The recent visit by and findings of a North Central Accreditation team served as the primary focus for University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J.’s State of the University address on Tuesday.

In front of a crowd of more than 200 members of the Saint Louis University community, Biondi talked about the two and one-half day evaluation of the University, including an unofficial list of strengths and weaknesses. “The evaluators were extremely thorough in reaching out to a multitude of constituent groups of the University,” Biondi said. “The team believed that they received abundant information, feedback, answers and criticisms, both positive and negative.”

The strengths listed by the NCA team included: an all-encompassing embracing of the University’s mission “in all aspects of its institutional life;” enhancement of facilities and extensive campus beautification; growth in the intellectual climate during the past decade, leading toward a high level of institutional maturity and scholarly productivity; opportunities for students and faculty to engage in the social justice aspects of the University’s mission; excellent fiscal condition; and strong presidential leadership.

“While these results are unofficial until the written report is received, they are still cause for celebration, and certainly congratulations are in order,” Biondi said.

Areas that need improvement-listed by both SLU’s self-study and the NCA team-include: broadening the cultural diversity of SLU; fostering a culture of assessment with continuous monitoring; achieving and sustaining levels of compensation and benefits to attract and retain faculty and staff; and supporting and enhancing technology resources.

The NCA team added its own observations, Biondi said. For example, the team noted that “sustainability of programs and positions funded by Project SLU2000 is uncertain” and subject to future endowment growth and the success of the pending capital campaign. Also, the University needs a more comprehensive assessment plan, since overall quality control of its current plan is “not evident,” and information “is not aggregated in a clear, concise, comprehensive manner.”

The team also mandated a re-evaluation of the undergraduate core. “They look to us to identify what we want in our core, why we want it, whether it is accomplishing the purposes we say it should and how we use the information we obtain when we do our assessment,” Biondi said.

Finally, the team addressed communication at SLU. “We need to ensure that our communications processes continue to mature and keep pace with the University’s progress and achievements,” Biondi said. “Our challenge is to enhance and improve communication at all levels across the University, to inform, consult and to motivate our administrators, faculty, staff and students, to take an active role in the growth and evolution of the University.”

Some students and faculty expressed positive reactions to the address. Joe Weixlmann, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said that Biondi’s speech accurately reflected the NCA team’s initial findings. “It was bold of Fr. Biondi to spend more time emphasizing the areas that we need to improve rather than SLU’s strengths,” Weixlmann said, noting that the number of strengths outnumbered the weaknesses.

John Cook School of Business senior Nick Fagan said that he was impressed by Biondi’s message of commitment to the students and to academic progress.

“I was surprised by his statements about the core curriculum,” Fagan said. “He’s starting to talk publicly about the need to move to a constant core curriculum . and to look at the core in a comprehensive manner and ask why we want to teach the students the things that we do.”

Fagan added that although current undergraduates will not see any changes, students “10 years or so from now” will. “I thought we were never going to talk about the core,” he said. “Now Fr. Biondi has changed the course on how we’re