Ramona Lumpkin, PhD Principal, Huron University College 2001 ...

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ramona lumpkin, Phd, Principal,
Huron University college, 2001-2010
By Ramona Lumpkin, PhD
In my first few months at Huron I
spent many hours asking students,
alumni, staff, faculty, Board
members—everyone I met who was
attached in some way to the College—
“What does Huron mean to you?
What are its values? Its strengths? Its
needs?” And in my address when I
was installed as Huron’s 15 th Principal
in November of 2001, I summed up
these early impressions. Huron seemed
to me, to a remarkable degree, to be
cherished by those who work here,
those who volunteer on its behalf, and
those who are or were its students.
It’s a place defined by community—
something not unique to Huron but
increasingly rare in today’s universities.
It’s also a place of academic rigour,
where students know they’ll be
challenged and will earn a degree that’s
recognized and respected. They will
work hard for that degree, but they’ll be
guided by faculty who value excellent
teaching and by staff who care deeply for
student success.
At the same time, along with these
stories of Huron’s achievements, many
people spoke to me about their anxieties
for the present and future of our College.
The higher education environment in
which we operated was characterized
by a growing emphasis on the applied
and the vocational, declining levels
of public funding, rising student debt
loads, deteriorating physical plants,
and strained university finances.
Ontario’s universities also had to cope
with special challenges such as the
pending elimination of OAC / Grade
13 and the need to revise our programs
to accommodate a new high school
curriculum.
And so we asked each other nine years
ago: Will Huron be able to preserve its
vibrant academic community in the face
of these changes? Will we draw adequate
numbers of students to the study of the
liberal arts and theology? Will we attract
and retain sufficient numbers of faculty
who are dedicated scholar-teachers? Can
we maintain our buildings and grounds
in good repair? Can we continue to
afford the model of education we so
passionately cherish?
I took heart at that time from all the
evidence I found in Huron’s history of
its capacity to change and adapt. The
College was by no means the same
institution in 2001 that it was in its
founding year, 1863. It had moved
sites, become co-educational, added a
Faculty of Arts and Social Science to
its Faculty of Theology, grown in size,
evolved in mission, and reinvented
itself many times over. As I remarked
in my installation address, the need to
change had been met with the courage
to change at each critical moment in
our past, and I had high hopes that such
would be the case in our future.
Now, nine years later, I can say with
considerable pride and no small measure
of relief that my optimism was indeed
well founded. We’ve not only continued
to attract students to our programs but
have in fact witnessed a 40% growth
in enrolment. The associated growth
in revenues has helped us balance our
budget in each of the past eight years,
with annual surpluses going in part
toward maintenance and renewal of
our physical plant. While a number of
long-term and beloved faculty and staff
have retired, we’ve recruited gifted new
members to our ranks. Our endowments
which support student programs and
services have more than doubled in
value, and alumni giving to our current
“Touch the Future” capital campaign
has increased six-fold over the previous
campaign. Further, the exceptional
quality of a Huron education, which
we sometimes lamented was one of the
country’s best-kept secrets, has been
publicly recognized through our stellar
results in a survey published annually
in Maclean’s magazine. These results
speak to the dedication of faculty and
staff colleagues with whom I’ve had the
great privilege of working to ensure that
Huron would not only survive but would
flourish. They also speak to the devotion