Christensen: 'I couldn't be happier' about past, future of UNO campus
Scott Stewart
Issue date: 12/14/07 Section: News
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Christensen had just recently become the leader of a university in crisis after a series of scandals erupted over UNO's botched handling of the athletic department budget. That poor management resulted in the loss of five jobs, including that of the associate athletic director. The fallout, including discoveries of questionable expenditures by senior UNO officials, eventually claimed the jobs of then-Vice Chancellor for Administration Jim Buck, then-Athletic Director David Herbster and former Chancellor Nancy Belck.
After Belck stepped down in September 2006, Christensen was offered the job. When the Gateway spoke to him last year, the big question we had was whether he would throw his name in the hat for the selection committee charged with finding a permanent replacement for Belck.
He eventually did, and Christensen was installed as 14th chancellor of UNO on Oct. 9.
Sitting down with the chancellor earlier this week, Christensen seems like a new man. The signs of exhaustion have left him, only to be replaced by a renewed and heightened excitement about the university. No longer struggling with scandals or crisis management, Christensen, with a smile on his face, looked back at the last year and reflected on the campus' accomplishments so far during his tenure as chancellor.
"First of all," Christensen said. "I'm pleased that our enrollments are up. We've been rather stable, and that's a good thing."
According to numbers published by the UNO Office of Institutional Research, the campus saw a 1.9 percent increase in head count enrollment this fall.
Christensen next mentioned the development of the new Maverick Village dorms on north campus. Part of that project includes a parking garage for University Village and Maverick Village residents, which UNO hopes will improve the parking situation on campus.
"You can walk over and see incredible progress, and I am very excited about that being open for next fall," Christensen said. "It's just going to be a great addition to the campus."
Second, Christensen cited the improvements made to the Criss Library, which have resulted in a tripling of daily turnstile counts in a time when most students can do their research with a few mouse-clicks rather than hours pouring over library stacks.
"I think it says something about the receptivity and the expert support that the library staff provides, the environment that is available there for study, and I think that it is a great series of events that have occurred with respect to the library," Christensen said.
Christensen went on to comment about the progress made in the Engineering Building and Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building projects.
Engineering is being renovated and converted into the new home for the College of Public Affairs and Community Service, and HPER is undergoing an expansion to add more workout space, a new home for Student Health Services, an additional 110 parking spaces and more.
"I would say that [the HPER expansion] is one of the more important initiatives to take place on our campus in some time," Christensen said. "The reason I believe that is such an important hallmark event is that that says something about the campus life, it says something about students spending more time on campus, students being here, or students identifying with this as their institution, not just stopping by to take a class."
In his hallmark plain language and simple assessments, Christensen said the CPACS Building would be "spectacular," and the HPER Building would be "fabulous" after the three-year project is complete.
As important as brick-and-mortar development is to the university, Christensen also said he has noticed a more important development recently: The perception of the community is changing, and UNO is becoming a destination for prospective and current students alike.
One aspect of UNO's thriving campus life and newfound identity is athletics. Christensen cited the new student organization The Bullpen and its achievements at increasing student engagement in sports.
"At football games, we've seen more students, more excitement, than in any time in my memory," Christensen said. "Same is true in hockey, basketball - I mean, students have really taken it upon itself to take the bull by the horn, so to say, to say 'This is our place, and we want it. We want to build that campus spirit.'"
In addition to athletics, Christensen said he believed students were becoming more involved in campus organizations, clubs and service activities. Citing student engagement in the community, Christensen said last year UNO students logged more than 300,000 hours participating in internships, student teaching, volunteer work, service learning and similar activities.
"The message that sends is that this is a campus that is vital to the community, it's involved in the community, but, on another level, it's exposing the community that doesn't get exposed to the type of student that's here at UNO, and it's a very positive exposure," Christensen said. "I mean, we have a great student body, and the community is now learning about that first-hand."
Of course, students aren't the only people leading the shift in perspective regarding UNO in the local community. The university administration has been hard at work creating initiatives like the Metropolitan Advantage Program, which offers reduced out-of-state tuition rates to students admitted to UNO from Pottawattamie, Mills and Harrison counties in Iowa.
"For several years, I've believed, as have many others, if we're a metropolitan institution, we should be serving our metropolitan area. And we do that well, with one exception, and that is, 'Oh, by the way, if you live across the bridge, you can't come here unless you pay three times the rate,'" Christensen said. "I don't think that's right. I don't think it's appropriate. I don't think it made sense. So I'm very, very happy that we now have this program."
Christensen said the university was trying to raise awareness of the Metropolitan Advantage Program by targeting particular groups of people, like school superintendents and local chambers of commerce, helping to establish a personal rapport with those interest groups.
"I really feel pretty strongly that the first step needs to be where you personalize it, it becomes a face with a name. So our names are out, our vice chancellors, our student services folks, and I'm over there as well, to talk with people, visit with them and so on," Christensen said. "We're going to get our students involved, too. When we make our trips in the spring over to do particular visits, we're going to invite students … because no one talks better about student life than students."
Programs like the Metropolitan Advantage Program, in addition to raising interest in UNO, are also helping to keep the campus competitive in the wake of increasing competition from other institutions of higher learning, including Bellevue University. Competition is not something that has Christensen worried, though.
"My great concern is that high school students not miss the opportunity to continue their education. My concern is that we have opportunities available for continued education for those who may have degrees, who want to continue to develop their skills and their future," Christensen said. "So, on one level, it's about making sure we have a lot of opportunities for the people here in our community, because an educated population is going to serve us all well."
Christensen said that he was proud that so many graduating seniors report that they had a positive experience at UNO.
"I am so proud of the fact that when we interview seniors, well over 90 percent of them say - this is an incredible statistic from my perspective - more than 90 percent of those graduating seniors say they would recommend UNO to a family member or a friend. That is a huge endorsement for this institution," Christensen said.
In the end, Christensen said he was more concerned with providing people options rather than worrying about competition.
"And wise folks are going to choose UNO," he added.
After his retrospective, Christensen said he was looking forward to increasing the options students have in the future. One area he believes needs improvement is providing more balanced course offerings all year, an initiative being explored by the 12 Month Operational Plan Task Force. That task force will make its report to Christensen early next semester.
Christensen also mentioned his new Bright Ideas Web site, brightideas.unomaha.edu. The Web site asks members of the campus community for suggestions on how to improve services, save money and be more efficient.
"I received a great one yesterday, and if it doesn't get implemented, I'd be shocked. It was a suggestion that we need to start printing on both sides of paper. If you stop and think about how much printing we do, and it's easily enough done, … it's amazing how much you can reduce your paper usage," Christensen said. "And so little ideas like that, you know, it's just great suggestions. Somebody discovered it. They go, 'Hey, we were able to save 10 reams of paper by doing this. What if the whole campus did it?'"
Christensen said that a university is a place where smart people collect, and he thinks it's only common sense to reach out to the 18,000 members of the campus community to figure out how to make UNO's business better.
"So, yeah, I'm going to keep pounding away at that, until the recommendation is that if you go away, this would be a better place," he added.
With an eye towards the future, Christensen said he was also excited to be able to celebrate UNO's centennial next year. He said the celebration would offer great opportunities for the campus to celebrate its traditions while continuing to improve its offerings.
"To celebrate a 100th birthday is in and of itself unique," Christensen said. "I couldn't be happier."
As an example of the sort of projects planned for next year, Christensen mentioned the Gateway online digital archives project, located at library.unomaha.edu/collections/gateway. The archives are a statement about how strongly people feel about the Gateway and the history of this institution, Christensen said.
Christensen said he was looking forward to next semester, but also was excited for the upcoming holiday season.
"I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday," Christensen said. "I know a lot of people are traveling, and if they are doing so, do so carefully."
Christensen added that he was looking forward to seeing students return in the spring, because he plans to kick off a semester like never before.
"I'm as excited as I've ever been," Christensen said. "I think the future of this campus is just absolutely incredible."
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