(Left to right) Ilene Sheffer, vice chancellor of public affairs and university advancement at IU South Bend; Ernestine Raclin, chair of the capital campaign; and Una Mae Reck, chancellor, IU South Bend.

I want to wish all of you a happy and healthy new year as we embark on the 2004 spring semester.

IU South Bend started the new semester with a very upbeat all-campus meeting. My comments included some heartwarming remarks from Mark Royer, a 2003 graduate in chemistry from our campus. Mark had just finished his final exams at the IU School of Medicine at the IU South Bend Center for Medical Education.

Mark’s note to me was a touching “thank you” to the IU family for preparing him so well. As he sits side-by-side today with Yale, Notre Dame and Brown graduates, he feels an equal partner in preparation and commitment because of his extraordinary IU South Bend bachelor degree experience.

Mark Royer’s words bring us to the topic of enrollment management. We at IU South Bend are committed to becoming enrollment champions. It is every employee’s responsibility to make sure all of our potential students are successfully guided toward being future alumni the minute they tour our campus for the first time.

In addition, our Campus Directions Committee is completing the strategic planning process for our university. The plan, along with unit action plans, will be completed this spring. As a result, the campus has been able to take a long, serious look at itself via this process.

We are charting our future at IU South Bend and the initiatives you will read in this “IU Home Pages” special section echo the excitement we feel on our campus.

Whether it is the informatics program, our math whizzes, the nursing minor with holistic health components, our career placement Job Lab, student life options or our robotics projects, the enthusiasm on campus is electrifying.

Thank you for your support with our initiatives. Great things are happening at IU South Bend!

Sincerely,

Una Mae Reck

Chancellor, IU South Bend