Southeastern planners focus on 'post-Katrina'
Contact: Rene Abadie
2/3/06
CAPTION…
POST-KATRINA PLANNING AT SOUTHEASTERN -- Tammy Bourg, dean of Southeastern Louisiana University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, leads the University Planning Council through a discussion on the post-Katrina environment of the institution at a planning meeting on Thursday (Feb. 2). More than 40 representatives of all areas of the university met for two days formulating a new five-year strategic plan for Southeastern, “Vision 2010.”
HAMMOND -- While looking ahead to develop their new five-year strategic plan, Southeastern Louisiana University officials recognized they first had to contend with the immediate past – the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina.
Like everyone else in southeast Louisiana, the north shore university is grappling with the “new normal,” as President Randy Moffett called the post-Katrina scenario for higher education.
Population shifts, maintaining an academic focus while being sensitive to student needs, and challenges associated with recruiting next year’s group of students are just some of the issues the group of 40 or so faculty, staff, students and community representatives discussed at Southeastern’s Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts Thursday and Friday.
“One thing we recognize is the need to be flexible,” Moffett said. “While we know we need to update our five-year strategic plan, we also have to address some immediate needs … something along the lines of a 120-day plan.
“Recovery may take longer than any of us originally anticipated,” he added, “but we as a university cannot sit still. Our service area is facing a lot of challenges, but we also recognize that there are lots of opportunities as well.”
Moffett said the university survived Katrina intact, with little damage to any structures. Because of its proximity to the New Orleans area, Southeastern served as a staging area for utility workers, rescue and law enforcement personnel immediately following the hurricane, then later opened its doors to hundreds of guest students displaced by the storm.
While its facilities were largely spared, Southeastern did lose approximately 1,500 students who were forced to withdraw from the university because of the impact of the storm on their lives. After Katrina, Southeastern gained approximately the same number of guest students who had been displaced from their original New Orleans area institutions. Several hundred of those former guest students have elected to continue their education at Southeastern. Post-Katrina, Southeastern is now the third largest university in the state.
“The impact of the storm will not deter us from continuing to press forward with development of new programs,” Moffett said. “We are playing important roles in helping our region recover and in re-building our state’s economy and workforce.”
Southeastern first started long-range planning in the mid-1990s, developing 12 goals and more than 40 specific objectives. In the 2000 planning session, university officials recognized they had to pare down their scope and focus more tightly on specific areas. “Vision 2005” evolved with six specific priorities.
“We did a pretty good job with those priorities and accomplished most of what we set out to do,” said John Crain, provost and vice president for academic affairs, in reviewing the previous plan. “The strategic plan provided an invaluable roadmap for the evolution of the university as we moved from an open-admissions institution to one with admission standards focused on high quality academic programs.”
Among the issues discussed for “Vision 2010,” Southeastern’s new plan in development, were the possibility of further increasing admission standards, finding alternative revenue sources to supplement a possible reduction in state support, becoming even more aggressive in the university’s outreach efforts, and more closely identifying and defining its niche.
“For the most part, we are in good shape,” Moffett told the group. “Our facilities are undamaged, and our faculty and staff are still here, teaching and working. Most of our students are back, and events for prospective students are attracting a lot of interest. “We are addressing the challenges left over from Katrina while continuing to move forward to strengthening our academic position.”
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