McLarty’s seventh school year as president

August 12, 2019 | Office of the President | After the graduating class walked across the stage at commencement in May, Dr. McLarty began preparing for the 2019-20 school year at Harding — his seventh school year as president. Following the rhythm of academia, that preparation began with decompression. “One of the things that people in higher education know to appreciate is that there is this wonderful academic rhythm that, when students are here and school is in session we are working at an intense pace,” McLarty said. “Every day is full of appointments and meetings, and week can roll into week at dizzying speed. At the end of the year the campus becomes less populated. Students head home. Everybody takes a deep breath. For me, it’s a time where my days loosen up/slow down. Without school and without chapel, I have four hours in the morning that I don’t have available during the school year. I’m amazed at what can get done before lunch.” From reading to spending time with family and spending one-on-one time with the cabinet, faculty and staff, McLarty uses the summer to recharge. The week after graduation, Ann and Bruce McLarty headed to Kentucky. Other summer excursions for the McLartys included a trip to Nashville for their 39th wedding anniversary, a three-day trip to Washington D.C. to introduce their grandson to the capitol, a two-day retreat with the cabinet, an Alaskan cruise and the Caribbean lectures. “I went to the Caribbean lectures for the first time ever,” McLarty said. “I was looking forward to being there with Dr. Ganus. He is an icon there. He became ill and wasn’t able to go for the first time in forever. The last night we were there I told the lectureship attendees we were leaving to go home the next day and that we had note cards available for anyone who wanted to write to Dr. Ganus. I came back with a stack that was probably two inches high.” After a two-day NCAA meeting in Indianapolis followed by a day filled with the final session of new faculty orientation and staff presession, McLarty was refreshed and ready to go. “Summer gives me the opportunity to experience things out of the Harding routine,” McLarty said. “I think it all feeds into what I do at Harding. Being at the Caribbean lectures, seeing alumni and current students, and seeing the legacy of Dr. Ganus — it’s all such an important part of education for me. They are experiences that expand you and feed your soul.” The average tenure for a Harding president is 22 years, McLarty . Each year McLarty has faced different challenges than he would have anticipated the previous year. “The big challenges in my seventh year, will be different than they were six years ago,” McLarty said. “It’s a constantly changing landscape. A lesson that I am relearning as college president is to focus on the task before you, but don’t carry the weight of the world in the future on your shoulders.” “Each year there has been a most urgent issue, and it is always changing. In the past, it has been things like online courses, accreditation and new government regulations. As year seven starts, our most urgent issue is enrollment. The nationwide decline in the number of college students is now the No. 1 most pressing matter on the minds of all administrators in higher education.” Addressing the challenges and moving forward into the year, the goals come from the five-year strategic plan and the report that followed the completion of the first year of that strategic plan . “We spent a year developing the plan, and this was the first year of the current five-year cycle, which is a living dynamic thing. A strategic plan at its very best keeps you from being tied to the urgent. It calls you to go above that and look at the long term and important.” Two big accomplishments described in the report were the establishment of the University College and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with ASU-Beebe . “We have made significant progress on initiatives this year, and this next year I would say, continuing to keep those pillars in front of us and taking the next steps in that direction. It’s not that there is one bumper sticker goal — it’s that we spent a lot of time looking distantly at the horizon and this year taking the next steps in that direction.”