In her column for the summer/fall issue of the Magazine of Elon, President Connie Ledoux Book reflects on the intentional, steady progress that leads to visionary ideas coming to life at Elon and beyond.
The Elon community is watching bold vision take shape as the Slattery Center, the newly named home of HealthEU now under construction, nears completion. The center embodies our hope that all future Elon graduates, as well as the community of people who work at the university, will have a foundation in healthy living grounded in the six dimensions of well-being studied by Gallup.
Vision — the creation, then pursuit of it — changes the world.
In recent months, I have had the pleasure of experiencing the culmination of faculty vision for student success in profound moments. One was this past spring in New York City’s Carnegie Hall, where the Elon Wind Ensemble performed the closing act of the 24th Annual New York Wind Band Festival. Faculty members worked closely with students to produce a magnificent performance that filled the hall with breathtaking joy and marked the university’s first appearance in the storied venue — a historic and wonderful realization of our vision for excellence in the performing arts.
This summer, sitting in the heart of the Medici Palace in Florence, Italy, I watched another vision come to life as students, joined by Italian and American performers, brought a first to the city: a production of the musical “The Light in the Piazza.” Associate Teaching Professor of Music Polly Cornelius first imagined the idea two years earlier, then worked with our partners in Florence and her colleagues in the Department of Performing Arts to make it a reality. Her vision was felt by us all as we watched the students and actors perform to the sold-out audience.
These are among the many visionary moments inspired by our mission to engage and mentor students throughout their learning journeys and help them achieve more than they imagined for themselves during college. Possibility begins with learning and experience, and it ultimately leads to growth.
This year I’ve also been working diligently with the university’s trustees on a different kind of vision — one that adds another pillar to our foundation, looks out ahead to the next century and asks how we can prepare Elon Universityto meet the emerging landscape of higher education from a continued position of strength and innovation. Our merger with Queens, successfully approved by our accreditor and now in process with the Department of Education, brings that vision closer to reality.
Faculty and staff members from both campuses have been imagining potential programs together, and the growing list is full of exciting possibilities.
When people imagine innovation, they often think of a single “eureka” moment, like Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call or Thomas Edison’s filament beginning to glow. But scholars have shown that innovation is more often one idea leading to another until, further downstream, someone shouts “eureka!” and a vision becomes reality, perhaps in Carnegie Hall or the Medici Palace.
Most importantly, through bold vision and shared commitment to our mission, ideas advance, lives are transformed and the world becomes a better place.