Advancing Shared Missions

I want to thank the entire subcommittee, especially Chairman Regula and Congressman David Obey for the opportunity to testify today.

I appreciate the opportunity, my first, to testify before Congress. It allows me to commend you for the leadership you have provided to the education community, particularly in the four arenas that I would like to focus on today. These are:

1. The ongoing need for federally supported programs targeted to advancing minority and low-income students.
2. The need for ever-increasing assistance to incorporate distance learning and educational technology into the learning process.
3. The need to expand the federal role in advancing international education and understanding through an enhanced global approach to problem-solving.
4. Finally, I remain concerned about the need for us as a nation to focus more resources on the professional development of educational leaders.

Higher education has a responsibility to work together with the federal government to advance these shared missions. Fairleigh Dickinson University has long been committed to these missions, which are aligned and consistent with both national and Congressional agendas.

Fairleigh Dickinson University has a documented history of action, achievement and results. FDU has invested millions of dollars without special federal support and will invest millions more on behalf of public service and educational efforts. In my written statement, which I would like to submit for the record, I have provided the subcommittee with more details. For this brief presentation, however, I would highlight the following:

First, for more than 20 years, FDU has spearheaded a program to ensure both access and success for under-served minority students in higher education. We have developed and supported a model program called Minority Student Support and Achievement - The Enhanced Freshman Experience, a unique, intensive one-year transition program that offers students extensive support during their first critical year that involves peer tutoring, career counseling, one-on-one faculty mentoring, technology-enhanced instruction and what we call "Removing the Barriers" strategy instruction and guidance. The University is prepared to invest an additional $1.6 million into this initiative.

Our Global Virtual Faculty/Center for Interdisciplinary, Distributed and Global Learning is revolutionizing the way Higher Education looks at online distributed learning. We have taken the unique position that if the Internet can reach out to the world, it can also be used to bring the world to our campuses. In addition, we view the Internet as a fundamental learning, research, communication and collaboration tool. Therefore, we have become the first traditional university to require that all undergraduate students take four online courses.

Perhaps the most innovative part of the distance-learning initiative is the introduction of Global Virtual Faculty — professionals and scholars from around the world. Working with our campus-based faculty and interacting with our students on-line, the Global Virtual Faculty bring a global dimension to the learning experience by offering diverse perspectives on the issues being studied.

No other University has undertaken such a transformational initiative. FDU has been recognized in this arena by numerous other universities, the State of New Jersey, and foundations and corporate entities like AT&T. FDU has invested more than $6 million of its own resources into this program.

In this regard, we ask you for support for educational technology, distance learning and international education.

In the area of Public Education Reform – our ALPS Academy for Educational Leadership will help solve a crisis by increasing, improving and diversifying the pool of qualified school leaders and teachers.

This crisis is nationwide. Fifty percent of our teachers and administrators will retire in the next 10 years. That means our nation needs to replace over 2 million teachers in the next decade. Moreover, minority representation among school leaders remains dismally low.

FDU's Academy for Education Leadership will collaborate with the New Jersey Department of Education and state and national professional organizations to develop educational reform models that will dramatically improve the number of qualified teachers and school leaders.

Among its efforts will be:

• Innovative recruitment strategies.
• Standards-based graduate programs and alternative paths.
• Intensive and sustained standards-based professional development programs.
• An impact study of a large urban school district where programs and reform strategies will be piloted, studied and widely disseminated.

Fairleigh Dickinson has been recognized by USDOE and OERI for its work in this arena. FDU and other external resources have generated over $1.6 million in support for this commitment.

FDU is seeking federal support in these areas, as it has never done before, but the focus of my statement is on the importance of a federal partnership that ensures that students have the tools and skills needed to compete and lead in the global economy.

Thank you again for this opportunity.

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