Last spring, Western Maryland College President Robert H. Chambers sent a questionnaire to faculty, staff and students, asking them to envision how they would like to see the college improve.
In a recentinterview in his Decker Center office, Chambers, president since 1984, explored his own vision for WMC.
What are some of the innovative approaches you would like to consider at WMC, in light of the questionnaire?
There was a question about creating a residential college system, which is my own little hobby horse. There is a lot of interest; this is one thing we might be able to do in the future without spending huge sums.
Residential colleges, sort of on the British model?
Yes, but obviously modifiedgreatly to meet our own needs and pocketbook.
A modified version of the Oxbridge system here would make us far more distinctive as an undergraduate residential institution. We can imaginatively shape theresidence areas we now have to give them more group unity.
Imagine, for example, a "Diegel College." We have Blanche, Whiteford and McDaniel halls already forming a quadrangle. Why not have a faculty or staff family living in each to establish a community of more than just 18-year-olds?
We could also build seminar rooms into the buildings, so classes might actually be held in the residence halls. And we could put some programming money in there, so Diegel College would begin to develop a personality of its own.
In this fashion, we couldcreate three coherent residential groups.
(One) might be where athletes would congregate over there near the field house and the gym.
Diegel College could be where the artists are, the writers, the intellectuals of the campus. And (another) could be a kind of grab bag for other people.
In truth, we wouldn't want to isolate people of identical interests in quite that way, but you can see what we could do with these groupings. It wouldn't take much to get them shaped into something very attractive -- into entities that pull together.
What is another way we can become a higher quality college without investing vast sums?
One kind of quality is related to diversity, andmost people seemed to think that we should continue to push for moreinternational students.
They are going to be shocked when they see the number showing up this year -- roughly 10 percent of the incoming students.
What does it mean to the college to have this influx of internationalism?
I would hope it would mean a good bit to our curriculum and to the sophistication of our general student mix.
These international students have really impressed me. They are some of our best students academically, but I think (they are) best also interms of their sophistication. These are people who have seen the world.
When you keep multiplying the number of countries these people come from, the whole campus becomes more worldly and sophisticated and, without a doubt, more interesting for all.
We are becoming much more international than we have been, and I hope that more of our American students will be going abroad, working up exchanges.
Thatis a genuine qualitative betterment. And it is one way to respond tosome concern revealed in the questionnaire about what we can do about minorities here at home -- Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans.
That is going to continue to be a very competitive market. And we will certainly continue to work hard on it, but I'm not sure just what kind of additional inroads we will be able to make. Perhaps the international market will offer help.
Were there any surprises in the responses?
The biggest impression I bring away is how conservative practically everybody is. There were very few who were daring and out-front on many of the questions.
Several noted concerns about the college's name, because of the false impressions it offers.
They always say, "Boy, it didn't take as long to get here as I thought it would."
Very few outside the WMC community have a clear sense of us.One of the things I would like to work toward in the future is clarifying the college's mission and identity, not just in terms of recruiting students but also in terms of letting corporations and foundations and the like know just what kind of school we are, how good we are.
As long as people believe our name says we are part of the statecollege or university system and located somewhere far west of Baltimore, they won't know what we really are and will not be interested.
They become much more interested when they learn that we are, in fact, a high-quality, independent college in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
I think we need to make clear to everybody that we aspire to be a national institution. It has to do with funding, the student flow and the very future of the college -- things all closely tied together.
With everybody hard-hit by the recession and decline in enrollment, how can we ease our pinch and thrive?
We need more endowment. Every college needs more endowment. We need to think of every possible route to cushioning our tuition increases. We can't forever assume that almost 80 percent of our budget each year is going to comefrom tuition and fees. It's living on the edge more than anybody wants to.
We have two major sources of income. One is obviously the flow of students -- that's why admissions is so important to us. The other is development -- bringing in money from the annual fund, foundations, corporations, bequests and the like.
We are doing about as much as we can with the student flow. The only way dramatically to increase our income probably is through imaginative means of development.
We just hired a new vice president (for institutional advancement, Richard Seaman). I am hoping he's going to bring to us a lot of ideas that will help us build our endowment. We are going to launch a major capital campaign, too.
What traditions do you think Western Maryland maintains after 125 years?
I think we have strong traditions and a very interesting history. What disappoints me is how littlemost people know about the college's rich, 125-year heritage.
WMCis part of what surely is the best system of higher education in theworld, a system of 3,000 colleges and universities evolved over centuries. Moreover, we are one of the very best schools in that group.
Thus our concern here is not one of survival, it's one of enhancingour quality . . . of the faculty and of our service to the region, to the nation, to the world.
What are some of the historic strengths of the college?
We have an exceptional program of teacher education.
I'm one of those who sees a liberal arts institution as not entirely separate from schools that prepare people for professions. I think all colleges are in some sense pre-professional.
We have ourway of educating people, and it's the liberal arts tradition that defines us and influences everything we do here.
Undergirding all that we do is a sense that our students are going to be leaders in professions and in the business world, and the curriculum has evolved to fulfill the needs of those students, of the region and of the country. We keep evolving in that way, and the institution grows stronger and richer as a result.
We have 19 or 20 academic departments, 25 majors, a host of minors; we have a graduate program that has hundreds of people in it at any one time.
There is a lot going on here, andWestern Maryland didn't just open up that way more than a century ago -- it evolved. Thus, I think we will continue to be open to growth and change and development as the needs of the students and the country change.
You've talked a lot about WMC's quality. Are there things the alumni can do to help?
They can support it.
When our graduates leave WMC they don't simply turn their backs on the place and go through entirely new chapters of their lives. They become alumni, continuing members of a large family -- some 14,000 people -- scattered all over the world. These people have a wonderful sense of being related and connected to each other. And it all comes back to this small college in this small town.
We stay in touch with our alumni; we ask them to contribute to the institution; we urge them to come back and be a part of the place. And they do. And we need and treasure their support.
It's particularly important in independent colleges that you have a strong alumni network and that graduates contribute in every possible way -- financially, psychologically and through sending new students to us.
What we need to do more of is what we havebeen doing quite well for the last few years -- strengthening alumnisupport.
Looking back 125 years from now, what is going to be theChambers legacy to the college?
I don't believe in personalized legacies. But if you wanted to look back some decades from now at thisera, I would think that what would be most noteworthy would be the dramatic physical change to the central part of the campus.
The library, of course, but not just the library; also the science facility that we are going to put there and all of the landscaping and architectural work that is pulling the entire campus together in a way that has not been done before.
By 1995, Western Maryland College will have a carefully defined and lovely academic quadrangle, anchored by the science complex at one end and the library at the other, with granite risers (in front of Decker Center) to unite the central campus core. The campus will then have much more clarity and identity.
I can't believe that the faculty has ever been stronger than it is right now. That is another thing that came through in the questionnaires, particularly with the students. They love the faculty.
My bias is that the administration is the equal of the faculty. I'm fiercely proud of the people we have -- high-quality people in practically every administrative post as well as the faculty. We have done a lot of building here, and we have done so without jeopardizing quality in any area.
We are a stronger place than we were seven years ago, and it has been a lot of teamwork that has made that possible. Excerpted withpermission of The Hill, Western Maryland College's magazine.