Hallick shares plans

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Pacific University President Lesley Hallick visited the Undergraduate Student Senate meeting on Oct. 27 and spoke on diversity, enrollment and future plans and goals for the university, in front of student representatives from all areas of the Forest Grove campus.
Hallick, who is now in her seventh year as president, joined the Senate meeting at 12:05 p.m., took a seat at the head of the table located in the library’s second floor conference room and immediately began speaking on diversity. According to Hallick, the administration is currently in the process of creating a new program on campus called the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion program. This program, which is in its very early stages of development, is being designed to include within its roles on campus a diversity coordination function, a diversity incident resolution function and development of leadership roles function. “The point is to establish a key leadership position and a program, or infrastructure, around that leader so that there is a place for students and faculty to go when a problem arises relating to diversity,” Hallick said.
“Also so that programs can be developed and infrastructures can be balanced.” Hallick explained that the program would seek out new and motivated workers that the university could bring to campus to begin work and that eventually a leader for the program would be selected from that same group. According to Hallick, the goal is to find a leader who does not have to be told what to do, but rather has the vision and drive to take charge and develop the program in their own way. Hallick also touched on the issue of enrollment and the fact that only 3,942 people were enrolled for the 2016-2017 fall semester. Although the numbers for this year were lower than expected, Hallick is hopeful and certain that the university will be able to reach its goal of enrolling 4,000 students by 2020. According to Hallick, the university is considering doing more work and has plans to double its approach with recruitment this year, especially after there was a significant drop in the number of California students enrolled this semester. However, Hallick was happy to share with the Senate that the retention rate for freshmen and sophomores is currently up by five percent from last year and mentioned that retention was even more important than recruitment. 
As a result of the low enrollment numbers, the College of Arts and Sciences did not meet its budgetary target for the year, making the budget tight but, according to Hallick, the budget curveball has not caused any severe problems or massive layoffs. Hallick also explained that the budget was tight as a result of the university giving out more scholarships and discounts on tuition. For Hallick, working with and further developing diversity and sustainability on campus are of utmost importance in the coming years and the things she plans to focus working on. Hallick ended the meeting by talking about the importance of student and faculty connectedness. She noted that the most compelling and heartwarming stories that she had heard from alumni over the years had to do with professors personally helping students during a time of need or crisis. 
Hallick asserted her hope that Pacific students and faculty continue to have that same type of connection and bond moving forward into the future and that the Pacific community remains close so that these same type of personalized connections will 
continue to form.

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