President’s Report to the Board: February 2006

I want to highlight several developments at Lewis & Clark…which taken together give particular evidence of exciting changes now underway in the life of the College.

1. At the Board meeting in November, 2005, the administration presented information concerning the costs and benefits of building additional student housing on campus, and especially of building housing of premium quality in an effort to encourage upper-class students to live on campus. Although our analysis at this juncture suggests that this is an inopportune time to build new housing, we have moved forward on plans to refurbish currently underused space in several of our existing residence halls and to make them available for undergraduate housing. Space has been identified that will yield some thirty beds, and that project has been included in the capital renewals budget for next year. Some of those beds will be coming on line in fall, 2007;

2. Although some twelve percent of our undergraduates are members of underrepresented minorities at Lewis & Clark and despite our best efforts to make progress in this important strategic area for the College, we are lagging behind in particular in recruiting and matriculating African-American students. Included in the budget proposal for next year is the position of Associate Dean of Admissions for Multicultural Recruitment, a position that will enhance our already strong outreach to underrepresented groups. As we have reported previously, we are also in conversations with the Posse Foundation, a program whereby prescreened cohorts of minority students are collectively admitted to a group of selected institutions. We will be seeking Board endorsement of the College’s participation in this program, which has been extraordinarily successful in those institutions where it has been implemented;

3. With regard to the initiative to focus extraordinary efforts on the recruitment of academically qualified athletes to the College of Arts and Sciences, early indicators suggest that we are making progress. The number of students who have indicated their interest in playing football and who were admitted in our early action pool was up twofold from last year at 16. Recently, some 29 football players attended our athletic recruitment weekend, also a significant increase over earlier years. More importantly, our Admission and coaching staffs are working more closely together than ever before in this initiative, always with the end of recruiting and matriculating academically qualified students who will shine in the classroom, but who will also be an asset on the playing field. The signs, as I say, are cautiously encouraging;

4. I want to commend the Planning Task Force on its progress as it passed the midway mark in its mission to provide a report on the strategic direction of the College in time for the meeting of the Board in May, 2006. The Task Force has been conducting most of its work through five subgroups, dealing respectively with the following topics: Identity and Visibility; Academic Programs; the Student Body; Student Life; and Institutional Structures and Processes. The members of the Task Force have been tireless in their efforts, and information and the findings emerging from their work are already influencing our thinking on many fronts. I cite in particular the interaction between the subgroup on Identity and Visibility and the Board’s own branding initiative, a collaboration that will in the end move us along more rapidly than otherwise would have been the case. I am particularly indebted to Professor of Natural Sciences Paulette Bierzychudek, who has been indefatigable in her efforts to coordinate this ambitious undertaking. Board members whose efforts have also been essential in moving the work of the Task Force forward are Chair John Bates, Peter Chang, Stephen Dover, and Carr Ferguson. My thanks go especially to them, as well as to all members of the Board for your support of the work of the Task Force.

Let me conclude with a brief report on the president’s activities…Marcia and I have taken immense pleasure in conducting a tour of alumni clubs around the country during fall semester, including visits to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Denver, and of course Portland. We find tremendous support and interest among alumni and parents for the drive toward excellence that characterizes life in each of the units of Lewis & Clark these days. In many cases, alumni are connecting to the College for the first time since their graduation, while in others, the tie is being re-knit once again. To the extent that our alums are an essential element of our community, the renewal of such contacts is much like reuniting with long lost relatives—an act of pure joy.

Finally, I had the honor in early January to be invited as one of 120 college and university presidents to attend a summit in Washington, D.C., on the topic of international education, jointly sponsored by the Department of State and the Department of Education. The summit was the occasion for President Bush to announce the launching of an initiative to increase language and cultural literacy with regard to Asia and the Middle East through academic programs at the nation’s institutions of higher education. It is my great hope and intention that Lewis & Clark will be a full participant in this endeavor. What is particularly gratifying is that we are perceived to be—as indeed we truly are—among the country’s leading institutions with regard to international education and global understanding.

Respectfully submitted,

Thomas J. Hochstettler

President