One Semester Down

by Tom Westerman

With one semester under his belt, Adelphi President Robert A. Scott is continuing to strive for "fiscal stability with academic integrity." While preferring to leave the assessment of his first semester up to others, Dr. Scott said he "feels great about it. There is still a lot to learn and I am learning. There are fantastic people [at Adelphi] who are a joy to work with."

But his first semester did not come without challenges. First, there was the clerical strike that disrupted the Fall 2000 semester that was not resolved until December. "The strike was unfortunate," said Dr. Scott. He commented that poor communication played a role, but when it was straightened out, the breakthrough in negotiations happened and the strike ended.

Another challenges that Dr. Scott said still need to be worked on is graduate enrollment. According to the president, graduate enrollment has been decreasing and the University needs to find a way to reverse that trend. Dr. Scott feels that by providing more services and giving more attention to graduate students and programs, as well as to undergraduate programs, then enrollment will reverse.

For this semester Dr. Scott plans on presenting his enrollment and budget plan to the Board of Trustees at their meeting February 26th. Dr. Scott originally wanted to present this to the board in December but was unable to do that due to time constraints. He is not discouraged by the delay saying the end product will be better since it has not been rushed.

The search for a permanent provost to replace acting Provost Dominick Cavallo who plans on returning to the Department of History by September is underway. A consulting firm has been hired to lead the search (see Faculty Senate article on page for more).

Dr. Scott along with the entire administration is continuing to look for more trustees and plans on continuing to reach out to alumni and community groups to further Adelphi's mission. Over the break members of the administration and board (including Dr. Scott) visited alumni across the country, including those in Florida and California, whose "support and energy and desire to help is strong" and will be courted in the future. As for an assessment, Patrick Kelly, chair of the Faculty Senate and associate professor of History said "I have found him to be honest and he listens. We don"t agree on everything, that is to be expected." On the whole Professor Kelly's assessment has "so far been very positive."