I know that many of you have been waiting for a faculty meeting to weigh in on some of the issues connected with our Honors Program and how it is evolving. While I can stand here and try to explain to you why many of the steps we have been trying to take were done in the manner they were, I feel that this would miss the real point.

The real point is that I have failed you as your dean. My job should be to lead and to help my colleagues in leadership positions to lead. I apologize for this failure first to Jim Otteson, who came to us this past fall and has been hard at work recruiting students, interviewing students and raising money to make the Honors Program great. Second, I apologize for my failure to my friend and associate, Joanne Jacobson, who has been trying to point out the problems with how we were approaching the evolving Honors Program for months – to no avail. And, finally, I apologize to you, my colleagues for not giving you more information on the plans and not for involving you more in the planning processes. Most of the problems that many of you have brought to my attention, I now see, could have been avoided with proper communication and consultation with you, my colleagues.

As Jim will describe to you, we have frozen many of the initiatives that have not received sufficient discussion up to this point and stopped others that with further scrutiny did not seem wise. In addition, major changes to the Honors Program will be brought to the faculty as proposals from the elected Honors Committee. Hiring recommendations will be made by faculty search committees that include the Director of the Honors Program, faculty members from the Honors Committee and other faculty members, as appropriate, based upon discipline. The only exception will be for purely administrative appointments.

Finally, I want to assure you that the University has not and will not accept grants that gives the grantor the right to choose or exclude particular appointments nor usurp the College faculty’s right to establish the curriculum or any part thereof. At the same time, we must all understand that proposals for philanthropic gifts must, at times, be negotiated without public disclosure. To this end, I will ask the Director of the Honors Program to keep the faculty elected Honors Committee apprised of the state of all negotiations with the understanding that these disclosures may not be discussed outside of the Honors Committee meetings until the University explicitly approves such disclosure.

Before concluding and turning the floor over to Jim Otteson, I would like to observe that the past two years have seen many changes in the College. I hope you agree that most have been for the better. I am optimistic about our future. One key to our successfully moving forward is our willingness to work together with trust. I am sorry to have put this in jeopardy and ask that you join with me to re-establish this trust and move Yeshiva College forward.

You may note that I have not allotted sufficient time on the Agenda today to work through many of the issues associated with the Honors Program that we, as a faculty, must address before the beginning of next term. This is because many of our ad hoc committees were not ready with proposals to the faculty for this term until this, our final meeting. However, given the importance of the Honors Program and demands upon it for next term, I have scheduled one final faculty meeting for May XXX at X:XX PM for the sole purpose of discussing the Honors Program. I hope you can come. There are no YC Finals at this time.