President Jane Wood photo by Aubrey Bartel
The end of the school year also marks the end of Dr. Jane Wood’s first year in her role as president of Bluffton University. Coming into the school year, Wood’s main focus was to take the opportunity to learn.
“I wanted to absorb the campus, the culture and learn about the students, the staff and the faculty,” Wood said. “I wanted to celebrate with you all on the things that are important to the campus community and be able to be participate fully in them. This is very much a listening and learning year.”
Wood’s first year at Bluffton was filled with highlights, including her inauguration, homecoming, the student research fair, Civic Engagement Day, Handel’s Messiah, getting to experience sports, theatre, the students’ music, the senior art exhibits and Cabaret for a Cause, she said.
Looking to the future, Wood is excited about the addition of tailgating to home football games in the fall, changes to the general education program and a 10-year strategic plan that will be implemented in the fall of 2020.
“By fall, we will have identified the partner who will be working with us to help us facilitate the strategic plan,” Wood said. “Then we will be deciding, do we need new majors? Do we want to think about new initiatives on campus? What are some things as a campus community we really want to engage with? We’re very excited about strategic planning.”
Wood’s long term goals include increasing enrollment, as well as growing both the sciences and the arts at Bluffton.
“I think we will look forward to some increased student-faculty research opportunities long term,” Wood said. “If we think about that, we also want to make sure we love our arts, because we are a liberal arts campus, so it’s not just all about science. We’re also going to make sure we’re strengthening our art program, our music program, our theatre program.”
Getting to know the students at Bluffton is what Wood has enjoyed the most in her first year.
“[I’ve enjoyed] getting to understand what’s important to students,” Wood said. “I’ve enjoyed looking at the things that you are hoping for as a student body, the things that are important to you. How are the things that you all need to learn and the things that you need to take forward to create lives of purpose and meaning, what are those things and how are we making sure that we’re aligning those so that you all have the best education possible?”
A challenge Wood has faced is the weather, and trying to find a balance of keeping students safe while also listening to student and community concerns. However, Wood prefers to look at issues not as challenges, but as opportunities to learn and grow. The nature is one way Wood sees the opportunity to grow as a campus.
“I think we have a gorgeous campus,” Wood said. “I think one of the opportunities we have is to increase that and make that even more open to students. One challenge or opportunity for us is to help students engage more with the natural beauty of this campus in the future.”
Overall, Wood said that it has been a great year, and she is excited about the future.
“I’m excited now that I’ve learned to be able to start to look at, with a team, where do we want to go now?” Wood said. “What is the future of Bluffton? I think it’s very bright. I think we have enormous potential. I think we have enormous opportunity. We’ve been doing good work for many, many years, and we will continue to do that.”
