Dear Alumni and Friends,
A first-year student, newly arrived on campus and fresh with the innocence of youth, asked me what was so special about 75 years? Why would we celebrate this anniversary? Why, he queried, would we not wait till 100? I smiled. Perhaps this lad was not as innocent as he appeared with his crisp Monarch shirt, blue cap and unfurrowed brow. Questions which cut to the quick often emanate from the wisdom of independent thought – not necessarily determined by years of research.

The answers may not be so simple. They may take us to the labs, archives and libraries.

The year 2005 marks three quarters of a century in the life of our academic community. Old Dominion is very much a human enterprise where people learn and grow, discover themselves and exciting ideas, change their own lives and change the world. Certainly we have reason to celebrate the accomplishments of the past. We gain from reflecting on our origins, remembering our roots.

Too often we measure the future in terms of a five-year plan and the past through the accomplishments of the last strategic effort. We should remember that Old Dominion has long been a part of the Hampton Roads community, and our history is also that of this region and its leaders who built our school while we educated their children to become the leaders of the future.

We certainly have a lot to learn from the past, which must serve as our guide to the future. Indeed, Northrop Frye, the great literary critic, was fond of saying that the best indication of the years to come is the one we capture in the rearview mirror. It is appropriate to find milestones, reasons to pause and look in the mirror. A 75th anniversary is one such milestone.
Old Dominion University is more like an adolescent than a 75-year-old person. We are growing in quality and quantity. Like an adolescent we are laying the foundation for the future and we are undergoing change, rapid change. If we do not place this change in context, we risk not recognizing ourselves 10 years from now and losing the foundation on which our evolution is based. Today we are fortunate that our founders, like Frank Batten, are with us to share the stories of the past and to shape the environment in which we reside. Highlights of that fine history figure on the pages that follow.

Yet another reason to celebrate the past is to contemplate our future horizons, well beyond the scope of the next five years. The goals of our founders will always remain. They strove for excellence. Founded by the College of William and Mary, the highest ideals of higher education were part of our core from the first. Our geographic location pointed simultaneously to one of our raisons d’être: access. The day our doors opened, the residents of Hampton Roads enjoyed new opportunities, new avenues for personal development. A long line of presidents and deans strove successfully over the years to maintain the balance between access and excellence, a goal which will be pursued as long as Old Dominion exists.
Our faculty and administrators, faced with inadequate funding, pursued a wise course of selective excellence. They chose to target certain areas of teaching and research with their scarce resources. The areas selected matched regional needs or resources which could be developed. They sought national prominence in oceanography, due to our proximity to the ocean, in nuclear physics and aerospace engineering because of the location of the Jefferson Lab and NASA. Modeling and simulation and bioelectrics grew out of faculty expertise and interest.

In the area of instruction, Old Dominion faculty shone in innovative teaching methods and the use of technology. They created some of the first distance learning courses in the country and the first and only truly extensive network in Virginia with more than 40 sites in every corner of the commonwealth today.

The current goals of our Strategic Plan are based on the same fundamental principles of excellence and access. We will continue to celebrate our diversity, our region. We will continue to seek funding so that we can strengthen our commitment to specific areas of excellence. We will continue to push the boundaries of the science of communication using technology. More Internet and asynchronous programs will certainly be made available to increase our accessibility. We will emphasize our research to increase our contribution to the economic development of Hampton Roads. We will continue to support the cultural and business communities.

Just as we work with the Norfolk Botanical Garden, the Virginia Stage Company and the Chrysler Museum today, we will continue to enhance our relationship with the communities which surround us. Together we can learn and grow, making this region an even better place in which to live.
In the next 10 years I predict that Old Dominion will create some new, innovative technology centers and be at the forefront of the use of technology in communications and education. Interdisciplinarity and interuniversity cooperation will be key elements to these developments. The field of transportation is an excellent example of an area of cross-disciplinary expertise which is being developed at Old Dominion.

I also see the creation of a school of public health to meet the needs of the region. Faculty expertise in areas like sensors and creative writing will give Old Dominion a niche for a well-deserved national reputation. Currently we are investing in this future by creating a strong base for general growth with an accent on clusters of expertise across fields.

In the next 75 years, just as the bachelor’s degree has become the entry point to many careers, I believe that the master’s degree will be much more common. Students will complete bachelor’s degrees and then earn certificates in specialized fields as well as complete master’s degree programs. Thus, we might want to look at improving capacity at the graduate level over time and adding flexible, short programs which grant a variety of specialized certificates.
Hampton Roads is home to many military personnel. I believe that qualifications for military staff will increase. This will mean greater demand for courses in the future. The role of the military has changed as the world situation has evolved. The kind of preparation needed will be more strategic, at once more technical and more global. Indeed, all education will necessarily have a global orientation. In this respect, Old Dominion, Virginia’s international institution, will be well situated.

Universities will exchange courses and programs more readily. Classes will be taught by teams of professors located at any number of institutions. Universities will pool expertise to offer different aspects of a major field, such as nanoscience.

While new, highly technical fields will develop, I believe that we will continue to recognize the necessity for basic education, not only in areas which focus on skill development such as mathematics and writing, but also in the development of rational thought processes and a sense of identity and perspective which can be found in logic, ethics, history and philosophy, for example.

Since more technology will be available for use in teaching effectively, there will be a concomitant need to provide opportunities for human interaction. Education is a process of socialization as well as of acquiring skills and knowledge.

With the expansion of free-trade agreements, the initial effect will be a loss of lower-paying and unskilled jobs in this country. We will recognize that if America is to maintain its role as an international leader, then we will need to create a larger, even more sophisticated work force. That means additional education will be not only requisite but valued.

In time, the demand for better wages will increase in the currently less-developed nations, making the price of goods and services rise internationally. This, along with a consciousness of the fragility of our environment and the possible scarcity of certain resources, will mean that values in our society will necessarily change. We will stop being such great consumers of material goods and we will place more value on intangibles such as a good education and the pleasures of intellectual and cultural pursuits. (At least, I hope this will be the reaction!)

The human life span is predicted to increase. This means that lifelong education will have a longer mission and we may reconsider the length and timing of programs. I have long predicted that the sabbatical will be a necessity for business leaders in order to refresh their knowledge of the rapidly changing world and changing requirements in terms of technical skills. This, combined with the mean age of the population and funds available in the pension plans, means that the age of retirement will likely be pushed back.

If people take every seventh year off for intellectual refreshment, the demographics of the classroom will change. Teaching will be more stimulating, but also more demanding as students bring ever greater experience and expectations to the classroom.

As the population of America becomes more diverse, so too will the population of universities. This will make the learning environment ever richer. Old Dominion has already emerged as one of the most diverse universities in the country.

In the matter of funding, despite the experiences of my own lifetime when education was not adequately supported, I remain totally optimistic. Since the importance of education will be recognized, more support will be forthcoming. This is definitely a reason for all of us to wish to live longer! It is also a reason for the Old Dominion University community to face the future with confidence. There is no challenge we cannot meet!

We have an important mission, fine faculty, the support of alumni and the community, wonderful goals and an outstanding tradition of creativity, positive thought, action and diligent effort. Seventy-five years from now we will remain a portal to new worlds – and we will still be changing lives!

Roseann Runte
President
Old Dominion University