board members and trustees,
and then nurture the students so that at the
end of the day there is greater social good
because we existed.
“There is nothing more meaningful for
me than to contribute to that cause, but it
also means it is hard to measure; it is hard to
know when you are succeeding and when you
are not quite succeeding. It is hard to get
people to even agree on what the social good
is that we are after – let alone how to get
there. So it is a fascinating job, the best job I
ever had and also the hardest job I ever had.”
Hess offers that he’s “usually in a pretty
good mood” by day’s end. “There are parts in
the middle of the day where it can get a little
spicy, but at the end of the day we are doing
great things.
“We are educating people, making them
better to serve their own personal interests
and the interests of our state and nation. That
being said, we always have to get better and
that’s the first thing I try to think about every
morning.”
The impact of education is also what
makes Cruz-Uribe eager to tackle each day.
“I am always struck when I meet our
alums, and they just spontaneously will tell
me the stories about how their education,
their experiences at IU East, changed their lives
and changed the trajectory of their families.”
Deliberate intentions
To have that desired effect, it starts with
retaining students – which ultimately goes
hand-in-hand with graduation. Wright says he’s
learned the value of truly working on retention.
“Retention doesn’t happen if you don’t
dedicate people to it with ideas that track
students and intervene with students at their
points of vulnerability,” he declares.
“About six years ago when I was provost,
I said we are really going to work on retention
and we put some people in place. I had to
fight for the funding for that, and for the first
two or three years we saw no change in the
rate. I thought I spent a lot of money, went
through a lot of political capital to get this in
place and it is not going to make a difference.
But then it just took off. And it is a reminder
that retention is really about people; it is
about individuals; it is every single student.”
Indiana Wesleyan’s numbers back up the
success of the effort. According to Wright,
“our four-year graduation rate is about 64%,
our six-year graduation rate is just over 70%
and with selected students (nursing, for
example) it is approaching 90%.”
Meanwhile, Wabash College puts a unique
emphasis on experiential learning experiences.
“We send – based just purely on
fundraising – about a third of all students by
the time they graduate on what we call
immersion learning trips. That’s where the
faculty member goes with the students and
their class (average class size is 13) on a trip
together,” Hess begins.
“It might be to Cincinnati to visit an
Underground Railroad museum or a bigger
trip. We had a literature class that over
Thanksgiving break went to South Africa, met
with everyone from (social activist and famed
apartheid opponent) Desmond Tutu to
writers. So we have creative ways to integrate
those aspects into our coursework.”
Online combination
Two of those in the discussion – IU East
and Indiana Wesleyan – are helping lead the
way in the state with their online education
efforts. And both believe there are some
myths to dispel.
“I don’t personally believe that online
learning or technology-mediated learning will
ever replace a face-to-face learning experience.
In fact, we think of ourselves as a learning
community and the modalities are just ways
that we usher people into our learning
community,” Wright explains.
“They get entry to us by coming to our
campus, many of them, but they get entry to
our community as well through the online
interface. So I think it is really a mistake to
“One of the things that Indiana University
has put a big effort into is financial
literacy for students. … They have a
web site called Money Smarts; they
have a debt monster. It’s coming from
students so students can relate to the
things that they are saying.”
– Kathryn Cruz-Uribe
“We started a tradition at Ball State
where we have graduates at
commencement who come with their
mentors. We have them at the
Bracken House and every time they
walk through the door, I ask: ‘Why is
this mentor important to you?’ ”
– Paul Ferguson
Indiana Vision 2025
: Outstanding Talent