Webinar: Illinois Wesleyan Today and Tomorrow

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Well, give just a few more minutes to let people come into the room and we'll get started shortly.

Alright, I think will go ahead and get started. More people are coming in the room but will go ahead and just start on on a few things here. Hello and welcome to the Illinois Wesleyan University Titan talks webinars series. I am Adrian Powell, director of alumni engagement and I'm very pleased that you all are joining us today. We are excited about this opportunity to provide this forum.

It's a highlight. Our alumni, faculty and staff here at Illinois Wesleyan. We know that many of our alumni are on the frontlines during these challenging times and we want to thank you for the sacrifices that you are making. While we are safely in our home offices, we are keeping those on the front lines in our thoughts. President Nugent. We are especially grateful to you for finding time in your very busy schedule to share more about your vision and the state of the University. Just a few housekeeping items before I hand it over to President Nugent.

There will be a Q&A After her remarks an so you can use the chat tool during any anytime during that talk to send any questions you may have an I will try to get to as many as possible. Also, in case you have to leave early or if you would like to share this web and R, it is being recorded and it will be posted later today for future viewing. You'll also get an email with the link to the recording.

If you experience any technical difficulties, try refreshing your browser. That usually eliminates any issues. You can also take a look at the FA Q that was posted in the comments, which could be helpful and now I am pleased. Introduce the 20th president of Illinois Wesleyan President George and Nugent. I want to just tell you give you her bio, a widely published scholar of the classic San of higher education.

Nugent earned a bachelors degree from Princeton and a doctorate from Cornell before beginning her decade long presidency at Kenyon College, where she is President. America Nugent served at Princeton as assistant to the President, Associate Provost and Dean of the Center for teaching and learning, and as professor of classics at Princeton and Brown universities. She also taught on the classics faculties of Cornell, as well as a swarthmore.

College in Kenyan Nugent later served as interim president at the College of Wooster and is currently a senior fellow at the Council of independent colleges. Since becoming the president of Illinois Wesleyan, Georgia has immersed herself into the campus and Bloomington normal communities. She has made it a point to be very inclusive and participate in activities with students, faculty and staff. And, as you're well aware, she has also had to manage through unprecedented times. We are confident she'll continue to be a visionary leader who leads by example in making the best decisions for the future.

On my Westland and with that I am pleased introduce president, Georgia Nugent.

Hey.

And under head and leave it up to you.

OK.

Well, Good afternoon, um, thank you for joining us today for this Titan talk. I understand that we had over 400 registrants for this event, so that is really fantastic and I think this is one of the ways in which we are learning from these days about how better to connect and to try new new adventures in learning and reaching one another.

Normally I would have been on the president's welcome tour. This spring we began that I with you, which I'll say a bit more about in a moment. We began that I with you tour early in the year and I had the opportunity to participate in wonderful events in Arizona and in Florida, and I would have been in many other cities and communities.

Meeting Titans around the country, but these are not normal times.

So tempting to be creative throughout as we have been in everything that we're doing on campus. This is one of the ways in which we're learning new ways of staying connected and actually strengthening our ties. I think I can speak for Adrian and others that we would be thrilled if an in person event drew 450 or so participants. So this is a great new way to be together.

My talk today will have two parts.

Uh, first.

I'm going to mention two very important developments on campus and those are the program evaluation that we've been carrying out throughout this year and the second of course, because I know people are interested in what's happening on campus. The second is our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before I get to those, I'm going to just give a very brief overview of the context of higher education today.

So that's the first part of The Talk. The second part I will return more to what I would have been talking with you about, if indeed we were together on the presidential tour, a kind of return to a saner time because I believe a saner time will return. And in that second part of my remarks, I'll offer a broader update on Illinois Wesleyan today.

So I said I would speak very briefly about the context of higher education, in which we are operating. I have said for a number of years that there are at least three basic.

Uh, trends in our culture. In our society that are having an effect on higher education one we all know that in some ways ever since the recession, there have been economic uncertainties both in our nation and internationally. 2nd, we know that the demographics of America is changing.

There are fewer high school graduates. Demographics is in some ways easy to know about. You can predict how many college going individuals there will be in a certain period because you know how many births there were at a certain period. So we do know that over the next few years there will be fewer high school graduates, IE college going potentially college going students than we have had in recent years and that will also be a more diverse.

Demographic now there's a positive side to that, no doubt because greater diversity offers us an opportunity for colleges and education and universities to educate for a more equitable society.

But there is also something of a down side because the more diverse demographic also often brings greater need for support for students. Sometimes academic support. We find that sometimes students from small rural communities have not had an opportunity to advance as far in their pre college courses, and often financial support is needed to meet the needs of that changing student body.

So demographics is a second pressure on higher education.

And 3rd of course, the ubiquity of information technologies of all sorts. There was a time when you came to college to have the professor fill your head with knowledge that wasn't iaccessible.

In another context, today, all of the information in the world innocence is iaccessible in the palm of your hand.

They'll this highlights something that I think has always been true of higher education, but will an must become even more true today? and I think it's a special opportunity for Illinois Wesleyan. That is for us to understand more clearly that there is enormous difference between learning and wisdom. So our motto of course, has scan, Tia and Sapientia knowledge and wisdom.

When knowledge is available to you daily all the time, in fact are overwhelmed by knowledge bits.

What learners need most is wisdom, and here I think that invented eventually. That is actually a plus for Illinois Wesleyan, so those are pressures that have been with us for a number of years. But I would say that now we have new pressure.

And that pressure, of course, is COVID-19 the pandemic.

I think this brings a new dimension to the sociocultural context in which we're living. COVID-19 brings fear.

Economic fear there might have been economic uncertainty, but now there is true economic fear, fear for Health and safety. This is a new development we have not had the entire world concerned about their safety in the way that we do today. I was going to begin our Titan talk with my mask on since I'm pretty much alone here in my office. I felt I didn't have to do that, but all of us are are wearing masks now and concern for the groups in which we find ourselves.

And so forth, and 3rd COVID-19 brings a fear that I think is.

Is almost amorphous or a kind of floating fear about what the future environment will look like. Will we be experiencing, uh?

Peaks and epidemics periodically over and over again, will we ever be able to gather again in the ways that we have? Will businesses open again and so forth? So we're really operating now. I think in a context not only of and certainly, but of fear, and we know that fear is an emotion, and emotions are stronger than rationality, so.

This is an emotional environment I believe for many people in a way that it has never been before.

Interesting Lee, I think in a sense there is here again a kind of opportunity for Illinois Wesleyan because our benefit our appeal is partly to emotion, the emotions of belonging of being part of a community, of being mentored, and I'll return to that a bit at the end of this talk.

So that's just a very quick overview of the context in which we and higher education as a whole is operating today.

Now I said that I would turn to two very important developments occurring on campus.

The first of those is what we have called the program evaluation task force. This is an attempt to evaluate all of the academic offerings that we have across the University to evaluate them both in terms of their educational quality, the desirability for students of the offerings that we have, the courses that we have, and also inevitably a financial element.

Frankly, this kind of analysis is something that most organizations most businesses have been doing for years and years.

The truth is, in higher education we did not engage in that kind of self reflection as much as perhaps was necessary over the last decade or so. Virtually all colleges and universities are taking a fresh look at their offerings at their curriculum and undergoing this kind of evaluation.

In our case at Illinois Wesleyan, when I arrived on campus, the trustees made clear that they felt it was.

Inappropriate moment for us to begin this work, and I was completely in agreement with that in order to Institute the process, we reached out to a number of external firms experts.

Who specialize in exactly this kind of work assisting colleges and universities to analyze their courses, their their degrees, their attractiveness to students, the outcomes that students are experiencing, and so forth. After interviewing a number of such experts, we chose an organization called Gray Associates and they have offered us a great deal of data and ways to analyze that data.

That, frankly, we never had available to us before.

So that was the first step in the process was choosing a consultant partner with whom to work.

Then the faculty chose a group of faculty members to form a task force, and that is what we have called the ETF. The program evaluation task force. There are two very strong governing committees on campus, faculty governance committees, and each of them selected three of their members to participate in the task force, and then there was an at large election to elect a 7th member. So the ETF was entirely comprised.

Of faculty members.

This was just the beginning of a long process that, as I say, has been carried out throughout the course of the year, and we're still in that process process. It has not come to conclusion yet.

What happened? What was that? The task force performed? Analysis drawing on the evidence from Gray associates, but also drawing on detailed.

Reports essentially from every Department chair and program head describing the values, the strengths, the contributions to mission of their programs. So taking all of that quantitative and qualitative evidence into account, the task force made a series of recommendations.

Those then returned to those two powerful committees on campus faculty committees, which are called Cup and CC.

Those committees then chose which of the recommendations they wanted to bring forward to the entire faculty for a vote. Over the past few weeks, the faculty is held a number of again complete faculty meetings and has voted on those recommendations.

Currently we are in the phase of the process where the administration is compiling its response to the recommendations and ultimately all of that material will go to our trustees because as I'm sure you all know, the trustees in every college and University in America the trustees are the ultimate authority for governance and guidance.

Just returning briefly to the task force, they chose to design A process for themselves. A rubric in a sense in which they made a recommendation. As I've said, for every Department and program on campus, and that rubric consisted of four options, invest in the program. It has broader possibilities for the future.

Transform the program. It's a good program, but there is room for improvement and modernization in some cases sustain pretty much as is. This is a program that's functioning well. Attracting student interest has positive outcomes. And finally, there was an option of sunset. The program, if that case in any American University context. If a programmer Department is Sunsetted.

There is always the imperative for every student in the program to be able to complete their degree and their coursework, and in higher Ed, that's known as Teachout. So even if the ultimate conclusion in some cases is closure, that will not be an immediate result, we would.

Make it possible for all students in that program to complete it.

And so, that's that's where we are in the program evaluation process. The objective here. Well, step back a moment. The objective for the process has been both to improve our financial sustainability over the long term, but perhaps even more importantly to try to ensure that we are offering our students. In our perspective students.

The courses of study the opportunities for education and for skill development that they want and need for the future. I, as an example of that, I would say one of the areas that's been highlighted for investment is computer science. We know that this is a growing field in many, many different ways and we need to be able to meet the needs that are students of today and our students of tomorrow will have for that study.

Now moving to the second.

Major development on campus. As we all know that of course has been the arrival of the pandemic.

And I thought I would briefly highlight for you hear the responses that we on this campus have made. I am sure that in your own business environments or professional environments you will have experience very similar choices and activities.

First academic responses. I think that there is a lot of public press about what is happening with colleges and universities, so you're probably well aware of that. In our case, at I wou we extended the spring break for one week as the reality of the of the virus became clear.

During that's our students remained off campus for an additional week. During that week, our faculty worked incredibly hard, an incredibly quickly to manage to pivot to online delivery of our courses. That was completed our.

Yeah.

Our commencement day would have been this past Sunday. We did not hold an online and on campus commencement and I'll come back to that in a moment. But the semester has been completed. All students have been enabled to complete their coursework and or their degrees.

And obviously this was in a less than ideal situation for all of the campuses that tempted to make that very quick turn around. Two online delivery, particularly for a campus like us, where what we value is the face to face instruction. So all kudos to our faculty and our students. They dealt with this new development very well, but we know that it was of course less than ideal. I thought I would give you a little bit of feedback.

Because we did carry out several surveys about the online instruction and how that went, the feedback on virtual instruction, slight majority of our students indicated that they were extremely satisfied to neutral, neither satisfied or dissatisfied. So a majority is good, but it was a slight majority. On the other hand, I would note that we surveyed our students also about advising their faculty advising because this was a period for.

Course selection of course for next next semester an I can say there that 89% of our students indicated that they were extremely satisfied with online advising. I highlight that not because that's a nice number, but because advising really speaks to that personal relationship and mentoring. And when we look at that, our faculty found ways to connect with our students in ways that were.

Appropriate and satisfying and went above and beyond, I would say.

So academic responses were one of the things that we needed to deal with in facing the kovid virus. We also of course had to make changes in our planned events. We are offering a May term. Them a term begins today I believe, but it is on line.

We were offering for the first time as a kind of pilot this year, a summer session. Initially we intended to offer two summer sessions that has now become one summer session. That too is being offered online, and Interestingly, in the case of both the main term and the summer session. Once the on line offering was announced, they gained in enrollment, so that's interesting that it does offer an interesting kind of pilot for us.

For the future commencement, as I mentioned, we pulled our students are seniors and you have probably have been reading the different ways in which campuses have.

Offered their commencement. In our case, the our seniors did not want to virtual commencement, so they asked us to postpone to a date when we hope that we can gather together. Currently the date set is August 2nd, as I'm sure you're aware, we're all still unsure about how this pandemic will proceed. So that is a provisional date, which obviously will be subject to health and safety.

Concerns.

Potentially I think other later dates might be something like holding a commencement at homecoming or even at some point in December, but that will remain to be seen.

Normally during the summer, although we do not hold a robust summer sessions or semesters, we do have a number of conferences in camps that sports camps, other kinds of leadership camps, and so forth that utilize our campus facilities. Many of those, not all that many of those have canceled this summer. We're still waiting on those that are scheduled for later in the year. That's one of those areas in which, of course, will suffer financial losses.

Oops, sorry, you skipped aside there.

So those are ways in which we responded in our academic program and with our events on campus. Obviously there are also financial repercussions to the pandemic. All of us, all of us began working from home and we are still working from home. This is an anomaly for being to be in my office. I think I haven't been here in about 2 months. In our case in Illinois, the governor issued the work from home or stay at home.

Order on March 16th and currently it extends through the end of May.

So we have all been adjusting to that. We're all constantly on zoom or or this modem, or are Google modes and we've become quite accustomed to holding meetings online, as I'm sure many of you have, we did. Obviously there will be financial losses from these from this pandemic. Our students, who were unable to return to campus. The large majority of them.

After the spring break, our students were received refunds from us for their room and board because they are not able to appreciate those and make use of those. So those are a financial liability to us. We needed to increase some of our expenditures for information technology. To enable this turn to online education and so forth. So the currently we instituted.

Pay cuts for a number of our employees. Actually, in this case across the board, pay cuts with the president and the vice presidents at the high end of that and then making those changes in compensation bands down to our employees who are less well compensated. Currently, those where they had no cut in their compensation. Currently, that measure extends only through April and May, and obviously as we receive more information.

Both about the external environment and our internal financial health will be re examining that we made slight reductions in retirement benefits and in our contribution to post retirement health contributions for our employees, we were able to weather this storm at least up to this point with very few layoffs of very few reductions in hours. Again, I'm sure that many of you are experiencing these kinds of measures in your own lives and professions.

Now, of course, the question that everyone has is what will happen in the coming year.

No one knows many of my fellow college and University presidents have been issuing statements assuring their students and families that they will open on time just as as in a normal semester and everything will be.

Normal and recognizable.

I would love to do that. I have not made that announcement yet because I think it is premature. None of us knows at this point what will actually happen, so I can tell you. Despite the those kinds of announcements that are being promulgated, every college and University today is looking at a range of options for what will be possible next semester. Obviously, our first choice is indeed.

For all of our students to come back and enjoy our beautiful campus returned to their friendships and their relationships with faculty and that we would have a normal on campus return. That's at one end of the spectrum of possibilities. At the other end is what none of us really wants, which is again the kind of the kind of organization we had this spring. That is all instruction being online and virtual.

In between those two extremes, there are a number of possibilities that we and others are considering, possibly adjusting the calendar if indeed we are going to flatten the curve and see a diminution in the cases of Kovid, then perhaps the laying the semester would be possible and would allow for pretty close to normal delivery of instruction. So obviously that's something that we're planning for as a possibility. A second possibility that is more complex.

Is finding some way there are many possible ways to deliver our our education to our students in a modular way.

What might modular mean? It might mean a portion of the student body returning for some part of the academic year, a different portion returning for another part of the academic year. It might mean that some students are on campus, perhaps especially those who require experiential learning, like theater or labs or other hands-on kinds of learning, and some students would still be in a virtual environment, so these are.

Explorations that we're engaged in, we very much hope and are planning for a normal on campus return. We're making arrangements for that, but I.

To leave that, it's impossible to know that that will definitely be our reality.

So coming out of those uncertainties about what next academic year, what next academic semester will mean.

I think we're inevitably look to the future of higher education in larger way, and perhaps in particular the future of liberal arts, where as we all know, as I mentioned before, what we value almost above all is the highly personal interaction with faculty and students and students with each other where they form lifelong relationships. What will happen to that if we indeed enter a completely new environment?

I wrote about this actually a number of years ago, though I wasn't anticipating kovid and my belief as we encounter a world in which the virtual is ever more present with us. My belief is that we in liberal arts education an we in the residential liberal arts colleges will find ways to combine high touch and high tech. In some ways, I would say that that's what was happening this semester.

The instructional quality was not entirely when we want it to be, but what was extraordinary was the ways in which our students and faculty found.

Modes, new new modes of connecting with one another. I'll just mention some of those. They formed new communities are students form new communities online. Are student Senate met in its regular way just said everybody was in their bedroom on their zoom right? Uhm, there's a group called religiosity, which shares T weekly and discuss his spiritual matters. Aim at every week and had their virtual TI wherever they were.

Some of our sports teams actually managed to find ways to compete against each other on line. The Provost, the Dean and I held a cooking class in our homes. Since we were not able to serve the midnight breakfast that our students usually have before finals, so in many different ways, we've already explored what it might mean. To retain that sense of a high touch environment, even while we're deploying high tech.

And I think that when we do return to our normal on campus environment, we will find that there actually Silver Linings from what we experienced this semester.

So that's my efforts to bring you up to date with what is happening on the campus and.

Scituate, that a bit in the larger context of higher end in our society as a whole. Now, as I said, I'd like to move to a second part of my remarks, and that is what would have been my.

Talk with you. If I were able to be with you face to face in communities around the country, and this would be the eye with you presidential tour.

Some of you may know that when I was announced as the 20th president, I said that I would like to introduce a new, totally unofficial motto for IWU and that is I with you now. I emphasize that I there, although it comes first, is not egotistical, rather intended as a recognition that everyone here is an important I.

Everyone in our community contributes everyone matters. That's the kind of community that we want to be for Illinois Wesleyan and that means not just those of us on campus, but our alumni community across the country and around the world and I'm going to say more later about ways that we are finding for alumni to collect connect more closely with us. Of course, this Titan talk is one of those now. I'm going to talk briefly about three things.

The good news, the not so good news and the no news to us.

The good news?

Normally this would be the season of admissions an enrollment. In fact, normally our uh our class for the coming year would have been framed would have been completed by May 1st. That's normally the deadline for students to indicate where they're going to attend college or University. This is not a normal year not only because of Kovid, but also because of decisions that were made in the enrollment and admissions profession, which.

Changed everything such that there are no longer any deadlines. A great many things about admissions changed so we are living in a very new world now. Envisions an enrollment enrollment, as I'm sure you all know matters a great deal at Illinois Wesleyan. About 80% of the university's income comes from student fees, that is, tuition, room and board. About 80% of what enables us.

To operate about 15% comes from our endowment. We're fortunate to have a healthy endowment, but it is not huge. I'll just let you. I'll just mention as many of you know, much. My career was at Princeton at that University. Those figures would be about opposite a small percentage of operations comes from student fees and an enormous percentage comes from an enormous endowment. We are not in that position, so it matters tremendously to us.

That we are attractive to students and that this is a place they want to study. So why would a student choose IWU?

Well, let me give you a couple of reasons.

Uh I'm just going to do a list here. We have been identified as #4 on a list of 10 incredible liberal arts colleges on the rise that took place this spring. We've been called number one as the best liberal arts College in Illinois and among the best in the United States. We've been called #5. Among the 25 best colleges in Illinois or #8 among the best colleges in Illinois, now well one let me.

Mentioned that there are more than 50 small colleges in Illinois, so it's significant to gain those accolades. Obviously, as you could tell by my reading those rankings, there are a zillion rankings out there now and they depend on very different factors and one can't rely on them a great deal nevertheless to be identified. That highly among those more than 50 colleges and universities in Illinois is significant.

And does speak to our quality.

We've also been called the number 10 among the best colleges in the Midwest or #2 among hidden gems in the Midwest, and I'm going to return to that later.

Now that was the good. Now I'm going to look at the not so good and I'm going to do this on many of you I think will probably remember David Letterman and the way he would give his top 10 whatever it was and he would begin with ten 98. Well, I only have 3 not so good pieces of news and so I'll start with number 3.

And you all know this one, because you've spent years on the Illinois Wesleyan campus. #3 is the weather.

It was 35 this morning here.

In Bloomington and it's May.

So there's a reason why the top three largest universities in the United States among the top five, the top three, are in Florida.

#2 not so good news, location and location is different from weather.

The Midwest is currently among young people, not a quote hot location. I've put a slide here on that you'll see his bifurcate it in the top half. You have the skyline of Manhattan and in the bottom half you have a cornfield.

Too many perspective students. This is the dichotomy they see in the world. Bloomington normal has a lot to offer. We all know that it's been named one of the best college towns in America. But again, there's a reason why New York University an why. You is the largest private University in America. Young people flock to the excitement of the city.

And why you his capitalized on this in a very smart way. Their slogan, New York is your campus.

Normal is your campus just doesn't have the same ring to an 18 year old and the number one not so good news. I regret to say don't get me started on this, but it's the misunderstanding of the liberal arts. What liberal arts even means and it's incredible value. There is widespread misunderstanding of that today in our society and consequently young people are often led to believe.

That the liberal arts are not valuable.

But here again, Illinois Wesleyan has a unique advantage.

Because we do offer rigorous liberal arts, and I can't tell you how often when I'm speaking with current undergraduates, there really proud of.

In really attracted to the fact that this is a rigorous University that challenges them, so we offer that rigorous liberal arts education, but we also offer those opportunities for pre professional education, whether it's in our business programs, in nursing, in our professional theater programs, and so forth. This combination is ideal for today's students who, on the one hand are concerned about employment right after graduation.

That's where the preprofessional degree can come in. Very handy, but the liberal arts degree is what leads to advancement through Akarere, and in fact through the many careers that today's students may experience.

And then I'll move to the no news, at least to us.

As I mentioned, there's a broad wide misunderstanding about the value of liberal arts today, but there's been a great deal of research about the value of liberal arts, and I will give you a few of the pieces of that research here. There have been numerous iterations of surveys of the top employers in America, the largest corporations, and so forth, and here is what they tell us that they need most in their potential workforce.

Written and oral communication skills, critical thinking, and the ability to solve problems. The ability and experience of working effectively in teams. Ethical judgment and the real world. Application of skills and knowledge. These are things that the liberal arts education the small college offer above all our faculty insists on writing skills we engage in our small group. Classes are small classes and seminars.

In critical thinking and problem solving, our students work more and more in teams in real world, experiential, unreal, world issues and experience. Always ethical judgment is of course a part of our our denominational heritage and what we value here and more and more. We do offer those experiential opportunities. About 70% of our students have an opportunity for an internship or some other kind of applied learning.

And this is one of those places where alumni are tremendously significant. If you have any opportunity where one of our students might in turn might have an opportunity to discuss your profession with you, we need your help and it contributes a great deal to their their preparation.

We so we know that we have a nurse here, but we have many other of our students who graduate. Basically job ready. What so many students and faculty, maman family members are looking for today so we know that our students have success because they have those qualities that employers are seeking. Well, what do I graduate say about liberal arts education?

Here again, there is research that's been carried out that has.

No, this is not. Yeah, the slide didn't format appropriately. Sorry, there's been research that's carried out, which contrast the graduates of liberal arts colleges with the graduates of some of the large state universities, public universities and bear with me are columns. Got a little bit sidetracked there? What that research found is that the graduates of liberal arts colleges say that their education left them better prepared for life. 60% of them say that from the public universities only 34%.

Of graduates say the same again when asked whether their educations had challenged them academically and personally. Afful, 83% of liberal arts college graduates say yes, only 46% of public universities say graduates of public universities say the same. So again, we know that we set our students up for success.

And my final piece of research. I was a research report completed just this fall by the Mellon Foundation. An in brief, their conclusion was the bashing of liberal arts just isn't based on the evidence. Specifically what they found was that liberal arts education leads to greater social mobility, greater job satisfaction, students who graduates who end up in supervisory and managerial positions, who are more engaged in their communities.

And and this has been shown by a number of research studies who by mid career in their peak earning years are 25% above in their income above those who were strictly preprofessional. The liberal arts make a difference. Now that's all about liberal arts education in general and we are proud to be a liberal arts institution. But what about our own IW grad? Specifically? How do they fair? Well here again?

I have research the economist, obviously a highly regarded financial publication named Illinois Wesleyan. The number one small College in Illinois for graduates earnings after graduation and they went on to say that we were among the top 6% in the United States for the success financial success of our graduates and especially important I want to call attention to this item which was, uh.

Published in the New York Times. Social mobility. One thing that the kovid crisis has shown us is the inequities in our society. There been many recent studies but this has become starkly clear as we see the differential abilities of our populace to deal with and surmount the crisis. Illinois Wesleyan has been ranked among the top 3% of the 4000 colleges in America.

For enabling social mobility that is enabling our students to move to higher and higher rungs of socioeconomic status, this is something I think we should be truly proud of, not just for our graduates but for the difference It makes in our society.

And now I thought I would conclude with just a few fun facts, different ways you might never have expected in which IW students are winners. The first one of those is E sports. If you don't know what E sports is, you're going to have to Google it. It's extremely important to young people today. So at Illinois Wesleyan we have actually begun in E sports team, we did this just within the last year. Two years, I guess, and we are nationally.

Correct, we recently we were nationally ranked the number 12 in E sports competitions and we are moving right on up to the top. This is particularly significant because today's high school student potential, college student millions and millions of them are very engaged in eastwards for so for us to be one of the outstanding teams in the country means a lot to our future admissions and enrollment.

Um, 2nd on the list is hack Harvard? What does heck Harvard you might ask? Well, this is another somewhat unusual competition. There is a competition held at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, and what it consists of is teams from around the country from colleges and universities around the country. Come to Harvard for a 24 hour competition.

And the teams are charged to build some kind of Rhoa robotic thing within 24 hours. Um Illinois Wesleyan sent a team. I think there were four members on our team. As I said, it's a 24 hour competition, so some team members work while others sleep around the Clock.

We did pretty well.

Among the competitors across the country, Illinois Wesleyan was number one.

There's another kind of competition that you may not have been aware of. This is called the Ethics Bowl, where again teams. Some of you may remember on the College Bowl was a television program a number of years ago. This is similar college teams around the country compete in a situation in which they are presented with ethical questions, ethical issues similar to a debate, but a little bit different than that in its lamp tored the strictly ethical.

We field an excellent team and have for a number of years there. Advisor is a terrific philosopher in our Department and last year we competed in that we made it to the final round the National Ethics Bowl.

But we didn't win. We were #2 number one was Yale University.

And finally image the competition. That's probably a little more familiar to most of you on the call, and that is our continued excellence in sports this year. As you can imagine, all of our athletes are spring athletes were disappointed there. Seasons were cut short, they were not able to participate. For example, in postseason competition.

But I do want to call out our women's basketball team, which led the number one undefeated hope College team up until the last minute of their competition. So just a shout out to all of our terrific competitors in many different fields at Illinois Wesleyan. Now, in closing, I said I would return to that. Uh, what was it? #2 hidden gem.

Of universities in America.

That ranking if you will. That judgment comes from a book and I want to read you a bit more from that statement, and I will reveal the author and title of the book.

Uh, I don't have all of it on the slide. The author says if this book did nothing other than bringing Illinois Wesleyan to the attention of the college bound, I would be delighted.

Not only is Illinois Wesleyan University the model of an effective, responsive, well designed, thoroughly successful liberal arts college or University, it is also an institution that hums with positive energy and which engenders deep feelings of attachment and loyalty among its students and graduates.

The author of that book is Peter Arango and the book is called America's best kept kept college secrets.

It's great to have our quality recognized.

But we don't want to be a best kept secret. We want the world to know. And now that's more important than ever. We need alumni engagement to enrich what we can offer our students and we need alumni to help spread the word of what IWU has to offer. So I have several messages for you. Wear your Illinois gear. It makes a difference. People notice they come up. They begin a conversation.

I personally am familiar with a number of colleges who Simply put made a push to be more visible in that way, and it has really changed them, so we're that gear. I don't think the bookstore is open right now, but it will be talk about the Great Education you received here, how it shaped your life, how it led to your success.

How the classmates and friends you made here are still in your life.

Get involved. Rosetta has great ideas on that. Steve Adrian, anyone in our alumni affairs office.

We are currently more engaged in finding more ways for alumni to be involved. That, again, is one of the Silver Linings. I think that's coming from the responses that we have all needed to make to kovid, so stay tuned. We intend to offer even more opportunities to be directly involved with the University. Again, like this one. So in short, my message today is.

Be tightened proud. You have good reason to be.

Thank you.

Adrian, are you out there?

I am I am thank you so much. I hope hopefully you can hear me fine up and that was just a great Gosh overview and also lots of detail.

Days.

Yes, yes we did get a lot of questions and I know that this is going to time out at 1:00 o'clock and so rather than we're not going to be able to get to all of the questions. And thanks to everybody who who sent questions in. I've made note of those. And So what? I'm thinking that we might do is have you take a look at those president Nugent and address them, and perhaps we can even include those in the follow up email.

Um, probably got yeah, and so, um, we've got maybe 5 minutes. I might have a chance to have just for you to answer one question, and actually I'll, I'll go with David priest because I'm going to be talking about him anyway. He's gonna be our next speaker next week talking about COVID-19 and the limits of federal crisis management. And he asked, or says there's a lot of misunderstanding out there.

Yes.

About University endowments, including a belief that they are merely pots of money waiting to be spent. Please explain briefly what the endowment is for an why we or any University can't just spin down most of its endowment during a pandemic or other crisis.

That's a great question. Thank you. Thank you Adrian. Thank you, David.

There it's a multipart question, but endowments are intended to support a college or University, literally in perpetuity. And colleges and universities are the longest lived institutions in the world aside from the Catholic Church. So so, colleges and universities do tend to live for centuries, and the endowments are intended to support that life over that time. Moreover.

In many many cases, gifts to an endowment have very specific purpose. Someone may endow a professorship in a certain field. Happily, many of our alumni and thank you very much endow scholarships, which can only be used for scholarships for students. So an endowment had an overall value, but typically it is composed of many many, many different small parts, most of which are earmarked.

Or a certain purpose, and legally cannot be used for any other purpose. But you're absolutely right, there is often a sense that it's a rainy day fund. It is not, and so the endowment, typically 1 does not draw on the endowment, except at a very small percentage percentage approximately equal to what the earnings in the market maybe. So we spend down and all institutional spend down 4 to 5% of their endowment. That's a contribution.

No doubt to the on going operations, but it is not, uh, something socked away that we can just delve into to get through a rainy day.

Open.

OK, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to answer that. As you can imagine, we also got lots of School of Music questions and I'll will send those along and address those as well. So thanks for everyone's passionate passion. An questions about that that will be addressed.

So in closing, I just want to thank you, president Nugent, for being so generous with your time today. I think I speak for all of us when I say how inspired we are by your dedication and commitment. Thanks also to all of you who joined us. For the Titan talks webinar series, you will be receiving an email with this survey very soon and so would appreciate your feedback. And Lastly, please save the date for our next Titan talk next Thursday, May 14th at noon for David Priest, Class of 93 as I mentioned.

Everyone stay safe and healthy. Go Titans.