Feb. 19, 2025: University Address
Well, good afternoon, everyone! Thanks for being here on this frigid day. As they say, it’s always the wind that’s worse. Thanks also to the many that I know are watching online. I really appreciate your engagement, and for all of you being here today.
Thank you for reserving this time so that we could come together to reflect on the state of Bucknell University and prepare to deliver academic excellence to the next generation.
Now, traditionally we schedule this address for the start of the academic year. However, I felt that it was important to move this year’s remarks to the spring, so our convening could rise to a higher purpose. Today, we will take some account of our progress towards the goals laid out in The Plan for Bucknell 2025 and begin to envision a new strategic direction for the University that will help us shape the next chapter of the Bucknell story.
But before we do, I could not possibly deliver the remarks that I have planned without first dedicating a moment to acknowledge the growing anxiety, fear and anger around the unsettling news that continues to emanate from Washington. In my 49 years of being “in college,” as I like to say – next August will mark my 50th anniversary of starting my college experience, especially as a first-gen student – I have never seen anything like what we are experiencing right now, and I’ve seen a lot. I had a chance to speak at the faculty meeting yesterday, but wanted to reiterate just a bit here with you today.
In fact, I’ll start with the same quote that I used there, one of my favorites from literature. This from Crime and Punishment: “Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” I’ve tried very hard to commit and believe I’ve delivered on always speaking the truth, but I believe now that is more important than ever, and I certainly will not flatter you with easy platitudes.
I believe that some of the more troubling actions and proposals we are now confronting could have considerable consequences for our institution, and for higher education as a whole. Others directly threaten fields of knowledge that some of you have dedicated your professional lives to — fields with tremendous value, both to humanity and to the world around us.
We are also witnessing deliberate attacks on values that generations before us labored and protested and sacrificed to give rise to — values that would be foolish, as a nation, to cast aside. In certain instances, we are seeing nothing less than a denial of history, some of which I am old enough to have lived through.
For some, I know the impact of these last few weeks has been very personal, affecting you and your loved ones. It can be distressing, and exhausting, as it has been at times for me. Let’s all look out for each other and support one another through this period, whatever your beliefs and positions may be. And if you are in need of emotional support, please take full advantage of Bucknell’s Employee Assistance Program.
The University has remained vigilant on these matters, and our Board of Trustees is fully engaged. We are rigorously evaluating each new announcement for what it may mean professionally, academically, and to the personal lives of our students, faculty and staff. We are also determined to do all we can to protect the University’s timeless and precious mission and its enduring values, cherishing the full humanity and the priceless value of each member of this community.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said of scholars, we must be free and brave… In the end, it is up to us to guide humanity by showing facts amidst appearances.
Now, I know these things are often easier — much easier — said than done, but we must not allow the difficulties and challenges of this hour to distract us from the challenges and opportunities defining this generation. Yes, some of the acts in Washington may have lasting impacts, and we will respond to them, but today we will, as we must, focus on the long-term trends pressuring higher education — which are no less demanding of our attention — and also on how Bucknell can position ourselves to remain resilient and to stand out even more than we have from our peers.
I say all this with certain confidence that we are arriving at this moment in an era of strength for our Bucknell. As a university, we have prepared ourselves for the headwinds now blowing in our direction. Through innovation, vision, careful stewardship, and an academic culture firmly rooted in the liberal arts and all that goes into the notion of critical thinking, we are ready. The state of Bucknell is sound. And as we embark on a process to define the University’s future, we cannot and will not be beholden to the acute challenges of this or any other day. Instead, we will use the full measure of our shared creativity, our wisdom, our talent, our insight, our care and delight, to shape an ambitious evolution for this revered institution.
Building on our history, we owe much of our good standing to the guidance of our current strategic plan, which we began developing more than eight years ago. When we first initiated The Plan for Bucknell 2025, we grounded the process in a spirit of shared ownership over the trajectory of Bucknell’s mission, values and institutional identity. It was and remains my hope that the faculty and staff, especially at Bucknell, would feel a sense of partnership and purchase.
Now, I recognize certainly that you have much at stake in Bucknell’s success and reputation, as well as the daily experience of everyone in our community. You chose to further your careers at Bucknell, most certainly over other competitive opportunities. Under the banner of Bucknell, you make profound contributions to bodies of knowledge. Each of you, I hope, takes pride in how you contribute to the community. Whether in or outside the classroom, please know you play an essential role in our shared success. Above all else, you build lives here. Some of you raise families here — as you know I have.
With your deep investment in the University comes a great deal of credit for many of the advancements that Bucknell has made. The progress we celebrate today is progress that we celebrate together.
Now, The Plan for Bucknell 2025 certainly comes with an asterisk, a really big one called COVID-19. During the pandemic, we shifted our attention and resources as needed to confront the unforeseen and wide-ranging challenges of that moment. And yet, as I hope you know and recall, our community pulled through those trying times while still achieving notable successes, through and toward the plan’s commitments. Starting just five years ago — can you believe it? It’s five years already since COVID started — we accomplished, we accomplished, more than many institutions like us even tried.
We accomplished.
Among those successes was our ability to exceed the ambitious goal of 95% student retention. We achieved this remarkable milestone through hard-earned progress across several of the plan’s core priorities, including a more supportive academic experience and a more inclusive and accessible campus environment. In just two years, we recorded a retention rate of 96.5%, our highest rate yet and an enviable record compared to many of our peers.
Through The Plan for Bucknell 2025, we also challenged ourselves to increase Bucknell’s discount rate, which is a term of art for the percentage by which a university can reduce its stated tuition through financial aid. The word “discount” can have a connotation of a few dollars saved, or a bargain buy, which certainly undersell the life-changing potential of a more affordable tuition and the value of a Bucknell education. In fact, as many of you know, our “discount” now amounts to the better part of $100 million per year. And yet it is still, for those students, a bargain. Committing to a higher discount rate also has a reflective benefit on our greater community at Bucknell, as we firmly believe that a more accessible university is a more enriched university.
Despite holding these values, though, writing The Plan for Bucknell 2025 forced us to confront the fact that Bucknell was not keeping up with several comparable institutions in offering more affordable points of entry. Universities competing for the same — as we’ll talk about —shrinking pool of applicants had either lowered their comprehensive costs compared to Bucknell, or significantly increased their discount rates, or both.
We knew that right-sizing that rate would not be easy. It would put great pressure on fundraising and how we allocate the University’s budget across the board, but we committed ourselves to it. We promised that by the fall of 2025, we would increase the discount rate to at least 35%. And I am proud to report that, once again — and well ahead of schedule — we met and then exceeded our mark.
Reinforcing the success of our higher discount rate, the University also met the priorities of The Plan for Bucknell 2025 by establishing the Center for Access & Success. This center provides a cohesive system of support for students enrolled in Bucknell’s five national and signature pathway scholarship programs. These programs open Bucknell more widely to high-achieving students from community colleges and underrepresented regions, or who otherwise might not be able to afford a higher education at Bucknell.
Like other initiatives, the Center for Access & Success has improved Bucknell’s performance across many of the plan’s measures, as its impact stretches well beyond admissions. The center’s support follows students through all four years, providing personal, relationship-based mentoring that is designed to champion and advise scholarship recipients as they chart their individual educational paths. For students who may be the first generation in their families to attend college, or who come from schools or neighborhoods not commonly represented on our campus, this continuity of support increases both retention and success.
In ways large and small, Bucknell has made progress in meeting the strategic plan’s ambitions. In its totality, The Plan for Bucknell 2025 has given shape and form to how our community wanted to see this University evolve. And because of our dedication to its charges, we are in a position that is enviable to many of our peers.
You have heard me say this many times: A thousand schools would love to have our challenges.
Certainly, we are not immune to the pressures weighing on colleges and universities, and yet we have addressed these hard realities directly and smartly, giving us many distinct advantages.
Consider the challenge of the demographic cliff. Between 2010 — the year I started — and 2021, colleges and universities recorded a 15% decline in enrollment, accounting for 2.7 million fewer students today than at the beginning of the last decade. These numbers will continue to drop in the next 10 years. According to some demographers, by 2041 we could see the pool of high school graduates shrink by almost 500,000 students every year.
Bucknell has remained resilient in this environment. We have seen double-digit percentage growth in home state applicants, engineering applicants and first-generation students. Our Admissions office projects that the applicant pool for the Class of 2029 now being admitted will be the second-largest in Bucknell’s history.
These increases are not by chance, and they’re not an accident. They are a tremendous credit to the talent and exhaustive efforts of many of you sitting here today — whether you know it or not — who have worked proactively and strategically to continue growing the number of high-performing students who make Bucknell their top choice.
Now, for the foreseeable future, recruiting new classes will only grow more competitive, so we must continue to innovate and distinguish ourselves and the overall Bucknell experience. The alternative will only add significant pressure to the financial strains that already exist in higher education as a whole, and here at our university.
I’m sure many of you saw headlines last year that, on average, a college or university closed each week in this country. Other schools are rapidly shedding majors, and even entire departments, attempting to bail out their own boats.
Fortunately, Bucknell is financially sound. In this period, we expanded to a three-college structure, enabling us to enrich our academic experience by capitalizing on interdisciplinary capabilities not available at most liberal arts schools. We also built new spaces to enhance the residential learning environment and give staff and faculty modernized research facilities, laboratories and lecture halls. In all, we have constructed well more than a dozen new structures to serve the academic, residential, co-curricular and athletics needs of our students, staff and faculty.
Prospective students, alumni and donors have all recognized the value of these investments, and the results are undeniable. Bucknell maintains a sterling academic reputation. Within nine months of graduation, 93% of Bucknell graduates are employed, enrolled in graduate school, or making their mark on the world through meaningful public service.
Of course, our success has not given Bucknell any kind of immunity from the challenges of today and tomorrow. Going forward, our decisions will have to be driven by a variety of market forces more directly than they have in the past. Some schools have tried to insulate themselves from these forces through raised tuition and aggressive fundraising. But as Bucknell, and many of its peers, expect to reach the $100,000 mark in the next five years — it’s $100,000 per year of after-tax income for families. We cannot ask much more from our students and their families, especially as we remain committed to lowering the financial barriers to entry. And while we do have ambitious fundraising goals to share, they won’t be a cure-all for this environment. Our endowment now is well in excess of a billion dollars, and yet it only provides about 15% of our income.
Dan Hungerford, who joined Bucknell this fall as vice president of finance and administration & chief financial officer, has already done a remarkable job distilling the financial picture of the University and identifying pathways forward. He’s already presented some of this information to the community, and I’ve asked him to continue providing updates on Bucknell’s financial outlook in order to be as transparent about our situation as possible.
Inaction is not a viable course. We can — and we will, and we must — build a celebrated chapter in the history of this university, despite that. As Bucknellians, we will be forthright, determined and unified in spirit.
Now to be honest, as I said I would be, the idea of unity has felt fragile at times, here and at every other place I have served. All of us, myself included, must take steps — active steps, conscious steps — to reenergize the model of shared governance at Bucknell, especially now as we row together against powerful tides of skepticism — broad skepticism — about higher education as a whole.
These political and cultural views have found unnerving footholds in our society. We will do all that we can on a daily basis to counteract their influences and uphold our uncompromising belief in the tenets of the liberal arts, but we will not allow them to distract from our immediate priorities either.
First and foremost, we will continue to invest in the University’s greatest strength and our greatest resource: our people.
This year, Bucknell will launch a new professional development program for all employees under the acronym BUILD — the Bucknell University Institute for Learning and Development. The Division of Talent, Culture & Human Resources will oversee the creation of BUILD over the next three years in collaboration with stakeholders and divisions across the entirety of our campus.
BUILD will offer both structured development experiences and ad-hoc learning opportunities. It will include a variety of learning modalities to meet employees where, when and how they want to learn, making it easier and more convenient to achieve growth and developmental goals. Learning options may include in-person or virtually facilitated workshops and sessions, online and on-demand courses, microlearning opportunities and simulations.
The opportunities available through BUILD will make Bucknell an even more enriching institution where you can grow and expand your professional ambitions. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve done nearly enough of this in the past, and we are committing to do this robustly now.
The University will also continue to ensure that we are adequately supporting the talent and experience of staff and faculty through total compensation: salary and benefits. To that end, we are carrying out a comprehensive study, which I believe you know, to understand the extent to which Bucknell’s compensation programs are effective in both design and execution. In other words, we are making sure your compensation is fair and competitive.
Among the University’s immediate priorities is also our continued investments in our students, the reason why we exist: We are here for our students. Earlier, I highlighted the Center for Access & Success. One of the scholarships that feeds into the center is the Posse Scholars Program. The Posse Foundation has developed a remarkable model for bringing students with a rich mix of demographic backgrounds to university campuses in a way that encourages their success. Rather than elevate students individually, they recruit small groups of exceptional young leaders to enroll at partner institutions together. The groups are coached to help each other thrive, and they are matched with a faculty mentor to guide them.
The chair of our Board of Trustees, Annie Drapeau, Class of 1988, is a long-time leader and supporter of the Posse Foundation. The University itself has been a Posse Foundation partner for the last 20 years. In that time, we have been fortunate to welcome more than 200 scholars to our campus. I say “fortunate” because Posse scholars often take the strong sense of camaraderie they have learned through the program and spread it more widely across our campus, making Bucknell more welcoming to all.
The Gateway Scholars Program for high-achieving first-generation students also feeds into the Center for Access & Success. As a second-generation American who was a first-gen higher education student, I can tell you I fully appreciate the opportunity this scholarship gives to promising young people striving to break new ground for their families. I had no idea — none — what I was doing when I went to college. None. I almost flunked out. I stand before you now as your president. That’s what mentoring and higher education does for young people.
These scholarships symbolize a core Bucknell belief: that a college education can so profoundly transform a life and the lives around a student, that financial resources should never stand in their way. That’s a deep challenge to all of us.
Of course, cultivating academic excellence will also remain an immediate and perpetual priority. Bucknell has differentiated itself by delivering academic excellence that not only provides students with the subject matter expertise to one day push the bounds of their fields, but also equips them with the ability to discover the sometimes-greater potential that lies at the intersection of established disciplines.
In my last University Address, I highlighted some of our recent such initiatives, including:
- The Center for Sustainability, bringing together our community to create a more sustainable campus. Every one of those buildings I mentioned that we’ve built, they’re all at least LEED Silver or better certified.
- The Humanities Center, integrating the arts and humanities into the life of the mind and daily life at Bucknell
- And the Bucknell Farm, teaching hundreds and hundreds of students each year about everything from agricultural methods to the ecosystem, food systems and climate change, all through hands-on learning that gets them outside and reconnecting them with the earth. That’s a polite way of saying they get their hands really dirty, and that is a good thing.
We have since built on these initiatives by opening the new Dominguez Center for Data Science, which is preparing students to solve global problems in a digital age by teaching them how to integrate data science into their fields. This ability will be all but essential in the world ahead of us, regardless of your field of study and professional endeavors, and it will open promising doors to data-driven, ethical decision-making and creative problem-solving.
Bucknell also launched the Perricelli-Gegnas Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, dedicated to teaching students how to take concepts beyond the classroom to create products, imagine novel enterprises and consider solutions to global problems in any discipline.
These centers are not simply fostering an accumulation of knowledge among our students. They are taking students’ desire to learn, to experiment and to explore to new levels, while preparing them to be the adaptable, effective, conscientious problem-solvers of tomorrow.
As some may recall, I’ve been speaking about adding still more emphasis to cross-disciplinary studies for more than 10 years. The progress that we have made together I count as remarkable. And these initiatives demonstrate how Bucknell continues to distinguish itself by having the courage and the vision and the will to respond to the acute challenges and opportunities of the day while anticipating the direction of the world and investing in the long-term health of our University.
Future generations will count on us to continue committing ourselves to long-time priorities that prepare Bucknell and our graduates for all that lies beyond the horizon, whatever it may be.
Among those long-term priorities must be readying ourselves for the rising financial stresses that I spoke to earlier. In the coming months, we will be conducting a University-wide assessment of how Bucknell can be resilient amid financial strain and where we can smartly adapt. Rather than wait until we are backed into a corner, which has happened to too many of our peers, our goal is to use this exercise to reveal how we can be strategic, purposeful and successful in our fiscal actions.
Bucknell will also rise above financial headwinds by launching the largest fundraising campaign in the University’s history. This campaign will not be simply a call for donations. Rather, it will be, as it must be, a fully integrated plan that integrates into our forthcoming strategic plan, compelling supporters with our shared values and shared vision for the future of Bucknell. The campaign will ensure Bucknell remains a leader in those defining priorities of interdisciplinary education, access and innovation. We are still in the quiet phase of this campaign and will share more as we get closer to the public phase, likely sometime in 2026.
The University will also prepare ourselves and our students for the prevailing direction of the world by investing in the skills of civic engagement and civil, respectful discourse. There is a deep yearning on our campus, spanning our faculty, staff and students alike, and of great interest to many, many thousands who came before our students, regarding these complex issues. The discourse around these topics has become so paralyzed at too many institutions of higher education, just as in the public sphere, at the same time when colleges and universities should be models of how to have such conversations.
To nurture these abilities in a supportive campus environment, I asked my team to develop a program that equips students with the skills to navigate a deeply polarized society — a deeply polarized and digital society — while upholding democratic values. In response, the University will soon launch the Bucknell Initiative for Dialogue & Democracy, which will be known simply as BIDD.
BIDD will build on the great work of our Dignity & Dialogue Circles organized by the Division of Equity & Inclusive Excellence, which have created spaces and opportunities for individuals to share their experiences and to be heard in a way that honors their full humanity.
Similarly, BIDD will reflect on our community’s unapologetic belief in the importance of diverse experiences and perspectives by creating an open-minded, nonpartisan arena where ideas can be freely and thoughtfully shared and challenged. BIDD will not protect viewpoints — at all — from critique, as criticism lies at the hearts of both scholarship and democracy, but it will inject civility into debate and coach students on how to make their discourse productive.
We have shared early plans for BIDD with our trustees, and it has generated enormous enthusiasm and interest. Several have already stepped forward personally to invest deeply in BIDD’s development. And notably, just a few weeks ago, the largest gift to date has come from someone outside the Board who had just heard about this incidentally, signaling that we believe we are at the forefront of something vital and absolutely necessary.
Colleagues, as I appear before you today, I know that I need to speak honestly and directly about the challenges we face as a University. This is not to dwell on the troubling trends or disheartening attacks on higher education but to assure you that I fully understand the stakes and challenges of this moment when I say that I believe Bucknell is on the precipice of one of its most illustrious and transformational periods
In the coming weeks and months, and as discussed with the Board of Trustees just two weeks ago and with the University Council last week, we will begin developing a strategic plan for Bucknell’s next five years and beyond. We will take full stock of The Plan for Bucknell 2025 — the programs that we can sunset and the priorities that we should continue and extend. We will also have hard conversations about the realities of our time and how Bucknell must respond and respond boldly.
At the same time, this process will be our chance to dream ambitiously about the direction of this institution. It will be an opportunity for unbridled creativity, novel thinking and keen insights. We will build this plan together as a shared responsibility — a shared responsibility to future generations. As a collective work that is far superior to the mere sum of its parts. I ask you to remember that Bucknell was built by people that we’ve never heard of and never knew and never will. They built it for us, and we will build for those who someday say the same things about us.
The plan that we develop must be bold in its vision and unapologetic in its values. It will also be agile and adaptable. With your full involvement, we must forge the University’s new strategic priorities by early next year.
This timeline will be a departure from the past. A strategy that is slowly etched into stone over years of deliberation can no longer be responsive to the dynamic realities of the day. Instead, we envision a plan that is more of a living and evolving concept. It will solidify our principles while being flexible in how we reach our goals. It will meet the pressures of the moment while giving space to ingenuity and innovation. More information will be shared in the coming weeks and months, but even this afternoon, members of my senior team will be meeting with Faculty Council.
I look forward to going through this process with you. As a community, once again, we have the opportunity, and the demand, to answer the question, “Who are we becoming?” — the guiding question, I believe, of every great and enduring institution.
I posed this question to our community well over a decade ago. Our response at the time can be seen in the progress we recounted today, in part, the values embedded in our priorities and our unique position of strength in a time of great challenge.
We have much to be proud of. But every new generation must read the shifting seas and choose new spots on the horizon to explore. We have no choice.
With the legacy of Bucknell stretching nearly 180 years, this campus can lull us — especially in its great beauty — into a sense of timelessness. Yet every aspect of this University was once a new and bold idea that represented change. Every major, every building, every evolution in pedagogy was conceived by a generation that saw greater potential in Bucknell.
And so I close by asking you: What greater potential do you see? What do you think we can become?
I look forward to answering those questions with you in the coming months and to all we will achieve, together, in the years ahead.
Again, I thank you deeply for your presence here today, for your care and for your delight, and for the cherished opportunity to be your president. Thank you.