Dear
Friends:
We
began the millennium last year with a simple theme, "Keeping
The Word," which guided us through everything we accomplished.
This Annual Report chronicles many of those accomplishments, tangible
evidence of the new heights reached by our community. Our goal for
the upcoming year is to build on what we achieved by maintaining
our focus through empowerment and accountability. But right now
I'd like to provide you with a brief overview of the past year.
The
completion of the natatorium is the most outwardly visible manifestation
of our accomplishments. This beautiful pool complex will be home
to our new swim team, in addition to providing many new offices
and a conference room. Work also began on two new important construction
projects - the business education building that will be incorporated
into Incarnate Word House, and a dorm/parking/banquet facility that
will be located by the International Conference Center overlooking
both the campus and the city. Both of these buildings will be completed
by summer of 2002.
The
IBM Laptop Initiative was extremely successful, so much so that
after only one year, we are now viewed nationally as a model of
how to implement such programs. Our new Virtual University exceeded
early enrollment projections. This initiative received an important
boost late last year when the U.S. Army selected UIW as part of
a group of 29 universities from across the country that will offer
distance education to thousands of soldiers. (Other institutions
in this group include Florida State University, the University of
Washington and Penn State University.)
Our
international presence continues to grow. We finished the first
year at the China Incarnate Word campus with 90 students, and that
number will exceed 150 in the second year. Our sister school alliances
for reciprocal education also continue to grow - we now have agreements
with nearly 70 institutions in over 20 countries, the latest being
New Zealand. In addition, international students now comprise 9
percent of our student body, keeping us on pace to reach our goal
of 15 percent by 2005. And a new International Student Merit Scholarship
program was launched in March with a successful fundraiser.
We
also received a $1.4 million Student Support Services grant for
designing student retention based on a mentoring model. This was
part of the nearly $4.6 million we received in grants from foundations,
corporations and government entities.
I
hope these brief highlights give you a sense of our many activities
during the past year. I encourage you to read the Annual Report
for additional details. In the meantime, let me thank all of you
whose generous contributions and constant support are once again
reflected in the pages of this report. Your help and generosity
have allowed the University to continue fulfilling its goal of offering
students the best possible educational opportunity within a context
of faith.
Best wishes,
Louis J. Agnese, Jr., Ph.D.
President
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