Click here to see the Feb. 6, 2009 Neighbors section in its entirety


By Ed McGrath and Bobbie Poynter

The Board of Directors of Leadership Tri-County recently selected Union College President Ed de Rosset as the 2010 recipient of the William Hacker, M.D. Leader of the Year Award.

Each year, Leadership Tri-County presents the award to an individual from Knox, Laurel or Whitley counties whose leadership efforts and accomplishments most closely reflect the mission of the community organization — the identification and development of leadership resources to create a better and more unified Southeastern Kentucky.

Edward de Rosset was born in New Jersey to Edward and Joyce de Rosset, life missionaries who spent 44 years in Peru, home schooling their four children. When young Ed was in the seventh grade, the de Rossets returned to the United States, ensuring their children would receive the best education possible.

Ed spent most of his life in higher education, 25 of those years at Union College. Today, Ed, his wife LouAnn (currently a Union faculty member) and their four-year-old daughter, Chloe Rose, live on the Union campus. As a campus resident, President de Rosset is content to move comfortably throughout the college grounds, stopping along the way to chat with students and staff, who continually fill him with a sense of the rhythm and joys of the campus.

“The campus is a special kind of neighborhood within the community as a whole,” de Rosset explained. “It’s a campus without fences, so people in the community feel comfortable taking part in anything that happens on campus. The local neighborhood has been very good to our students. It’s been very accepting. When we’re having a good year, the community’s having a good year. We’re all together.”

During de Rosset’s tenure as president, Union College has been recognized for outstanding performance in various fields of academia. Union’s scores on the 2009 National Study of Student Engagement outpaced the national average for similar schools by 20 percent in several different areas. In addition, applications for admission to Union have increased by 80 percent since 2003, and the number of full-time faculty has increased by 33 percent since the 2003-04 academic year.

“It’s all about the sense of scale, spaces that are more personal,” de Rosset said. “The students receive more help and personal attention than at a large college. Union’s a good place to be. The ratio of faculty to students is very low. Last year, 98 percent of our student body received nearly $5 million in financial aid. We’re very committed to being affordable. The way the economy is, we need to do everything we can to help our students meet their academic goals.”

Another achievement under de Rosset’s direction was Union’s recent Energy Conservation Project. This involved the installation of 128 geothermal wells and energy-efficient updates such as insulation, window replacements, lighting replacements and retro-fits, energy monitoring and control systems, installation of high-tech furnaces, and electrical system improvements. The project broke ground in 2006 with an energy-savings guarantee of $1.8 million over 15 years. In the first year alone, Union exceeded the projected $123,636 in savings for a total savings of $215,199.

When the college’s heating system went down, it posed a major challenge for both the staff and the surrounding community, but de Rosset believes that if you have faith in your community and region, opportunities open up and providence knocks on the door.

“We put our heads together with the community, and decided if we had to fix it, we were going to fix it right. Working toward energy conservation was a major challenge, but I’m glad to say it’s paying off for us now,” he said.

“It’s a case of very dedicated people being excited and pulling together to do something highly worthwhile,” he continued. “A lot of people stepped up to the plate. When everyone pulls together, there’s a lot of satisfaction all the way around. All you need is big ideas and build on the resources you have.”

De Rosset is proud of the partnership Union College and Barbourville have developed over the years and credits that relationship with the success of the college, its students and graduates, and the community as well.

“Barbourville has smart leadership, and we’ve learned to depend on each other quite a bit,” he said. “We can approach the city and county leaders and explore ideas about what can work for us. There’s a better future where colleges, communities and organizations collaborate. The college needs to be a reliable partner. We certainly want to think about how we can get stronger and do things that are good for the community.”

Ed McGrath is chairman of the Leadership Tri-County Board of Directors

Bobbie Poynter is the Community Editor for The Times-Tribune