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“40
Years of Excellence: Daring to Dream and Do”
by
Betty L. Siegel, President
Last fall, in a report
called “Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place,” the
American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
ranked Kennesaw State University third in the nation in its commitment
to community engagement. The report defines “stewards of place”
as those institutions that have created far-reaching, mutually beneficial
relationships with the communities they serve.
Good stewardship, at heart, is a matter of dreaming and doing —
recognizing the potential of an institution, a place, a community,
and setting about the purposeful work of making it a reality. Famed
hockey player Wayne Gretzky puts this idea in slightly more practical
terms: “You skate to where the puck will be.” I love
the subtext of Gretzky’s statement — the notion that
success is a naturally evolving process, a perfect marriage of mind
and matter, as the skater follows his expert intuition and moves
confidently toward the future.
It was this kind of visionary leadership that inspired the founders
of Kennesaw Junior College almost exactly 40 years ago. There was
a practical need for the college, yes, but there must also have
been a palpable sense of excitement for the future embodied in those
four small buildings in the middle of a Cobb County pasture. Throughout
this academic year, we at KSU will celebrate that original vision
for KJC with a campaign called “40 Years of Excellence: Daring
to Dream and Do.”
Of course, we will be celebrating much more than our past over the
coming months. Like those first founders, we will be concentrating
primarily on our future, and the good stewardship required to build
on our short but storied history. Our momentum is strong as we move
toward that future. Think, for instance, about the last five year-long
campaigns that have brought us to our present level of significance.
The Year of Honoring Service. Collaboration 2000. Kennesaw State:
The Engaged University. From Success to Significance. The Courage
to Lead for the Common Good. Taken together, these themes hint
at the compelling story of how we have become more deeply absorbed
in the larger purposes of civic engagement, making it a central
part of our overall mission to become a true prototype of the “people’s
college,” to use the words of AASCU president Deno Curris.
This is not empty rhetoric. Indeed, our continued emphasis on service,
civic engagement and principle-centered leadership is being recognized
in the most significant ways. In addition to the AASCU ranking,
we have recently become the grateful beneficiaries of two substantial
gifts, both related to our prominence as good stewards of the community:
a donation of $1 million by the RTM Foundation to our Institute
for Leadership, Ethics & Character and a pledge upward of $3
million from WellStar Health System to our College of Health and
Human Services.
In celebrating “40 Years of Excellence” over the coming
months, we might consider the following question: When the story
of Kennesaw State University’s growth at the beginning of
the 21st century is told — perhaps in a celebration of “80
Years of Excellence” in 2043 — what will they say about
our vision for the future? If they say we showed the same spirit
as the original founders of Kennesaw Junior College, that we exhibited
an impressive courage to lead for our students, our campus and the
local and global communities — if they say, in sum, that we
truly did serve as careful “stewards of place,” then
surely we will have made good on the promise contained in this year’s
theme. We will have succeeded by “Daring to Dream and Do.”
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