100 Days as UM President
Colleagues,
When I accepted this job, I thought I understood the University of Montana. (This isn’t the kind of job you take on without doing your homework multiple times over.) I understood the challenges. I understood the changing economics of higher education. I understood the enrollment pressures and the legitimate questions the public is asking about the value of higher education. Though I knew the University was gaining momentum, I also knew hard work and difficult decisions lay ahead. Fortunately, my assessment of the challenges has largely proven accurate. However, I didn’t fully grasp the opportunities in front of us. One hundred days into my tenure as president of UM, I couldn’t be more excited about where we can go from here. In fact, I’m more optimistic today than I was when I moved boxes into my Main Hall office on July 1.
Having navigated multiple other presidential transitions during my career, I understood when I arrived that a large segment of the University community expected me to move quickly, introduce new initiatives, and make visible changes. I not only understand that expectation, but I also feel it instinctively. So, despite numerous invitations to begin articulating my priorities, I’ve done my best to resist both the instinct and the expectation. For the first 99 days, I believed it was important to make the time and space for wisdom to find me. I committed to understanding first what needs to be preserved before focusing on what needs to change. UM has so many strengths to leverage toward the future we want to create, and I didn’t want my biases and assumptions to keep me from seeing them.
So what have I been up to?
I’m meeting scores of new people every week, building relationships, and doing deep dives into key operational areas. I’m getting acquainted with UM students, faculty, and staff, and because external relationships are so important to UM’s future, I’m also traveling the state connecting with alumni, supporters, business leaders, and policymakers. I’m listening, learning, and noticing. Through this process, I’m arriving at an important realization that I hope everyone on campus can embrace:
We should consider ourselves second to no other university in America.
I don’t mean this as hyperbole. I don’t mean it as a boast. I also understand traditional higher education metrics, how rankings work, and what is commonly valued and given prestige. I also don’t mean this as a claim that we have it all figured out. We absolutely don’t. I mean it as a statement about how I believe we should think of ourselves. This is a remarkable university. We are a centerpiece of this community. We do work that matters. I understand this kind of thinking runs counter to what I would describe as a culture of understatement or excessive modesty at UM. Humility is a virtue (and one we express well), but I believe we can and should be much louder about all the ways the University of Montana is excellent. And we should also be honest about where we still fall short.
So as we move forward together, I invite you to join me in asking (and answering) a few simple questions:
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How do we make it easier for students to succeed?
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How do we become the university Montana needs us to be?
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What do we need to change (and preserve) to get there?
I sincerely believe we have extraordinary opportunity in front of us, and I believe our best days are ahead of us. Not because the challenges I anticipated haven’t materialized, but because I now have a much clearer sense of what we have to work with: We have remarkable people. We have a remarkable place. We have a mission worth investing in.
There is nowhere I’d rather be and nothing I’d rather be doing.
I’m grateful that we get to build what comes next…together.
For Montana,
Jeremiah
This message was sent by UM Internal Communications on behalf of the Office of the President to all UM employees.