Oliver urges employees to ‘build a winning team’

Special the The Mississippi Link

ITTA BENA – Mississippi Valley State University faculty and staff heard from their new leader on Monday as Donna H. Oliver, Ph.D, delivered her first official University address as president of the institution.

Oliver, the first female and sixth president to guide the four-year historically black university, was named president on Oct. 21, 2008 by the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning.

Oliver’s address, “Building A Winning Team: Choices, Not Chance, Determine Our Destiny,” described how the faculty and staff can assist in building the best team to carry out the university’s mission.

Oliver told Valley employees that “making the choice to work as a team will help us achieve our vision and ensure excellence and integrity in everything we do – if we choose today to build a winning team then we will not leave our destiny to chance.”

Oliver said academic excellence will be a top priority.

“We must – and we will – move quickly to ensure that all of our majors embrace and exude excellence, offering increased academic rigor and relevance to the demands of a 21st century business, economically-challenged and professional society. We must move swiftly to have our distinguished faculty demonstrate excellence and address areas of concern in the academic program and our faculty must have the resources they need to do this, including technology. We must and we will have academic leaders at all levels who will encourage and embrace the New Academy concept as defined by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U),” she continued.

The former provost and vice president at Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Fla., urged her new colleagues to work toward solving problems.

“I recognize there are problems here, but every organization on this earth has problems, the nation has problems – health care, homelessness, an economic crisis, dare I mention global warming? However, we must not dwell on the problem but rather engage in problem solving – and indeed we will. Everyone in this room has the capacity to problem solve. I have heard about many of them from many individuals. Where there are “real problems,” not perceived, we will review them, identify the cause(s), strategically plan to eradicate them with dignity and professionalism. We will not attack people, we will attack the problem. Problems will be solved, where appropriate, by the team,” Oliver stated.

“This semester we will spend a great deal of time assessing our status in every area of the university. My plan is to have a team of external evaluators come in and conduct a very thorough, comprehensive, unbiased assessment of our university. I would hope to begin this process in the next two to three weeks. By the end of my first 100 days, depending on the work of the consultants and my own observations and assessment, we should be ready to come forward with a framework for change that as a Valley team we can strategically plan our work and work the plan. Some changes will be seen as soon as next month,” she said.

Mississippi Valley State employees more than 565 full-time and part-time employees at the Itta Bena campus and at two satellite facilities in Greenville and Greenwood.

To read the speech in full, go to www.mvsu.edu. Oliver also has begun a blog to keep in touch with alumni and friends of the University, as well as students, faculty and staff. To read her postings, go to http://www.mvsu.edu.

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