So let’s start right there. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is not closing. No majors in the College are being eliminated or renamed, for current or future students. No faculty are being laid off or getting new titles. Your transcript and diploma will list the major you have chosen. Your advisors will remain the faculty in the programs you have selected. Your pathway to a degree will remain unchanged.

Contrary to what you may have heard, we are not doing this to save money – although by consolidating some administrative tasks, there are efficiencies to be gained, and that’s not a bad thing because it helps to keep tuition affordable. Our primary motivation is to empower faculty to pursue innovative approaches and to support our students to achieve their goals.

Please see the questions and answers below, which address the concerns we are hearing most often from students. For more details about the restructuring, see the complete list of FAQs on the University website.

We are looking at adjustments to the CHSS administrative structure that we hope will create a more dynamic, vibrant college. We want to remove obstacles that make it unnecessarily difficult for our creative faculty to develop programs and opportunities that span disciplinary boundaries. We want to design processes that put students’ interests first, such as making sure class schedules don’t create frustrating conflicts for you. And we want to have the professors you value spend less time on administrative tasks so you have more opportunities to engage with them.

Why are we doing this? The best universities do not stand still and wait for crises to consider change. Montclair is in a strong position precisely because this is an institution unafraid to change. In the past decade we have created, revamped and reorganized in every facet of the university, academic and administrative, with the goal of improving how we deliver our mission.

CHSS is no exception. Last spring, our former Provost Junius Gonzales brought this mindset to an evaluation of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was concerned that half the programs were shrinking in enrollment. This was distressing because these subjects are, in many ways, the core of a liberal arts university. To ensure the sustainability and vibrancy of our university, this trend had to be addressed. Examples from leading universities suggest that the solution is to build more multidisciplinary programs that bring the humanities and social sciences together to address interesting, contemporary questions.

Students at Montclair and around the country are drawn to these kinds of programs, which connect their studies to complex real-world problems more clearly than traditional single-discipline majors.

Many professors at ����vlog are capable of building such programs, and in every college, people are doing all kinds of amazing things to incorporate hands-on problem-solving, community-engaged teaching, and challenge-based learning that draw on multiple disciplines. Yet these change-makers have had to overcome many institutional barriers to bring you these opportunities.

So starting last spring Provost Gonzales asked a group of faculty to begin looking at the structure of the College to see how we could break down those barriers and empower our faculty. Although details are still being finalized, the vision has been clear from the start: to create multidisciplinary schools organized around broad themes – social and political systems, for example – to serve as the administrative hubs for the College’s programs and faculty.

We have been soliciting input at every step, and we will continue to listen carefully to everyone’s aspirations and concerns. Dean Mili is forming a student advisory board to provide input on the structure, and she will continue to work closely with CHSS faculty and staff members.

We are listening and incorporating feedback as we go along. For example, there has been a lot of talk recently about the value of academic departments, so faculty are designing the schools such that departments will continue to be part of the CHSS organizational structure.

I understand that change can be challenging, and I respect the passion and concern so many of you have shown. Let’s channel that energy into shaping this future together.

One of Montclair’s greatest strengths has been its willingness to innovate. I am confident that by working together, we will build a stronger, more vibrant future for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Let us seize the day.

If you would like to discuss any of this in person with me, I will be speaking at the Student Government Association’s Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, December 3 at 2 p.m. in the Student Center, Room 411.

Will my major go away? Will I graduate with a different degree name?

No. Your major is NOT going away. Your degree is not changing. You will still complete and graduate with your current major (for example, BA in English, BA in History, BA in Sociology). Your diploma will not change.

Are my professors losing their jobs or being replaced?

No. No faculty or staff positions are being cut. Your professors are staying, and they will continue teaching your courses.

What is happening with all the new “school” names?

Your major name stays the same. Your programs and departments may be grouped into broader schools to help students explore related fields and create more interdisciplinary opportunities. Those schools will be named to capture what those fields have in common.

Is this just a cost saving move?

No. The goal is to increase student interest and improve your experience, reduce bureaucratic barriers to innovation and expanded academic opportunities, and increase your opportunities for interaction with faculty. However, we are always conscious of the investment students make, and we want to be as cost effective as possible. This restructuring may produce some efficiencies by consolidating administrative tasks.

Should I worry about the quality of teaching I will receive after this restructuring?

No. The University believes that quality teaching matters most. Faculty still control the curriculum and teaching, and this restructuring is meant to give professors more opportunity to develop new courses, to start new programs and to mentor students.

Is CHSS closing or turning into something totally different?

No. CHSS is not closing, shrinking, or being replaced. It remains the academic home for all of its majors and programs. This restructuring is about strengthening student experience, expanding opportunities for learning, and reinforcing the academic excellence of ����vlog. All students will retain their majors, have accomplished faculty that will continue to teach their courses and the degree listed on your diploma and transcript will not change.

Still have questions?
Email the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at chss@montclair.edu.

This lecture is open to the public, hosted on Thursday, November 6 from 5:30-6:30pm in Leshowitz Hall. No prior registration is required.

At the 2025 Opening Day Town Hall, President Jonathan Koppell proudly introduced Montclair’s new mission statement, reaffirming our role as a public-serving university.

President Koppell shared the revised mission and spoke to the University’s ongoing efforts to meet the needs of our students, communities and the broader society. He highlighted key institutional priorities and celebrated milestone achievements.

Read the full Mission Statement.

Although this account is not affiliated with the university, and the identity of the individual or individuals who post to it are unknown, I want to state unequivocally that this targeting of students based on their religion is unacceptable and a violation of our behavioral standards.

The University Police Department is conducting an investigation and asks that anyone with information about this incident call 973-655-5222.

Harmful behaviors, including but not limited to antisemitism, have no place in our university community or in society at large. I am deeply troubled by any actions that promote hatred, perpetuate harmful stereotypes, or create a climate of fear for Jewish students and community members.

����vlog has since its founding been a place where all people are welcome. We are committed to fostering a campus culture where every member of our community feels valued, supported, and safe.

We have been in communication with our Jewish students and our partners in the Jewish community, and we want them to know that they have our full support. I encourage any student who feels threatened or targeted to reach out to the University Police Department.

We will continue to work proactively to combat hatred and discrimination in all forms, both on our campus and in partnership with the broader community. Education, dialogue, and unwavering commitment to our values remain our strongest tools against intolerance.

Any student who needs support or assistance can reach out to the Dean of Students Office by calling at 973-655-4118 or emailing deanofstudents@montclair.edu.

Additionally, counselors are available for all students 24 hours a day by calling Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at 973-655-5211 and selecting Option 2.

Employees can get free, confidential support from our Employee Assistance Program by calling 800-242-7371. Anyone who is in crisis may call or text the nationwide 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for free, confidential support, 24/7.

This new, campus-wide event brings together major acknowledgment events under one umbrella: the Presidential Excellence Awards, the Employee Milestone Celebration, and the “ME Time” Employee Mixer at the Finley Gallery, open to all faculty and staff. Together, they form a day of gratitude and celebration for the many people who help move Montclair forward.

The idea for Red Hawk Recognition Day came directly from President Jonathan Koppell, who envisioned a unified occasion to spotlight the people behind the University’s growth.

“We tend to talk about the rise of the university in the aggregate,” said President Koppell. “More students, more research, higher performance, more projects in the community—and it’s impressive. But it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that those numbers are the result of individual effort.”

Koppell emphasized that while various departments and units have long held their own recognition activities, a centralized, university-wide celebration was needed. “It’s important that we celebrate as a university the contributions people are making,” he said. “This isn’t intended to take the place of local recognition, but to complement it with something broader, something that allows for peer nominations and collective acknowledgment.”

The response from the community was enthusiastic. Hundreds of nominations were submitted for this year’s Presidential Excellence Awards, with particularly high interest in the Unsung Hero category. “That tells you there are a lot of people on campus who want others to know about the quiet, impactful work their colleagues are doing,” Koppell noted. “And that says a lot about the culture of the place.”

Red Hawk Recognition Day is more than an event; it’s a reflection of Montclair’s commitment to recognizing and valuing the people who make its mission possible. We hope you will come join in the celebration.

Changes are coming quickly, in a manner inconsistent with established processes and with many details unspecified, resulting in confusion. Pending litigation heightens uncertainty. In this rapidly-changing environment, the University’s senior leadership team is monitoring all developments, receiving information from national higher education associations, staying in touch with federal and state officials, and communicating regularly with our peers in New Jersey and beyond. We are not sending messages or making significant changes based on conjecture. Rather we are responding to concrete actions and preparing for different outcomes.

I do want to reassure you that the fundamental mission and purpose of ����vlog, which dates back to our founding in 1908, will not change. We will remain dedicated to creating opportunities for our students – who represent the full diversity of New Jersey – and partnering with the communities we serve to advance the public good. This mission has made us strong and valued for more than a century, and it will endure.

As a public serving university, we believe that everyone deserves access to the high-quality opportunities for which Montclair is known. Each member of our community – staff, faculty and students – should find here a welcoming and encouraging environment where they receive the support needed to achieve their full potential. We will continue to prepare our students to be successful in their careers and to be the engaged citizens required by a thriving democracy. We will continue to partner with our communities to advance the wellbeing of all members of society.

I understand that many of you are concerned about what is to come. Here is a summary of what has actually happened so far.

Research
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo on January 29 pausing many types of federal spending, including research grants and contracts to universities. The memo’s stated purpose was to allow federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive review of programs that may be affected by executive orders. OMB rescinded the memo on January 29 and communicated that direct aid, including Pell Grants, will not be paused. Some federal agencies that award research grants communicated that they are pausing grant review processes or not accepting new applications. On February 7, the government declared that the indirect cost recovery rate for all National Institutes of Health grants will change to 15%, which would represent a substantial decrease for many institutions, including ours. To date, two of Montclair’s federally funded projects have been affected by executive orders with one grant canceled outright.

If you receive any communication from the government or a partner institution about a federal grant or contract in which you participate, please share that information immediately with Dr. Stefanie Brachfeld, Vice Provost for Research. Please continue submitting proposals to active competitions unless you hear directly from the Office of Research that a specific competition is canceled. The Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) website on 2025 Administration Transition Information & Resources is a helpful resource for you to follow research-related developments.

Immigration and International Students and Employees
Numerous executive orders and federal policy changes have been issued related to immigration that could have an impact on universities, including rescinding a long-standing policy that identified schools, hospitals, and churches as “sensitive locations” and limited the kinds of immigration enforcement actions permitted in them. The government has also instructed federal prosecutors to pursue charges against state or local officials who attempt to thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts.

If federal immigration enforcement officers show up on campus, we ask that you immediately call the University Police Department at 973-655-5222. Our police officers will serve as the point of contact with federal officers, verify their credentials, and ensure that they have a valid warrant or court order. If there is a valid warrant or court order then the University is obligated by law to allow them to proceed. However, our police officers will continue to follow the State of New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a statewide policy which says that “New Jersey police officers cannot participate in federal immigration raids. They cannot stop, question, arrest, search, or detain an individual based solely on actual or suspected immigration status. And they cannot ask an individual’s immigration status except in rare cases when it is relevant to a specific criminal investigation.”

Diversity Equity and Inclusion
President Trump has issued an executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across the federal government and placing new requirements and restrictions on federal contractors and subcontractors. Federal agencies have been directed to eliminate race and gender focused programs, to report attempts to disguise DEI programs, and to stop all DEI work related to federal grants and contracts. The direct impact of this order on institutions of higher education is still to be determined.

Sex/Gender Identity
The new administration has directed the Attorney General to issue guidance stating that Title IX does not require gender identity-based access to single-sex spaces and instructed the Department of Education to rescind its 2021 guidance that extended Title IX protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The White House published an executive order on February 5 restricting participation in women’s sports only to student-athletes assigned female at birth. Institutions receiving federal funding must comply with the order to maintain eligibility for federal funds. On February 6, the NCAA announced that it had changed its policy to mirror what the executive order mandated.

At this time, this change does not affect student athletes participating in either Montclair’s or Bloomfield’s intercollegiate athletics programs.

An Ethic of Safety and Care
While there is great uncertainty around us, we can through our own actions demonstrate our values and aspirations. Let us again commit to an ethic of safety and care for all members of our University community. Even if we disagree, we must not lose sight of our shared responsibility as members of the University community to care for each other and cultivate a universal sense of belonging. And as citizens and stewards of a pluralistic democracy, we must respect the dignity of each individual and ensure that their rights are honored and protected.

We can tell from the feedback received that the Policy was unclear in several areas and unnecessarily complex. We have taken this feedback seriously and, given the critical importance of this Policy, revised the Policy with an eye towards more simple and direct language. We believe that this version better articulates the intent behind the Policy.

We are also aware that our initial distribution of the Policy failed to reach students. For that, we apologize and are correcting that error today. Additionally, I plan to meet with the Student Government Association in the near future to discuss the Policy as well as host a Town Hall for students. It is very important that all students understand both the language of the Policy and the intent behind it.

We appreciate your patience as we work to create a campus environment that ensures both the freedoms and safety of our students and employees. I invite you to read the revised Policy for yourself, as well as this Q&A document, so you are aware of the strides being made on our campus.

As a public university, we play a particularly important role in creating an environment that is respectful of free expression – and encourages the free exchange of ideas – but also retains the quality of a community where members can study, learn and engage. To this end, we have been examining our expressive activity policy for the past several months to ensure that we are striking the right balance. I am writing today as we release a revised version of the Expressive Activity Policy, which we intend to provide greater clarity.

Undergirding this policy is a crucial expectation: we can have robust disagreement and make our views known without denying others the opportunity to do the same or abandoning our commitment to civil discourse and mutual respect. This must be the ethos of an institution that embraces diversity, liberty and community as core values.

The University permits expressive activity but has the authority to place reasonable limitations on its time, place, and manner to ensure that the activity does not disrupt University operations, pose a risk to health and safety, or interfere with the ability of all people to take part in the University’s programs and services. Under the law, the University is not permitted to impose restrictions that are based on the viewpoints expressed. As a consequence, speech that some may find offensive will be allowed on campus. That does not mean that expressive activity that includes hate speech, harassment, intimidation, incitement to violence, or other conduct that violates local, state, or federal law is permissible. It is not. Those activities will be dealt with swiftly in accordance with University policy and local, state, or federal law.

The revised policy makes clear that the rules governing expressive activities apply to all members of our campus community, as well as visitors with no current affiliation. With respect to members of the public, the Amphitheater will serve as the one location on the Montclair campus where expressive activity will be permitted. For current members of the ����vlog�� community, including enrolled students and active employees, we have established criteria and times that open additional locations for expressive activity with clear guidelines for acceptable behavior. The revision creates more opportunities for expression and therefore the increased possibility that the University Administration may need to take certain steps to ensure that the campus remains safe for all.

I want to emphasize that while a policy primarily speaks to the regulations of what is (and is not) allowed, we all have a responsibility to go beyond those legalistic words. I urge everyone to think about how our actions affect the well-being of other community members. We should continue trying to honor two core principles of community: retaining civility and respect in discourse, and committing to an ethic of safety and care. Neither of these is easy, but both are essential for each of us to enjoy the sense of belonging here at Montclair that makes free exchange of ideas and opinions possible and fruitful. We exercise our institutional prerogative to limit only outside groups to a single designated location because I believe in our ability as a community to be mindful of each other, even as we express our own thoughts and feelings. It is harder to extend that belief to people with no interest in building and maintaining this community, and view our University only as a platform to amplify their voices.

There are many conflicts in the world today that evoke deep emotions among members of our University community. We welcome people from many different backgrounds and this diversity enriches our community, providing opportunities to ask questions and appreciate differences that make the world more interesting. This diversity is one of our greatest strengths. When viewpoints derived from differences in experience, belief, or outlook put us in diametric opposition, however, it can present a test of our shared commitments.

This is the moment we find ourselves in as a campus community and it offers an opportunity to model the world we’d like to see. I believe in our ability to find the balance between free expression and our obligation to serve the students who come here to learn and realize their potential. And even when you may not agree with how any given situation is handled, I can assure you that the pursuit of this balance is always at the forefront of our decision making.

Full Transcript:

I’m excited to see everybody.��

This is the best time of year, the campus comes to life and the energy is palpable, and in a very positive way. Let me just say, this is a tumultuous time in the world. There’s a lot of stuff going on. It is quite moving to see how people feel about being in this place and the sense of home that I get from talking to students, to staff, to faculty. I don’t mean just in a physical sense, in the psychological sense that home is a place where you belong.��

I’m going to come back to this idea more than once. This needs to be a place where everyone feels valued, where everyone feels that they can be themselves, and that doesn’t just happen organically. It requires conscious effort. It’s so noticeable when you talk to the students who are enrolled here, and many of the people who have spent decades of their lives working here.��

We have to resolve together to consciously make a commitment to keep cultivating that environment. Never has there been a time when it’s more important. So, let me start by just saying a huge thank you. Thank you for the work that is done. Thank you for the work that is done in service of our students. We had these recognition slides going. We can’t possibly have enough slides, and the word literally is used a lot. I literally don’t have time to thank every person individually, but it is important that we recognize the effort that’s been done. And the effort that’s been done not just starting today, but it was a very busy summer. By the way, I never say welcome back. Don’t say welcome back. There are a lot of people who never left. So, there’s no welcome back. There’s no “How was your summer?” So I’m going to sort of go through quickly a lot of stuff.��Let’s jump right in and start off with a metaphor.

Everybody loves a metaphor. And the metaphor is a ship on the ocean. Why? We are increasingly in volatile seas, not necessarily stormy, right? But the waves are getting bigger. So, the question is, what happens when you’re dealing with an environment that’s more volatile when you’re trying to navigate seas where the waves get bigger? By the way, some waves are predictable. That’s good. We’ve known that the demography of this country is going to pose challenges for some time. You’ve heard of the demographic cliff and that the number of students who are graduating of college age is going to be plummeting over the next several years. So, we’ve known that that’s coming.��

Some waves are unpredictable. So, this past spring, I assume most people here are modestly familiar with the FAFSA debacle, where all of a sudden somewhere between 500 and 800,000 people who are eligible to go to college, eligible to apply for financial aid didn’t do so, and that’s a tragedy for them because a significant portion of them will never pursue college. But it also posed a challenge for all institutions of higher education and, indeed, for many smaller institutions, it was the death blow that put them out of business. I’m not exaggerating. Read the Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed, and you can see that was what pushed many institutions over the edge. And some waves are man-made, right?��

We are in an unusual time where higher education itself – is the subject of political debate and the entire conversation of, “Is college worth it?” is a constructed storm. Right? Where the data are not ambiguous, that you’re better off with a college degree than without one, which doesn’t mean that everybody should go to college. Let’s just get that out there. It’s sort of like, not that there’s anything wrong with it, right? It’s the same idea. But there is no doubt that your odds of a more prosperous, healthy life increase with a college degree, but now we have to grapple with that issue.��

Now, in this situation, right, there’s two things you can do. You can pretend that the ocean is the same and nothing needs to change. And there are a certain number of institutions for whom that is fine. Because they’re super rich, because their reputation and investment in elitism and exclusivity makes them basically immune to changes. They don’t have to change. Their ship is solid no matter how crazy the ocean is. And there are another set of institutions like, they’re taking on water. They’re facing life and death. We’re in neither of those situations, which is a good thing. Our boat is solid. We’re doing well, but we recognize that the waves are getting bigger.��

The question is, what do you do? My strong belief is you take advantage of this time to prepare yourselves for a future that you anticipate and for a future that you don’t anticipate. That’s what we’re trying to do is build a university that can withstand the uncertainty, and that means looking at everything we do – our internal systems, how they operate, how they interact with each other, where there are opportunities to do better, what new technologies are coming on the horizon that we can incorporate – AI being the most obvious one – but not limited to that, our ability to use partnerships in the community and in higher education, to strengthen ourselves and be of greater service, both locally and globally. All of these are the questions that we must ask now.��

And so, in a moment, I’m going to go and meet with our students, and I like to lean into our motto of carpe diem, which is an important lesson to seize this opportunity. We shouldn’t be afraid of the future. Carpe futurum. Let’s just lean into the fact that the future is going to be different and be ready for that. Make bold choices. Don’t be afraid. And I always want to make one point, when people question the choices that we might make or the investments we might make. I don’t mind people questioning the things that we choose to do. Just understand that doing nothing – is a choice. Sticking with the status quo is a choice. I would argue, in some ways, the riskiest choice an institution can make. And so, we have made some design choices and will make some design choices in the years ahead, because we don’t want to be swamped by a wave that we know is coming.��

So, the first thing you need to do when you’re rebuilding your ship is to have a really good crew. We’ve got a couple of new leaders. Meredith Gatzke joins us as our Chief Human Resources Officer. By the way, great, great picture. Where is? Meredith’s there. She’s a real person– but, like, Meredith, we’re going to go out and we’re going to kill some whales or something. Argh!��

I think maybe intimidated by Meredith’s picture, we don’t even have a picture of David Chun, who is our new Chief Information Officer. David, wake up so they can see you — leading our IT team. Jessica Murphy also has joined us. A critical position, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Success and Academic Innovation. Fred Bonato comes back from St. Peter’s to lead our health college. And last but not least among our new leadership, Theodora Berry. Please stand up, wave. Very excited that Theodora Regina Berry has joined us from the University of Central Florida, where she led initiatives resulting in the highest graduation rates for transfer students and second highest rates for first time students among colleges for two consecutive years. So excited by what she’s going to bring to Bloomfield College, as we refine the model of education that’s going to make Bloomfield a leader nationally. We still have work to do to determine the leadership for the Bloomfield campus. More on that in the weeks ahead. An overall incredible infusion of talent, not the least of which I’m pleased to point out that our deans and our provost dean have added 32 new faculty members joining us this Fall and 33 that will start in the Spring. That is a lot of work to bring on that talent. So, thank you, everybody, for making that happen.��

Let’s jump into a quick state of affairs and talk about enrollment. I’m not going to linger on the budget situation, except to say our budget from the state point of view is stable. Some increases related to the state’s investment in the outcomes-based allocation. That’s very good for us, but it’s a reflection of our performance, that we are educating underserved populations and doing it at a high rate of success. And the state’s investment in success is an investment in ����vlog. I’ll take that seven days a week.��

I’m also pleased that Bloomfield College of ����vlog earned recognition in this budget as a part of the constellation of public institutions in New Jersey. Still work to do, but great progress. It remains the case that we live and die, as contemporary public institutions do, by our enrollment. And our enrollment is particularly strong. We, just to give you the sort of bottom line, ����vlog enrolls today over 24,000 students. So, if your image is of little old Montclair…yeah, that’s not what we are anymore.��We saw a 10% increase in the number of freshman applications and a 6% increase in deposits. We are enrolling at present over 4500 new first-year undergraduate students and over 1300 new transfer students.��

That’s an impressive achievement. I see Wendy is smiling. Wendy, our Vice President for Enrollment, appreciation to Wendy and the Enrollment team, and also our Communications team, who are getting the word out about what we are doing at this university. And I feel like I sometimes need to say it to ourselves, right? What we are doing here is rather special.��

People need to embrace the reality of the new Montclair and what we represent. I’m particularly proud that 42% of our incoming freshman identify as first-generation college students. That’s a remarkable achievement. I believe we are probably as a student population overall 50% Pell, if not overall, close to it. Our first-year class last year was 58% Pell. So, I’m pretty confident that we are a majority Pell-eligible institution. Wrap your brain around the significance of that, of what we are trying to pull off here, and I’ll come back to that in many ways. The question, though, for universities, I believe, the central question in terms of that ocean metaphor not to beat it to death is – who are the learners of the future? Right? We know who our current students are. We can see the changes that are happening in the composition of our student body, as we are increasingly the university of choice for, as I say, first-generation, underserved populations. But as universities adapt, we have to be thinking about what that’s going to look like in the years ahead.��

Two ways at least that we are thinking about the future. One is that the learners of the future are not American. That is to say, as the population of people going to college in this country is going down, the population of people who want a university education around the world is exploding. This past spring actually, Wendy and I were in india. You might be aware that Governor Murphy has launched a New Jersey-India Commission. There’s an increasing recognition that India is the dynamic growing country of the future, and there’s a huge opportunity for Montclair to be a part of that nation’s future. Our international enrollment has tripled in just a few years. I expect it will go up further in a geometric fashion, not exclusively relying on students from India, but by reaching out to parts of the world that are underserved where people are yearning for opportunity. So, that includes southeast Asia. It includes sub-saharan Africa. It includes Latin America.��

There’s an opportunity for Montclair to be part of the solution in those places to do the same thing that we’re doing here, partially by attracting students to come to our campus in New Jersey, and the incredible environment that we offer as a cosmopolitan state that is diverse and offers resources for people from all over the world, but also by forming partnerships in those countries to try and create accessible, affordable education for the millions of people, billions, who can’t afford to come to the United States. And lastly by creating a better learning environment for our students, so that they can integrate international experiences into their undergraduate and graduate education and they have the opportunity to interact with students from around the globe on our own campus. This is not just about enrolling students from other countries because it’s good for the bottom line. I want to be clear on that. It is. It is, but it’s about building a richer, better university and meeting our mandate to make high-quality education accessible to people who are hungry for opportunity. Nowhere in that sentence does it say “only people in New Jersey.” Right? Our mission is to make education accessible and to empower people through education to be difference-makers in their own lives and in the communities.��

How else will learners of the future look different than the learners of today? They will not match the traditional model of how we think of a student going to college. They graduate from high school and enroll for four years. That’s not�� first of all, that’s not accurate today, but it’s certainly not going to be accurate in the future. There are tens of millions of people who have some college credit, but have not managed to finish their degree. We want to serve them. There are people who want to return to college at a different pace, at a different modality. We have to adapt ourselves.��

In January, we will launch a new academic calendar. You might say, well, “What does a new academic calendar have to do with nontraditional learners?” We want to create a university that offers year-round access. The model that we will move to, where we have a full term in the summer in addition to the traditional fall term and spring term creates a 12-month-a-year university, including the shorter winter term, similar to what we have already, which allows students to complete the degree on the time that they want to, not the time that we’re used to operating and that people did 100 years ago. Who cares what people did 100 years ago? I don’t think our students need the summer to harvest crops or go to the Hamptons. They want to get done. They don’t want to be borrowing for housing in the summer months when they’re not earning credits. They want to be able to complete their degree and move on to careers at their own pace and so we need to adapt to that. Other institutions are doing so. Believe it or not, the state of New Jersey is leading on this with Summer Tag, allowing students to get financial aid in the summer months. So, we adapt to that. Does that require us to change? Yes, it does. Is it going to make us have to do some things differently than we’ve always done? Yes, it will. That’s the point. Right? You can’t change and satisfy the needs, you can’t navigate the future without adapting yourself to some extent.��

The launch of Montclair Unbound will be greatly accelerated as we work with Collegis education to help us offer multimodality degrees, again meeting learners where they want to be met. Having them come to campus once in a while, but being able to engage online in a synchronous and asynchronous fashion. That’s what students want. That’s how they mesh their education with their lives. We need to be leaders in offering education in that way, and I think that’s going to be a huge plus for this university, and we’ll be recognized not only for what we offer, but for the mindset that we demonstrate in so doing. It also means looking at the organization of the university to ask, are we structured internally to maximize our accessibility and the optimization of our programs? So, a few years ago, we decided to separate the College of Education and Engage Learning and College of Community Health to underscore our commitment in those areas.��

The provost announced that Keith Strudler, the Director of School Communications will be Dean of the forthcoming College of something – Communications and Media. We don’t know what the name is exactly, but that will forge its own identity as one of the most dynamic and impactful units of the university and will allow us to underscore the College of the Arts’ incredible national reputation. Again, I don’t sometimes know if people understand the way in which we’re regarded. Our arts programs are viewed as world class. And I meet students in Music, Theater, and Dance who come from around the country to be part of this university because of those programs. We’re starting to earn the same reputation in Media and Communications and by giving each of these units a strong, independent identity, we will be able to underscore that, attract more and increase the value of those degrees for our students and the opportunities for our faculty and staff to do great work. That reorganization will be taking place over the course of the year. I’m very excited about the launch of that.��

These things are not easy.��

You may remember that we have this project around this thing called Bloomfield College. So, I’m very excited about the progress. Now, last Fall we began our inaugural first semester of Bloomfield College of Montclair

State University. On June 28th– before the clock struck midnight, we successfully completed with the U.S. Department of Education the Change in Ownership and Change in Affiliation. Where did Althea go? I saw her a second ago. Althea Broomfield. Not Bloomfield, she probably thinks her name is Bloomfield. Althea Broomfield-Michel. Our university counsel did heroic work to get us across that finish line. So, congratulations to Althea and many others, and many others. And I don’t know is Joanne Cote-Bonanno here? Joanne led the charge to have Middle States recognize this organizational change. It sounds funny to say so, but now the real work begins. Kidding, of course. That was a lot of work. But what Theodora is here to lead, and we’re excited by, is to define what Bloomfield College offers as a distinctive experience to undergraduates, to enhance the opportunities of those students to realize their full potential.��

The organizational work of getting Bloomfield integrated into Montclair was gargantuan, more than it should have been to be honest. If you think about the ways in which we were forced to jump through hoops and do goofy things, it is tragic in a way because other institutions closed because they couldn’t navigate that obstacle course. And opportunities for students will disappear because they couldn’t navigate the obstacle course that accreditation and federal regulations and blah, blah, blah–

People will look at what we’re doing here and understand how is it possible to do this? Because these kinds of combinations where you can critical distinctive pathways within single comprehensive institutions, pathways that are purpose-built to help students find success and leverage their strengths, their identities, their backgrounds as tools to help them get across the finish line, this will be the key for higher education thriving in the years ahead, because if we can’t figure out how to make this work, you’ll end up with a totally homogenized landscape of higher education, which will work for many people, which is fine for those people, but not so good for those who don’t thrive in that environment.��

And so, that’s what we are trying to do to give meaning to the fact that Bloomfield College is New Jersey’s only Predominantly Black Institution, only one, that is a four-year institution – we have no HBCUs in New Jersey – that we can take that status and make it mean something other than a statement about the demographics of the college. But actually use that status, breathe life into it, and make it a resource that helps students find success. I urge, if you haven’t been to the Bloomfield campus. By the way, do we have any Bloomfield folks here? All right! Welcome. If you haven’t been to the Bloomfield campus, go check it out. I was there on Friday to welcome the new students. It is a distinctive environment where students find a place where they can be themselves and navigate that transition to college and professional success more comfortably than maybe some do at Montclair. It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s different. We thrive in different circumstances. And so, I’m very excited about that and very excited about how the Bloomfield campus will grow. So, terrific work there.��

The discussion of the PBI status is a nice segue to something that’s very relevant here as we try to give fuller force to our status as a Hispanic-serving Institution. And many of you know the discourse nationally is how do you go from being a Hispanic-enrolling institution, again, a demographic observation, to a Hispanic-serving Institution where you take that feature, the identity of your students and turn it into a strength, an asset that can be leveraged. Our leader in this space, Katia Paz Goldfarb, Where is Katia? Katia. Katia has done a fantastic job.��

We host the Hispanic Student College Institute. We did so again, bigger than ever. It underscores what the opportunity is to do great work here, and we will continue as we pursue what’s called the Seal of Excelencia, which is in recognition of what we do. But what frustrates me when people speak of HSIs is it’s immediately a deficit mindset, that you have to provide things to help them succeed. Okay. That’s part of it. If you think that there’s a population that is not as prepared for college, then absolutely you must be attentive to it, but why not also see the possibilities that come from that background as a strength? So, I’m particularly excited that Provost Junius Gonzales and others are working on an oral history project building Spanish Language as an Asset, encouraging programs that link together Spanish-speaking and Spanish cultural knowledge to our academic programs, to treat our students as possessing an advantage, rather than a deficit. That’s what it means to me to be an HSI. It doesn’t mean running away from the deficits, and I’m super proud of the MEGA initiative that Danny Jean and others lead that focus on some of the disparities and outcomes, but you can’t only view things in this glass half empty way.��

It’s particularly impressive that we’re doing this while we continue to accelerate as a research institution. I’ll get to that in a moment, and do great things. It shouldn’t be that those two things don’t go together. Right? That shouldn’t be surprising. It’s not. That’s our strength. But it must go together because you increase social mobility, you increase opportunity by making college more accessible, at a high level of quality. The reality is many people are happy to say that higher education should be accessible to everybody, but they’re not willing to say that everybody should have access to the same opportunities in higher education. And again, to underscore what we’re doing, no doubt you’ve seen headlines about some of the early data on how affirmative action is affecting elite universities.��Pretty stunning numbers. Declines of, you know, 5, 6, 7, some state 10% of minority representation at elite institutions. You know how many people we’re talking about? Ten, 20 people at these institutions. I’m not saying that’s not significant. Remember how many people attend Montclair? 24,000.

So, yes, we should pay attention to the consequences of these policy changes at elite institutions, but in terms of altering the fabric of society, what we do matters infinitely more than what happens at MIT or whatever. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying what we do is going to have more profound implications, and our ability to build a high-quality research institution where every student has access to any opportunity imaginable is going to be the key to solving equity gaps in society writ large. That’s just a fact. Okay. So, that makes what has been done, not just little feathers and bells and whistles. It’s fundamental to achieving this mission. Right? Of saying, inclusion and quality go hand-in-hand and must.��

In the last fiscal year, the university set a new record-high for Research and Development expenditures, almost $45 million dollars. That includes our own investments alongside externally sponsored research, which also was at an all-time high in terms of external funding. This, as I think most people know, is measured by the National Science Foundation, and is a major component of the Carnegie classification system – I’ll come back to that in a moment – which designates Montclair as an R2 research institution. It so happens that some alterations in that formula put us on a path in all probability to be an R1 institution in general. People often ask that question. It’s now possible. It gets into the weeds a little bit.��

I like to focus on the substance of what’s getting done, rather than the numbers. Even though, I’ll cite them especially when they’re good. I’ll always do that like everybody else, but the substance is what matters and that’s why those examples from the slides before. Let me just talk about a couple of other things. For example, a $3 million dollar grant from the national science foundation – this links together with where I just was – that focuses on HSI institutional transformation, the effectiveness – it’s got lots of syllables because we can’t help ourselves, the effectiveness of psychoeducational counseling in STEM internship research experiences. Interestingly, this project came out of the terrific Green Teams initiative which many people are familiar with in the PSE&G institute led by Amy Tuininga. I don’t know if Amy’s here. But I know Lora’s here. Where’s Lora? There’s Lora! Good story, though, because the initial application was not supported. They said come back to us with some refinements and we’ll look at it again. This happened 19 times! But the 19th time was the charm.��

And so, the point there is that, first of all, keep at it, but second of all, we can link together our research and our mission to do great things. The project aims to enhance mental health and inclusion in undergraduate research and internships, increasing participation for underrepresented students by providing social and emotional support. And a terrific team effort to bring that in.��

Speaking of Carnegie classification, most people know the research classification. A few years ago, the classification around community engagement was added. Montclair is a community-engaged university, one of a relatively small number of schools that are designated for their achievement in working with the community and creating partnerships. This year, a new designation was created to recognize schools that are committed to cultivating Leadership for Public Purpose. You’ve heard me talk about the foundation we have in public service, and my belief that we need to be leaders in this space. So, I was very excited about this and particularly gratified that we were one of the first 25 schools in the country to earn the designation as a Leadership for Public Purpose university.��

That’s in recognition of a variety of programs across the university. But let me just quickly underscore something, again, to reinforce who we are and how distinctive our profile is. Of those 25 universities that are Leadership for Public Purpose universities, ten are also community-engaged universities. They embrace the idea that we are training our students to be effective in public service, and that we see the university itself as having an obligation to be in the community and serving the public interest. There’s ten of us that are in that category. Of those ten, six are research universities. Right? R1, R2, whatever. They are committed to creating knowledge at the highest level, preparing doctoral students to be researchers. Of those six, two or maybe three are majority-minority institutions. So, just understand the rarity of an institution like ours, that takes the assignment to prepare students for public service to make a difference in the world, to embrace our own obligation, to be an inclusive university that serves the population of the state that we exist to advance, and to not compromise one iota on the quality of the academic work that we do every day. That puts us in a category of two or three institutions in the country. I mean, I think that’s something to be enormously proud of, and I just wish more people knew it. I’m working on it, nationally. But I wish more people knew about it here. I mean, we joked about this in my previous speeches- “I had no idea.” And I said that about people who come to campus, it includes people who work here. So, spread the word.��

A couple of cool things that were in the highlights. I want to mention one. Dr. Jennifer Urban is here. A great project that she developed called Planting the Seeds of Character Growth. I think it typifies what we’re trying to do here. So, the purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate an interdisciplinary character education course that infuses virtual reality experiences into that curriculum and meets the character-focused learning objectives set forth in the new SEEDs general education curriculum. Key elements of the project include a four module character education course.��

Modules will focus on character and the exploration of character virtues. As dr. Urban puts it, “In these particular divisive times, character education, ethical reasoning and a focus on community engagement have never been more important.” I couldn’t agree much more with that statement.��

This is a terrific project. It illustrates the creativity of our faculty, and also the embrace of technology, and the opportunities to alter our pedagogy to be responsive to where our students are at, and I’m so thrilled by this work and the work that it represents. I also want to use this as a moment to celebrate the work between the provost, his team, and AFT to develop a new track for teaching faculty. This is a monumental achievement that is not possible without cooperation, and I’m excited to give the status and career structure to our teaching faculty that they deserve. They’re a critical part of the university. And thank you, thank you for that. And thank you also to the thousands of adjunct faculty, without whom we couldn’t have a university, and who are integral to the learning experiences of our students. I often say, you know, our students don’t know. They just know it’s professor whatever. Like, they don’t know. And so I can tell you that this university is stronger because of the dedicated adjunct faculty that we have. Okay. let me change gears for a second.��

This is usually where we stop. Right? Like, oh, we have students. We have faculty. That’s a university. Turns out there are a lot of other people that work here that make this thing go, and the university operations is a complex ballet. That’s a new metaphor. It’s an aircraft carrier, with all apologies to Shawn. He’s a submarine guy. But there’s so much going on every day, and when people come to this campus, they see the physical infrastructure. They see what’s going on and they’re impressed before they even know what goes on inside the buildings. And I just want to recognize that, and talk a little bit about some of the things that are going on.��

Obviously, when you add thousands of students, you have to figure out how to scale to meet the demand. It’s not just about adding faculty. It’s not just about adding staff. It’s about figuring out how to make the university work in a new way. And yes, I know parking is still difficult. Moving right along. So just a quick note on facilities. I do think it’s important to recognize the physical environment of our campus is a critical ingredient to students’ success. I hear it from every student who’s moving in that when they came to campus, they felt like this was their place. And they just were blown away by how nice it looks. Everybody’s a little surprised at how beautiful it is. It is not easy to make this all work. But I want to highlight something that I think is a really exciting development: that the university, through the hard work of our Facilities team, was recently registered as an apprentice site by the U.S. Department of Labor and will have our first cohort of apprentices starting this fall in University Facilities.��

That’s a real tribute to vice president Shawn Connolly and the team that already is doing ESL and other things. It underscores that we are a community of learning, and that includes our staff and includes every person who works here should have the opportunity to learn. Other ways around the campus, all kinds of things are happening. Seventeen percent more increase at Red Hawk Central. We’ll be adding a Red Hawk Central at our Bloomfield campus. Lots of stuff happening in collaboration with Gourmet Dining. Starbucks is open! We’ve been talking about someday, there will be a Starbucks. So long that it feels weird to say it’s open, but it’s there. And in a month, the pub will be open, what a month? Couple weeks, Dawn says. “1908,” but we’ll all call it the Rathskeller, because – I’m old school that way. But that’s exciting. That’s a great thing.��

Workday, you might have heard this. It’s not an epithet. It’s a product. You say, why Workday Student? We’re going to…And by the way, it’s not a $27 million app. No, it’s not that. The whole point here is to reinvent our student information systems to make us more effective in advancing positive outcomes for our students, to make it easier for our staff to do the hard work of registering students, enrolling them, getting the curriculum to match up, making it more seamless when we interact across units. It is not easy. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. The goal is not simply to implement a new software package, but to change the way we do things, and ultimately put us in a position to look comprehensively at the progress of each one of our students and intervene as early as possible when there are even hints that he or she is getting off track. That’s ultimately what this is about. Eliminating friction and creating greater capacity to help students.��

That’s also what the Transfer Evaluation System which we’ve implemented is about – to make it easier to bring students in from other universities, give them credit for the courses they have without it being a manual run-around process. Every bit of change, whether it’s technology in facilities or anywhere else, is about amplifying our impact, reducing the barriers to success, and so, sometimes I must say, the one that– it’s written here and I just– that we are implementing optical character recognition to read transcripts. I mean, like, we also have slate. Anyway, we get paper transcripts and we would, like, enter them by hand. So, now we’ve moved up to optical character recognition. Okay? It’s happening. It’s something.��

At the other end of the spectrum, another amazing faculty achievement, Dr. Weitan Wang ran in-person workshops for Advanced AI for Teaching in partnership for the Montclair Robotics and AI Seminar series. Dr. Pavlo Lushyn has been engaging students in exploration and critical examination of AI in his courses. There’s many other places in the College for Education and Engaged Learning where they’re doing an AI study hall. Here’s an interesting observation. It’s interesting to think about AI not just as a way that people can cheat, or as a way to create efficiency, but it’s a way to level the playing field here. If you haven’t used AI Tutors who work with you on an assignment and ask you questions, you haven’t realized what the power of this thing is. It’s much more than a way to up your plagiarism game. Right? It’s a way to have customized learning. We have to learn how to use it, and we have to learn how to convince students that there’s an opportunity here, but I’m excited that our faculty are seeing it this way and embracing that opportunity. Okay. I’m actually on a decent pace.��

So, let’s move along.��

Accreditation. People say, my god, could there be something more hellacious than talking about accreditation? And the answer is probably no, but it does create an opportunity. The accreditation process, the heart of that, is a self-study exercise, and we’re well on our way. We have a leadership team. We have a steering committee, people have joined eight working groups, over 100 staff and administration. I’m deeply grateful for them doing the work. It is hard work. It does require a serious examination of self and ask where we can be doing things better and how we are meeting our mission. It also requires that we engage in a strategic planning exercise and I’m excited that we are one of five AASCU institutions, thanks to Junius’ leadership in getting us to this point, that have been chosen by the Gates Foundation to get support to develop our strategic plan. We had our first meeting under the aegis of this initiative on August 12th, and we will be developing a strategic framework through this Gates partnership and as part of our Middle States accreditation self-study process in the months ahead. A terrific opportunity to take a step back and ask those questions about whether we are prepared for the future that is emerging.

Critical and at the center of that will be student success for all the reasons I’ve already said. That involves the partnership of two units, obviously Academic Affairs and Student Development and Campus Life. I’ll come back to that in a second. But the student success action plan that was created by Academic Affairs is already being implemented to deal with recommendations on alignment of services, student experience, and so on. It goes well with several other initiatives that I don’t have time to get into. I mentioned the SEEDs curriculum. I’m very excited that after Junius, how many years, 19 years? Nineteen years of talking, we have updated our general education curriculum. Obviously, work to be done in its implementation. We also have a newly revamped Honors EDGE program that revamps the Honors program, now under the leadership of Professor Jeff Strickland, and it puts creativity at the center of the Honors experience.��

Something that makes a great deal of sense in an age of AI and machine learning. The one thing we can do that the robots can’t do is come up with new thoughts, to be imaginative, and so training students to harness their own creativity capacity is the centerpiece of what university education needs to look like in the years ahead. So, very excited about that. And many other things that, again, I’m going to have to go through quickly, but I’m trying to deal with questions and so, one of the questions was about international experiences. In my perfect world, I could wave a wand and every student at Montclair would have an international experience.��

And a lot of our students went on those this summer. Students in Greece, you can tell that’s Greece. A faculty-led dance trip in India, many other great experiences all over the globe. I would love to see more. It also requires creativity because our students can’t necessarily spend a semester abroad, because they have jobs and they have families that they’re taking care of, they have different needs. So, we have to create experiences that work for our students in lots of different shapes and sizes, and I’m excited about that along with other experiential opportunities that shouldn’t be restricted to only those students who can take an unpaid internship, or forced to leave their jobs where they’ve acquired seniority and so on. We need to figure out how to do those things for our students.��

If you were here over the summer months, you saw that we had a lot of activity, many new pre-college programs that are enrolling hundreds of students, and an expansion of our summer bridge programs that engage local partners like East Side High School in Paterson and Passaic High School. I’m very excited to see those things grow to bring more people to campus. I talked about the critical role that Student Development and Campus Life has in student success. There’s nobody more dedicated to our student well-being than our VP for Student Development and Campus Life, Dawn Meza-Soufleris. Dawn? And our Dean of Students, Margaree Coleman-Carter. I don’t know if Margaree, is Margaree here somewhere?��

They recognize that probably the single greatest challenge we have right now and we saw it even in the first few days on campus is student mental health and well-being. This is not a Montclair problem. This is a national problem. Now, there’s positives. The biggest positive that I see is that students are not only willing to recognize the need for help. They’re eager to. They sign up for “Uwill” which is an online session. They go to get appointments with CAPS. They are recognizing their own frailty, which is amazing, inconceivable from when I was in college. And they’re also coming up with their own ideas to meet the need.��

So, I’m excited that Artem Beliavski is here. Artem? Artem is a student member of our Board of Trustees, but also the leader of the zen den idea to create these spaces on campus where students can go and find a place of quiet and reflection and I’m very excited to see what Artem’s work will yield in terms of those zen dens. There’s a Hope and Healing interdivisional task force that’s working to create multifaceted initiatives again to focus on positive mental health and mindset for our campus. And this doesn’t only come from the places you’d expect. I’m excited that our university police department is engaged in this effort. They created a victim services position to align with the model of continual care for students and community members impacted by negative activity on campus. This work doesn’t stop. Just want to be clear. It never stops. We are a large community with thousands of people who are experiencing all the stuff that’s going on in the world, and it is constant. And so I appreciate particularly the training that was created for mental health first aid providers and we had over 400 people on campus here and Bloomfield who signed up for mental health first aid training coordinated by CAPS.��

Major appreciation for that. A lot of times people say, well, all these new positions, universities are “bloated with staff.” You hear that a lot. “They’re bloated with staff.” By the way, not this university. We’re the most efficient university in New Jersey. Again, just saying. I don’t know if you knew that. Most efficient university in New Jersey in terms of how much money we spend to get a student a degree. It’s a very impressive achievement. Sometimes I’d like to spend a little more money to be honest. We’re working on that, but it’s a tribute to what people are doing. It all starts with the student, and figuring out these obstacles. Mental health is one of them. So, yes, we’ve added staff to think about mental health, to think about well-being. Yes, we’ve added that because that’s the reason why students are not completing a degree. That’s not bloat. That’s recognizing the needs of your students and being responsive. Right? So, just when you hear that bloat point, there’s a little bit of an answer. Okay. I wanted to come back to something again, questions about the organizational culture survey we did.

The biggest outcome was the creation of the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Institutional Equity, IE squared is how you say that. Isn’t it cute? I can’t help it. Is Ashante here? Ashante Conner is leading that effort. The mission of IE2 is to advance Montclair’s inclusive excellence initiatives and promote cultural intelligence and a welcoming environment for all by providing an integrated shared equity approach to structure, policy initiatives, and programming. I’m very excited about this next step. We want to get away from a regulatory mindset and embrace an aspirational mindset. It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to do the regulatory stuff. We still have to make sure that when people feel they’ve been harmed or treated unfairly, that they have a place to go, and we’re making that more robust than ever, but we have to get beyond that and get back to where I started. This aspiration of being a place where everybody feels home and valued and welcomed.

And so, that’s what IE2 is about. Please watch your email. There will be opportunities to participate in these activities. And I really do look forward to seeing how we can continue to drive the campus culture in the right direction. So, I am a strong believer that our obligation does not end at our own campus walls, and that we have to be deeply embedded in the community. That’s what that community engagement classification is about, and we’ve done a great deal of work along these lines.��

I think people are familiar with the efforts that we’ve made in Paterson, which are getting recognized and, in particular, the partnership at Hinchliffe Stadium, which is exciting. I was delighted that this fall or whatever, in the last few months and continuing this fall, we will have a community advisory board that becomes an integral part of our operations. The point of the community advisory board is to have a mechanism by which we can hear from the community. So, the challenge for universities when they are in the community is that typically we go – we, “higher education” – go in the community, and we say, “this is what we’re going to do, and you’re going to be grateful… and we’re going to take pictures of kids looking service-minded.” Yeah, it turns out that that actually can be kind of annoying. And if you really are going to do community engagement right, you have to be a partner and ask questions and listen and that’s what the work in Paterson has been about, and that’s the approach to community engagement that we’re trying to build at ����vlog.

So we’ve created a community advisory board to listen, and we’ve created a community action nexus to serve as an interface between the university and the community, and that is going to be a powerful vehicle. I would again encourage all of those faculty who are doing this work to participate in the Collaboratory platform, because that’s how we capture all the work that you’re doing and how we know what’s going on and how we connect the dots. I’ll highlight in particular I’m excited that on October 26th we will host William Paterson university in a football game at Hinchliffe Stadium, which I think is cool. I’ve decided it’s called the Hinchliffe bowl. I think it’s a neat way for us to be present in the community, and if you haven’t been to the stadium, it’s a good time to come and not just go to a football game, but check out the Charles Muth museum of Hinchliffe Stadium, which is part of ����vlog, and is doing fantastic work engaging the community.��

Okay. so, with the last few minutes, I just want to to close by recognizing where we’re at as a country. This is going to be a tumultuous fall. There’s an election. You might know that. There’s an election. There almost certainly will be more protests, just as we saw last year on campuses across the country. And I think what a lot of universities have done and I’ve written a couple pieces on this, so you may have read this already. I think what a lot of universities are doing is putting their hands over their heads and saying, please, please, please, not us, make it go away, I don’t want to be on TV. Yeah, that’s sort of uninspiring. First of all, you don’t wait for something to happen. You’ve got to be proactive, and so, we’ve tried to be proactive in talking to students and talking to community organizations to try and have lines of dialogue and I think that’s worked well for us.��

We’ll continue to do that. But I think that what we ought to do is embrace our obligation as a learning institution, and try and teach people how to be constructively engaged in a democracy, and so we are part of several initiatives. In fact, in August, we hosted the Citizens and Scholars Faculty Institute which was created by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars with the aim of equipping faculty with skills to foster dialogue in the classroom. We have people who participated in that. I want to recognize some of our own faculty who participated. Jason Williams, Brad van Eeden-Moorefield, Jessica Brater, Tanesha Thomas, Emily Isaacs all were part of this effort.��

Look, this is a process. You don’t build democratic culture and democratic skills overnight, but we have to embrace that if we are truly committed to being a public-serving institution in a democracy then we have to do that. That’s why I also was one of 60 university presidents who signed on to the College Presidents Consortium and committed to creating a campus-wide immersion initiative, which involves the development of an action plan to cultivate democratic engagement, and we’re in the first cohort developing this action plan. We already do a lot of this stuff. We have voting initiatives. We have various civic engagement initiatives, but by creating this plan, we’ll be able to put it together and have a method by which we expect our students to learn to have the ability to understand different points of view, engage in constructive discourse, and create productive solutions, not just conflict. So, I’m very excited by this. Yeah. And let me stop by saying – because there were a couple of questions about this. They said, well, what’s the approach to expressive activity on campus? Because I know that’s something that people care about. And, look, college is a transition.��

It’s the first time for a lot of people to be exposed to people with different backgrounds, sexual orientations, religions. It’s a time when people are figuring stuff out. It’s a time when people are learning to express themselves, and hopefully also to reflect. We have a policy that guides this. You can check it out. It’s an expressive activity policy. So, I’d urge you to look at it. But let me underscore a couple of things, because I think that this gets lost sometimes. Yes, I believe in free speech. We are an institution committed to free speech, both in principle and because we are subject to the first amendment as a state institution. Free speech does not mean, never has meant, that I have the right to say anything I want to anyone at any time in any place. That’s not my opinion. That’s what the constitution has been interpreted to mean. So, we have restrictions on time, place and manner. Right? That is part of how we work. And that is partially because we have legal obligations to create an environment where people can study, where people are not adversely impacted by the activities of others.��

But that’s what free speech means. It also is true that we have to learn and accept the fact that we will hear and see words that we do not like, that make us uncomfortable, maybe even angry. That is also part of our environment. And there are challenges putting all these things together. As part of our commitment to civic discourse and engagement, yes, we’re going to be training, but we will work to protect the rights of all members of our community so that every student can enjoy a sense of belonging, as well as a seamless learning experience devoid of interruptions. That means that there’s going to be conflicts. Right? That we’re going to be balancing, and we’re going to continue to make our best effort to balance those things in the days, weeks and months ahead. That’s what it means to be a democracy embracing institution in 2024. I hope we can lead. I’m sure there will be bumps along the way, but I appreciate the commitment that I’ve seen in my time here to those core values.��

It has never been more important, and it is integral to our mission to embrace them. So�� –�� thank you. Look, if you knew how much good stuff is on the cutting room floor –�� you would be amazed. There’s so much good going on at this institution, so many people working hard to do good things, and so many fantastic, brilliant, creative students that inspire with the things that they do thanks to the support of this institution. If you don’t feel good being part of this institution and what it means, you need to go and see the counseling and psychological services because this is a great thing to be proud of. Thank you, everybody. We now have a barbecue – right? Where is it? In lot 17. So, head up there, get something to eat, enjoy the beautiful day. Have a great semester.

After the tumultuous academic year just completed, there’s not a university leadership in the country that isn’t using the relative quiet of summer to evaluate all policies and procedures related to expression and protest. This makes good sense. Many institutions did seem flat-footed in the face of unprecedented activity and scrutiny. And now comes a fall semester with a high-stakes divisive election added to the already-combustible mix.��

We are doing the same thing here at ����vlog, New Jersey’s second largest higher education institution. But like many colleges, we are also trying to do more than gird ourselves for the coming storm. There is an opportunity – and a real need – to encourage constructive engagement and not just minimize risk. Universities have a key role to play at what feels like an inflection point for American democracy. Let’s try to channel the passion of our students into democracy-building action. This is not easy, of course. We are deeply divided as a country, and that extends to many campus communities.��

Even more profoundly, we confront evolving cultural norms that favor disagreement over discourse and are, in some cases, simply anti-democratic in treatment of dissent or fact. The divisiveness is perpetuated and amplified by social media, political operatives and advocacy groups. That’s exactly why it’s on us, as higher education leaders, to intentionally build the muscle memory of an engaged campus culture built around a shared aspiration to advance the common good. We have the ability and resources – unique from almost any other institution in society – to cultivate an environment where people from different backgrounds can respectfully co-exist, interact and collaborate. So, if we’re not the ones attempting to foster a spirit of positive civic engagement – who will?

At Montclair, we’re practicing what we preach. As an indicator of our efforts, last month we received the . The classification recognizes 25 institutions that promote effective leadership transcending functional or instrumental objectives in pursuit of collective public goods like equity, harmony, sustainability and liberty. Others featured on the list include Arizona State University; California State University, Fresno; James Madison University; and the United States Naval Academy.��

I’m proud of the efforts that earned this recognition but even more energized by what’s possible if all of higher education embraces the goal of creating citizen-leaders. This takes sustained and nuanced hard work, but imagine the impact we can have if we collectively harness the power of thousands of students, faculty and staff to strengthen our civic fabric.��

Based on what we’ve learned at Montclair and numerous other institutions that are leading the way, here are some tangible ways to do this:

1. Embrace public service as a gateway to civic engagement. At Montclair, we have multiple service-oriented leadership programs, such as NextGen Service Corps, Bonner Leaders and AmeriCorps, that introduce students to key concepts and practices while building skills in teamwork and community partnership. Most importantly, students get a sense of their own potential for efficacy through engagement. We seek to go beyond these programs to teach this key lesson. All of our departments and colleges are building courses that create hands-on learning opportunities while addressing a wide range of issues, from unequal educational and health outcomes to environmental and social justice, poverty, human trafficking and climate change.

This type of activity opens the door to broader engagement by introducing students to the complexity of challenges. It creates opportunities for dialogue with people who have different views and demonstrates that most solutions require understanding and collaboration, which cannot be achieved through toxic Instagram posts.

2. Intentionally build discourse and constructive engagement skills. It’s critical to ensure that our faculty, staff, and students feel comfortable facilitating difficult conversations and to equip them with the tools they need. That’s why I joined , an initiative of The Institute for Citizens & Scholars that brings together university leaders from across the country and political spectrum to design and share resources that help students prosper in a pluralistic society. This summer, the organization will hold their Faculty Institute on our campus, which trains faculty to be skilled, confident, and comfortable in creating, leading, and sustaining spaces for diverse intellectual and social perspectives.��

We teach students to do the same. Our Office for Social Justice and Diversity trains students to facilitate workshops that cover a range of topics, such as safe spaces, microaggressions, and diversity and inclusion. Students learn how to navigate tough situations by speaking freely and respectfully as they build alliances around an understanding of differences. These sessions have demonstrated that peers listen to peers, resulting in improved communication, problem solving and conflict management skills. This is what our democracy desperately needs!��

3. Don’t shy away from promoting political activity.��There is nothing more fundamental in a democracy than voting. And it should not be controversial to promote this activity as long as we are assiduously non-partisan.�� We should urge members of our community to participate in an informed and habitual fashion and underscore not just the symbolic value of this activity but its substantive significance. This often means getting beyond presidential politics – which many students scoff at particularly in states that seem definitively “red” or “blue” – by shining light on legislative and municipal races. A local focus often has the added benefit of making the effort non-partisan which is an absolute must.

That is a key component of the partnership between Montclair’s Civic and Voter Engagement Office and the . This year, we’ll ramp up our collective efforts by launching an educational bipartisan social media campaign, hosting voter registration events, providing shuttle service from campus for students to vote, and offering polling location information for students who live off campus.

4. Demonstrate collaboration through community partnership. Every time we do work with off-campus partners, we have the opportunity to teach our students how action rooted in trust and understanding is most effective. This is an apolitical but tangible illustration of what is missing in the civic realm.��

The best way for us to serve is to come up with projects based NOT on our own ideas and priorities; the direction needs to come from community. We need to act as true partners by laying down deep roots, being active participants, and demonstrating commitment to lasting, sustainable change. Most importantly, we need to listen to the frustrations and aspirations of our neighbors.

5. Join forces to amplify effort.��We can’t work alone and we shouldn’t reinvent the wheel. That’s why, in addition to Citizens and Scholars, I’ve also joined ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s to draw inspiration from peers and organizations that have done great work in this space. Working together, higher education leaders can ensure that students all over America are well-equipped to be productively engaged citizens.��

I believe that universities committed to advancing the needs of society are essential to conquering the problems that confront us and that the students we serve will be those responsible for bringing about positive change. That includes cultivating our democratic norms and institutions. That’s why from the moment they step on our campuses, students must see our strong commitment to civic engagement and have access to examples that demonstrate the power it can have over divisive activism.��

There are those urging universities to retreat from the public arena. There can be no neutrality when it comes to democracy, however. Our institutions can only thrive in a free, open society so this is an existential matter. It’s up to each of us to draw lessons from colleagues doing great work to preserve these conditions. Let’s support each other as we take responsibility for the vitality of the American democratic republic.