Sixty-five days into her presidency at Elon University, Connie Book still maintains her positive energy she showed on day one.
Since March 1, her first day as president, Book has met with dozens of students, affinity groups and community members, ranging from LGBT identified students at Elon, to the Board of Trustees, to local children at Elon Elementary. And to top it off, she traveled to Philadelphia to support the women's basketball team at the Colonial Athletic Association tournament and participated in fundraising events in Charlotte, Atlanta and Raleigh.
She says she loves the high pace action of the job, and makes sure she is mentally, physically and intellectually ready to perform. To do that, she keeps up with her fitness routine and sets aside time every morning to read local newspapers — including The Pendulum on Wednesdays — and The Chronicle on Higher Education. She takes this role seriously, and in order to do that, she says she has to be prepared.
"You have to be be consistent and keep physical and emotional energy up," she said. " I need to have enough awareness about all of these issues that impact higher ed that I can think about Elon and what’s our position."
In March, Book told ENN that she would "be doing a lot of listening," in her first semester to reacquainted herself to Elon after she spent almost three years as provost of The Citadel. Now, as the semester comes to a close, the summer and fall will be her acton months. She'll be attending a workshop at Harvard University this summer, which is designed to help newly appointed university presidents.
But when she returns, the work will truly begin.
In her years as president, Book hopes to continue to gradually diversify the university. Elon University’s strategic plan, which was implemented by former president Leo Lambert, shows a 5 percent increase in diversity since 2010.
Book hopes to improve this by continuing to strategically plan.
“You do a lot of listening and working on priorities, and then you bring those strategic initiatives forward,” Book said. “In strategic planning you don’t often have the answer and how to achieve it." You just know this is an area you need to focus on on, and then you get a group of smart people around the table and develop a strategy with objectives on how to do that."
For undergraduate enrollment of the class of 2022, Book said the goal of the university is to offer more opportunities for financial aid, and recruit students from more diverse cities.
“That’s the new plan. So where do we go from here? Where do we need to be? That will be an ongoing critical part of Elon’s future because of the cost of private education,” Book said.
The university’s new hotel is a way for all the prospective students, families of enrolled students and alumni find a place to stay for a short period of time. All revenue made by the hotel beyond operating costs will fund scholarships. Book said she expects more people will want to attend the hotel because of that.
“I do think people will — knowing it goes to scholarship support — people will say, ‘okay, let’s all stay there rather than stay at the Hilton or the Hampton Inn,’” Book said.
Donors are one of the most important parts in building up the university. Book said she hopes to prioritize growing endowment of the university in her presidency, without taking her eyes off the students.
Book said the key factor in the university’s success is the students.
“I will need to prioritize … that we are recruiting students and that they are our future,” Book said. “We want to make sure that — it’s a good match with the students — that they embrace our mission and our values as an institution.”