Elon University President Connie Book sat down with Elon News Network to discuss the Elon-Queens merger, the Boldly Elon initiatives and campus expansions.<\/p>\n
This interview was edited for clarity.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re just coming back from a summer of transition with the university. Tell me a little bit about all the things that happened this summer and how we\u2019re going into the fall with those?<\/p>\n
This summer was a historic summer, so I serve as a trustee for our accreditor. So the accreditation review that was required associated with our merger with Queens University. Because I\u2019m a trustee, I was at the meeting to actually hear the decision. And so\u00a0 I had to recuse myself because it involved the university. But as I was standing in the back of the room watching the vote take place, it was really exciting for me. And just the unanimous support of everyone about the merger means a lot. So that happened on June 11. When the accreditor says you\u2019re good to go, then that triggers a federal process. So once we got the nod from our accreditor, we had ten days to take it to the federal government to begin the federal process. We met that window. They required us to provide financial audited statements of our two institutions and what they look like together within 30 days. So we were very busy this summer getting that filing together. So we filed that on July 30th. Now for the federal merger to be finalized, it does have to be approved by the Department of Ed. This part of the process doesn\u2019t have a timeline. We\u2019re not able to say exactly when it will come in. But if you look at mergers where Northeastern has had a change of control and merged and taken over operations for Marymount and Villanova with Cabrini, they\u2019re usually running about 18 to 24 months.<\/p>\n
Tell me what success looks like in five years, if this merger goes through?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think we\u2019re already feeling some of the impact of success. We\u2019ve announced that our law school will start a full-time program on the Queens campus beginning fall of ’27. We also have been talking several years about our really exciting physician assistant program. We had a very good site-visit in May from the accreditor for physician assistant, and we\u2019ll hear that decision in October. So we\u2019re all anticipating a January start to that program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019re already seeing some of the opportunities we wanted to unfold for Elon. We have this beautiful 700 acres here in Alamance County, and now we have this wonderful 20 acres, this dynamic urban environment that our students can pursue graduate studies and some internship and semester Study USA programs like the one we run in sport. I imagine more of these coming. The business school has developed a co-op year, a three plus a co-op, and that co-op would be in Charlotte. So we\u2019re imagining students would live at Queens and complete a co-op in their senior year.<\/p>\n
To me, this gives Elon students the best of both options: a beautiful residential setting here in Alamance County, but they can also think about that semester in a dynamic city, one of the world\u2019s fastest growing cities and a wonderful place to be. So many Elon alums in Charlotte and now Queens alumni joining us in a really exciting proposition.<\/p>\n
The deadline for the Boldly Elon Strategic Plan is 2030. Tell me about what progress looks like today?<\/p>\n
In 2030, we have a goal, a really important goal that our endowment is going to reach $625 million. And so we\u2019re doing all the modeling and we are going to exceed that goal, so I\u2019m really excited. Elon\u2019s endowment should be about $640 million by 2030. And we just cleared $500 million. People can do a lot of things with their wealth, and I\u2019m so grateful when they say, \u2018Hey, we want to make a difference in someone else\u2019s life by providing a scholarship.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
So we just crossed the $500 million. And with Queens, with the merger, we assume the assets of that endowment. Most of our endowment goes to scholarships and their endowment’s roughly $185 million. So I\u2019ve been saying by 2030 we\u2019re going to have a $1 billion endowment. So I do think when you think about size and scale, we are stronger together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll be at 8,500 students together, and we will grow a few graduate students. But we actually think our undergraduate numbers are about right. We need to keep the size we are, but we\u2019re trying to make sure our curriculum stays meaningful, not just grow. We\u2019re thinking about graduate growth, the accelerated pathways where you come to Elon for three years, then you go to the law school or the PA or PT program, as well as these other graduate programs. I do think there\u2019ll be more of those. So the faculty are working on some ideas. We don\u2019t have anything necessarily queued up right now, but I do think there\u2019ll be more of those.<\/p>\n
Tell me about the progress on Roberts Academy?<\/p>\n
We did open in the temporary facility with third and fourth grade. And we did hire two Elon grads. Why not go to the talent that you know?\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the other elements of this gift is a Center for Engaged Learning and Experiential Education, to train teachers in using the Orton-Gillingham method. That will be open to all teachers, which I love this about the Roberts family, that if you can\u2019t go to the school, then let\u2019s also work to solve the other issue because it takes, it\u2019s an intense certification and it can be expensive. So this way they can afford it. It\u2019s within reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We did spend the summer plotting where should this school be? But we were able to secure some land between the Danieley Center and the Francis Center. So there\u2019s houses on it now, but we are imagining that that\u2019s where you\u2019ll have spots for first through sixth grade students. We worked with the architect to turn the school sideways, so the pickup line will be in the interior and not on the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I do think what\u2019s nice about it is Elon students who are studying special ed will be able to walk to the school. I didn\u2019t want it so far away that it wasn\u2019t accessible for student teaching and that kind of thing. I think we\u2019ve landed on a good solution.<\/p>\n
Do you have any updates on the progress of the Slattery Center?\u00a0<\/p>\n
We are hoping by mid-October that we are moving the equipment and things in and have at least a partial certificate of occupancy. The thing about that building is there\u2019s a lot of equipment. You\u2019ve got exercise science labs, you\u2019ve got all the workout equipment, you\u2019ve got a bouldering wall, a rock climbing, all that kind of stuff, so it requires training to use. So what we\u2019re hoping is that we can get all the equipment moved in, and the people and the student workers trained in November and December, so that when we come back in January, it\u2019s fully operational.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s a big project. We\u2019ve exceeded our fundraising goal. We\u2019re very grateful to the Slattery family for saying that this is a building that represented their values and wanted to support our goals around well-being.<\/p>\n
The university released its newest version of its artificial intelligence student guide. What do you hope an Elon grad could get out of knowing how to use AI?<\/p>\n
It actually was a pretty big summer for AI and Elon. We renamed the business analytics degree analytics and AI. We teach AI across all disciplines. You know, I think the faculty\u2019s position has been that you need to be teaching students, \u2018This is how our discipline interacts with AI.\u2019<\/p>\n
I like the fact that we have a group who doesn\u2019t embrace AI, intentionally saying, \u2018No, I don\u2019t want to use that.\u2019 I actually think that\u2019s good for our students to hear the continuum of thought about AI.<\/p>\n
We also have an AI hub, and it\u2019s got a toolbox with 100 tools in it for faculty, staff and students. And we set up an AI sandbox so people can go practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over 3,000 universities and colleges have downloaded this, I think because it is talking about humanity and human intelligence in the middle of all this artificial intelligence that people are very interested in. And more in this considering these challenges of humanity and integrity and ethics and how do we know that we know something? And this is really the work of hard work of faculty is around assessment, because we used to just ask you to write a paper and or answer this multiple choice. Well, both of those can be delivered with AI. So it\u2019s really more important what question you\u2019re asking because the question will let us know if you know it. But the faculty are going to have to redesign how they assess learning. And that\u2019s going to take work.<\/p>\n
What are you most excited for about this new HealthEU center?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m super excited that it has an indoor track on the upper part, and I will be using that indoor track. I\u2019m also excited that we have like a traditional swimming pool with viewing, you know? So we\u2019ll see. Well, you know, it\u2019s all set up, so we\u2019ll definitely enhance our club. But locally we\u2019re going to have a lot more community engagement with this Slattery Center. So in the same way community people can use our library, we are thinking that community people will be able to use the Slattery Center.<\/p>\n
It was a summer of transition and now it seems like we are entering a fall of transition. As president, what are you most excited for?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s going to be a really good year. You know I\u2019m excited about the Slattery Center. We\u2019ve got\u00a0 very exciting Homecoming plans, which I want to talk about it, but I can\u2019t. It will be fun and exciting.<\/p>\n
As the president, my head space is always like five years ahead trying to think, where do we need to be in five years? If you notice across from the Inn at Elon, there was a house there, and students might have noticed when they came back there was no more house there.<\/p>\n
So Elon was able to secure that property across from the Inn at Elon, just across the way, and that\u2019s where we\u2019re imagining our new Performing Arts Center is going to be. So as soon as the Slattery Center\u2019s finished, I\u2019ll start working on raising money for the new performing arts center. This will be transformative to our community. Of course, we have really talented performing arts students, and they\u2019re going to be so excited about this new aspect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So in short, there is so much to be excited about. I was excited about the Princeton Review rankings. We look at the 15 categories that we got named in, all good things and students did that. That\u2019s a student survey. And I was like, look at our students, so happy and smart and doing great things. It made me really proud to read that list and to know that our students feel that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon University President Connie Book sat down with Elon News Network to discuss the Elon-Queens merger, the Boldly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-349724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}