Governor commends Chancellor Sorensen
By LeAnn R. Ralph, Reporter
Tuesday, September 4, 2007 11:45 AM CDT
Chancellor Charles Sorensen’s annual address last Monday to UW-Stout faculty and staff contained a surprise.
It wasn’t a surprise for the faculty and staff, however. It was a surprise for Sorensen.
To celebrate the beginning of Sorensen’s 20th year as chancellor — and to celebrate Stout’s first academic year as Wisconisin’s Polytechnic University, he was presented with a commendation from Governor Jim Doyle.
Doug Mell, director of university communications, made the presentation and read the governor’s proclamation for the certificate of commendation.
The proclamation noted that Sorensen is the longest-serving current chancellor in the University of Wisconsin system. The proclamation also noted that the commendation was appropriate in view of UW-Stout receiving the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Excellence, for Stout’s implementation of technology (including laptop computers being provided to all students), for advancing the cause of women and minorities, for advancing the local economy through the development of the Stout Technology Park and for achieving polytechnic designation.
Team effort
Sorensen’s acceptance was modest, and he refused to take sole credit for all of Stout’s accomplishments in the past few years.
“What we’ve done here has been done as a team. … That’s why I like this university so much,” the chancellor said.
State Senator Sheila Harsdorf acknowledged that Stout has a highly-effective team of administrators, faculty and staff put also pointed out the importance of leadership.
“What you are doing here cannot be recognized enough. It takes a team. … But it also takes a strong leader,” Harsdorf said.
20,000 diplomas
UW-Stout provost Julie Furst-Bowe provided a few statistics about Sorensen’s tenure.
Sorensen came to UW-Stout in 1988 after serving at Winona State University for four years as the academic vice president, she said.
In the time he has been at Stout, the chancellor has awarded 20,607 undergraduate diplomas and 4,432 diplomas to graduate students, Furst-Bowe told the crowd of faculty and staff assembled in the Memorial Student Union’s Great Hall.
In the past 20 years, Stout has added many new programs, and several new majors are in the process of being added now, including polymer technology and cognitive neuroscience.
Furst-Bowe also noted that the university has spent $8.5 million over the past few years to expand laboratory facilities.
Opening address
During his opening address, Sorensen said that higher education nationwide has made the mistake of trying to be all things to all people, and that it is important for a university to maintain a focused mission to provide a framework for program planning.
Stout officials hope to add 10 new programs in the next 10 years, including programs in the social sciences, a Master of Fine Arts, programs in the cognitive sciences and two new engineering programs.
“We are aggressively planning,” Sorensen stated, adding that in the last two years, the university has spent $150,000 to assist faculty members in incubating ideas for new programs.
30 programs
Stout currently has 30 programs and should have at least 40 programs. UW-Eau Claire and UW-Whitewater both offer about 80 programs, and UW-Superior, which is smaller than Stout, has 45 to 50 programs, Sorensen noted.
Students who are looking for a university say they like the campus and that they like the faculty and staff at Stout, but that the university does not have the program they want, so they go elsewhere, the chancellor said.
Stout also needs a research discovery center for applied research, and the university must do more fund raising to make up for decreases in state and federal funding, Sorensen concluded.
LeAnn Ralph can be reached at leann.ralph@lee.net. |
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