2008 Woodie Awards
Johnson announces changes for 2006
Michael Hamann
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"Change brings new opportunities" was the message presented by Dr. John Johnson, Interim President of Embry-Riddle at the Nov. 28, 2005 Town Hall Meeting in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Calling his term a "transition period," Johnson said that he would be overseeing the implementation of ideas from the Board of Trustees as well as his own changes.
"We have a clear, competitive advantage in our areas of strength," says Johnson, "bottom line: we're in excellent shape."
According to Johnson, priorities for the next few months include reviewing operational efficiency. When the Board of Trustees was approached with the tuition increase, Johnson says the Board requested the University to review its spending to find deficiencies.
Cutting Costs
"[The University administration] must lead by example when it comes to cost," said Johnson.
One example of cutting cost by the administration has been to terminate the lease on the Embry-Riddle Citation jet at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The aircraft was primarily used to shuttle university executives and has been criticized by students and faculty as to its necessity.
"That plane has been an albatross around [the] administration's neck and why we haven't cancelled it before, I don't know. You just don't have a lightning rod like that hanging around," Johnson said in a later question and answer session.
"We do not feel that it is reasonable to have the executives of the university fly on the school plane when we are asking deans to cut costs in other areas."
Johnson says a $6.5 million project to construct an administrative building has been deferred because, "We don't feel it is vital to the educational mission."
Also temporarily deferred, a ROTC building that will be planned and put on hold at the Prescott campus.
The CAPT program, which suffered a large loss of money to the university, will be taken into consideration by Johnson and will be terminated if necessary.
Qatar
While Johnson and the Board of Trustees want to move forward on constructing an international residential campus in Doha, Qatar, Johnson said the process can only be completed if it does not harm the current educational programs.
The plan is to have a handful of faculty and a handful of staff "on the ground" in Qatar in 2006 and begin offering airport management classes, said Johnson. However, in order to do this, the university will have to ask the Qatar Foundation for money up front.
"Its clear that we have an opportunity, the opportunity is one of providing money that we can use to move forward," said Johnson.
New Programs
Small programs have been developed which Johnson calls, "musical chair" programs. These musical chair programs have been created to attract new student interest to come to the university.
When a new program becomes available, students from old programs will change majors to be a part of it.
"We can't afford to do that," said Johnson. "If we develop a program, it must be significant and must have the prognosis to attract significant numbers of students to the university."
Concerning retention of students, "Student retention is equally as important as student recruitment. We need to increase focus on student advisement," said Johnson. "For every 50 students you save, you retain $1 million which can be used to achieve new goals." Johnson also promised that faculty and staff must continue to examine "killer courses" and provide supplemental instruction in areas of math and physics especially to ensure student success.
Business Initiatives
"Academics will be our priority," Johnson said, "That should be an obvious statement. We're a University." He went on to ensure that as a university, the students, student learning, knowledge discovery, professional institution service are inherent parts of why the university exists.
This does not mean that business opportunities that may arise cannot be developed to generate money for the students and research.
"I can tell you that any future business opportunities that arise will be viewed with great scrutiny. We cannot afford to have business initiatives that rob money from our faculty, our staff and our students. That's going to come to a stop," said Johnson.
Human Resource Changes
Chancellor Dr. Erwin Price has indicated that he will retire at the end of the spring 2006 year. Price did agree, however, to assist in improving the strength of the College of Business.
An internal search will begin to fill the position of Price.
The current search for a Vice President of Marketing has been put on hold until a permanent University President is found.
Extended Campus
Dr. Marty Smith has agreed to continue as Chancellor of the Extended Campus for the next two years.
Smith will be overseeing the development of strategic planning that will occur over the next few years. Changes have been made with many of the extended campus centers due to their location on military bases in Europe.
Johnson's plan is to modify the military market, increase its civilian numbers and allow for a quicker curriculum review policy. A new name is also in the works for the extended campus.
Finding a permanent home for the extended campus is also a priority, but will not necessarily be a newly constructed building.
Clarification of Concepts
Johnson identified the "One University" model created by former president Ebbs.
"The question has always been, 'How do you translate the One University model?'" said Johnson.
"I think as stated in the Strategic Plan, we're one university but we have different campuses making unique contributions. I'm not convinced that we have to have identical curriculum at all three campuses. I'm not convinced that we all have to be the same. I doubt that's even possible," said Johnson.
The administration is currently field testing an administrative structure for the College of Business. The plan would involve one dean overseeing the College of Business at the two main campuses and extended campus programs. Johnson admitted that there were problems, as expected, but reassured that they were being worked out and that the idea was still in a field testing stage.
Johnson also hopes to unite the three universities while keeping each campus unique.
"I think we can do some curricular sharing. I think we can do some joint research projects and faculty exchanges as the opportunities arise."
When asked if he would be running as president, Johnson replied that depending on what the Board of Trustees is looking for, he would "throw his hat in the ring."
"If they're looking for a traditional [university] president," Johnson said, "Here I am."
Responding to a question from the floor at the end of his speech, Johnson ensured, "I really, truly want to get us back to basics. We are really an educational institution. We are a corporation in name only." He went on to say that he believes Embry-Riddle has the opportunity to expand into the community and take on leadership opportunities outside of the university boundaries.