The AU community must work now to pass on an even stronger university to future generations, AU President Neil Kerwin said during a speech at his inauguration ceremony Friday in Bender Arena.
"[AU] will always command the best that I have to give, and I will ask the same from each of you," he said. "If we can deliver that level of commitment and that level of effort, a generation from now ... another president on another stage will be able to convey a new history, and he or she will list all the wonderful things that would not have happened without our creativity, our courage and our dedication."
Kerwin said he thought the university would need to use its past actions as a guide for its future plans. He then outlined how each of AU's schools and programs could benefit from revisiting past milestones as the university moves forward with a new strategic planning process.
Kerwin recently announced he was forming a 17-member steering committee for the strategic planning process and would also form working groups to focus on specialized areas of the plan. Kerwin will ask the board to approve a scope of the plan at their meeting Feb. 28 and 29.
Kerwin spoke after board of trustees Chairman Gary Abramson formally installed him as the university's president.
"You begin your tenure at a period in our nation's, indeed our world's, history when lofty ideals and their relationship to our daily conduct are undergoing renewed scrutiny and debate," Abramson said. "In this time of great challenge, we look to you to lead this university - our university - with concern for these high ideals and also for the needs of the campus, the community, the nation and the world."
Faculty trustee Jonathan Loesberg and student trustee Marc Tomik then joined Abramson onstage to give Kerwin two items meant to symbolize the university's presidency - a presidential medallion and copies of the university's bylaws and original 1891 acts of incorporation.
Student Government President Joe Vidulich presented Kerwin with an AU men's basketball jersey bearing his name.
"See, many do not know that Dr. Kerwin wanted to be on the men's basketball team here at AU," he said. "We thought it would be appropriate to make him an honorary member of our team: an MVP - Most Valuable President."
Other speakers also presented Kerwin with gifts symbolizing different aspects of the university. Faculty Senate Chair Gary Weaver gave Kerwin a painting by late College of Arts and Sciences professor Ron Haynie; Alumni Board President Brian Keane gave him a framed photograph of the Friedheim Quadrangle; Associate Provost for Administration Violeta Ettle and Staff Council Chair Aaron Tobler gave him an heirloom compass to symbolize his future guidance of the university; and the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, a member of the board and general secretary of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Higher Education, gave Kerwin a bust of church founder John Wesley.
Kerwin officially became the university's president Sept 1. Kerwin had served as acting and interim president since Aug. 24, 2005, after the board suspended then-President Benjamin Ladner in the midst of an investigation into allegations that he misused university funds. Ladner later resigned after the board voted to fire him. They began a formal search for a new president in September 2006 after enacting a set of governance reforms. The board voted to give Kerwin the position on a permanent basis July 20.
Keane said in a speech during the ceremony that Kerwin, a 1971 graduate from what is now the School of Public Affairs, is the university's first alumnus to become the institution's president.
"But the excitement today is not simply that one of our own is becoming president - it is that this particular alum is becoming president," he said.
