Susan Martin invested as EMU's 22nd president; speaks of opportunity

When Susan Martin first took the Pease Auditorium stage for her inauguration, she clasped her hands together enthusiastically and smiled with great hope, realizing the opportunity before her as Eastern Michigan University's 22nd president and its first female president.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES: Susan Martin, Eastern Michigan University's 22nd president and its first female president, makes a point about EMU's educational commitment to its students during her inaugural speech in Pease Auditorium Nov. 20. She is flanked by EMU Regent Chair Tom Sidlik (above, left), and Don Loppnow (in blue robe), EMU's provost and executive vice president.

During her inauguration speech, entitled, appropriately enough, "Opportunity," Martin spoke of the challenges that lay before EMU, but with a confidence that the university's strong foundation and commitment to education will be assets in a world, nation and state that are in the flux of what she termed "a major paradigm shift."

"Such changes deeply and dramatically challenge the way we experience, think about and understand the world," Martin said to a packed house, with many in the crowd standing in the back, during the Nov. 20 ceremony. "And yet, along with these sweeping changes comes great opportunity: opportunity for dramatic impact; opportunity for revolutionary new ways of teaching and learning; opportunity for innovation, for renewed energy, and for whole new ways of looking at the world."

Pointing to its academic excellence, depth and breadth of its programs and disciplines, general education core and plans to expand the sciences, math and technology, Martin said EMU was strongly positioned to make a difference in this time of transformation.

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