Salus University - President Mittelman's Blog

I've now had the opportunity to present the findings of my "100 Days of Listening" to the university community as well as our Board of Trustee Executive Committee and President's Council.  I can now share the Power Point I presented:
To review what the original task was:

We established 4 Tiger Teams to inform me:

•Faculty

•Students

•Staff

•Board

Answer 3 questions

•What 3 things will make this a better place?

•What’s working exceptionally well here?

•What can use improvement?

Groups provide report to me by 25 October

Presidential Vision will be developed based on input from Tiger Teams

What did I hear?

Many things are already working very well: 

Academic reputation of programs and the academic process

Passion and dedication of faculty and staff

Faculty and staff happy with benefits

Congenial work environment

Hafter Center facility and activities

Growth of the institution

Quality of students/residents

Appearance of facilities

Work of the Board of Trustees

Willingness to innovate and change

Scheduling in optometry programs

Technology improvements moving in right direction

Teamwork amongst faculty and staff “exceptional”

What 3 things will make Salus a better place?

     3 main categories:

             Communication - Phones, website, decision making

             Technology - classroom, wireless, phones, keeping up with the times

             Marketing - Salus name (one Salus), association with The Eye and Ear Institutes

             Miscellaneous - classroom ergonomics, library hours, cafe hours, etc.

      In the interest of space, I'm not going to list all the concerns, but rest-assured, there were no surprises and many of the suggestions are already being discussed by leadership here at the university.

      I'm going to take all this great information and use it to inform our strategic planning process that will kick-off when I take our President's Council to an off-site the last week in November.  I'll keep everyone in the loop as we move this forward.

One final note that I think many of you will be interested in.  I've asked Dr. Sue Oleszewski to serve as my Chief of Staff and much to my delight she has accepted this new position.  Starting in December, Sue will move up to the Elkins Park campus to commence her new, expanded duties.  The university and I will greatly benefit from having Sue in this position.  Until next entry....have a great week.