Roudebush Hall
Roudebush Hall, home of Miami's administrative offices

Annual Address 2015

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David C. Hodge
September 9, 2015

Commitment to Continual Improvement

The most critical element in building a culture of creativity and innovation is the commitment to continuous improvement, the belief that we can, and must, seek to do what we do better. In many ways this impulse is already part of our DNA. We are always trying to improve our knowledge and humanity through our research and various forms of artistic expression. We have the motivation; the challenge before us is to advance how we improve so that the outcomes will continue to get better.

In order to provide a broader understanding of, and hopefully inspiration for, the possibilities before us, I would like to provide some examples of the outstanding work that is already being done in academics with respect to improvement in organization, teaching, and research that offer some suggestions that I hope might provoke further thinking and innovation.

One of the biggest challenges to any organization is to change its structure, and nowhere is this more true than in universities where our identities are often tied to a field and a department with a long history. Thus to take the innovative step of imagining a new structure can be daunting. Yet, we have made several changes in the past few years that reflect a new understanding of how we can approach our academic studies. The new Department of Biology was born out of two venerable departments, Botany and Zoology, yet now better reflects how the biological sciences have evolved. The reimagined Department of Media, Journalism, and Film embraces the extraordinary changes that have disrupted these classic fields. The new Department of Global and Intercultural Studies is the result of thinking creatively about how six programs could be combined synergistically so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts while also providing better and more efficient institutional support.

The Miami Regional campuses are undertaking an incredibly creative endeavor, namely the reinvention of themselves into a single college with semi-autonomous responsibility for developing its own unique curriculum. Last year at this time I spoke about the challenges posed by the state’s change in emphasis for regional campuses from two-year to four-year degrees. Taking up this challenge, the regional campus community worked through the many possibilities to lay out a vision of the regional campuses that will better serve the students and the region. The difficult, but rewarding, tasks of creating everything from a new departmental organization to a new governance structure is well underway. It is exciting to see new ideas flourish in this special moment of challenge and creativity.

As we move forward I would like to offer three general areas of consideration for continuing this innovative trajectory.

First, as our fields of study continue to change, I would argue that we need to continue to consider alternative structures that better support the future direction of scholarship and teaching. Although I have no specific areas in mind, nationally there is significant movement for such changes and so we need to keep this question before us. This is probably most true as existing fields may give rise to, and perhaps be displaced by, emerging interdisciplinary approaches.

Second, I would urge us to consider how we might better provide intellectual coherence around topics rather than departments. Programs like the Pre-Med and Sustainability co-majors provide a clear, logical, and I would argue, innovative coherence around areas of broad interest to students.

Third, building on that general idea of at least semi-virtual units, how can we coalesce common research interests around virtual centers so that we can better facilitate these wonderful collaborations?

Miami is nationally known as an innovative leader in undergraduate education. From hosting the Lilly Conference to faculty learning communities to joining the first cohort of the new accreditation process with its emphasis on learning outcomes, we look to push innovative thinking about how we can better prepare our students. The most significant push in recent years was the Top 25 Initiative that, as I noted above, embraced the challenge of creating more active, student-centered, and inquiry-driven approaches to our learning environment. We have created the new Office of Research for Undergraduates to “champion the vision, marketing, and coordination of research by undergraduates at Miami with research-active faculty and staff.” Undergraduate participation in research has become a signature component of the Miami experience and the new office and creative working space in King Library give that identity a big boost. The addition of Winter Term has also contributed to the broader emphasis on experiential learning, greatly expanding opportunities for our students to be and do in different places around the globe. And sometimes the global comes to us. Sociology Professor Rodney Coates’ seminar on social justice is paired with similar classes in other countries. They have scheduled two joint digital sessions with Russia and Italy for 2 a.m. our time—we can make the technology work for us, but we can’t change the rotation of the earth!

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