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It is an honor, in my 35th year at the University
of Minnesota, to serve as Interim President of this great institution.
Succeeding Mark Yudof is a daunting task, but, from serving as Executive
Vice President and Provost for five years, I can tell you that the
vision he and I shared for the University remains the touchstone
for my work here. Mark deserves our thanks, and I think the University
community did a good job of recognizing his many contributions in
the weeks leading up to his and Judy’s departure.
In fact, President Yudof finished up his work here
on a day that I was out of town, so he used the office I recently
moved into. When I came back, I found notes posted from Mark on
my wife’s picture, my bookshelf and my favorite trophy:
- I am a great lover of the outdoors—that’s part of
the reason I’ve made this state my home for so long--and
one of my prize possessions is a giant walleye I caught. (Soon
after I caught the fish, my oldest son opined that, based upon
observations of his father’s fishing ability, he was absolutely
certain the fish had committed suicide.) Anyway, the fish is stuffed
and mounted in a display case. On that case Mark left a note saying,
"No time for fishing!"
- I found another when I went to look for a pencil. This one said:
"By now, you’re obviously in too deep--assign this task
to the Provost!"…which gave me some insight into my
life as provost for the past five years.
For my part, I want to thank the many interconnected communities
here at the University, and particularly our academic community,
for the support they’ve given to me and to my administration.
Susan and I have had to do some adjusting to these new titles and
responsibilities. I’ve been cleared to tell you that she recently
introduced herself as the "interim wife of the president."—still
sorting out this new title.
While this may be a time of transition, both in university leadership
and in the state budget climate, I want to assure you that leadership
of this great university is fully committed to maintaining an upward
trajectory, to fulfilling the promises we’ve made to the University
community and to the state of Minnesota. We have an excellent team
of senior leaders in place-- perhaps the best leadership team assembled
here at the University. And we are governed by a dedicated group
of regents as well as the wise faculty and staff with us here today.
In our research, in the caliber of students we are attracting and
in the quality experience they get on our campuses, we cannot afford
to slow down. We are an institution with a century and a half legacy
of learning and innovation. At the same time, we are in an increasingly
competitive environment—for the best faculty and staff, for
the best students, for limited state dollars, for sponsored research
funding, and for private gifts. Truly, to mark time is to lose ground
in higher education today.
University Successes
You can see a lot at the University of Minnesota today that exemplifies
our strength and vitality.
For our students, faculty, staff and alumni, the campus renaissance
we have experienced on our campuses for the past several years is
slowly moving from jackhammers to genomics, from dust and detours
to digital technology and design. It is a great source of pride
for me to see the dozens of projects that are either finished or
well underway, including:
- Cutting-edge research and education facilities like Walter Library,
the Molecular and Cellular Biology Building, and the Science Building
West Wing at Morris.
- Great centers for cultural life, like the Weber Music Performance
Center at UMD, UMC’s Kiehle Building expansion, and the Twin
Cities’ new Art Teaching and Research Facility.
- New living and learning spaces for students, including a significant
increase in modern classrooms, Riverbend Commons on the East Bank,
and the Griggs Hall addition in Duluth.
- And the list goes on, with literally dozens of projects that
strengthen our commitment to fields from architecture to plant
biology to journalism and the social sciences.
- To continue this necessary capital renewal, we will ask the
Board of Regents to resubmit to the legislature the important
capital projects vetoed by the Governor this past spring.
Regarding our students, both our applications and our enrollments
continue to rise.
- Across the University, we have a decades high 62,000 students
enrolled—a 4 percent increase over last year.
- Across the University, the average level of educational preparedness
of incoming freshmen is the highest it has ever been.
- And once students, particularly our undergraduates, arrive at
University of Minnesota campuses, their experience continues to
improve with:
- New policies regarding minimum course loads and tuition
pricing on the Twin Cities campus that appear to be having
the intended effect of increased course loads, boding well
for future graduation rates.
- Online paperless financial aid, which has cut aid acceptance
time from 6 weeks to 5 days.
- Undergraduate Research Opportunities programs.
- New first year experience programs, including new honor
societies, better information for parents, special housing
programs, broader participation in orientation and many other
opportunities.
- In another area of the student experience, on our Twin Cities
campus, we have a newly united Department of Athletics under
the spirited leadership of Joel Maturi. The department was
recently ranked seventh in the nation by Sports Illustrated
for its overall excellence.
- Our graduate and professional programs are experiencing similar
successes. Enrollment of these students is up by 14 percent across
the University, and Graduate and Professional students comprise
more than 40 percent of our graduates here in the Twin Cities.
As Art Rolnick, a graduate and a senior vice president of the Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank, has said, "The University’s product—the
gold it produces—is its well educated students and its…research."(1)
And that research enterprise continues to grow.
- The University’s sponsored research topped half a billion
dollars last year. That’s testimony to the hard work and
commitment to curiosity-driven discovery among our faculty.
- It is also a tribute to the quality and dedication of our faculty
and staff that the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus
was again ranked for the second consecutive year as one of the
top three public research universities in the nation by a University
of Florida study.
The University’s strength and excellence extends beyond the
Twin Cities campus.
On our Duluth campus, in addition to new buildings, an amazing
enrollment of 9,800 students, and a second consecutive national
championship in the NCAA Women’s Frozen Four, great things
are happening:
- Making good on the University’s promise to the state, a
new pharmacy program at Duluth will address the statewide shortage
of pharmacists.
- In May, 28 American Indian graduates from a variety of bands
and tribes received Master of Education degrees from UMD, in a
cooperative program with MnSCU’s Fond du Lac College.
Moving south, our University of Minnesota, Rochester Branch signed
a new agreement with MnSCU. Provost David Carl has been working
hard to expand new academic programs in a variety of fields to address
the education and workforce needs of Southeast Minnesota.
Zooming back up North and West, our Morris campus continues to
win accolades for its unique brand of liberal arts education on
a small public campus. One study ranked UMM number four among all
the nation's public liberal arts colleges and moved Morris into
the third tier of the "national liberal arts" institutions,
making it one of the very few public institutions in that elite
category.
Further north and west, in Crookston, where many of us were warmly
hosted by the community during last month’s Regents meeting,
UMC is marking its tenth year as a baccalaureate institution. In
addition to winning a national award for "Ubiquitous Computing,"
UMC has also had a banner year for development, receiving the largest
gift ever made to the campus and surpassing its Campaign Minnesota
Goal by more than a million dollars!
And Speaking of Campaign Minnesota, our staff, faculty, volunteers,
and donors deserve great accolades for exceeding our overall campaign
goal of $1.3 billion as we begin our last year of this fundraising
effort.
- We’ve raised more than $1.4 billion thus far.
- More than 8,500 faculty and staff have contributed $57 million,
illustrating strong employee commitment.
- Ninety-eight new endowed chairs have been created, as well as
more than 500 endowed scholarships and fellowships.
- In the last year, the campaign will focus on student support,
our libraries, and remaining campus and college-specific goals.
I am confident we will reach these goals.
Finally, throughout the 87 counties of Minnesota, our Extension
service has reorganized in order to take better advantage of new
technology and to provide more specialized expertise and clearer
connections to the university's faculty and research.
This has been a very limited summary that defines the proud achievements,
qualities and extraordinary impacts of the University of Minnesota.
Overall, the state of the University is better than the Minnesota
"pretty good;" it is truly strong and getting stronger.
Context, and the Case for the U
This year, more than ever, we will have to make the case for the
University and for higher education. To me, it is unacceptable that
only 3 percent of Minnesotans believe that higher education is a
priority in addressing the state’s budget challenges.
In the broadest context, we face a challenge to the long-held consensus
that higher education is a public good.
- The education-income function today is quite striking. A person
with a bachelor’s degree makes almost a million dollars more
in lifetime earnings over a person with a high school education,
with more advanced degrees yielding much higher rates of return.(2)
- That private return, I fear, has begun to overshadow the public
good provided by higher education—particularly by public
higher education institutions like the U.
- We know that funding for public higher education has declined
substantially as a proportion of state budgets and as a percentage
of personal income across the country over the past quarter century,
and Minnesota has not been immune to this trend.
- This has led many public university presidents to comment that,
"We used to be state supported, then we became state assisted,
and now we are state-located."(3)
In the short-term, as far as the state’s economy goes, I believe
this is the most challenging year we have faced in the past 15 to
20 years.
- Minnesota’s projected deficit, adjusted for inflation,
is almost $3 billion. The state has already eliminated hundreds
of jobs, and school districts as well as health and social service
agencies are facing similar difficulties.
- At the U, we’ve already absorbed a permanent, recurring
$24 million cut—that’s four percent-- as part of the
2002 legislative session. We took this cut while safeguarding
important academic investments.
- In 2003, Minnesota will have a new governor and the greatest
turnover in years at the Legislature. We will have to renew the
case for the U with many new faces.
Fortunately, the case for funding the University remains strong,
and there are many benefits that accumulate to the public from funding
research universities like ours.
- As I mentioned, the University currently attracts $527 million
in sponsored research funds or 98 percent of the competitive sponsored
funds that go to higher education in Minnesota. It’s an important
leveraging of the state’s annual investment.
- We have strengthened our commercialization of technology operations
to help ensure that our research innovations, where viable, are
taken to market to provide the greatest good possible.
- We graduate between 10,000 and 11,000 students a year in a broad
range of majors. We estimate that more than half of our graduates
remain in state, contributing to the recruitment and retention
of a highly trained workforce in key fields.
- As a state, we will continue to be a net importer of talent.
In that vein, the University of Minnesota is an integral part
of attracting what Carnegie Mellon Prof. Richard Florida calls
the creative class, an increasingly important group of skilled
professionals who are a linchpin of a knowledge-based economy.(4)
To keep the Twin Cities attractive as one of the top 10 "creative"
urban areas, he urges investment in the University.(5)
- We can make similar cases for the economic impact of our other
campuses, not to mention our six Research and Outreach Centers.
The economy of Northeast Minnesota, for example, relies on UMD
for well-educated graduates, for the applied research into mineral
and forest products by the Natural Resources Research Institute,
and for research on environmental changes affecting the Great
Lakes.
- But the case for U funding goes beyond economic growth. We play
a vital role in the cultural life of this state. As just one example,
our School of Music here in Minneapolis is celebrating its 100th
anniversary. Just think of that—one hundred years of teaching
students what Longfellow called "the universal language of
mankind." The University can lay similar long-term claims
to education and creation in all the visual and performing arts,
and to other major contributions to the social well-being of this
state.
But,
- Making the case for the U also extends to the way the state
allocates funding for higher education.
- After three decades in public higher education, I remain skeptical
of the high tuition-high aid model, where the challenge of financing
higher education is supposedly found in "letting the money
follow the students." The more extreme version of this idea
reminds me of what Mencken once said: "For every complex
problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."
- We do have a higher education system—public and private--in
this state that has strengths in many areas. It is evident that
we must have reasonable levels of financial aid for individual
students that will help them finance the educational experience
that best suits them.
- It is also important to note that "the money should follow
the student" position applies to support of undergraduates.
The strategy does not address the need to support research or
graduate and professional study. These are critically important
issues for the University.
- In my view, we have to maintain the appropriate balance in funding
higher education: we must support individuals (the private good
arguments) and systems (the public good side I’ve outlined
previously).
Biennial Proposal—a partnership
- As I’ve mentioned, the current state and national economic
context places special responsibilities upon us this year.
- Even in an era when state funding has waned, it is still important
to recognize that the state is a crucial part of our resource
base, providing over $600 million each year. It represents a third
of our overall budget and more than 40 percent of our instructional
budget. It is worthy of our attention.
- We have a responsibility to the state to present what this University
needs to maintain our current strength and progress, and to build
on 151 years of greatness. This is not a time to be shy about
the U’s needs or shrink from the challenges of investment
in the U of M.
- On the other hand, we have to maintain a position of credibility
and responsibility in today’s state budget environment. We
have to be cognizant of the state’s economic realities, and
show that we are willing to shoulder our part by strategically
and proactively making the best use of existing state and tuition
dollars.
- This month we will bring before the Board of Regents a recommendation
about the broad areas of investment we need--to continue improving
the U’s strength and vitality.
- This will be our lowest biennial proposal in 10 years; it will
respect the state’s economic challenges, and reaffirm our
internal commitment to setting priorities and cost-savings.
- Our approach this year will depart somewhat from past practice.
Up front, we will propose a reasoned, 50-50 partnership with the
state when it comes to financing our increased needs. Our proposal
will show our commitment to using internal reallocation and tuition
increases to invest in the future of the University at the same
time that we seek essential, new state resources.
- I’d like to digress a moment. This is an opportune time
for us to think creatively about ways the University can seize
natural opportunities to enhance service and productivity and
to reduce unnecessary costs. That is why we are launching an enhanced
service and productivity initiative,
with a financial goal of achieving at least $5 million in savings
through a combination of cost reductions or new revenue enhancements.
- And what does this mean in practice? I think we can point to
some good, recent examples of improved service and increased efficiency
that we would like to replicate in different areas of the University:
- Our newly created paperless student financial aid system
saves 700,000 pieces of paper each year and some $250,000
in costs.
- Our recent move to online pay statements saves the University
an estimated $150,000 each year.
- So, our efforts to improve our service and efficiency are
linked to our pledge to reallocate and cut costs, a major
component of the financing partnership we are proposing with
the state.
- These creative ideas came from our faculty and staff. Carol
Carrier and Chuck Muscoplat, co-leaders of this critically
important initiative, need your new ideas.
Biennial Proposal –Priorities
- As a University, our successes have been catalyzed by intentionally
setting priorities. In my view, great institutions and organizations
set and fund their priorities, they measure and report what they
value (accountability), they don’t "lurch" in their
focus, and they follow through on their commitments.
- These qualities—direction, continuity, and commitment—characterize
the University of Minnesota today, and they characterize our proposal
for the biennial request. In this proposal, the University will
continue to:
- Implement and Support Academic Directions. Within this area,
we will seize "tipping point" opportunities by investing
programs that are on the cusp of prominence; build on recent
strategic investments and extend those investments into niche
areas of national significance; and sustain the best at our
university—that is, the programs and departments that
have made us one of the top public research universities;
- Support talented faculty and staff, the cornerstone of a
strong university. This includes reasonable compensation and
resources to retain our most talented colleagues.
- Help students realize their educational goals by making
investments to improve the student experience;
- and build and maintain the academic infrastructure, from
libraries to technology support which, as I’ve mentioned,
is key to our ability to attract, retain and support our faculty,
staff and students.
Call to Action
- Today the University of Minnesota is in excellent health, and
all of us—regents, faculty, staff, students, elected leaders
and citizens of this state—can take enormous pride in how
we’ve made it a better place.
- This will be a tough year, but recall our 150 years of greatness
and the significant improvement in service and academic quality
in the past several years.
- From 35 years (23%) of personal experience I can tell you that
this University has faced difficult times in the past, and we
have weathered them. We will weather these times as well.
- As we embark on the next 150 years, this is a time for a renewal
of the covenant we have with the people of Minnesota.
- The people of this state have been generous to the University
and they have seen us deliver on our promises.
- They can rely on us to continue to live up to our commitments
and to a heritage that reaches back even before the founding of
this state.
- I believe, that, in the end, institutions with strong values
endure and thrive, no matter if they are a university, a business,
or a civic group. But organizations must have a vision for the
future, and they must constantly reinvent themselves around their
values to achieve that vision. That is even more true in tough
times. Today I believe we have a vision, and we must advance and
share it.
- To advance excellence at the University, we need your help in
conveying the importance of the University and its current needs.
Candidates, and then newly-elected state officials need to hear
the case for the University.
- As former U of M President Lotus Coffman once said: the University
"breathes the spirit of the social order…is constantly
engaged in an attempt to understand the meaning of the age (and
is) dominated by a philosophy of helpfulness."
- Let us keep that curiosity, reflection and ethos of discovery
and helpfulness alive in this next year.
- Thank you for your attention today and for your work in making
this a great University, and for the honor of serving as your
interim president.
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