January 14, 2008
To the Campus Community:
I am delighted and honored to be your new president. I am pleased to welcome the students, faculty and staff to the Spring Semester of 2008 at Bloomsburg University. I hope you are all as excited about the new semester as I am.
I had a busy and informative first week on our beautiful campus, and I certainly appreciated the unseasonably warm weather as I walked around campus several times. In addition to meeting some members of the campus community last week, as most students and many faculty were still away on Winter Break, I was able to meet with: Bloomsburg Town Council, Bloomsburg University Council of Trustees, PASSHE Board of Governors, Chancellor Hample, my fellow PASSHE presidents, the new chair of the Bloomsburg University Foundation, and Senator John Gordner and Representative David Millard. I also had the opportunity to attend most of a wrestling meet in which our student athletes did very well. On Saturday afternoon I enjoyed welcoming to campus about 240 new freshman and transfer students and their families.
I intend to spend this semester learning about Bloomsburg University by actively listening to and asking questions of all of the constituent groups on campus, in the Town of Bloomsburg and in the regional community. My goal is to meet with every academic, administrative and service department to get broad input into the direction the university needs to take. I am particularly interested in talking with as many faculty groups and individuals as possible. To facilitate discussion I am going to set up two hours per week of open office hours. The only requirement for scheduling a 20 minute appointment during those hours is that I need to hear both the positive and negative things about BU. I intend to eat lunch as often as possible in Scranton Commons or Monty's. Please feel free to join me there. There also will be opportunities for me to have group lunches or breakfasts with faculty, staff and/or students. I am committed to succeeding with a steep learning curve and I realize that it will take me more than one semester to fully understand Bloomsburg University.
Major goals of mine are to build upon the strengths of Bloomsburg University to create an even greater sense of community and to lead the university in becoming respected nationally for strong academic programs and highly valued degrees that prepare our students for life-long success in a global society. To that end I will be implementing a strategic planning process that includes updating the campus master plan. We soon will engage in a major comprehensive fundraising campaign to support our advancement of academic excellence. BU is a university with dedicated and high achieving faculty and staff, and committed and successful students and alumni. Together we can take Bloomsburg University to the next level and beyond. Please join me in this exciting and essential effort.
Sincerely,
David L. Soltz
President
Bloomsburg University
400 East Second Street
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
570-389-4526