President’s Club Dinner September 27, 2007 - VCPA Talk by Sister Rosemarie Nassif, SSND, PhD, President of HNU: Good evening and welcome to Holy Names University. It is my privilege and honor to welcome you to this historic year at your university. This year we celebrate the 140th anniversary of the foundation of Holy Names. As many of you know, in 1868, six Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, the oldest being 31, traveled from Montréal, Canada to a foreign land – California – departing on April 13 by train to new York, by steamer to Aspinwall, by primitive rail car across the Isthmus to Panama City where they embarked on the Golden Age to San Francisco and arrived on May 10. They traveled 10,000 miles and their journey took four weeks. Their mission was to provide a quality education for those most in need, empowering them to develop their full potentials and contribute to positive change in our world. Oakland itself was a young town and had existed for only 16 years with a population of approximately 8000. Holy Names was the first women owned business in Oakland. This year is also historic because we welcome our largest enrollment in history – 1,100 students from 21 states and 38 nations. This year is historic because we are ranked in the 2008 edition of US News and World Report’s Best Colleges, # 1 in campus diversity in the West. Over 70% of our students are from under-represented cultures. We are number 2 in the nation, second only to Rutgers on the East Coast. We are grateful that each of you is here this evening, not only, to help us celebrate this historic year, but most especially because you are essential in our ability to continue the legacy which the original six Holy Names Sisters began 140 years ago. We are here as a community to thank you for all that you have done to help us provide a quality education for those most in need, thereby, empowering them to make a positive difference in our world. I’d like to highlight what we have accomplished together just in the last decade. Ten years ago our enrollment was 758 – this fall it is 1,100 – an increase of over 45%. Ten years ago we had 37 freshmen in our undergraduate program. This fall we have 149. Ten years ago, we had 107 students living on campus. This fall we have 294 (an increase of 175 %). Ten years ago we had five Master Degree programs. In 2007, we have eight, adding our Master of Science in Nursing Degree, for which Ann Reynolds – the co-chair for our event this evening was instrumental in helping us launch. We now offer the MSN with four possible areas of concentration—our newest being the MSN with a concentration in education for clinical nurses who desire to become clinical educators. This program received a $1.1 Million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for its strategic ability to help address the nursing shortage by increasing the number of active clinical sites. In the last 10 years, we developed a Master’s in Pastoral Ministries in partnership with the Oakland Diocese and with the encouragement and support of Bishop Cummins -- to deepen the theological understanding and pastoral skills of lay ministers. We have received a grant from a foundation to expand this program to the diocese of Fresno through live videoconference delivery. In 2002 we developed our own state-of-the-art videoconference classroom-studio, transforming the sisters’ old laundry room – through a generous grant from the California Endowment. We were the first institution in California to offer the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree to Registered Nurses throughout the state transmitted live through voice-activated videoconference technology to 13 hospital sites in partnership with Catholic Healthcare West – from as far north as Redding to as far South as Santa Barbara. In the last ten years we have added three undergraduate majors, psychobiology and criminology, as well as our partnership with Samuel Merritt College of Nursing, whereby nursing majors enroll at Holy Names for their first two years of basic science and general education and then matriculate to Samuel Merritt to complete their nursing classes for a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. We have presently 140 students enrolled in this program—at both our institutions – all potential nurses committed to enhance our healthcare system. This past year, with the outstanding leadership of Jim Kelly, and your tremendous generosity, we completed a campaign to renovate our science laboratories and classrooms in Brennan Hall, raising $5.4 million dollars and exceeding our goal of $4.9 million. I am pleased to tell you that over 30% of our incoming undergraduate students this fall are majoring in the basic sciences and the health sciences. These measurable achievements are absolutely noteworthy and could not have occurred without each of you. However, the transformation of one of our students through his or her Holy Names experience far exceeds the sum of all these accomplishments together. In the last ten years, we have graduated over 2500 students – each of them making a powerful difference in the lives of others and a part of your legacy. This May 2007 we sent forth 250 in your name. Mimi, who transferred from UC Davis, where she describes herself as being lost, although, as a MENSA, she was certainly intellectually competent. Mimi found herself and her passion at Holy Names, majored in English and is now studying at The University of California Hastings College of the Law. Joe, who double majored in sociology and philosophy, came to Holy Names after a year in Americorps. Here he participated in the opportunities to travel to El Salvador and to Mexico as part of two of his courses on Liberation and Latin American Culture, spent three of his four spring breaks as part of the Mother Marie Rose Seminar in Tutwiler, Mississippi building homes with Habitat for Humanity. He began our very own HNU Habitat for Humanity chapter on this campus for the people of the East Bay. Joe graduated with a 3.98 GPA and is going on to medical school because he believes that as a doctor he can best help those in need. Earl, who returned to Holy Names to earn a Master in Education degree in 2007, already a 2003 HNU alum with a bachelor’s degree in English who was a star player on our winning men’s basketball team. As an undergraduate he read poetry to elementary students in Oakland dressed in his basketball jersey to reverse stereotypes about being both jock and poet. He is now teaching at Castlemont high school and his Master’s thesis focused on the contribution that African American High School Principals make to education. These are just a few of the graduates whose lives you have helped transform and whose contributions to others are an authentic part of your legacy. The best way we know to thank you is to continue enhancing and advancing the full educational experience for each of our students at Holy Names University, thereby building the value of the return on your investment. So – going forward – we are proud of our achievements together. We are deeply grateful to each one of you. We are profoundly committed and determined to achieve even more as we move into the future. Together with our Board of Trustees we have developed our Strategic Plan for 2007-2012. It is aggressive and realistic – bold and achievable. Our plan is to grow from 1100 to 1700 in the next five years. Key to achieving this growth is the revitalization of our academic programs and the integration of community based learning as part of each undergraduate student’s educational experience, whether internships, community service, research, etc. At your places you have a diagram of our business model that graphically depicts our “road to 1700.” We must regenerate that same excellence and depth in our new faculty as well as assure that each continues the mission and spirit of the Sisters of the Holy Names. This is our key issue as we move forward together. Our most critical need as we go forward is the replacement of our retiring faculty and the addition of new faculty who deliver the excellence and mission driven education that are hallmarks of Holy Names. All of us are aware that the Sisters of the Holy Names have been the foundation of the excellence at Holy Names University’s educational experience. Many of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary as well as several of our revered lay faculty are retiring. You will hear from two of them this evening. In 2005 we received a ten year reaffirmation of accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the maximum number of years granted and seldom given. This is an external authentic statement of the quality education at your university, for which our faculty are responsible. This is an exciting time for Holy Names University. I have no doubt that the original six Sisters, Salome, Mary Anthony, Mary Marceline, Mary Celestine, Mary Cyrille and Mary Seraphine, are here with us this evening proud of all that has been accomplished in these 140 years. Today, with your support we remain true to their mission of serving those most in need. 40% of our students qualify for Pell grants, which means that the Federal Government has designated them as not having sufficient economic resources to pay for college, and over 50 % of our students are the first generation in their families to attend college. 99% of our undergraduates receive scholarships and other forms of financial aid – through your generosity. These original six sisters believed that the foundation they were beginning on the shores of Lake Merritt would make a powerful difference in the lives of others. They are here with me thanking you for all the ways you have confirmed their belief. With them, we are here together to celebrate a rich legacy of 140 years and to re-instill the enduring legacy of this institution in a world that is very different than 1868 but very much in need of that same mission -- providing a quality education for those most in need, in order to develop to their full potentials and, in turn, make a positive difference in the lives of others. This is the essence of Holy Names University and it is our mission together.