{"id":66738,"date":"2022-08-24T08:18:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T15:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=66738"},"modified":"2022-08-24T08:18:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T15:18:12","slug":"2022-university-convocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/2022-university-convocation\/","title":{"rendered":"The year that will be: NAU&#8217;s inaugural University Convocation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday, hundreds of faculty and staff attended the inaugural University Convocation, both in-person and online, to hear from President <strong>Jos\u00e9 Luis Cruz Rivera<\/strong> about his vision for the coming academic year.<\/p>\n<p>President Cruz Rivera talked about <a href=\"https:\/\/nau.edu\/legacy\/strategic-roadmap\/\"><em>NAU 2025 \u2013 Elevating Excellence<\/em><\/a> and NAU\u2019s bold vision for the future that seeks to meet Arizona\u2019s attainment imperative by delivering access to an exceptional, accessible, high-quality postsecondary credentials that will drive economic mobility and social impact for generations of Arizonans to come.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what I shared with my leadership team on my first day as president of NAU, and my advice was to seize today as if it was your first day, with the same awe, enthusiasm, humility, excitement and sense of possibility as you had your first day as a faculty, staff or student at NAU,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be the same advice I give you next year because there\u2019s no real time to be distracted from the hard, important work ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Northern Arizona University Highlights of 2021-2022\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7T0pB8mdptg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>He also talked about his three overarching goals for the coming year, which are:<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The New NAU System<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>University leaders have spent significant time this year mapping out what the New NAU system looks like. That system includes a physical presence statewide. Right now, NAU has 20 sites throughout the state in addition to the Flagstaff campus. Most of those are partnerships with community colleges; NAU-Yuma is a branch campus, and the Phoenix Bioscience Core is a collaborative space focused on health education.<\/p>\n<p>This is a strong foundation, President Cruz Rivera said\u2014but he has a vision of something bigger and bolder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we look at the needs of the state, we really have to look at that footprint,\u201d he said. \u201cAre we in the right places? Do we have the right programs at those places? Would it make more sense to build a new campus?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NAU\u2019s goal in this reach is not simply to provide the needed educational programs in an area, although it certainly is that. It also will be to provide students with a full collegiate experience that will not just prepare them for a career but also to be full and productive members of the global society.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Differentiating NAU Online<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>NAU was one of the early innovators in this area; the need for such innovation continues as the online education space has filled with universities and programs worldwide. NAU\u2019s task will be determining how to optimize online offerings to differentiate NAU in this global marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s bigger than traditional online programs, although NAU must continue to expand access in those areas. Cruz Rivera talked about recent partnerships with corporations, such as Dignity Health Global Education asking for a health care-centric MBA program. In 2021, NAU delivered. More corporations are asking for partnerships like this with NAU, which also helps to diversity the university\u2019s revenue stream.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Developing a strategic enrollment management plan<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>NAU\u2019s impact reaches far beyond Flagstaff, and Cruz Rivera emphasized the importance of scaling our impact throughout the state and better leveraging statewide sites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also realized that there\u2019s a huge need across the state of Arizona to provide a physical presence and quality programs for people there to be able to get the credentials they need to contribute to and benefit from the state\u2019s booming economy,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat does our enrollment management plan look like\u2014where do we grow? How do we grow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/cqK8WNViKtI\">Watch the entire convocation online.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/2022-university-convocation\/\">On Monday, hundreds of faculty and staff attended the inaugural University Convocation, both in-person and online, to hear from President Jos\u00e9 Luis Cruz Rivera about his vision for the coming academic year. President Cruz Rivera talked about NAU 2025 \u2013 Elevating Excellence and NAU\u2019s bold vision for the future that seeks to meet Arizona\u2019s attainment&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":66740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}