[Howard Reddy:] Good afternoon. My name is Howard Reddy, and I have the privilege to serve as Vice President for University Advancement. Thank you for taking the time to join us for our first-ever virtual State of the University address. The State of the University is a special tradition at the University of West Florida where we will hear from some of our leaders. At this time, I would like to introduce our speakers: Mr. Jim McMillen, Staff Senate President; Dr. Sherry Schneider, Faculty Senate President; and the president of our Student Government Association. [Jim McMillen:] Hello Argos. My name is Jim McMillen, President of your Staff Senate. The UWF Staff Senate provides a forum for information exchange on matters of interest or concerns that directly affect University staff members and then take those matters to the administration. Through the Staff Senate, we expand our spirit of unity, pride and cooperation equally with the Faculty Senate and Student Government Association as participants in advising the University’s administration. Although it has been a challenging year filled with unexpected obstacles, the Staff Senate has pushed forward with its mission. I am honored to report to you that through the generosity of University employees, and in conjunction with our Faculty Senate partners, we have raised over $16,000 in donations during the UWF United Way campaign. The Staff Senate has also worked hard to deliver cash donations and hundreds of pounds of supplies to local animal shelters through our Hands to Paws campaign. In addition, thanks to your generous Argo spirit, during the Staff Senate Holiday Fest children’s drive, we delivered over $2,500 in needed supplies for the Gulf Coast Kids House and the Pace Center for Girls. In support of you, our hard-working University staff members, your Staff Senate has also awarded over $1,800 in educational assistance through the Staff Senate Employee Textbook Program. And during these difficult times, your Staff Senate has also provided almost $1,300 in assistance to staff members in financial hardships through the Staff Senate Emergency Relief Fund. As we continue to sail through these uncharted and ever-changing waters, remember that your Staff Senate is here working for you, knowing that one day we will find ourselves back in familiar waters with a clear course. Until then, hold your head high and continue to show that awesome Argo spirit. Thank you. [Dr. Sherry Schneider:] Good day, colleagues. I’m Sherry Schneider, Faculty Senate President. Obviously, the story this year is COVID-19. I’m so proud of how the faculty responded to the crisis in March, moving classes online with very few hiccups, a surprising amount of good cheer, and relatively little complaining. We have always been proud to serve our students — it’s what defines us as a faculty — and we will continue to do so, come what may. In March, we moved our Senate meetings online. Even in the notable absence of snacks, we continued the work of Senate uninterrupted. Last year, Senate approved 175 changes and additions to the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. We have also worked diligently to keep the lines of communication open with administration during these unprecedented times. In summer, we co-sponsored an open forum with Academic Affairs — online, of course — to answer questions faculty might have about teaching this fall. As Faculty Senate President, I serve on the COVID-19 committee, which reviews and revises operating procedures for the University. The online FAQ is constantly being updated with new information. When inevitable changes occur, we will keep you in the loop. Check the FAQ, and if your answer to the question isn’t there, email your chair or email me directly and we’ll get the info you need. Remember, as we always say to our students: check the syllabus first. In his fall address, Provost Ellenberg individually acknowledged all of the faculty who were tenured or promoted this year. Faculty Senate would like to extend our congratulations as well. Welcome to the academy in this strangest of times. Hang in there. Things will probably get weirder and more difficult before they get better. We can accomplish anything if we continue to work together with safety, quality and flexibility at the forefront of everything we do. Thank you. I hope to see you around campus — six feet apart, of course. [Jordan Negron:] Hello University of West Florida. Thank you for tuning in, and welcome. My name is Jordan Negron, and I serve as your Student Body President for the Student Government Association. Over the past eight months, we have all endured a variety of struggles. 2020 has undoubtedly changed our communities worldwide. Our spring semester and lives were uprooted by a global pandemic that is still actively affecting us to this day. Our community is struggling while combating racial injustice, and members of our community have suffered some loss in many forms. We here at the University of West Florida have been working through it all and doing our part. In the words of activist Tarana Burke, “Inherently having privilege is not bad, but it’s how you use that privilege, and you have to use it in service of others.” Our University’s values include integrity in all matters: doing the right thing for the right reason. I am proud to say your student government has and will continue to do just that. Our promise under the Negron-Gardner administration is to elevate your student experience and amplify your voice. We have kept our promise to you and still have more to come. We have voted alongside the Board of Trustees and worked with the Office of the Provost to make the 2020 spring semester pass/fail grading system an option. We have supplied the student body with vital personal protective equipment. And for the first time ever, SGA has launched and funded approximately $40,000 in student-sponsored grant programs to aid in the cost of tuition, housing and COVID-19-related expenses. Our administration has worked to make UWF more eco-friendly by purchasing reusable straws, cups and bags. Furthermore, we have partnered with the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services in making mental health resources more accessible to the student body. Currently, we are actively working to increase civic engagement among our community and are reaching out to over 40 businesses to form new partnerships that will offer even more student discounts. The next few semesters will be difficult as we adjust to the new normal. As Argos, we are strong and will get through this together. If there is anything we as a student government can do, please let us know. Send us an email, or direct message us on social media. Our doors are always open. Thank you for taking the time to watch this address. Be safe and take care of yourselves and your loved ones. And as always, go Argos! [Howard Reddy:] Thank you. We are now going to hear from our President, Dr. Martha Saunders. [Dr. Martha Saunders:] Welcome to the State of the University Address 2020. This year is a little different. We are having this event virtually, and it’s going to be aired in a number of different media channels. I really do miss seeing you all here in person, and I look forward to the day when we can be together again in this room. Well, it’s been quite a year on the good ship Argo. We’ve sailed a lot of rough seas. We’ve survived a number of storms, but we have amassed a great deal of treasure. We measure our treasure in a number of ways, but one in particular are the recognitions that we earn for all of the hard work that you do. We won a HEED award this year for the fifth time, for the third year in a row. And this prestigious recognition for diversity and inclusion is a credit to the hard work of Dr. Kim LeDuff and her talented staff in the Division of Academic Engagement and Student Affairs. I especially want to mention and recognize Dr. Greg Tomso and his awesome honor students, because they are sponsoring now, a very important “Race and the Community” dialogues and discussions in the community. For the eighth time, we have been named as a Great College to Work For. This is a recognition that comes from you. It comes from our employees who complete a survey and talk about what they think is working well. This year, we were on the honor roll for several different areas, and they are: Collaborative Governance; Professional/Career Development Programs; Compensation and Benefits; Facilities, Workspace and Security; Job Satisfaction; Work/Life Balance; Confidence in Senior Leadership; Supervisor/Department Chair Relationship; and Respect and Appreciation. This is a testimony to the great caring environment that is built by our Human Resources department and I want to give a real shoutout to Jamie Sprague and her team for all the work they do for our employees. Once again, we were named to the top 15 public regional universities in the south by U.S. News and World Report. We were given special recognition this year in several areas. One as a Regional University; Top Public Schools; Social Mobility; Best Colleges for Veterans; and Most Innovative Schools. We were named a gold level military-friendly school, with much credit going to Lori Milkeris and the guys over in the MVRC. And we won a national championship in football. Thank you, Coach Shinnick. We charted a few new courses as well. Through the generosity of an anonymous donor, we now have a named School of Music, named for a beloved former faculty member, Grier Williams. This year, our development team, under the leadership of Howard Reddy, has raised the most new cash gifts in the history of the University. We were the only school in the State University System to make a perfect ten in metric one in the performance-based funding metrics. Now metric one is the one that measures whether our students are employed or in graduate school a year after graduation. Now that tells me that UWF students are very much in high demand. Provost Ellenberg and his war room warriors stay focused. They have been a mainstay of our metric effort, and it shows, as our numbers have stayed strong over the years. We earned professional accreditations in teacher education and in engineering. Now these are rigorous reviews, high standards that really show recognition of best practices, so I certainly congratulate Dean William Crawley and Dean Jaromy Kuhl and their talented faculty for the work that they have done there. The Usha Kundu College of Health has created a number of innovative ways for us to reduce the price of textbooks, a very important area for our students. Our students distinguished themselves through a number of competitions including the UWF Cyber Team, our Engineering and Robotics Team, and our Business Teams just to name a few. Our faculty continue to do meaningful, relevant research, such as working with the Navy and the development of parachute training devices, or testing for bacteria in local waters. Hospitality and tourism and supply chain management are taking center stage and working with industry leaders to figure what is going to happen next. The Sea3D Lab has been manufacturing face shields, free of charge, for use by local health care professionals. And you all deserve a trophy for the sheer resilience you showed when we were hit with COVID-19, the governor's vetoes of significant programming, and Hurricane Sally. For all your efforts that are too numerous to list, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, in an interesting way, the global pandemic has brought out the best in us. We have found creative solutions to immediate challenges. We have worked harder than we ever imagined, and with the agility I have come to expect from UWF, we have adapted to a new reality. I wish I could tell you that the storm has subsided, but I can’t. We are still facing serious challenges, including the very real presence of a life-threatening virus in our midst and the economic fallout that is certain to follow. We are currently undertaking a budget reduction exercise that very likely will be implemented soon, and we are bracing for a significant hit. The decisions we make now regarding University resources will be thoughtful, they may be painful, but they will be in the best interest of our students and the mission of the University. It’s going to be another tough year, but we are not helpless, because we have the tools we need to persevere. We have a strong ship and an able crew. The state of the University of West Florida is sound because of you. Our enrollment is up, our fundraising is up, and we continue to give our students the quality experience that they deserve. We have mined areas of research that are paying off, and our community supports us. Over the past years, we have weathered storms and endured in an environment that no one alive has experienced. We will persist as we always have, and we will be stronger when we get to the other side. We’re the Argos, and it’s an honor to be your president. So now, just for a moment, sit back and take a breath. Marvel at all we have accomplished over the past year, and imagine what we can be. [Ambient sounds, overlapping news clips] “Health officials say the risk to Americans is very low right now…” “…now five confirmed cases of this coronavirus in the United States…” “…UWF leaders tell me that they have decided to move all courses online for the next two weeks…” [Dr. George Ellenberg:] How do you go about living a life within this pandemic world? We see no end in sight at the moment. That can be daunting. That can be something that weighs on us. And yet here we are in the midst of great pressures, changing to meet those pressures. [Song: “We Can Be” by Tilden and Thapelo Whitfield] “Sitting on the edge of my fear, hesitation…” [Dr. George Ellenberg:] We had to almost overnight make that switch to fully online. It was a decisive and quick decision that had to be made, but I’m also extremely proud of the way the faculty and students, as the president would put it, pivoted. And the business of the University continues to get done. [Dr. Kimberly McCorkle:] We’ve worked really hard with the deans and the faculty to support the academic mission, to make sure that faculty had everything they needed for classes, to make sure they had the tools they needed to do the best they could do, to maintain their high level of instruction. We’ve been able to be quite productive in the remote environment, and we can get a lot of things done using Zoom and Google Meets and WebEx, and I think we’ve all surprised ourselves a little bit about being able to carry on the work of the University in a remote format. We mobilized as an administration, as faculty, as a staff, to make sure that we were communicating the message of what’s going on, what changes are happening. Our communication efforts, I think, have been top-notch. [Shana Gore:] We did some outreach to students, not for anything specific, just to say “Hey, are you okay?” We talked about their health, their safety, the health and safety of their family, and everyone was just willing to jump in and help. So you know, the College of Business said, “Give us a list of students. Graduate school, how many students can we call?” Just seeing everyone come together has really helped to keep us connected. We’ve spent all summer planning for what fall semester will look like and how it will go. [Megan Gonzalez:] Our new normal at UWF looks a little bit different — wearing face coverings in any indoor shared facilities, as well as outdoor if social distancing can’t be met. We’ve also instituted a daily pre-screening that every student, employee takes before they come to campus. And then we’ve also developed trainings for our students and employees to help them understand what they can do to help us make sure this campus is safer and healthier. Our students have really adapted well to this change. Our faculty, our staff have adapted, and they are learning new ways to connect. [Dr. Kim LeDuff:] College is supposed to be the time where you get to go away from home, and you get to engage with your peers and participate in events and activities. And so, it’s not that they can’t do it anymore, it’s just different. We remind our students, this is something that none of us have ever been through before, and so it’s okay to ask for help. It’s really kind of encouraged us to think outside the box, and to engage our campus community in a very different way. And so we’ve seen a lot of good things come out of this virtual service. For example, in tutoring, we’ve seen an increase in the number of students who are using tutoring services now that it’s virtual. In advising, we’ve seen that students are more likely to show up for appointments and make appointments and communicate with their advisors, because it’s virtual and they can do it on their own timetable. And I have honestly been so proud of them for how they’ve handled this. They’re just plowing forward and looking for that next opportunity. And so it’s really been interesting to see their creativity and innovation. To see them push on encourages me to push on. [Nicole Gislason:] Our students are the cream of the crop. Normally, we do a lot of workforce training in the lab. Guests of all ages come in and learn about additive manufacturing, or what we call 3-D printing. But during the pandemic, the machines are going 24/7 as we manufacture PPE. It utilizes the time and talent of our faculty members in mechanical engineering, as well as our very cool, very enthusiastic students. And the community has been very grateful for the products we’ve been able to provide. 7,000 units are now in the hands of health care workers throughout our region, and to me that is very meaningful, and it harnesses the talent that we have on hand. It’s been quite a year. But I am a true optimist in every way. [Dr. Kim LeDuff:] Think about the fact that we work with really great people. Think about the fact that, you know, we have a leadership team that really cares about us and has guided us through this process. Think about the students who’ve been creative and innovative and resilient in light of this. [Dr. Kimberly McCorkle:] This fall will look different than any fall that I’ve experienced before, and yet I feel the same level of excitement, anticipation for the start of the new academic year and all the promise that that holds. [Megan Gonzalez:] We are still going to have the same great UWF experience, and as we’ve worked through all of the challenges that come with this pandemic, that Argo spirit has not gone away. [Dr. George Ellenberg:] We are changing lives. We are creating citizens of the world, and at what point in history is that not more important than right now with a global pandemic? We will be different because of this, but we will be stronger as well. We can be. [Shana Gore:] We can be. [Dr. Kimberly McCorkle:] We can be. [Song: “We Can Be” by Tilden and Thapelo Whitfield] “We can be any person that our thoughts can see. We can beat any problems that our doubts might bring. We can dream what sets us free. We can be. We can dream what sets us free. We can be.”