Balancing Mission to Market: Becoming Southern New Hampshire University*

Peer Review, Winter 2004 by Noyes, Elisabeth J, Gustafson, Richard A

The move to university status repositioncd the institution in the marketplace. Undergraduate enrollment has grown to capacity, new facilities have been constructed, and schools of business, education, liberal arts, community economic development, and hospitality have been created. The institution is gaining visibility with peers, alumni, secondary schools, prospective students, and the community-one result of which is increasing financial support.

The expectations for new faculty hires in liberal arts, business, and education are now raised to include previous scholarly work and defined goals for future scholarly activity, as well as a passion for teaching. Twenty-nine new faculty members have been added since 2000. As the newcomers' intellectual vitality begins to impact the discourse and direction of the disciplines, the attractiveness of SNHU to other potential faculty is increased. SNIIU also is moving programmatically toward a more diversified student body.

Regardless of the composition of its varied student populations, student learning has always been and remains of central importance to the institution that is now SNHU. In terms of the content of student learning, the university is now seriously beginning to bring in curricula that take into account the broad range of new scholarship in the disciplines, as well as sound interdisciplinary developments. The entire university community already subscribes to the concept of student involvement in and responsibility for learning; it also recognizes that, ultimately, it is the demonstrated success of the graduates' learning experiences that validate the institution's direction as it balances its mission to market.

* This article is indebted throughout to Phyllis Howard's research on the history of Southern New Hampshire University and her recent, in-house publication entitled Becoming a University (Manchester, NH: Southern Net Hampshire University, 2002).

By Elisabeth J. Noyes, vice president of academic affairs, and Richard A. Gustafson, president emeritus, Southern New Hampshire University