Chapter 1: A Strong Academic Foundation
ing, supervising the initial accreditation process and stressing the importance of interdisciplinary education. It was up to the college’s second president to guide SVSU through its adolescent phase. Jack Ryder arrived at the college in 1974 during a time of economic recession, threats of legislative budget cuts and nagging rumors that the state government wished to repurpose the college campus into a prison. Ryder recalls that while getting a haircut soon after arriving in Saginaw, the barber referred to Saginaw Valley College as a “community college.” At that point, Ryder made it his mission to change the image of SVC both locally and in Lansing. He and his wife, Lila, carefully crafted an image of the college, and later the university, as a teaching institution and a community resource. Because his background prior to his career in higher education was in secondary school administration, including a brief stint in Saginaw County in the 1950s, Ryder maintained that the university’s primary emphasis was providing a high-quality education for its students. Ryder retired in 1989, handing over the university to Gilbertson who would see it through an era of maturation. The previous presidents had left a legacy of intelligent employment of resources, creation of innovative academics, cultivation of community involvement and thoughtful planning.2 Gilbertson embraced these principles, using them to structure his vision for SVSU’s growth over the ensuing 25 years. He shared this vision with the larger university community a few months after arriving, when he delivered his first State of the University Address on Jan. 18, 1990. He called for the creation of a planning task force, comprised of representatives from administration, faculty, staff, students and the public. They would study ways to maximize the university’s mission as a teaching institution in the midst of a Michigan economy recovering from recession and facing declining numbers of high school graduates. One year later, the task force released its report, “Promises to Keep.” It was the first such comprehensive planning document published by the university in nearly 20 years. It outlined a strategy of careful physical expansion, promotion of ethnic and racial diversity in the staff and student populations and development of quality academics that would involve students in work outside the classroom; plans to expand opportunities for faculty and students to study abroad and participate in international exchanges were included in the document. Although SVSU regularly updated its planning vision every four or five years during his tenure, the principles articulated by Gilbertson during his first year in office remained remarkably consistent. Over the next two and a half decades, SVSU would become even more rooted in its mission to be an institution of quality undergraduate education, a supporter of innovative research and scholarship, a regional center for cultural enrichment and a proponent of global economic entrepreneurialism.3
Accreditation
A strong university is built on a foundation of quality academics. For SVSU, this meant that its departments and colleges faced periodic external review by national evaluation organizations to attain accreditation, indicating they met or exceeded stringent standards for excellence. All professional programs at SVSU have achieved accreditation or reaccredita-
3
Promises to Keep
