Momentum and the New Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education

In this episode, Interim President Matt Schroeder and media host Kristi K. Hoffman, talk with Dr. Melissa Gregory, Dean of the new Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education, which became official July 1 following approval of the Board of Trustees earlier this year. Together they discuss the momentum at the University as it prepares for a leadership transition. They cover the addition of new degree programs, the opening of a new pedestrian bridge, and recent college mergers aimed at enhancing student success and research capabilities. Dean Gregory highlights the benefits and opportunities arising from the merger of the former College of Arts and Letters with the Judith Herb College of Education. The discussion underscores the commitment to meeting student and employer needs, leveraging resources for research, and maintaining flexibility in a rapidly changing educational and workforce landscape.

00:00 Welcome to Powering UToledo

00:22 Summer Updates and New Programs

01:43 Campus Safety and Infrastructure

02:49 Leadership Changes and Strategic Initiatives

03:13 Enrollment and Retention Trends

04:36 College Mergers and Their Impact

06:02 Introducing Dean Melissa Gregory

06:42 Benefits of the College Merger

09:53 The Importance of Humanities

11:28 Adapting to Student Needs

15:16 Research and Collaboration Opportunities

18:47 Building Consensus and Overcoming Challenges

22:22 Conclusion and Future Outlook

Transcript

Kristi K.: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Powering UToledo.

I'm your host, Kristi K. Here with UToledo's interim president, Matt Schroeder. Hey, Matt. 

Matt Schroeder: Hey Kristi. How are you? 

Kristi K.: Doing great. It's another engaging and fun episode of Powering UToledo, where we're gonna talk about all that's good and exciting, and what continues to elevate the level of success here at this fabulous university.

So, Matt, how's your summer? 

Matt Schroeder: Summer's been busy, really busy but full of momentum positioning the university for the upcoming leadership transition. Just a lot of really good things going on right now. 

Kristi K.: It's funny because you would think it would be more chill on campus and when you walk around it's definitely more casual, but yet you really do feel that much is happening and you're reading about all these fabulous things strategically that are going on as well in terms of momentum. So you're feeling it, right? 

Matt Schroeder: We're feeling it. Yep. We are, meeting the needs of not only today's student, but future students. I just got through our June board meeting a new Bachelor of Science in Geospatial Science. Also PhD in mechanical engineering.

And this is on the heels of new B.S. in material science back in March. So, you know, as we look to reposition the university, we're adding degrees, we're taking away degrees that are no longer relevant really at the end of the day to meet the needs of our students and employers in the region. Exciting time.

Kristi K.: Always reading what really needs to happen in the marketplace. That's what I love. Yeah. It's just really solid leadership that way. 

Matt Schroeder: Yeah, you have to, right? You as an institution are delivering the next generation of talent, and if you're not listening to what employers want or the students themselves, then you are no longer relevant.

Kristi K.: For sure. And something exciting happened today from an event standpoint. There was a ribbon cutting for the new pedestrian bridge. Tell us more about that. 

Matt Schroeder: Yeah student safety, patient safety is always a number one priority for us. And, we are blessed. And also it's a little bit of a curse to have Douglas Road dissect our main campus.

15,000 vehicles a day through Douglas. But for a student moving from the engineering facilities over to the academic core can be a little difficult to traverse. And so we just opened up a new pedestrian bridge linking the engineering campus to the academic core and facilities like Savage Arena.

So very excited. To cut that ribbon. 

Kristi K.: I love that. A little bit of a risky business when you're trying to cut across it's Douglas at certain times of the day. Yes. So very happy that pedestrian bridge is completed.

Matt Schroeder: And with the Douglas Road Bridge, the renovations that are going on in our academic and clinical facilities taking down or demolishing some older buildings we are moving the needle forward. 

Kristi K.: As we're talking about momentum at UToledo on this podcast, there are so many strategic and innovative initiatives that are occurring right now on campus, as we just alluded to, but it's also including a new president, Dr. Holloway, a new dean of the College of Business, Dean Ritter, and a new provost, Provost McKinney. Perhaps we even have more of a greater emphasis on research now that we have this prestigious R1 designation. So, Matt, talk to us a little bit before we jump into our guest about enrollment and retention numbers and how they're trending as we build momentum looking into the fall.

Matt Schroeder: Yeah, absolutely. So in addition to your traditional direct from high school students, so those 18 year olds that are graduating from high school, moving on to, their next stop in their academic journey, hopefully The University of Toledo, have been spending a lot of time on adult and transfer and international students.

Our transfer numbers are up. They look really well. At this point in the cycle, and I think it's because of the value proposition that we offer at The University of Toledo and also recognizing that, young people sometimes make mistakes and they enroll at a college or a university that they think they belong to, and it just wasn't a good fit.

And so we've made it easy - really easy for a student to pivot away from an institution to come back to the University of Toledo where they initially had that interest. And so that's working out really well. And then on the international front, obviously a lot of things going on in D.C. right now, but new inbound international students really focusing on getting them enrolled and starting off the fall, most likely online until some of the issues around visas get cleaned up.

Kristi K.: Really smart decision making. 

Matt Schroeder: Yeah. And that's what we do here and that's what our guests will do as well. 

Kristi K.: Indeed. And for our listeners who may not know it, this past week two college mergers became effective right here on campus for greater synergies. We have the new Judith Herb College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Education, which merged the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Education and the new College of Health and Human Services has merged with the College of Nursing to strengthen education in the health professions. So Matt, with momentum truly building at UToledo, we've been so engaged in this process and you specifically have been engaged in this reemergence here.

How are you feeling as you're seeing these college mergers, for example, coming to fruition? And as you've watched it from the top seat. 

Matt Schroeder: Yeah. First of all, anyone will tell you a merger or an acquisition is probably the most difficult thing that a business can go through. And to look at what our guests and other deans and leaders have done in a very short period of time to, to go from four colleges down to two.

And to do it in a way where culture is always top of mind, but at the end of the day, it's for the students. It's been quite remarkable, but you cannot do that without leadership, and so I think what we've done over the last 14 months in this example of merging colleges to meet the needs of our students has been very remarkable.

And kudos are deserved to not only the deans, but also the faculty and the staff that support those deans. 

Kristi K.: And speaking of momentum, that is building at UToledo's, we have the leader of one of these new mergers with us today, Dr. Melissa Gregory, who's been named the dean of the latest big merger, which is in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Education. She's here with us, so Dean Gregory, welcome to Powering UToledo. 

Melissa Gregory: Thank you, Kristi. I'm so excited to be here. 

Kristi K.: Matt and I are thrilled that you're joining us here in Studio.

So we have given the overview, we've talked a bit about this merger, but tell our listeners if you would, what this new college at UToledo encompasses, and again, the colleges that have been combined. Tell us more about that. And then the majors and new programs that are super exciting. 

Melissa Gregory: Yeah, of course.

So I think to just back up a minute colleges are organizing principles, if that makes sense. They take affinity disciplines and put them in one space, and sometimes you have to move the walls around, right? To create more opportunity and success and advantages for students. And so in this case, we took two colleges that had a lot of affinity and that had a long history of working together and sharing curriculum and advancing students after graduation and put them essentially into one space so that we could create even more opportunity for students when they graduate. So College of Arts and Letters takes all of the traditional kind of liberal arts programs and also the non-traditional ones and puts them together with all of the education programs- not only the teacher prep programs, but also the advanced graduate work and those programs as well.

Kristi K.: There are a lot of diverse undergrad majors that are enveloped within this new college. So why did this merger make sense? In other words, what are the benefits? And I'm thinking specifically about market differentiation in particular.

Melissa Gregory: In terms of benefits this reorganization realigns some key areas at the university. For example, it takes all of the allied legal programs and puts them into one space, Paralegal and legal studies is now in the same space with majors like political science and history that lead to pre-law. It also takes criminal justice students interested in enforcement and the legal system and the justice system, and puts them into that space. So it creates some affinity buckets that helps us recruit and also helps students find their path.

So if they're interested in law, justice enforcement, but they're not quite sure. What that actual path will be. Now they're in one space where they can explore. And figure out what course they want to chart for themselves. So that's one benefit. Another benefit is to take the education programs and the liberal arts majors and let students discover if they think they want to live with that content that they love so much as teachers, where they can share it with future generations. Or conversely, sometimes we get students who do that student teaching and discover they do not actually want to be in the classroom and they'd like to, in fact, take their love for something like English and put it into a world of editing or publishing.

And so this way, I think with a larger and more capacious tent, we can help students chart the path that's right for them.

Matt Schroeder: And do it in an efficient and effective way. 

Melissa Gregory: Yes, the advising should be more seamless. The barriers between different departments that have to work with each other to create and deliver these degrees is now gone.

And so yeah, I think this is going to be an opportunity for people to customize the path that's right for them, and if they're invested in it and excited and it's customized for their interests and passions, they're gonna be successful. Because being excited about something and loving it is where you will be your most successful as a student.

Matt Schroeder: So one of the areas that you are very passionate about is the humanities. In 2025, where a lot of institutions are focusing on professional programs outcomes in the form of in demand job placements. Speak to our audience about the importance of the humanities and how that shapes a young person.

Melissa Gregory: Oh, absolutely. I think the humanities are central to creating college graduates who can think critically and effectively. The humanities help position students, not just for that first job that they might get after they graduate, but for a whole lifetime of understanding and adaptation and creative response to new challenges.

That awareness of history and understanding of communication, words and language, and understanding of other languages of philosophical paradigms, these are the things that are gonna set you up for life. I recently heard a state legislator refer to practical degrees. And I will say, I don't think there's anything impractical about being able to think in a really intelligent way about some of the world's most challenging problems.

And so for me, that's where the humanities come in as a kind of foundational part of an four year university education. 

Kristi K.: That's such a great point and it really dovetails nicely into what the Gen Z population wants and needs right now. And you work a lot with them. I know you both do, and we hear, we read universities have to meet those needs of the 21st Century student.

What do you see as those needs? And how would you define that? I know they really need to be more nimble. They need to really have some flexibility. How does this merger really play into that? 

Melissa Gregory: Yeah. Let me just reiterate what you said. That sense of being nimble and flexible, I think it's also adaptation, right?

That students have to adapt to what's coming. They have to be able to respond creatively. And I think in the case of this merger, what we're modeling for them is a world in which you remove certain kinds of barriers that then lead to collaboration and interdisciplinary exchanges. That allow us to respond to problems, not from within these kind of narrow silos, but within a kind of broader and more nimble sense of moving from space to space.

So one of the things that this merger will actually do is to put almost all of the institutions social scientists into one place, we will be a social science powerhouse. Which creates all kinds of opportunities for faculty to work together in interdisciplinary teams. And I think being able to model that for students and not only model, but also engage students in that kind of research, both at the undergraduate and the graduate level, is powerful preparation for the world that they will face next.

You can't just train students for a job because that job might not be here, it might not be here in a year; you have to train them to adapt constantly to a changing environment. 

Kristi K.: Definitely to market trends to what's happening in our world. As you said earlier, global issues and concerns for sure.

Now, Matt, when you look at the big picture of UToledo, how does this innovative merger enhance the goals that you have set along with the board for the university? 

Matt Schroeder: So our goals primarily are based on outcomes and as Dean Gregory alluded to, pathway to graduation and retaining those students along the way is critically important.

And so if we can bring together efficiencies while also leveraging economies of scale at the end it should save our students time to degree and it most importantly save them money. Because many young people come in and even non-traditional students not knowing what they're gonna do or who they want to be in life.

And to enroll at The University of Toledo to identify Dean Gregory's college and to have essentially everything there that you need to, where you start your journey and you can quickly pivot to something else and not disrupt your transcript in terms of more time or more money is priceless at the end of the day.

And then to also have, and you see it in Dean Gregory and her team, a staff of, again, faculty and professional individuals that truly care about the student and really taking them under their wing to make sure that they're successful. And how Dean Gregory and her team have stepped up to make sure that if we enroll a student at the University of Toledo, they're successful.

One of the best colleges that we have in doing that. 

Kristi K.: And what a great opportunity for faculty to really work together. And what I like hearing you say, Dean Gregory, is this emphasis on innovative experiences, research opportunities and this array of undergraduate majors that will truly open doors for collaboration and interdisciplinary research.

So we would all, I think I speak for all of our listeners, love to see UToledo's consistently and prominently be positioned on the global level and a global scale in terms of this research and collaboration. So tell us more about how you think the merger, will help that, Dean Gregory, in terms of specifically how you'll be leveraging the resources and results to elevate the UToledo's game, so to speak?

Melissa Gregory: I think there are many ways in which this can occur, but I would say, let me just give you an example. The Judith Herb College of Education had and still has a wonderful research center called the Judith Herb center for Innovation. This is a center that is essentially provides critical support for faculty who are interested in pursuing large grants.

And the director professor Michael Tolin is outstanding at identifying and securing grant opportunities that he can help faculty work on and then obtain. For example, one of the grants that we recently concluded was a grant that brought early literacy development to families who are unhoused, right?

The goal was to create these kind of mobile backpacks with literacy toolkits contained within them. And then some also other pieces that help students focus, or young kids focus there was a soft blanket included in addition to all of these literacy pieces so that families could help their students advance in their literacy skills.

Even if they didn't have necessarily the most stable home space. So this is a grant that faculty in education secured, but with the support of Michael Tolan and the Herb Innovation Center, and at this point with the college reorganization. We went from 30 highly successful research active faculty in education to almost 200 faculty total.

So I think Michael's gonna have his hands full of supporting faculty and we'll have to make sure he gets the support that he needs. But my point is by expanding that scale, we should have other opportunities that we can seek through things like the Herb Innovation Center. Yeah. 

Matt Schroeder: And a college like yours, when we think back of Carnegie R1 classification it's not just the stem, right? Absolutely. It's what you've identified and I often call some of the soft touches where there is. A need for research. There is an opportunity for the university and our faculty to really emerge on the scene. 

Melissa Gregory: The new college will have 10 Ph.D. programs, which are critical to that Carnegie Research One designation. Some of those come from education. Some of those come from disciplines that were formerly in the College of Arts and Letters. And together I think we will not only. See increased PhD output, but we'll see faculty working with the Judith Herb Innovation Center a whole lot of faculty in one space who can work together with that center. We have also seen faculty from education and faculty from the liberal arts programs collaborating with each other already. For example, we have faculty from the research and measurement program in education who are going to be teaching stats for the psychology program next fall. And I'll also say that our psychology program is one of those PhD powerhouses that, you really wanna keep your eye on as we move forward. It is US News and World Report ranked. It produces high qualified PhDs in psychology and the clinical psychology program in particular, could grow exponentially as we move forward. 

Kristi K.: This is all so exciting. I can't wait for this to come to fruition even more so once we kick it off here in the fall.

So I'm sure Matt, and both of you can speak to this as well. There were some initial feelings of nerves and those who are saying probably at the beginning that the existing programs might change, might never go back to where it was. Maybe there was even some trepidation about the merger itself. So how did that play out and how were you able to build consensus? 

Matt Schroeder: Yeah, I will, I'll tee it up and then allow Dean Gregory to chime in. What has amazed me with our faculty and staff at The University of Toledo is really their resilience. Because if you think back probably over the last six to eight years, there has been a ton of change at the University of Toledo in a good way. And when I look at the change that we are making to not only benefit this region, this part of the state in many ways we're ahead of Ohio State, Cincinnati, and some of the other big ones in the state of Ohio and in Michigan and Indiana. And so there's always some anxiety anytime that you're talking about change.

But I know what Dean Gregory has done in terms of stakeholder engagement. And buy-in and bringing folks along in the process, which I'll let her speak to. I think she has been able to alleviate a lot of that. There's still a lot of work to be done and the proof, as they say, will be in the pudding come this fall.

But I think at the end of the day, as long as our students are held harmless, if you will, and only benefit from the upside that we've talked about, I think it'd be very difficult for anyone to throw stones on this. 

Melissa Gregory: Yes. I think of this kind of change as foundational change in that we're again, clearing barriers and opening up sight lines, but we're not undermining or undoing.

Programs that are successful and in some cases like education, have accreditation requirements and responsibilities. So in order to graduate from a teacher preparation program at The University of Toledo, you need a very specific curriculum that meets state standards. That's how you get your license, right and to become a teacher.

And we are absolutely not changing any of those requirements or jeopardizing our accreditation and licensure standards in any way. However, we're opening the doors right to all of that future collaboration and innovation that faculty can do with each other and engage students in as they move forward.

So there's change, but it's not like we're flipping a bunch of switches and just hoping things work out. But I will say back, to the president's comment about our faculty, I was so impressed with the way that they rolled up their sleeves and immediately got to work on some really heavy lifting.

All colleges at universities have governing documents that dictate certain kinds of processes and those governing documents have to align with other governing documents at the institution, including a collective bargaining agreement, including provost-level materials and all of that, getting it realigned and up to code and working so that we can complete all of our processes, as usual, is a huge amount of labor and work.

Behind the scenes and our faculty did not complain. Again, they just rolled up their sleeves. They got right to it. They were incredibly generous with each other as colleagues. They asked questions of each other when it became clear that one culture did one thing and another culture did another thing.

And I was really impressed and also very grateful for the work and time that they spent on this reorganization. It was significant. 

Kristi K.: This is all so fun, I'll call it for me to hear this. It's yet another example of the momentum that is building here at UToledo. And from my perspective, it is all so exciting and it's engaging to see the strong leadership in Dean Gregory in Matt Schroeder, and soon Dr. Holloway, Provost McKinney, and so much more to come as we look ahead here on Powering UToledo. So stay tuned to hearing more from our new leadership. Matt, other comments to say as it ties to our momentum and we look forward. 

Matt Schroeder: It has been a great year. We are launching and it'll be an exciting next few years.

Kristi K.: For sure, and as we conclude this episode of Powering UToledo, know that we love our donors, our alumni, faculty, students, community, and everyone who cares deeply about the University of Toledo. And Matt and I remind you to come visit us on this beautiful UToledo campus. We'd love to see you here, and thanks for tuning in.

Until next time, I'm Kristy K. with interim president Matt Schroeder. Thanks for joining us on Powering UToledo. Until next time, 

T-O-L 

Matt Schroeder: E-D-O