In a Sept. 9, 2014 briefing, Chancellor Donald Reaves reflected on his seven years at Winston-Salem State University. We share those remarks here in four days of blog posts.

Day Two:  Reshaping to Remain Relevant

The comment I made about remaining relevant had to do with more than just statistics like retention and graduation rates. It also pertained to the way that we educate students in the 21st century. Were we educating students in such a way that they were competitive when they graduated? Could they compete against students from other schools and other countries for seats in the best graduate schools or for the best jobs? The answer to those was no.

Our programs in the health sciences were strong and those graduates were very competitive. But in the other schools that was not the case. Perhaps the major reason was that their curriculums were outdated. The way that we taught students and what we taught them was obsolete, having not been changed in any substantial way in more than 50 years.

WSSU had done a wonderful job preparing graduates for life in the 20^th century; as a teachers’ college and a nursing school we had done a wonderful job – but the world had changed and our curriculum had not kept pace.

For our students to be successful, we needed to be sure they had the skills necessary to compete in today’s global marketplace. Just think how many of today’s best jobs didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago.

So, we changed what we teach and how we teach it. That doesn’t mean our students don’t learn English or biology, math or history – it just means they learn it in a different manner. With a focus on the liberal arts, we are teaching our students to think, to be analytical, to communicate effectively, and to develop a more global perspective.

This year we took that same thinking a step further. Based on the belief that students would benefit from the marriage of their discipline with the liberal arts, we made the decision to consolidate the School of Business and Economics and the School of Education into the College of Arts and Sciences, creating the College of Arts, Sciences, and Business. We just call it the College.

It’s too early to declare the merger a success, but we believe that the integration of these programs will produce better prepared students.

This restructuring will also allow us to align projected spending with available resources in an era of flat or declining enrollment and no major increases in state support. Moreover, the savings generated from the consolidation will be used to improve the quality of the education that we offer by hiring new faculty who are trained in the latest and most innovative approaches to their disciplines.

In addition to its focus on student success and quality improvement, The Plan also addressed campus facility needs, focusing on the types of facilities that best support the academic mission.

Consistent with that approach has been the construction of several new dormitories to increase the number of students who live on the campus. The research shows that students who live on campus tend to perform better academically, and that has proven to be the case at WSSU.