Florida Atlantic president has big plans for Jupiter campus
Mary Jane Saunders is now Florida Atlantic University’s sixth president, having been “installed” after a somewhat festive week of visits to FAU campuses.
She vowed to continue the university’s “upward trajectory” with ambitious initiatives that include medical teaching facilities in Jupiter.
The university’s board, faculty and students seem to believe she is fit for the challenge.
The United Faculty of Florida Atlantic University Chapter wrote her a welcome that, however nice it was for her, criticized the state’s political and business leadership and the Board of Trustees as well.
“This is an auspicious moment for FAU. Despite hard economic times and mediocre state economic and political leadership, in spite of a Board of Trustees chosen more for their political connections than for any expertise in higher education, it would seem that FAU now has a leader who understands the core mission of this university, its distinctive character, and is capable of analyzing its strengths and weaknesses.”
The board likes her, said Trustee Sherry Plymale:
“What she brings to FAU is so vast. What doesn’t she bring?
“Her passion and her energy are admirable and her knowledge and experience, as a scientist and a higher education administrator, is remarkable,” Plymale said. “She’s genuine and super-personable and she has a business mind that works nonstop.
“She’s the whole package.”
Students like her, too.
“Her enthusiasm and her commitment to bringing the University to the next level is a breath of fresh air,” said Jordy Yarnell, student body governor, Jupiter campus.
“She’s taking the ball and running with it,” said Alex Lange, Homecoming chair, Jupiter. “Students are excited about the medical school. Many of us work for Scripps and Max Planck as interns. She and the administration are already working on accreditation and the hiring of the dean and assistant dean.
“Scripps is a top institution and it chose our Jupiter campus. That attracts attention.”
AJ Abney, marketing director for of the student government who plans to go to the new med school, agrees.
“A medical school on campus brings prestige and legitimizes a University,” he said.
He’s talking about the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, which will offer students the opportunity to study for both M.D. degrees and research Ph.D.s through a partnership with the Kellogg School of Science and Technology, the graduate school of The Scripps Research Institute.
Saunders joined these three students along with their classmates at an ice cream social for Spirit Day on the Jupiter Campus, midweek, where she received a warm welcome and an owl.
“It’s a tradition on our campus to give an owl to a new president or board-of-trustees member,” Lange said.
“Whenever the president or trustee is on campus, we put the owls out in our atrium.”
The burrowing owl, you see, is FAU’s mascot. So, this day, Saunders got hers, a sculpture / yard ornament made by history major Megan Allore.
“This is bigger than the burrowing owls I see in my back yard on the Boca campus,” Saunders added, after telling the students she was proud of them and thanked them for choosing to attend FAU.
But now, after the ice cream dessert, let’s get down to the meat and potatoes.
Saunders is a scientist, and the independent medical school program (authorized by State legislature last May), is near and dear to her heart.
“The opportunity for the independent medical school is enormous,” Saunders said. “The accreditation review will be in February and the first class should start fall 2011.
“Having a medical school is transformative to any University.”
And another research facility, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce (which became part of FAU in 2007), is in search of a new director, she said, and it promises to be “a fantastic research and educational site,” not only for FAU students, but for the community as well.
“It brings high-school and middle-school students and is wonderful for everyone to learn about science.”
In late September, at her State of the University address, Saunders outlined quite a long list of the University’s recent accomplishments, restated important goals, and added a couple of new ones.
Obviously, giving students tools to succeed both in their studies and in their life work is her primary aim.
“As President, I’m focused on keeping FAU moving along the same upward trajectory it’s been on since day one,” she said in her address.
Here were some highlights that she noted in her address:
• FAU is now the home of a major new national research center, based in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, with research being conducted by faculty researchers at SeaTech in Dania Beach, on the Boca Raton and Jupiter campuses and at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.
• The recently introduced Geomatics Engineering program is based on the Treasure Coast campus.
“This unique program prepares students to work in the surveying and mapping profession of the 21st century. We expect it to produce its first bachelor’s degree graduates this coming spring,” she said in her address.
• A few months ago, three research priority areas were identified through a competitive internal grant submission process: Research, Engineering and Adaptation to a Changing Climate; Brain Function, Damage and Repair; and Healthy Aging.
• Saunders also commissioned an eLearning task force to examine current offerings.
• Building is in progress, too.
New student housing will be LEED certified and a 30,000-seat stadium is underway. The environmentally efficient new headquarters of the College of Engineering and Computer Science will have its ribbon cutting this November, and the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters will soon have a living-room-theater complex.
In June, the Max Planck Society broke ground on the Jupiter campus for its first research institute in America, where FAU graduate students are already working in temporary labs. The new facility will include 10,000 square feet for FAU classrooms, laboratories and offices, “placing FAU faculty members and students in the very heart of Max Planck’s operations,” she said in her address.
“What distinguishes universities from every other institution in society is the fact that expanding the world’s knowledge base lies at the very heart of our mission.”
At the ice cream social, she added: “We want to make FAU accessible to the county. I talk to economic groups and Chamber of Commerce members and they like that message. Our lectures and cultural events are open. They feel that FAU is home and this is their campus.”
On March 3, FAU’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to name Saunders the university’s sixth president.
Saunders joined Cleveland State University in 2003 as director of the Biomedical Health Institute and a professor in the department of biological, geological and environmental sciences. She was founding dean of the College of Science, CSU’s second largest college.
Prior to going to CSU, Dr. Saunders was a program officer and deputy division director at the National Science Foundation, director of the Institute of Biomolecular Science at the University of South Florida and an assistant professor in the botany department at Louisiana State University.
Saunders has both a master’s degree and a doctorate in botany from the University of Massachusetts, and she did postdoctoral work at the University of Georgia. Her bachelor’s degree in biology is from Boston University.
