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President Bruininks on:The Future of Higher Education Human Capital and Economic Impact Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation About the Office of the President
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2003 State of the University AddressUniversity of Minnesota |
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I note with great satisfaction our return to this venue today, Coffman Student Union. Working with Twin Cities student leaders we have created a renovated space that mirrors their energy, enthusiasm and high aspirations. This project serves to reconnect the campus to one of its most unsung natural resources, the Mississippi River. It has been my great honor to serve as the 15th President of the University of Minnesota, to be part of a 152-year legacy of discovery and engagement. Throughout its history, it has been part of a larger public higher education enterprise, one that has provided more than 80 percent of the growth of access to higher education in this country since 1950. We owe it to our forward-thinking predecessors to ensure that the University of Minnesota continues to make a difference in the lives of our state's citizens. The rising cost of attendance must not bar access to future generations of students. This is Minnesota's legacy as much as it is the University's. CHALLENGES AHEAD Our challenge today is to move ahead, to set high academic aspirations--to ensure the excellence, strength and vitality of the University for our students and for the people of Minnesota in a time of fiscal austerity.
Your University took one of the largest cuts in state appropriations in the nation this year, one that set us back five years in real dollars, and 17 years in adjusted dollars. At the same time, we faced significant new costs for employee health care premiums, for recruitment and retention of top faculty, for new technology and laboratories, and for improvements in student access and the student experience. SHARED PAIN Consequently, this has been a time of shared pain in our community. Subject to negotiations, we've asked employees to take a wage freeze this year--although we plan to offer compensation increases next year. We've asked employees to pay more toward the increased cost of health care benefits premiums. This is a nationwide trend, with premium costs rising more than 60 percent over the past five years. Within our proposed changes we will still retain a benefits program that is above par in terms of services offered and cost to employees. Sadly, we've seen hundreds of lay-offs and the elimination of programs that we can no longer support in the current funding environment. And, last, but by no means least, we've asked students to pay more toward their education than ever before. During this challenging time, I've been heartened by the creativity and the sense of shared sacrifice among our students, staff and faculty. Only with the commitment of our people can we preserve our academic strengths, minimize the impact of these cuts, find new effectiveness and efficiencies, and look toward the best, long-term interest of this great institution. VALUES For me, the long-term health and well-being of the University of Minnesota lies in the values we have always held, and which we must hold closer during these less certain times. In my inaugural address I mentioned several of these values, including:
We see evidence of our values in the progress and impact of the University across this state. ECONOMIC IMPACT People in my position across the country have long talked of the value of research universities to a state or a region's economic growth. There is always a danger of mistaking the OUTCOME of economic growth for the University's work with the PURPOSE of its work. But there is a growing body of scholarship that points to the invaluable role a research university plays in today's knowledge based economy. Research universities are magnets for talent and they are fonts of knowledge that can contribute strongly to the economy. A recent study from the Humphrey Institute used well-accepted economic impact measures to determine that the University leverages each dollar of state appropriations by a factor of 16, as you can see from this slide. Out of an initial state investment of 600 million dollars, the University creates nearly 10 billion dollars in annual economic activity in this state! And that's before you take into account the unique and less measurable effects of a research university such as knowledge & technology transfer, spin-offs of technology, licensing and start-up companies. We've led the Big Ten and placed in the top 20 nationally on a number of leading technology transfer indicators. But the University of Minnesota's economic value to the state is a very incomplete measure of its impact. We also have a profound bearing upon other aspects of this state's culture and civic life. For example, we are part of a "critical mass" of arts activity here in Minnesota, developing musicians, authors, artists, dancers, and actors who challenge, and inform and inspire us. That role will only continue to grow with new facilities and new energy across our campuses. We are also a wellspring of civic and cultural engagement in countless other aspects of Minnesota's quality of life. And there are many indicators that the University of Minnesota is stronger and more vibrant than ever. CAMPAIGN MINNESOTA This year we concluded our highly successful CAMPAIGN MINNESOTA, bringing in $1.66 billion in gifts and pledges over seven years, 25 percent more than our original goal. Some 220,000 donors gave during this campaign—the second most successful public university campaign in history--and half of them were first-time donors, a fact that bodes very well for the future. The success of this campaign was widespread, with every campus, college and program receiving record levels of giving. Our success was and is premised on state support for core university operations, which private philanthropy cannot simply replace. It would take the University more than 20 years of fundraising at the current extraordinary rates just to make up for the recent state budget cuts. The STUDENTS we attract continue to amaze. Last year we had 63,000 students enrolled across our campuses and centers, and we expect to top that number this year. Our incoming freshman class at UMTC is the best prepared we've ever had and was drawn from a record number of applications. We've also had two Rhodes Scholars, three Truman Scholars, and ten Goldwater scholars between 2001 and 2003, which I think is a good indication of the high achieving students we have attracted to our campuses. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH continues to be a popular destination; Outside magazine has recognized Duluth and UMD among America's best college towns, a list that included "40 schools that turn out and I quote, smart grads with top-notch academic credentials, a healthy environment ethos, and an A-plus sense of adventure." During the spring 2003 commencement ceremonies, UMD graduated the largest American Indian teacher education group in the history of the state through an innovative collaboration with Fond Du Lac Tribal and Community College. The UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MORRIS continues to thrive as one of the top three public liberal arts colleges in the country according to US News and World Report. The campus' central core has been declared a National Historic District, and Morris has received a grant from the Getty Foundation to research the exterior and landscape history of the campus. At CROOKSTON, our new chancellor, Velmer Burton, will be formally inaugurated in a few short weeks. We welcome him and give a hearty thank you to Chancellor Emeritus Don Sargeant for his many years of service. Enrollment is up this year, and Chancellor Burton is working to develop new academic degree programs in applied areas that support Crookston's mission and contribute greatly to economic development of greater Minnesota. This year, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA ROCHESTER began, with the Twin Cities campus, a new PhD. Program in Higher Education. This program now enrolls 25 people across Southeast Minnesota. In cooperation with UMD, Rochester has grown its MBA program from 9 students last January to 42 students today, and enrollments were up in this, the second year of the Bachelors of Science in Nursing program. This year, the University has made some major decisions about realigning the resources that support our UNIVERSITY EXTENSION, and our RESEARCH AND OUTREACH CENTERS. In January, Extension will move its more than 150 regional Extension educators to one of 18 regional centers located across Minnesota. In doing so, we will spend less money on facilities and infrastructure and more on vital programs and services. These changes were driven in part by state budget cuts to the University and to the counties, but we also believe they are essential to bringing the university's high quality research and resources to all Minnesotans. Building for the future in the context of large state budget cuts means that we have to INVEST STRATEGICALLY and at the same time, we have to make difficult decisions to balance our own budget. While we will reallocate our internal resources to address new opportunities, let us be under no illusion: to continue to improve, to reach the next level, and to generate the dynamic intellectual capital that helps drive this entire region's economy and quality of life, the University will need significant investment. We can learn from other states' experiences, but I believe that Minnesota must blaze its own trail. Our future, as a state of 5 million souls, is still tied to a strong University of Minnesota, and I see no way for the University to continue to succeed without adequate state and private investment. So what is our strategy to strengthen the University? To play off Louis Pasteur's quip that "Chance favors the prepared mind," I would say that success favors the prepared organization. Our best preparation is to build on the pre-existing strengths of our core academic programs and to take advantage of the cutting edge, world-changing synergies that occur when our researchers and scholars work across the disciplines. STRONG DEPARTMENTS AND PROGRAMS This administration is committed to maintaining the areas of strength that our colleges and departments have built over the years. The skyline of this university is impressive in both its breadth and the heights that scholars in many set disciplines have carved out… for themselves and for the University of Minnesota. These are departments and programs throughout the University that are recognized as leaders in their fields. They are in the performing arts, the social sciences, engineering, the physical sciences, in medicine and the life sciences, and in rigorous professional school programs. While we cannot be excellent in all things, we must maintain these distinctive strengths while recognizing new areas of potential. INTERDISCIPLINARY AREAS The strength of individual programs is an important end in itself, but it is also the foundation for a second strategy. We seek to deepen the interdisciplinary work that allows us to leverage the breadth and particular strengths of the University. The commissioned areas that I will emphasize are based on long-term investment and continuity of priorities. They represent areas of comparative advantage for the University, have high quality foundational programs, are central to our land grant mission and research enterprise, and reflect the needs and resources of Minnesota. They are areas where further investment will yield significant return in intellectual quality and capital, and where we can leverage considerable outside resources. The rationale for interdisciplinary investments is no mystery. Today more than ever, pushing the boundaries of knowledge in one field often means crossing into other disciplines. And interdisciplinary work often has mutual reward; often the tools required to build new knowledge in one field require innovation in another. In chemical biology, for example, interdisciplinary work that creates new drugs and therapies for cancer patients is also accelerating the miniaturization of electrical circuits. Furthermore, the applied areas where the "rubber hits the road" –where art meets science, where technology meets health, and where policy meets philosophy — these are all intrinsically interdisciplinary and they are all part of the University's balanced academic culture. COMMISSIONED PRIORITIES The eight commissioned areas of interdisciplinary investment I will outline can be divided into two categories--not by importance but rather by how capital intensive they are. These areas have developed through years of study, review, consensus and investment, supported by special task forces and ongoing strategic agreements through the compact process. The first three interdisciplinary priorities can largely be funded through reallocation of our existing resources and private philanthropy. They are:
This highly successful effort has leveraged the University's strengths in the life sciences, the humanities, law and public policy. Its success has underscored my conviction that the truly "big" questions raised by new knowledge or technology are best tackled at a university like ours, in close proximity to the scholars performing cutting edge research. By contrast, the other five commissioned interdisciplinary areas I will outline cannot be fully capitalized without additional support from the state and partnerships with the private sector. BIOSCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY will remain a primary interest for the scholars of the University of Minnesota. This is a large umbrella for some fascinating, rapidly evolving fields such as:
An area that will also overlap with our biosciences and biotechnology initiative is ENVIRONMENT AND RENEWABLE ENERGY. Investments in this area would include the following:
This effort will be spearheaded by University Services and the Provost's Office. Another initiative is TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH IN HUMAN HEALTH. This focus reflects some major investments we are making in connecting our basic science knowledge to treating disease. These investments include:
We will draw upon the university's unique mix of strengths in agriculture, foods and human health as well as our proximity to major areas of food production and food processing in an initiative we are tentatively calling "HEALTHY FOODS, HEALTHY LIVES." The University is well positioned to provide accurate unbiased knowledge about how our eating habits affect our health. The University can help reframe the public discussion about foods and health from its current emphasis on how foods can hurt us to how foods can be used to promote healthful lives. Another exciting initiative will be in BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AND VITALITY OVER THE LIFESPAN. This field, which is also referred to as cognitive developmental neuroscience, will bring together many research strengths--from basic neuroscience to education--to help broaden our understanding of how the brain changes over the life span and how aging influences the way we think. This exciting area has the potential to help us understand when infants and children are ready to learn and how best to teach them. It will help us understand what can go wrong with the developing brain and how best to treat developmental disorders and psychopathology. It will help us understand the declines that accompany aging with the potential to diminish the ravages of Alzheimer's and other age-related disorders of the brain. In this interdisciplinary collaboration we possess many well-regarded academic programs, including the Center for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. As I've said, these last five areas— biosciences and biotechnology; the environment and renewable energy; translational research in human health; healthy foods, healthy lives; and brain development and vitality over the lifespan will require significant deepening of state and private sector commitments in order to make Minnesota a true leader. They require the top scholars in highly competitive fields for talent and the most cutting edge technology and facilities. The University will continue to reallocate and find new efficiencies. But, if Minnesota is to compete in these capital and technology-intensive areas that the governor, legislators and private sector leaders have expressed interest in, we cannot get there by cutting the University's budget. RFP FOR CONFERENCES At the University of Minnesota, we have a proud history of and reputation for interdisciplinary work. I want to stress that the areas I've outlined by no means represent the full spectrum of interdisciplinary work at the University, nor do they represent the only areas of ongoing and future investment. Through the strategic compact process, we've identified, supported and will continue to invest in many other promising interdisciplinary projects and programs. Having said that, we have a long way to go in becoming a more interdisciplinary University. I'd like to make the identification and cultivation of promising interdisciplinary fields less challenging and more institutionalized. We will soon announce a "request for proposals" process with the purpose of funding academic conferences that focus on new, "grassroots" interdisciplinary efforts, ones that can percolate from our talented faculty and staff, just as the previous initiatives that I have outlined. These conferences-- and I envision some eight to ten each year--would become part of a larger, system-wide President's Interdisciplinary Conference Series. There are several conferences planned for this academic year. The conference series will serve multiple purposes, and will largely be funded with newly-created, privately-financed discretionary funds. Our strategy will include bringing scholarly experts together to frame the issues and set the agendas for investment in interdisciplinary academic frontiers. The working conferences will also provide a venue for research dissemination that connects our resources to serious public concerns. PUBLIC MISSION I also believe that our public mission must continue to evolve and, as I mentioned in my inaugural address, our challenge is to strengthen the connection between our research and education missions and the needs of our society. I've talked about the emerging regional strategy for our extension service. These changes are but one aspect of a broader, coordinated public effort that the University can make toward regional economic and community development. In the coming months, I will continue to meet with elected officials, philanthropic foundations, non-profit groups and leaders in the private sector to see if we can build new partnerships. If our aims are the same, we will work to align our strategies so that our efforts are not piecemeal. STUDENTS We must continue our focus on our students, the lifeblood of this institution. We will work to raise private scholarship funds to attract the best students and to keep the U accessible for students of more modest means. We also seek to improve the student experience at all levels, to focus on the quality of learning and to apply outcome-based measures to inform our work. With success in focusing on the "First Year Experience" of our undergraduate students on all campuses, I believe that it is time to turn anew to the latter stages of our student's degree programs. We need to ensure that all students who achieve senior status are able to complete degrees and do so in a reasonable time frame. We will be launching a series of projects through the Provost's office in cooperation with the schools and colleges and faculty governance to improve student progress and graduation rates. We will invest in undergraduate research opportunities, international study and curricula, learning communities, mentorship experiences, and advisement and career services. STEWARDSHIP AND SERVICE Higher education institutions throughout the country are all expected to be better stewards of the resources that have been entrusted to us. To do so will require concurrent improvements in our University's service and efficiency. In the same way that we've pursued an agenda of compliance during the past decade, we must today mount an equal if not stronger effort to ensure that we are using our resources in the most efficient way we can. Last year, in close partnership with the faculty through the FCC's review of service operations, we kicked off a service and productivity initiative. We will continue to work closely with the faculty and other leaders to ensure that changes in our service reflect our core academic values. The public we serve has come to expect great things from our faculty, staff and students. According to opinion polls, Minnesotans think highly of the research, education and outreach that we provide, but they are clearly less confident about whether we are managing resources well and providing high levels of service. It is my hope that one day soon the University will be known as much for how it operates and how it provides service as for what we create—in our research breakthroughs or high quality education programs. VALUES AND PERFORMANCE Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic has written that, "One of the greatest challenges of business today is creating a culture that is both values-centered and performance driven. Many business executives believe that they must make trade-offs between them. I don't buy it." I don't buy it either, and I believe that institutions like the University of Minnesota, though they differ in many ways from private businesses, can thrive in today's competitive higher education environment without compromising their values. We are in the planning stages of creating and funding a cross-functional team that will be available to work with a variety of campus units and colleges on implementing "best practices" in their operations. As a University, we have many challenges ahead. Fortunately, I believe this past year has shown that the University, its students, faculty, staff and regents, can act thoughtfully and deliberately to preserve and bolster the University's core strengths, even in these trying times. This year, the decisions we make about managing our resources will have to be all the more creative and more strategic. Despite the difficult decisions we've had to make, in terms of academic excellence and opportunities, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better time for a student or a scholar to be at the University of Minnesota. Today, our campuses shine with new and renovated facilities, our academic reputation is similarly sterling, and our campuses are teeming with record numbers of talented students. We are poised to become an even greater institution. We will work to align our resources and assets in order to better leverage them. We will continue to collaborate with a broad array of academic and community leaders, to measure our progress in order to improve, and to seek stronger levels of public and private support.
We are up to the challenge, and it is our people who will continue to build on the many successes we have experienced—in the recent past and over a hundred and fifty year history. In short, we will be working hard to plan for this brighter future. The state of the University today is robust. We will need your support to move ahead! Thank you. |
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