"We're trying to enhance the role of the University management staff," said Alice Miller, associate vice president for Human Resources, "as well as broaden channels of communication and professional development." Miller said the symposium will be held at least twice yearly. Invitations to the symposium were sent to deans, directors, department heads, Human Resources representatives, business managers and principal employees.
Chace, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Billy Frye and Executive Vice President John Temple each addressed the group before taking questions from the audience. The three speakers all addressed different perspectives concerning Emory's current situation and what Emory's unique history means for the near future.
"Emory is in a very privileged place in higher education," said Chace. "We don't have some of the anxieties the concerns our sister institutions are having." He went on to list the many ways the University is blessed: by recent philanthropy, by location, by the institutions which are our neighbors, by the strength of the faculty, the students and the staff, by the strength of the land and buildings, the libraries and computing facilities. "We should not be anxious, but what we should realize is that after the Woodruff Gift, the rate by which we develop must be tempered."
Chace also addressed some of his vision for the campus. "I want this generation of Emory students to be more socially responsible, to take more interest in the civic concerns which will face them when they graduate." He expressed a desire to see the growth and strengthening on campus of what he termed "social capital," which he defined as those institutions, such as bowling leagues, PTA and the American Red Cross, created by Americans so they can understand society and improve it. "American people are more privatized, more insular. The bonds of social capital have become eroded." Chace challenged those at the symposium to show, in their work, how social capital can grow and be strengthened on the campus.
The theme of looking at the future with an eye toward moderating the growth that has characterized Emory the last two decades, carried throughout the symposium. Frye reminded participants of his report "Choices and Responsibility," published in the Sept. 26 issue of Emory Report, and said, "We have come to the end of a period of extraordinary growth, a period of such habitual growth, and we need to really think about how to best use the resources we have." He noted that in periods of change, that managing expectations is the hardest task.
Frye also addressed what he called "the widespread perception that we are rich." However, he said, "when you look at us relative to our peers, we are not in that situation."
Temple, in an overview of Emory's financial status, also addressed the University's situation relative to peer institutions. He compared Emory's endowment and income with that of Rochester, Duke, Vanderbilt, Washington and Miami. Although Emory's net worth and endowment market value ranks above all of the other insitutions, there are factors which cause Emory's total income to be in the middle range of the insitutions considered. Those factors include less income from government grants and contracts as well as private gifts, grants and contracts; a lower amount of unrestricted financial aid; and a lower level of indirect cost recovery.
During the question-and-answer period which closed the symposium, Dennis Byron of Institutional Advancement questioned what participants were expected to do with the information presented. "The texts of Billy Frye's document and John Temple's tables," said Chace, "are the texts Emory uses to understand itself." He urged participants to look at the institution in a historical sense. As an institution, Chace said, "we are still a teenager. As you become older, personality becomes consolidated in people and institutions. As an institution, we can still grow. We still have maturity to reach. I delight in the possibility that 10 years from now, I believe we'll be able to look back and say, `My goodness, we did some extraordinary things.'"
-- Nancy M. Spitler