Presidential Perspective: the Blog of Nazareth College's Daan Braveman

For the Love of the Game

I am not sure I can describe adequately the excitement and tension in our gym last Saturday night (April 16, 2011). We were hosting the finals of the Division III men’s volleyball tournament. The place was packed with enthusiastic, screaming fans. Naz was in the finals after having an extraordinary year with a 31-3  record. While we are in only our 7th season, we were playing Springfield, a  perennial volleyball powerhouse. 

To get to the finals Nazareth played an amazingly close and exciting match against a team from Carthage College in Wisconsin. In this semi-final match, Nazareth was down 2-1 in games and losing 22-19 in the fourth game. We came back to win that game and then win the fifth and deciding game to qualify for the finals.

The final match against Springfield was well played by both teams and quite tense, with the lead changing back and forth. Nazareth won the first game but lost the second. Not to be denied, the Nazareth team fought back and won the final two games.  The students rushed onto court to congratulate the Division III men’s volleyball national champions, the Nazareth Golden Flyers!!

As I watched the event I was reminded of why I so enjoy Division III sports. Students play not because they expect to get pro contracts but out of love for the sport. They fully understand, however, that their academic pursuits are more important and, in this regard are truly scholar athletes. Through the experience, they make life-long friends and they learn life skills—team work, time management, leadership, and the ability to deal with disappointment as well as success.

It was a great night for the players, the coaches, and the entire Nazareth community.  

Record Number of Fulbright Awards

We received wonderful news that five of our students were selected for the prestigious Fulbright Program. Established by Congress in 1946, the Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State to "enable the government of the United States to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries." The program is the largest U.S. international exchange program, offering opportunities for students, scholars and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. As the Fulbright web site states, the Program is now the “most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world.”

The five Nazareth Fulbright award winners selected this year will be teaching English in other countries. Jeri Beckens and Daniel Simmons will teach in Germany. Alyssa Pantano will teach in Argentina; Amanda Poppe in Spain, and Amber Powers in Nepal.  

The Fulbright Program is an important part of a long-standing tradition of academic excellence at Nazareth College. Since 2007, twelve of our students have been selected as Fulbrights. The number of Fulbright awards granted to Nazareth students puts us on par with the top colleges our size in the country. We are very proud of the members of our College who have taken part in the Fulbright Program. We send our congratulations and best wishes to the most recently selected Fulbright award winners.

Construction is Underway

After many years of planning, it is finally underway. This week we began construction of the new Integrated Center for Math and Science. This 74,000 sq. feet building is the largest new academic facility to be built on the Nazareth campus.

The need for the building has grown exponentially over the past decades. For example:

• Our undergraduates take a lab course as part of their core curriculum.
• We now have 900 students majoring in one of the health and human services fields.
• We are attempting to address the national need for more students who are well prepared to enter careers in math, science, technology and medicine.
• Nazareth has taken a lead in efforts to produce well qualified math and science teachers at the primary and secondary levels.  

As a result of all these efforts, we have heavy demands on the existing math and science facilities.

The new building will include labs, classrooms, study spaces, faculty offices, and common areas. A unique feature are the spaces that will enable us to expand the opportunities for interdisciplinary and collaborative learning where students work with each other and with faculty on undergraduate research projects. These experiences allow the students to apply the material they are learning in the classroom and develop an appreciation for the theoretical as well as practical application of science and math. They are precisely the kind of educational experiences needed to meet the national demand for students who are well prepared for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. Finally, the new greenhouse will allow us to initiate an innovative horticulture therapy program. 

We are proud that the Center also will be the first LEED certified “green” building on the campus.  And, out of concern for the environment, we have agreed to plant a new tree for each one that is removed on the site.

This is an exciting moment in the College’s history, and I look forward to sharing the story of the construction of the Center over the next year. Please take a moment to LEARN MORE about the project.

MLK Day Reflection

Each Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day I take time to reflect. I am taken back to my teenage years when I was living here in Rochester, N.Y. and read a story that profoundly affected me even as a teenager. A family bought a house about a mile from where we lived and when the neighbors learned that the family was black they tried to buy the house instead. The black family eventually prevailed but the story angered me and so I joined a group known as CORE, the Congress on Racial Equality.

In the summer of 1963, I learned about a planned demonstration in Washington in support of the civil rights movement and that CORE would be sending busloads of marchers. I decided to travel with the group to the rally. On Aug. 28 we stood at the base of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and heard Dr. King deliver his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech.We heard him dream that his “little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

We have traveled a long way since that day when the crowd of 250,000 people joined hands, singing songs from the civil rights movement.  Indeed, 45 years later, we inaugurated a president who is making King’s dream a reality. To be sure, however, we have more work to do in order to create King’s “beloved community,” one in which people recognize their interdependence and treat each other with respect and concern. Daily, we are reminded of the need for additional work when we see instances around the country and world where ethnic, racial, religious, and economic differences seem to tear us apart.

Colleges have an important role to play in this regard. We are preparing the future leaders, and they are the hope for the necessary, continued changes. We at the schools have the responsibility to help our students develop into leaders who have the skills and understandings to foster the kind of interdependence that King preached. It is my hope that our students will learn to see strength in the differences around them, and find ways to bridge those differences as they develop local and global communities that appreciate our connected humanity.

A Thought for the Season

At this time of the year, I am reminded of the wonderful diversity that exists on Nazareth College’s campus. The Center for Spirituality has displays that celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. Our freshmen class has the largest number of students of color in the history of the College. And as a recent Democrat and Chronicle article noted, for a relatively small school, we have a large number of international students. This semester we have students from 31 countries around the world.

One of the most interesting student stories is Jigme Sherpa's, a student from Nepal who will graduate in the spring with a double major in accounting and economics. He is the son of a monk who lives at the foothills of Mount Everest and Jigme has to walk two to three days from the airport to his home when he visits his family.

An important challenge for higher education is to prepare our students to live and work in a world that is filled with diversity. The growing interconnectedness of the world will continue to highlight the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that exists throughout our local, national and global communities. It is essential that students develop an understanding and appreciation for these differences.  I am most pleased that Nazareth has a large number of academic and co-curricular programs that in one way or another focus on those understandings and skills needed to live in today’s world. So, at this holiday season, it is most appropriate that we celebrate the diversity on our campus.

I wish you a happy holiday season, and a wonderful New Year that finds the world closer to peace. 

Bearing Witness to Hope

Last week, Nazareth College hosted two programs presented by the students who participated in the “The March: Bearing Witness to Hope.” The March is a trip to Germany and Poland to study the Holocaust. The participants on the trip included students, faculty, and staff from Nazareth and Hobart William Smith Colleges. It also included members of the Rochester community. My wife Lorraine and I had the privilege of participating on the May trip, the fifth such trip for people from Nazareth and Hobart William Smith.

The trip is intended to teach students of all religious backgrounds about the Holocaust and the dangers of hatred and intolerance. On the March, we became witnesses to the thriving life of Jews in Poland prior to the War. Poland was home to 3.3 million Jews, the largest Jewish population in Europe and the second largest in the world. In many respects, it was the center for Jewish culture.

At the same time, we became witnesses to the genocide that was designed to annihilate the Jewish people along with millions of others. We visited the Wansee Conference Center, where we saw the written plans for the annihilation that were adopted at that site. We went to Auschwitz, and marched on the train tracks that connect it with Birkenau. We walked near the ashes of those murdered in Majdanak and Treblinka.  We visited the barracks, the gas chambers, and the crematoriums. And, we saw the hair and eyeglasses and shoes and suitcases and personal possessions of those who were murdered.

We also became witnesses in another way by listening to the remarkable stories of the two survivors who joined us on the trip. In Poland we met with one of the few remaining righteous gentiles whose family members risked their own lives to save Jews.

Bearing witness in all these ways had a transformative effect on all the participants on the March. A witness is a person who has knowledge of an event and then speaks out or testifies about the event. We who participated on the March have the knowledge and responsibility to speak out. We have an obligation to tell the story of the Holocaust in order that it might never again happen. Equally important, we understand our duty to tell the stories of the survivors and through that retelling honor their courage.

There is a way in which bearing witness had an additional and perhaps an even deeper impact on all of us. Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel has observed that in the face of evil, silence and indifference are the greatest sins. The March reminded us that during times of atrocities there are perpetrators and victims. There are also bystanders, those who ignore the evil and choose to remain indifferent and silent. Genocides could not occur if bystanders spoke out and took action against the massacres. In short, there are no “innocent bystanders.”

It became clear in the program earlier this week that the students learned this lesson well. Many spoke about the trip’s profound impact and about the need to speak out about the Holocaust and to confront discrimination or bigotry or intolerance of any kind. One of the donors who supported the trip mentioned that she made such a trip to Poland when she was a teenager living in Russia. She told the students that the experience influenced her throughout her entire life. The trip will similarly impact our students for years to come.

Photo: Taken at a ceremony at Majdanek death camp, near Lublin, Poland

Back in the Classroom

Someone recently asked me how I find the time to teach a course. It is simple-I make the time! Before assuming my current responsibilities as Nazareth College's president, I taught law students almost every semester for nearly three decades. Since coming to Nazareth, I taught on two occasions but did not teach last year and found that I missed the classroom. So, I agreed to teach Constitutional Law during the current semester, and I am enjoying it tremendously.  I teach the course like a law school class, using the same text that I used when I taught the course at law school.

Although undergraduate students are not familiar with reading judicial decisions, my students are developing an ability to read and analyze the cases. And, they approach the material with a refreshing perspective, focusing on the broader underlying issues. Our study of separation of powers raised questions about the scope of the President’s war powers. The examination of federalism issues presented interesting discussions about the power of Congress to enact health care laws. Soon we will move into consideration of individual rights issues.

Why do I make the time? The reasons are in part personal and a bit selfish. I love teaching, and it also allows me to remain involved in my academic and scholarly interests. But, there is a more fundamental reason. Presidents spend a great deal of time on the business side of operating a college. We also devote a large part of our time and effort on external affairs-- telling the college’s story, friend-raising, and fund-raising. However, teaching and learning are at the center of the Nazareth experience. As President, I feel a need to stay connected to that core. So every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:55 a.m., I look forward to the stroll down the hall to the classroom.

A Vital Role for the Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue

This morning I read with anger and sadness the news story about a minister who intends to burn the Quran. There are those who contend that this individual has the right to express himself in this fashion. While he may have such a right, the rest of us have a right to express our disgust with his form of bigotry. Book burnings of any kind, and especially of sacred texts, are the real affront to freedom of thought and expression.

This story exists in a context, and follows well publicized reports about attempts to prevent the building of Islamic centers not only in New York City but in other cities as well—cities that cannot claim any connection to Ground Zero. In the past weeks we also have read disturbing comments by some public figures, attacking and degrading a religion practiced peacefully by millions of people in the world. 

These recent events underscore the importance of the work of our Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue. The goals of the Center are:

• To establish an environment conducive to understanding the diversity of faiths in our world and community.

• To communicate the skills necessary for people of diverse faiths to live together in peace and justice.

• To provide educational resources to aid in establishing an environment of understanding and equality.

• To teach individuals, communities and institutions how to live and communicate more effectively with those from other religions and faith backgrounds.

This past April the Center hosted the Interfaith Understanding Conference that brought together 400 people from throughout the U.S. and Canada. The conference provided the participants opportunities to learn from one another about our religious differences and our commonalities. It also taught best practices for dialogue that promotes interfaith understanding and cooperation. The conference is one of many educational programs designed by the Center to advance understanding among people of different faiths as well as those with no religious affiliation.    

Despite the extremists and demagogues on all sides, it is clear that we live in a world that is—and will remain-- religiously diverse. It is critical that we develop a real understanding of other religions and learn the skills to live together. We need to be able to explore our differences and our commonalities. To be sure, there are extremists in many religious groups who will attempt to undermine such efforts. These extremists, however, should not be allowed to prevent us from understanding that our religious differences need not be viewed as a reason for division but can be a source of great strength. 

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The End of Summer

I can feel a change in the pace of life on campus as the start of the new academic year rapidly approaches. This summer was especially busy, but there is added and new energy in the air. Final touches are being put on the renovations of Medaille Residence Hall and the new Media Center in the Library Learning Commons. Lawns are being groomed for opening day. Athletes on our fall teams are running laps on the track. Orientation leaders are making final plans for this weekend’s programs. Residence hall advisors are participating in training sessions. Chairs are being set up for Convocation.

Yesterday we welcomed new faculty and staff, and today the faculty is meeting to discuss ways to use technology to enhance learning and teaching. In a few hours we will hold the end-of-summer campus wide picnic for faculty and staff. There, we will recognize individual faculty and staff members for their years of service to the College. Those being recognized today have worked collectively at the College for more than 850 years-- eight and one-half centuries!

One of the many pleasures of working at a residential college is that there is a rhythm to campus life.  The campus will assume an entirely different feel tomorrow when freshmen arrive with family members to move their clothes, computers, televisions, and refrigerators into the residence halls.  In the afternoon we will hold Convocation for the nearly 650 new freshmen and transfer students. And, this weekend the upper-class students return, ready to start classes next week.

Some regret the end of summer, and a piece of me certainly will miss the summer weather.  But, I look forward to the end because it marks the start of a new academic year. It is wonderful to feel the energy and excitement of all the students, faculty, and staff back on campus. The rhythm of campus life continues with this renewal.    

Nazareth Receives National Recognition

In less than a week’s time, Nazareth College has received national recognition for being both a “Great College to Work For” (Chronicle of Higher Education) and for being one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education (2011 edition of the Princeton Review’s "The Best 373 Colleges").

Nazareth College is one of just 97 colleges recognized nationwide in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2010 Great Colleges to Work For® program. We were recognized in two areas: Confidence in Senior Leadership (leaders have the knowledge, skills and experience necessary for institutional success) and Tenure Clarity and Process (college has clear process in place describing tenure protocol). This is the second year we have been recognized. And, this year we are the only Rochester are college included in the Chronicle’s nationwide rating.

The Princeton Review’s “The Best 373 Colleges” list is based on the opinions of students attending the schools. The 80-question survey asks students to rate their own schools on several topics and report on their campus experiences. Among the candid student comments on Nazareth College: "Nazareth College is a very personalized school” and “professors care about how you are doing, you are not just a number." The students also note that the “student activities council does a fantastic job of having activities planned.” This book is Princeton Review's flagship college guide and includes only about 15% of the four-year colleges in the U.S.

Princeton Review specifically noted that Nazareth is ranked the 10th Best College Theater in the country. Students commented that “all of their (music and theater) productions are always spectacular” and “I constantly feel like I’m watching a Broadway show whenever I go see one.”

We are proud of the recognition by the Chronicle and Princeton Review.  The Nazareth faculty and staff work hard to provide an outstanding educational environment, and it is very rewarding to have these efforts receive national attention.