New VU president reaches out to city
Despite the challenges of recent years, Valparaiso University isn’t going anywhere.
“Rumors about Valpo’s demise are greatly exaggerated,” José Padilla, the university’s new president, told an audience of business and community leaders. “We are open for business now. We are open for business in the fall, and we are going to be open for business for years to come.”
The university will continue to be an anchor for the community and the local economy as well as a refuge for all who seek justice, truth and faith, said Padilla, speaking during an April 29 lunch sponsored by the Greater Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce and held at Aberdeen Manor.
Padilla most recently served as vice president, general counsel and secretary for the University of Colorado after holding a similar post at DePaul University in Chicago for 15 years. He started at Valpo on March 1.
Education, he said, is “a bridge in this era of polarization.”
“I want to be the place where people come together and debate,” he said.
Working at DePaul, Padilla said he saw the strength of faith and any meeting of campus officials included the question, “Is this consistent with the mission?”
While he enjoyed his time in Colorado, he realized he missed being part of a faith-based, mission-based university, and he missed the Midwest, where both of his adult children now live.
“I didn’t leave the University of Colorado to oversee a funeral. I didn’t leave the University of Colorado to help Valpo get by. I came to see it thrive,” he said.
The loss of the law school was “a body blow but it wasn’t a death blow,” he said. The law school, the only one in Lake and Porter counties, closed after graduating its final class last year.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented its own set of challenges, the university had challenges before that, he said, noting cuts to programs and faculty that came during the pandemic.
The university plans to add programs as it moves forward.
“That’s what our ultimate goal is,” he said.
He also noted recent changes in the leadership in the admissions office to bring in more students.
“We are now ahead of freshman deposits in 2020 and 2019,” Padilla said, adding the office culled more than 3,000 contacts for prospective students, while there is still more work to do.
Looking ahead, the university will be planning for the next five to 10 years and how to weather a “demographic cliff ” expected in 2026 for the number of collegeage students, tied to the 2008 recession.
The university, Padilla said, will turn to the community and the Chamber “because we serve you,” to make sure the university’s students are the leaders they need.
“We’re going to continue to be a part of this community,” he said, including expanding community service and action. Students dedicate 200,000 volunteer hours each year to 138 unique organizations, mostly in Valparaiso.
The university will be reaching out to local businesses to find out how it can work and partner with them, Padilla said, including putting them in touch with Valpo’s “cutting-edge faculty.”
“There’s a lot of challenges at Valpo and we’re going to face them head-on. We’re not going to run away,” he said. “This is an ecosystem. We’re just part of it. We want to make sure it survives and thrives as well.”
During a question-and-answer session, Valparaiso City Councilman Robert Cotton, D-2nd, said he was delighted by ads for the university in the Chicago media and asked about similar campaigns in other regions.
The university is doing similar outreach in southwestern Michigan, Padilla said, as well as using social media, including “an aggressive Tik Tok campaign,” to target young people.
“We go where they’re at,” he said.
Valparaiso University President José Padilla announced that students, faculty and staff returning to campus in the fall will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with accommodations for documented medical or religious exemptions.
The move comes as a growing number of universities across the country, including the University of Notre Dame in South Bend and DePaul University in Chicago, make similar requirements.
Citing the Chronicle of Higher Education, Padilla said at least 112 institutions of higher education mandated the vaccine as of Thursday, almost double the number the journal listed last week.
“The CDC is telling us the vaccines work, so why don’t we follow the medical science?” said Padilla, who started as the university’s president on March 1, a day he also shut the campus for two weeks because of a COVID-19 outbreak impacting 60 students. “I want to create as safe an environment on campus as I can in the fall, especially with the freshman coming in.”
That group represent a “wild card,” he said, because while the university has been able to monitor and test the students on campus, it has not been able to do the same for incoming new students and he wants to eliminate that as a potential threat to student health.
“I want to return the campus as close to a normal experience as possible given the circumstances,” he said.
At the same time, Padilla said he can’t say yet what “normal” is going to look like. The university will likely drop surveillance testing for the new coronavirus and he expects a relaxing of social distancing expectations once everyone is vaccinated.
“I don’t know yet (about mask wearing). Again, of course we’ll listen to the science and the CDC,” he said, adding unless another new variant presents itself, he could see dropping mask requirements outside but having them remain in place indoors where social distancing is more difficult. “That one is probably still on the table.”
While officials with the Porter County Health Department are available to speak to and work with university officials a questions about COVID -19 arise, said Dr. Maria Stamp, the county’s health officer, “they made this decision. We were not involved with it.”
She expects most residential colleges and universities will require the vaccine because of congregate living and past virus outbreaks.
“It is reasonable that the COVID vaccine will be required,” as are other vaccines, she said, particularly as the vaccines are proven to be “very safe.”
Valparaiso University requires enrolled students to be immunized for measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus and meningitis, and last fall required all students to receive the flu vaccine.