Vice President & Chief Operations Officer's Message
Dear faculty colleagues,
Greetings from the Whitworth campus, where the hot summer months remain busy for the finance & administration team, with new projects getting underway, regular building and grounds maintenance progressing at a fever pitch, financial audit preparation ramping up, and multiple technology upgrades being implemented. Highlights include:
Construction on the new PACCAR Engineering Building is nearing completion. The exterior of the building has been completely enclosed and final work is underway on the interior labs, classrooms, offices and common areas. We are ahead of schedule and on budget, with furnishing of the building to begin later in fall in anticipation of the building being available for occupancy in January. Remodeling of many areas of the Johnston Science Center are also underway as part of the overall project.
Regular facilities maintenance projects underway. Manicured lawns, beautiful hanging baskets, freshly waxed floors, and sidewalk and courtyard concrete repairs are completed, and road improvements, tree maintenance, and many other beautification and maintenance activities are underway so that we are ready to welcome student as fall quickly approaches. If you have a chance, take a stroll around The Loop; even in the summer heat, it is one of the best places to spend a few minutes of your day.
Software application upgrades, network performance and security enhancements underway. After the successful pilot of the Canvas learning management system, the replacement of Blackboard with a campus-wide installation of Canvas, along with course preparation and training, is nearing completion and will be ready for full use during the fall semester. In early July, we began the campus-wide conversion of our voice telephone services from our legacy Cisco platform to the Microsoft Teams environment, fully integrating voice, conferencing and messaging into a single and more cost-effective platform.
Successfully launched a new partnership with Sodexo for management and growth of summer conference services. Working together, we had one of our busiest conference weeks in recent memory with over 700 overnight camp participants on consecutive days and nights filling our dorms, courts and dining hall with energy and fun. The camps ran smoothly and, as in the past, will yield future Whitworth students as well as important summer revenue.
I’m now 30 months into my role as your COO. And while we continue to face financial challenges, a changing enrollment landscape, and upcoming reductions in need-based funding at the state and federal level, I continue to be optimistic in our ability to work together to achieve the savings and new growth necessary to improve our financial condition for a secure future. We have several new initiatives under consideration and in development that we will be working on and sharing with you as the new year begins. I continue to be amazed at the commitment to excellence and heroic efforts that I see from members of our community across the campus to deliver on the Whitworth promise and mission. It is a pleasure to partner with you. I pray that you are having a wonderful summer of rest, renewal and enjoyment. See you all soon!
Ken Brown