DC President's Blog

The Defiance College International and Global Studies Program (IGS) took a huge step forward recently, as we entered into an innovative partnership with the world-renowned Washington-DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Under this partnership, students studying international and global studies at DC will get all the benefits of being at a small college like DC while also being able to tap into the worldwide network of knowledge, experts, and potential internship opportunities at CSIS.

What this means is that international and global studies classes at DC will now have access to a wide range of materials and expertise prepared by CSIS.  In addition, our students will be able, through the use of technology, to participate remotely in various CSIS events, and will now have at their fingertips literally a world of knowledge, expertise, and contacts.  I am particularly excited that CSIS will also be working with us to set up a wonderful itinerary for our IGS students when they travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with various experts and officials.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I hope this partnership can become.  I have had the pleasure of getting to know John Hamre, the head of CSIS, and he is an inspiring leader who has made clear his willingness to work with DC to create even more extensive opportunities for our students to learn about the world.  This partnership can truly become a national model in terms of enhancing global literacy, and I am very excited that our DC students will be able to be at the forefront of these developments.

I just returned less than a week ago from an invigorating visit to New York City with 51 Defiance College students.  As many of you know, this is part of our broader Imagine Initiatives which fund both domestic and international travel opportunities for our students.  In fact, over the past year or so, DC students have traveled domestically to New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Florida, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Memphis, Nashville, Selma, and numerous other locations.

We arrived in New York early Friday evening, had some quick pizza, and then proceeded to visit Times Square, which is always a wonderful site for first-time visitors.  We then went on a pretty extensive walk around the Upper West Side, walking up Broadway, seeing, among other items, the theater where the David Letterman show is filmed, Columbus Circle, the building where numerous scenes from Ghostbusters take place, Lincoln Center, The Dakota (where John Lennon lived and in front of which he was shot), Columbia University, and much more.  Of course, we also stopped for some great pastries.

The next day we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walked in Central Park, and made our way down Fifth Avenue, seeing The Plaza Hotel, FAO Schwarz (the world-famous toy store), St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Rockefeller Center to name just a few.  That evening, we all went to a performance of the Broadway show Annie, followed by delicious cheesecake at Lindy’s.

Sunday started for the group with a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, and then we proceeded to head downtown to visit the World Trade Center memorial, Wall Street, the site where George Washington was inaugurated as president, and to see the Statue of Liberty.  A wonderful surprise was that we were able to arrange for our students to meet for 45 minutes with the prominent NYC real estate developer who owned the World Trade Center (and now owns the Freedom Tower and the other buildings being built there).  He spoke very movingly about what it was like on 9/11, as well as all the pressures he faced as he worked to rebuild on such an emotional and historic site.  Many students told me that they would remember meeting him for the rest of their lives and how moved they were to meet someone who was now such a part of history.

Our Sunday concluded with dinner in Chinatown, gelato in Little Italy, Grand Central Terminal, and a spectacular view of NY at night from the top of the Empire State Building.

I am pleased to report that not only did the students learn a lot from the trip, they also told me that they had a spectacular time.  And, as is our policy on many of these domestic trips, the entire experience was essentially free (they were only responsible for the cost of the subway rides).  What a pleasure it was for me as the President of DC to see our students experience one of the great cities of the world, and to see them growing before my eyes in curiosity, competence, confidence, and cultural understanding.  I am certainly looking forward to next year’s NY trip, but, I need to pinch myself when I remember that in just a few weeks I will be off to Tanzania with a different group of DC students.  So stay tuned for more to come.

I had the pleasure of spending the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day weekend with 49 Defiance College students on one of our Imagine Initiative trips to Philadelphia.  As many of you many know, under our Imagine Initiatives, DC takes students on numerous cultural, performing arts, domestic, and international trips in order to introduce them to different historical perspectives, cultures, sites, and much more.  The more I go on these trips with students, the more convinced I become about how important they are in our students’ development and maturation.  These trips truly do open students’ eyes and minds, raise their sights, and also, frequently, open their hearts.

This trip to Philadelphia was a new one for us — to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our McMaster School for Advancing Humanity by introducing students to key sites in American history.

We boarded the bus early Friday morning and spent time on the bus watching the movie 1776, which is a great musical about the decision by the Continental Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence.  After the movie, each student on the bus was responsible for reading about the background of a specific signer of the Declaration, and then they shared stories about their signer with others on the bus.  We got to Philadelphia in time to go to a 76ers basketball game.  On Saturday, we saw the National Constitution Center, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall (where the Declaration was adopted and the Constitution was written), Congress Hall, Christ Church, ate Philly cheesesteaks, and went to a Philadelphia Orchestra concert.  Sunday was filled with touring the Philadelphia Art Museum (we also ran up the steps in front, which were the steps that Rocky runs up in the movie), the African American Museum, Ben Franklin’s grave, Betsy Ross’s house, the Second Bank of the United States, and much more — topping it off with a performance of the musical Catch Me If You Can, followed by a late-night dinner.

As any student who has ever traveled with me can attest, we also had multiple stops for ice cream along the way!

It was wonderful for me to watch as our students learned more about American history, were exposed to different cultural events, and also just had a great time touring a new city.  Of course, this trip was just one of many that are going on for DC students this semester, including trips to New York City, St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, Des Moines, Denver, Selma, Memphis, Florida, and various other places.  And that’s not to mention the upcoming international trips to London, Cambodia, Spain, and Tanzania.  (In fact, this past Friday, our Board of Trustees heard from two students who had traveled with faculty to Paris for a week in December — wow, it was great hearing about how much they saw and experienced!).

As President of Defiance College, I really do love being able to give our students so much here at Defiance, while also introducing them to so much of the world beyond at the same time.  It is a pretty unbeatable combination.

It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming new freshmen to campus, and now here we are at the end of the semester with those students finishing up their finals.  It truly is amazing when you look back and see how much these students have changed within one short semester:  How they have grown in self-confidence and curiosity, how they have further developed their independence and maturity.  Many of them are, of course, eager to get home for the holidays, but I was sitting at dinner last night with a group of freshmen who were both looking forward to getting home and also looking forward to coming back to DC in January.  That’s always a great combination — as students discover that they now have two places where they feel at home and really enjoy spending time.  And as they spend more time here at DC, they also realize more and more how many activities and opportunities there are here for them to take advantage of.

Just last Sunday evening, I went to the bon voyage party for a group of our students about to travel on one of our Imagine Initiative trips to Paris.  I believe that all of the students traveling had never been to Paris before; many had never been outside the United States; and for two of them, they had not yet been on an airplane.  The excitement among that group about their upcoming trip was amazing and infectious. I can’t wait to hear from them about the trip when they return.  As I write, we also have students traveling in Belize, and 2013 will see trips to London, Cambodia, Tanzania, Jamaica, Spain, and elsewhere.

We also recently announced the dates for a whole range of our domestic trips next semester, which will include visits to Philadelphia, New York City, St. Louis, Des Moines, Denver, Chicago, Memphis, Birmingham, and numerous other locations. My only regret is that I don’t have the time to go on every trip!

This past year has been an exciting one on DC’s campus. Within the past twelve months we have:  opened our new Athletic Center; renovated the bleachers/flooring in the Weaner Center; installed turf on our football field; begun recruitment for our new Marching Band program (to begin in fall 2013); made significant enhancements to our Art studios (with more to come with the anticipated delivery of our 3-D printer); moved to expand the staffing for our Digital Forensics and Sport Management programs (both of which continue to grow in size, success, and prestige); welcomed our first-ever NCAA men’s lacrosse team; initiated our women’s lacrosse club (which will become an NCAA team in 2013); begun our search to expand the faculty for our Criminal Justice program;  initiated a new partnership with DCTV to give our Communications, Graphic Design, and Sport Management students special opportunities to get hands-on experience with all aspects of running a TV station; introduced a new Work Experience Program to enable more of our students to get work experience while at college that will enable them to both earn additional dollars and enhance their resumes when seeking jobs after graduation; further expanded our Music offerings; enhanced our campus technology and begun installation of the necessary equipment to expand the available bandwidth; made further improvements in becoming a greener and more energy-efficient campus.  And the truth is that is just a partial list.

My expectation is that 2013 will be even more exciting!  Indeed, although it is still relatively early in the process, our incoming applications for next fall continue to run nicely ahead of last year, and the geographic reach of the applicants continues to expand (41% of the students in this year’s entering freshman class came from states outside of Ohio).  While we look forward to the coming year, I do want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season.

A little over a week ago was Homecoming here at Defiance College, and we hosted a wonderful Celebrate DC Dinner in the George — our new athletic center.  It was great fun being able to watch returning alumni ooh and aah over the new facility.  But, what was even more enjoyable, was being able to speak to them about where we are as a college and where we are going.

I was able to share with the attendees the data about this year’s incoming full-time freshman class, 41% of whom hail from outside of Ohio.  Indeed, we now have students from 23 different states at DC, as well as foreign countries, such as Jamaica, Australia, and China.  We have also seen a huge increase in the diversity of our incoming class, with 34% of this year’s class self-identifying as members of ethnic or racial minority groups.  We truly are becoming a more and more desired location for prospective college students from many different backgrounds around the country!

At the dinner, I also shared several of the upcoming attractions at Defiance College.  For example, while our innovative 1+2+1 Nursing program continues to move forward, we are also initiating a new 2+2 Nursing program with Rhodes State.  Under this program, we will be offering courses (both at Rhodes State and on-line) to enable Registered Nurses to complete their BSN degrees.  Our Art and Graphic Design programs are also about to take a quantum leap forward with our upcoming acquisition of a 3-dimensional printer.  This printer will enable our students to print, produce, and prototype different three-dimensional products, giving them hands-on experience with a cutting-edge new technology that should give them a real leg up in the job market.  I am told that Defiance College will now become the only institution in northwest Ohio with this 3-dimensional printing capability.  (We are calling our new program the DC 3-D 3-P program.)

I also announced that we are moving forward to officially start our Marching Band here at Defiance College next fall (2013).  Last year saw the introduction of Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving.  This year, we are enjoying having our first-ever NCAA D-III Men’s Lacrosse program, and next fall our Women’s Lacrosse program will also be starting up.  At the same time, we will be inaugurating our first-ever Marching Band.  As I mentioned at Homecoming, this is not going to be your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Marching Band.  It is, instead, going to be a Marching Band with some real spirit and attitude.  It will be distinctive, different, defiant, and student-driven — as it will give our student participants an incredible opportunity to get creative in shaping the band’s formations and musical numbers.  We expect that this band will be known for students who have real musical talent, and who also want to get creative in designing unique “scatter-formations” that reflect the spirit and defiant attitude that define Defiance College.

There was much more that we spoke about, but what I found most moving were the stories that our students told to the alumni about how being at Defiance College is enabling them to transform their lives.  So many of our students receive opportunities at DC that they would not have gotten at many other colleges:  from the one-on-one individualized attention to extensive domestic and international travel opportunities.   It was a real treat hearing students speak about how these distinctive DC opportunities are enabling them to learn and grow in some pretty incredible ways.  That truly is something worth celebrating.

What a wonderful feeling it is to have the new academic year starting again!  That’s right.  Our students have returned to campus; the new freshmen are settling into their routines; classes have started up again; and we at Defiance College are off and running for another great year.  And the process never stops — as we have already welcomed on to campus innumerable students who are visiting Defiance as prospective students to start in the fall of 2013.

We don’t yet have the final numbers for this year’s entering class, but they have already proven to be an engaging group and fun to have as part of our DC family.  Our preliminary data indicates that about 40% of this year’s incoming class comes from outside of Ohio, as we continue to become increasingly national in scope.  Not only does our geographic diversity continue to improve, but the number of incoming students who self-identified as members of ethnic and racial minorities has now inched above 30%.  How wonderful it is to be able to provide all of our students the opportunity to meet and befriend fellow students from different parts of the country, different backgrounds, and different perspectives!

With this year’s incoming class, we are also inaugurating our new Work Experience Program which is geared toward giving Defiance College students another way to stand out in the job market.   As you know, we already offer our students many opportunities to craft, and then implement, job strategies that can position them to excel in the job market or in applying to graduate and professional schools.  It all starts with working with incoming freshmen on their Personal Success Plans and helping our incoming students develop their Defiance Resumes.  The hands-on learning experiences that students can receive through initiatives in many majors, unique service opportunities through our entrepreneurial student-run non-profit (Project 701), and the networking through our national advisory boards are just a few of the other ways we help students to stand out upon graduation.  The new Work Experience Program adds to these, providing even more deliberate on-campus employment and training opportunities for freshmen and sophomores that can then be used to leverage off-campus employment experience (through our Defiance College Partnership for Jobs and other efforts) as juniors and seniors.

Another way that DC students stand out is through unique experiences gained through our domestic and international travel opportunities.  This past year, DC students traveled to Belize, Ghana, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Canada, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and numerous domestic locations (New York, Washington, D.C., Portland, OR, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Nashville, Memphis, and Montgomery, just to name a few).  In fact, I had the pleasure of accompanying our men’s soccer team in early August as they played soccer and traveled in Northern Europe.  In addition to having an opportunity to play teams from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Japan, our team members also toured Amsterdam, Brussels, Masstricht, Aachen, and Cologne.  It was a tremendous learning experience on so many different levels, and the team was even the subject of an article in a regional newspaper in the Netherlands.  I am attaching the article here.  [be sure to let me know if your Dutch skills are good enough to understand it!]

There are many plans for numerous other travel, cultural, and distinctive learning opportunities for our students for this year — but those will have to wait for another blog.  For now, I’m going to stop writing this blog and enjoy both the wonderful weather and all the activity on campus — and maybe I’ll head outside and find some students to treat to a quick trip to our local ice cream eatery.

I just returned this past Sunday morning from an eight-day trip to Costa Rica with 12 students, and what a fantastic experience it was!  One day we were in the rain forest on a boat seeing monkeys, sloths, bats, toucans, poison dart frogs, crocodiles, an iguana, and other animals.  The next day we were horseback riding and enjoying the thermal springs near a volcano.  And for the next five days after that we were working in an elementary school in an impoverished neighborhood of San Jose, the capital.  Our students spoke to English classes, worked and played with the younger school children, painted a large mural at the school, planted a garden, and did a good deal of other work at the school.  Each evening our students would return to the homes of their Costa Rican “host families,” which gave them the opportunity to get to see Costa Rica from an insider’s perspective.

While I could go on and on about the trip and how much our students both accomplished and learned, what is striking is how many different experiences students at Defiance College have been enjoying this March.  While I was with students in Costa Rica, another group of students was touring the cities of Central Europe:  Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest.  Another group was building houses for Habitat for Humanity in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while a different group was on a civil rights tour to Cincinnati, Memphis, Selma, Montgomery, and Nashville, among other locations.  Other students were in Florida, South Carolina, visiting New York City, or touring Washington, D.C.  And in the coming two months, more groups of students will be studying the regional economy of Portland, Oregon; doing service work in Cambodia; pioneering our first McMaster School projects in Ghana; and elsewhere.

By my calculation, if you just look at the months of March through May of this semester, more than 200 students will be on the road at one time or another:  learning, increasing their understanding of different cultures, expanding their horizons, and gaining valuable experiences that can help their resumes truly stand out when applying for jobs or to graduate schools.  (And that doesn’t count the additional students who will be traveling this summer in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium!)

Defiance College’s commitment to giving our students this world of opportunities is pretty distinctive.  It is part of what makes the DC experience such a special one, especially as under our DC Global Program, all incoming full-time freshmen who successfully complete the full four-year program at DC (in good academic and financial standing) are guaranteed an international experience in either their junior or senior years.

Not only does that sound good, but it truly does help our students.  In fact, I just heard from one of our graduating seniors who just got accepted (with a scholarship) to law school.  He had not done particularly well on his LSATs, and when he called what may well be his first-choice school, the admissions counselor told him not to even apply with that test score.  But, after reading his resume and the list of distinctive experiences that this student had had at Defiance College, the admissions counselor changed her mind and told him to send her his application.  She said they would wait for him to take the LSATs again.  Well, he did, and they just admitted him with a significant scholarship.  Of course, I’m thrilled for him, but it’s also nice to get outside verification that what we’re doing at Defiance College really does give our students a leg up in the job market and in applying to graduate schools.  And, having just returned from Costa Rica, I can also confirm that it makes for some pretty interesting students with some fascinating life experiences.

This seems to be the month of the “three Fridays,” each with an interesting but very different activity.

Last Friday, we had the official ribbon-cutting for our new George M. Smart Athletic Center, affectionately known as “The George.”  While the ribbon-cutting just happened several days ago, our students have been using The George for the past two weeks, and I have been getting a huge kick out of seeing all the activity going on there.

As those on campus know by now, The George is generally open from 5 am to 11 pm, and at just about any of those hours you can see loads of students engaged in various physical activities, whether working out in the fitness center, using the baseball and softball batting cages, playing on the tennis or basketball courts, being attended to in the new athletic training room, running on the 200-meter NCAA regulation indoor track, lifting in the weight room, and much more.  In fact, we hosted our first indoor track meet just two hours after the official ribbon-cutting, and it was a real treat being able to stand indoors watching pole-vaulting, the shot put, sprints and relays, and more all going on simultaneously.  And the vast space inside makes for perfect practice areas for all of our teams, whether soccer, football, lacrosse, softball, baseball, golf, track, tennis, or numerous others.

While we did the ribbon-cutting last Friday, this Friday I am heading off to New York City with 50 students as part of the cultural and performing arts trips of our Imagine Initiatives.  We are looking forward to a whirlwind trip, including visits to the United Nations, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, the World Trade Center site, Wall Street, the Museum of Modern Art, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Empire State Building, and much more.  On Saturday evening, we will all be treated to a performance of Phantom of the Opera, and on Sunday, we will also have an opportunity to take the Staten Island Ferry from which we will be able to view both the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The next Friday is the last day of classes before spring break, and a group of students and I will be on our way to Costa Rica, where we will be spending the break doing service learning at a school in San Jose and also seeing rain forests, a volcano, and more.  While I am with these students in Costa Rica, other groups of students will be traveling to Central Europe (Vienna, Prague, and Budapest); Washington, D.C. (for students interested in criminal justice and forensics, this trip includes witnessing an autopsy, meeting with the DEA, and touring a forensics lab, as well as visiting the White House and seeing other historical sites); going on a Civil Rights History Tour (Cincinnati, Memphis, Birmingham, Selma, etc.); traveling to Florida (both the baseball and softball teams will be playing and practicing in Florida over the break); building a Habitat House in Michigan, and more.

This is all just a sample of the activities going on during this next month at Defiance College.  Stay tuned for more to come.

I was just walking around campus yesterday, and it is amazing how quiet everything becomes after the students head home for the holiday break.  Yes, there are still some students on campus (in fact, two of them were over at our house for dinner last night), but the vast majority have scattered around the country (and, indeed, the world) to spend some time with their families.

During the past month or so, I had the opportunity to meet individually with each of our separate Freshman Seminar classes, and one question I asked each time was for the freshmen to relate to me how they think they have changed during their first semester.  In almost every instance, the first thing that got mentioned by the students was “more independent,” followed frequently by comments such as “more self-confident,” “realized that I can do a lot of things for myself,” “learned to manage my time better,” “more focused,” and “got to have fun and meet people from backgrounds different than mine.”  I consider that to be very good progress on a lot of levels for the first semester.

Indeed, this past semester has seen a good deal of progress on many fronts.  Our Nursing program received accreditation by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.  Our innovative student-run non-profit, Project 701, expanded significantly, adding numerous new student-run projects.  We became a significantly “greener” campus, with the introduction of much more energy-efficient outdoor lights and the recent installation of a solar-powered water heater for our new George M. Smart Athletic Center.  Our wonderful facilities staff just completed construction of our new outdoor ice rink (located behind the residence halls’ parking lot).  And our DC Global and DC Edventure programs are off to a great start, as we continue to add more and more domestic and international trips for our students.

We also took a significant step this semester toward our goal of giving all our students meaningful hands-on experience related to their major that links what goes on in the classroom with the realities of the world beyond.  In pursuit of that goal, this semester saw the introduction of our new and innovative collaboration with the Defiance City Schools which gives our education majors an opportunity to receive hands-on experience in classrooms starting in their freshman year.  I am very excited by the thought that our education majors will be able to enjoy four years of classroom experience, rather than the standard year or two in most more traditional programs.  And the opening of our new George M. Smart Athletic Center this upcoming semester will create a similar kind of opportunity for our Sport Management majors, as they will get hands-on experience running and managing a major sporting facility, booking events, etc.  Of course, we already have similar kinds of opportunities in many of our other majors, but these are the two most recent initiatives!

Before we know it, December will have turned to January, and we will be welcoming our students back from break.  While I will enjoy some time off during the holiday week, I am eagerly anticipating even better things to come next semester.

I am writing this at the very beginning of November, and I am still having trouble believing how time has flown by this semester.  The students are well past midterms and thinking about Thanksgiving and then finals.  We have more and more students coming to the President’s House each night to study at our study tables or just to chat.  (The last two nights, the last student didn’t leave until after 11 pm).  While students are increasingly focused on getting their work done, there continue to be numerous new initiatives and projects that they are working on as well.

One initiative that has just gotten underway in our classrooms is our new and improved process regarding Building a DC Resume.  For the next few weeks, as part of our Personal Success Plan (PSP) process, all freshmen are working on Building their DC Resumes.  What that means is that we work with them on what their resume looks like today.  But, more importantly, we are also helping them to create what they want their resume to look like four years from now when they graduate.  What are the activities, hands-on experiences, leadership roles, etc. that can help their resumes jump out of the pile when they are applying for jobs or for graduate school?  We give them advice on that, and then we use their desired resumes as part of the PSP process – as we work to help that desired resume become a reality.

Of course, looking at things this way gives our freshmen a different way to think about their activities over the next four years.  We encourage them to think strategically about the kinds of student organizations, extracurricular activities, travel opportunities, and other programs they want to take advantage of during their time at Defiance College.  And we continue to add new ways to link what goes on in the classroom with the realities of the outside world, giving students the kinds of hands-on experiences that can enable them to stand out.  In fact, one of those new ways is our innovative collaboration with the Defiance City Schools for our education majors.  We will be announcing details about this soon, so please stay tuned!