Search Communication
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Message from the President
Over the last six weeks I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet many of you in person - though I still have a personal commitment to visit each campus and meet many more members of our community. I am moved by this amazing university and the individuals who comprise it. I am honored to serve as its 11th president and I thank you all for the very warm welcome and for the commitment to our students.
We are poised at a critical crossroad in higher education today. The academy is being asked to be more transparent, more accountable, demonstrate greater success with measurable results, focus on innovation and creativity, and do it quickly with fewer dollars. There are many out there who view this as a recipe for disaster. Those naysayers and doubters do not understand the opportunity that lies before us. Higher education must change - it must be able to innovate, increase access to students, and still achieve excellence. Does that sound familiar?
No institution is better prepared to embrace this challenge than National-Louis University. It is part of our DNA - we identify needs, build innovative solutions with excellent outcomes, and we surely know the meaning of managing limited resources. This is NLU's foundation, its legacy, and it represents its future. Our mission mandates us to serve those that need us the most and who serve others - our students, the students of our students, and the communities in which our graduates work. Colleagues - this is who we are, and I believe this is what resonates in the heart of National-Louis University.
I have learned many wonderful things about NLU over the last few weeks. This is a community that values civility and collaboration; it is a community with a great deal of compassion; and it is a place that is committed to preparing future leaders. Our faculty and staff are dedicated and committed to our students, academic excellence and the institution that we all love. Our university prides itself on the transformative experiences it provides for those it serves - it is a noble mission. We embrace the focus on social justice.
It is also clear that we have many opportunities for improvement. For example, I certainly have heard a resounding need for consistent and open communication, and so I will be sending out updates from time to time to share progress and information. I will challenge the Leadership Team, Academic Cabinet, and others to do the same.
In my last communication, I announced to the community that we had reorganized a number of our departments to position us for future success. We are now working with our internal teams and a search agency to identify candidates for the Vice President of Marketing and the Vice President of Enrollment. Candidates for these positions, key to our future growth and status, will be vetted with the leadership team. We are also interviewing search firms to determine who is best suited to undertake our provost search, and following that we will establish a search committee and share our process for this important search.
There are several pockets across the university where data is a key part of decision-making, but overall there is not enough focus on the key metrics for our institution. Without good metrics, it is difficult to establish clear and specific goals where we benchmark our progress as individuals, departments, colleges, and as an institution. Work is underway to understand our enrollment patterns, marketing outcomes, employment outcomes, retention metrics, academic outcomes etc. and they will be shared as we develop them.
We have a wonderful student body that is committed to their education at NLU. We have many examples of excellence in teaching and service but overall our service is uneven. Service excellence is a key differentiator in today's economy, and NLU most certainly can be outstanding in this area. Accordingly, we are undertaking a university-wide initiative for service excellence.
Next year is NLU's 125th anniversary. What a wonderful opportunity to build on several key initiatives. We need to build a strong vibrant alumni network, establish a strong and structured institutional advancement plan, position NLU successfully against its competition, leverage technology, define innovation and excellence, continue to foster diversity and inclusion, and build the next strategic plan. While we will be facing heavy economic headwinds, there are not many institutions that have 125 years of wind at its back.
NLU is poised to continue to fulfill dreams and aspirations of our students and through them to change our world. I am honored to be working amongst so much talent and commitment. I enthusiastically look forward to the conversations and dialogue, followed by the implementation of our plans for tomorrow's NLU.
March 12, 2010
TO: NLU Community
FROM: Richard M. Ross, Jr., Chairman, Board of Trustees
Scott C. Smith, Chairman, Presidential Search Committee
Since our announcement Monday of the appointment of Dr. Nivine Megahed as NLU's 11th president, she has begun meeting informally with faculty and staff at several campuses and across the colleges. Nivine is very appreciative of the warm welcome and looks forward to getting to know more of you in the NLU community in the weeks and months ahead.
During the search process, a web site was created, along with an email address, so that members of the NLU community could get updates about the process and provide input to the members of the committee. We hope you will continue to visit the site, now renamed NLU President, to learn more about the selection process and about Nivine's background. We've posted her complete curriculum vitae and the letter she sent the Search Committee summarizing her deep interest in NLU. You'll be hearing more from Nivine directly very soon.
We also want to take this opportunity to address one question that was raised: why the university community didn't get a chance to meet Nivine or other candidates to provide input before the selection was announced? The Trustees are committed to fostering healthy communications with all University stakeholders and to the principles of shared governance. With these goals in mind, we created a talented and diverse presidential search committee of 18 members from all segments of the university. The committee's charge was to conduct a thorough and thoughtful search representing our collective best interests. The search committee worked hard to ensure transparency in their approach and incorporate input from the NLU community in framing the position and key criteria for selecting our next president.
The candidates considered and the committee's deliberations within this framework were kept confidential to assure we attracted the very best candidates. In today's higher education world, candidates who are highly successful and valued in their current roles frequently do not want to participate in a public process that could be disruptive for them and their current institutions. This was true of all of our finalists, including Dr. Megahed. We hope this answer is helpful and that you place trust in the approach to this key decision made by the committee and trustees on behalf of us all.
Please visit this site for more information about Dr. Megahed, as well as the groups with whom she has met or will meet soon. Thank you very much for your commitment to NLU. We are excited about our future together!
Best regards,
Dick and Scott
March 8, 2010
TO: The NLU Community
FROM: Richard M. Ross, Jr., Chairman, Board of Trustees
Scott C. Smith, Presidential Search Committee Chairman
We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Nivine Megahed will become the 11th president of National-Louis University. Dr. Megahed is an outstanding leader and educator with 20 years experience in higher education successfully serving diverse students and communities. The appointment of our new president was made by the NLU Board of Trustees based on the recommendation of the Presidential Search Committee comprised of 18 of your colleagues from across the University community, including faculty, staff, student, alumni and trustee representatives. The selection culminates a nine-month national search that identified a number of highly talented candidates who were considered by the committee before reaching their clear choice.
Dr. Megahed is totally committed to advancing NLU's mission of innovation, access and excellence. She is excited about engaging the entire university community in distinctive academic programs and services to effectively meet the changing needs of our students and communities. She will work closely with George Litman, who will continue in an important leadership role. We thank George for his excellent guidance as our interim president since last July.
We will be arranging a series of informal meetings and campus visits over the next few weeks to introduce Dr. Megahed to the NLU community. A schedule will be forthcoming soon. She looks forward to talking to as many of you as possible in the weeks ahead to begin exchanging perspectives about NLU's future.
Dr. Megahed, who is Egyptian by birth, grew up in New York State and has a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Rochester. Her career in higher education began as a faculty member at the Georgia School of Professional Psychology. She progressed to become campus dean at the American School of Professional Psychology in Hawaii, then president of IMPAC University and the University of Sarasota in Florida. Her responsibilities expanded as she was promoted to group vice president at Education Management and then at Kaplan -- two of the leading companies in higher education. In these roles, she was responsible for 12 to 25 campuses with up to 15,000 students. Since 2006, she has served as president of Kendall College here in Chicago. Throughout her career, she has built a very successful track record of engaging faculty, staff and students to build quality academic programs with growing enrollments, good accrediting relationships, and solid financial results.
Through extensive dialogue over the past several months, she has developed a solid appreciation of NLU-our heritage, culture, strengths, problems and opportunities. The Trustees and Search Committee are confident that Nivine, with her excellent leadership qualities, experience and commitment to our mission, will be an outstanding next president.
Nivine looks forward to working with all of us to help National-Louis improve and grow. We ask you to join in enthusiastically welcoming her to our unique university.
December 1, 2009
To: The NLU Community
From: Scott Smith, Chair, Presidential Search Committee
Date: December 1, 2009
Re: Update on the Presidential Search
The Presidential Search Committee met for the fourth time today to review potential candidates to become NLU’s next president. The candidate pool includes over 30 people who contacted National-Louis about the opportunity and more than 50 individuals our search firm, Isaacson, Miller identified through their work.
Out of this broad pool, the Committee has decided to focus on ten strong candidates whom we intend to interview in person before the end of the year. The Committee feels very positive about the qualifications of these candidates. They include College Presidents, Provosts, Deans and other Senior Executives with less traditional backgrounds. The candidates represent very diverse experiences and ethnic backgrounds. All have strong academic credentials and have expressed great interest in NLU’s mission, priorities and future opportunities.
If you have questions and/or comments beyond those expressed in our town hall meetings, please share them with a committee member, appreciating that our next phase of interviews and in-depth candidate review is very confidential. Early in the New Year, we expect to be in a position to communicate with you further on final candidates.
We appreciate your continued focus on all of the important everyday activities at National-Louis and are confident we are on a solid path to select a terrific individual as president to lead NLU forward.
August 26, 2009
TO: The NLU Community
FROM: Scott C. Smith, Chair, Presidential Search Committee
The Presidential Search Committee would like to give you an update on the good progress we are making towards the selection of NLU’s next President.
The committee has met twice with the consultants from Isaacson, Miller (IM), the firm we have engaged to assist us in the search. IM specializes in higher education, having completed over 30 searches for college and university presidents in the past three years. Gale Merseth, a former business school professor and dean, leads our IM team. He and his colleagues have also met with... view full text.
June 30, 2009
TO: NLU Community
FROM: Richard M. Ross, Jr., Chairman, Board of Trustees
RE: Presidential Search Committee
I am pleased to announce the appointment of the 18 member search committee for the 10th President of National-Louis University.
The members of the committee are as follows: view full text.