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2001 Annual Report
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Susquehanna Welcomes 1,865 Students

For the eighth year in a row, Susquehanna University opened the new academic year with a record number of students. An incoming freshman class of 504 students combined with 27 transfer students brought total full-time enrollment to 1,865. That compares to 1,821 last year. The new class is the strongest in Susquehanna's history, with close to 40 percent of freshmen ranking in the top 10th of their high school classes and 90 percent in the top two-fifths. Twenty-three of the students were high school valedictorians or salutatorians. Even though Susquehanna welcomed a larger student body overall, the university was more selective in admissions this year. It admitted about 14 percent fewer students and still met an enrollment goal of 500 first-year students.

Dedication of Alumni Memorial

Family and friends of Colleen Supinski '96 and Christopher Vialonga '93, victims of the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center disaster, gathered to dedicate a memorial to them during Homecoming on October 5, 2002. Located between the Blough-Weis Library and Hassinger Hall, the memorial garden is a place for quiet contemplation and reflection. Two stainless steel, seven-foot-high pillars rising from the ground contain etched photographs of Colleen and Chris and words about their lives. A narrative stone on the ground describes the tragedies of that day and reactions of the Susquehanna community. It is hoped the memorial will serve to educate future generations. More than 240 families and individuals provided contributions in memory of Colleen and Chris to help make the memorial possible.

Service Learning at Home and Abroad

More than 60 percent of Susquehanna students participated in volunteer service during the 2001-02 academic year, contributing a minimum of 50,696 hours to community, national, and international service projects. Three hundred and seventy students chose to live together as volunteers in the University's acclaimed Project House System in which each member performs two-to-four hours of service each week. Through Greeks in Service, another 412 fraternity and sorority members contributed a minimum of six hours a month. Volunteer hours through service learning courses grew 8.5 percent in 2001-02. New students joined with faculty and staff to volunteer at 42 community sites during the ninth annual Freshman Community Service Day. Ten SU students and three faculty/staff traveled to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for 14 days in December and January as the university's 2002 Central America Service Learning/Mission Team coordinated through the Office of the Chaplain.

Study Abroad Continues to Grow

Despite travel worries prompted by post-September 11 concerns, the number of students choosing to complement their Susquehanna education with study abroad experiences continued to grow in 2001-2002. One hundred and twelve students studied abroad, compared with 100 last year. One hundred and five students participated in semester or yearlong programs, including 52 in the London semester sponsored by the University's Sigmund Weis School of Business. Susquehanna has signed a "memorandum of understanding" with Shanghai University formalizing work toward the development of exchanges and programs between the two institutions.

Center for Music and Art

The completion of the final phase of a new Center for Music and Art is providing contemporary art and music teaching facilities and flexible practice and performance space for students and faculty. A 320-seat concert hall designed to optimize the sounds produced by the singing voice and musical instruments, opened in fall of 2002. It joins music facilities including 32 practice rooms, faculty studios, student lounges, classrooms, music technology laboratories and a rehearsal hall. An art wing provides studios for drawing, photography, and digital graphic design, as well as an art history classroom and slide library, faculty offices, and display space. The Degenstein Foundation of Sunbury, Pa., provided a $7.5 million grant to fund the project. The building will be formally dedicated in February of 2003.

The Arts Flourish at SU

A new synergy symbolized by the recently completed Center for Music and Art contributed to a rich program of cultural and arts events. A spring student exhibition featuring more than 250 works was displayed in the building's new art wing. Students and faculty presented well-received performances that included the SU Opera Workshop presentation of Mozart's The Magic Flute with the SU Orchestra, the student musical Titanic, and the Honors Band Festival Concert with Susquehanna and high school musicians. The Grapes of Wrath theatre production incorporated a co-curricular component to the degree program and included matinee performances for area school children. As a generous gift to the community, the Stella Freeman Weis Cultural Endowment presented an outstanding concert by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. Other outside performing groups included the Koresh Dance Company, "Christmas from Dublin," the percussion group Nexus and the play "Death of a Salesman." Visitors to the Lore Degenstein Gallery viewed such exhibitions as "Sculptures and Drawings by Gaston Lachaise," "Photo Microscopy by David Scharf," Leo Mendonca's "Urban Fusions," the Williamson "Pre-Columbian Exhibition," and "Winslow Homer Wood Engravings."

Welcoming Distinguished Visitors

The campus community welcomed a number of distinguished guest lecturers in 2001-2002, including The Honorable Judge Arlin M. Adams who gave the inaugural lecture in a series sponsored by the new Arlin M. Adams Center for Law and Society at Susquehanna in March. Other noteworthy visitors included Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow Stephen G. Vetter, a community activist and non-profit executive; noted author and historian Charles Blockson; Dr. Naseer Aruri, chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth; Dr. Ilan Peleg, Charles A. Dana professor of government and law at Lafayette College; and Weis Memorial Lecturer Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. The Visiting Writers Series brought to campus novelists Andre Dubus and Jill McCorkle, poet Edward Hirsch and editor Colin Harrison. Chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Julian Bond delivered the commencement address in May and received an honorary doctor of laws degree. Also honored with degrees were retiring Dean of Student Life Dorothy Anderson '62 and Samuel Evert, retired president of S.H. Evert, Co, Inc., and a member emeritus of the university's board of directors.

Business Students Learn from Experts Near and Far

The Sigmund Weis School of Business's Executive-in-Residence program brought two distinguished business executives to campus. In November, Marsha Lehman '74 met with students in classes, seminars and individually over a four-day period. A member of the university's board of directors, she has held vice-presidential positions with Kodak and Internet Pictures Corporation (iPIX). Michael Collins '73, senior vice president and lending officer with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and also an SU board member, spent several days on campus in April. The Weis School's highly successful London Program, which includes visits to corporate sites, was expanded to include both fall and spring semesters, with a total of 52 junior business majors participating.

Gifts and Grants Support Programs

Ongoing generosity of alumni and friends provided more than $9.3 million in gifts to the university in 2001-2002. The amount includes more than $1.8 million donated to the Susquehanna University Fund, surpassing the best-ever total of more than $1.6 million two years previously. Institutional grants included $500,000 from the Degenstein Foundation of Sunbury, Pa., to establish the Janet C. Weis Endowment for Liberal Arts. The grant will support new initiatives of the Writers' Institute including a visiting scholars program, a new scholarship fund and faculty development. The Josiah and Bessie Kline Foundation provided a $250,000 grant for science equipment and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation granted $100,000 for scholarships for first-generation college students.

Center for Teaching and Learning

Susquehanna's new Center for Teaching and Learning, established in 2000 by the faculty and the Office of Academic Affairs, spent its first full year supporting efforts to further develop creative teaching and learning techniques. Projects include an interdisciplinary workshop for the teaching of writing, a campus-wide diversity initiative, and the history department's incorporation of technology in classroom instruction. A Committee on Teaching and Learning, chaired by Associate Professor of Accounting Jerrell Habegger, reviews faculty proposals and selects projects for funding, which is administered through the center. Degenstein Professor of History Donald Housley is the center's coordinator.

Helping Area Schools in Science Education

With the help of State Representative Merle Phillips, Susquehanna was awarded a $320,000 contract to encourage and improve science education in secondary schools in the region. The university joins 10 other colleges and universities in offering a Science in Motion program. The grant provided funds for a van equipped with the latest science equipment and laptop computers. It also funded a trained, certified secondary science teacher to assist in teaching the labs to local high school teachers free of charge. Associate Professor of Chemistry and department head Chris Janzen led the effort to include Susquehanna in the project. Lecturer in Biology Jan Reichard-Brown, program director, oversees activities including professional development workshops on campus for area teachers.

Library Services Continue to Grow

The Blough-Weis Library continued to add online services and collections to support the curriculum and faculty and student research. Print, media and electronic collections have expanded significantly, growing to more than 279,000 volumes in 2001- 02 from approximately 267,000 volumes in 2000-01. Through online, print and microform collections, students and faculty now have access to articles in more than 11,000 journals and newspapers, compared to about 3,000 in 1999-00. National Endowment for the Humanities grants, generous gifts from donors, and a revised spending policy for the university's endowment helped fund the enhancements. A new system of electronic course reserves, has greatly increased convenient access to reserve reading assignments for students. Off-campus access to most databases is available 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week to aid students and faculty working from home on weekends or during semester breaks.

Strategic Planning Joins Middle States Review

A blueprint for a new strategic plan is evolving as the University prepares for its 2004 ten-year accreditation review by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Faculty, administrators and staff participated in planning meetings, small group sessions, and workshops with off-campus experts during 2001-02. A draft Statement of Strategic Vision and Themes includes two key commitments to strengthening intellectual engagement and to building community. A comprehensive Middle States self-study began in the summer of 2002 and a series of task forces will create a draft strategic plan by the year's end. After further feedback and review, the board of directors will vote on a strategic plan in May of 2003. The board will approve a full Middle States self-study draft in February 2004 prior to the official accreditation visit later that spring.

Learning Through Experience

Susquehanna students continue to secure externship and internship opportunities early and often in their academic career. In 2001-02, 77 students completed short-term externships and 151 registered internships through the Center for Career Services. More than half of the students completing externships were freshmen and sophomores. Most of the internships - 100 of them - were done by students in their junior year, however, 44 involved freshmen and sophomores. Ninety-four percent of the Class of 2001 reported being employed or enrolled in graduate or professional schools within six months of their graduation. Twenty percent of the class - including 38 percent of the graduates from the School of Natural and Social Sciences - entered graduate or professional school.

Information Technology Initiatives

The Office of Information Technology initiatives continued to play critical role in enhancing the Susquehanna teaching and learning environment in 2001-02. Six new smart classrooms were added to the campus during the summer of 2002, bringing the total to 16. A summer 2002 network upgrade has increased the speed of data transfer 100 fold to one gigabit per second. Faculty in more than 80 courses are currently using Blackboard web-based course management software to teach and communicate with students. Admissions and IT staff have also collaborated to create a web presence in Blackboard exclusively for accepted students. In January 2002, the office installed a new web server to bring increased stability to the Susquehanna Web site, which attracted more than 419,000 visitors viewing nearly 8.3 million pages in 2001-02. The Office of Alumni Relations launched a web-based online community for alumni in September 2002. To help better anticipate and manage costs of electronic teaching and learning, the University has adopted a new information technology plan and budget model. Approved by the board of directors in February 2002, the model estimates annual costs for information technology needs over a five-year period. It anticipates expenses for hardware and software for faculty and staff offices, smart classrooms and student computer laboratories; infrastructure maintenance and upgrades including new servers, additional bandwidth, and wiring replacement; and staff training.

Sports and Fitness Success

Susquehanna athletics programs enjoyed another outstanding season during 2001-02. The golf team won its eighth straight Middle Atlantic Conference team championship and qualified for the NCAA Division III tournament, while the women's lacrosse team captured its first MAC title and participated in the NCAA playoffs. Also making conference playoff appearances were the field hockey, women's volleyball, men's basketball and softball teams. Individually, seniors Mike Lehtonen and Kimberly Owen and sophomore Ryan Gleason participated in the NCAA Division III Cross Country championships, while senior Trever Fike and junior Matt Deamer qualified for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field championships. Eighteen men and 17 women earned first-team All-Conference honors for the year, three students were named Rookies of the Year, and 61 athletes were named to the MAC All-Academic Teams. The University announced that women's golf would become the 23rd varsity sport beginning with the 2002-03 academic year.