It's Time to Start Building a Better Future at Marshall
by Stephen J. Kopp
Column in The Herald-Dispatch, July 10, 2005

To serve as the 36th president of Marshall University is an extraordinary privilege, one that comes during a time of unprecedented challenge and remarkable opportunities.

The problems confronting higher education are formidable. Yet, we also can foresee vast vistas, rich in possibilities for those institutions of higher learning that can recognize and act on them.

To be relevant in the 21st century, we must create and produce value that is evident to our students, communities, and the world. This value is manifest in the capacity and innovative intellectual work that can be performed by our graduates – their creativity, the marketability of their ideas and intellectual products, their adaptability and their capacity to continue to learn.

Our commitment, therefore, must be to advancing the thinking of our students, their ability to apply and integrate what they have learned and educating them for a future of uncertainty, ambiguity, and sudden opportunity.

My wife, Jane, and I are very excited and committed to dedicating our full energy and enthusiasm to realizing the incredible potential we see within Marshall. The university excels in many areas that have earned the right to greater visibility and recognition.

We need to highlight and celebrate these achievements, regionally and nationally. They are beacons that distinguish Marshall University and our contributions to improving the world.

However, as we celebrate we cannot mislead ourselves into thinking we can coast and that our work is done. We need to do more and we need to renew our commitment to becoming better and better at what we do so that the opportunities available to future generations of students, faculty and alumni are greater than ever. Through a brief series of questions, I asked our faculty and staff, “What is your vision of Marshall University in the future?”

• What is our probable future, especially if we continue to do what we have been doing just as have been doing it?
• What is our possible future?
• What is our preferred future?
• What array of plausible futures do we envision as we think and dream boldly?

Faculty, staff and students are invited:

• To think futuristically and share their ideas
• To conceptualize Marshall University as an adaptive, high performing institution of higher learning
• To challenge prevailing practices and assumptions in conjunction with our quest to become better and better
• To commit to robust decision-making that is evidence-based and dynamic
• To aspire to a better future that inspires us to excel each and every day.

Jane and I are eager to work with everyone associated with Marshall University to fulfill the promise of a better future for Marshall, the communities we serve, the citizens of West Virginia, the Appalachian region, the nation and ultimately the world. We need to decide what that better future is to all of us and then commit to making it happen.

We need from everyone in the Marshall community ideas, involvement and support. By the word “promise” I am referring to the hope, the aspiration, the commitment and obligation we all share to create a better future for generations of West Virginians and Marshall students.

We must release ourselves from the habits of time that limit our thinking and in so doing challenge and dedicate ourselves to establishing the foundations for a “better future.”

We will do what is hard. We will do what is great because that is what fulfilling the promise of a better future for Marshall University and the communities we serve demands of each of us. I ask for your continuing steadfast support and commitment as we move forward