Gregory Geoffroy Speeches: Iowa State University

Pursuing Excellence

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Fall Convocation Address
President Gregory L. Geoffroy
September 29, 2003

This is the day that we recognize and celebrate the wonderful achievements of our faculty and staff, and we'll do that in a moment.

This is also a time for me to outline the state of the university and present the priorities for the coming year. To begin, let me remind you of our overall aspiration - to become the best university in the nation in fulfilling our land-grant responsibilities, especially to the people of the state we serve, the people of Iowa.

As I outlined last year, this requires achieving a high level of excellence in the four priority areas aligned with our land-grant mission. These have not changed, and it's important to keep them in front of us to remind us of our mission and charge.

: First, we must make sure that we provide a superior education to our students, who are the primary purpose for our existence.; Second, we must increase the number of our academic programs counted among the very best in their fields, and continue to do cutting-edge research, especially in important priority areas and especially in areas important to Iowa.; Third, we must make sure that we remain strongly connected with the people we serve--the citizens of Iowa.; Fourth, we must make sure that we are constantly providing an inviting, welcoming environment, and one that supports the success of every member of our community. Indeed, achieving the other three priorities depends on our having the very best people, and to attract these people, we must have an environment that is supportive of all.

If we keep focused, and achieve these priorities, we will rapidly advance the excellence of the university.

Now to the State of the University. There's a lot I could discuss, but I'm going to focus on a few key areas.

A few weeks ago, we welcomed 27,380 students, our third largest enrollment and the third year in a row enrollment has exceeded 27,000. However, that enrollment is down 518 from the record of last fall, and we'll be examining the reasons for that in detail in the weeks and months ahead. Graduate enrollment is actually up by about 250 students, however, undergraduate enrollment is down by about 750, for a variety of reasons, some good, and some not so good. We know that 320 more students graduated last year than the year before, which is good news. We're also down because 80 of our students who were called to military service have not returned, and our international undergraduate enrollment is down about 200 primarily because of problems with obtaining visas. Then there's the unknown factor of the recent large tuition increases. But we do know that we need to re-energize our student recruiting efforts, which will be one of our priorities this year.

As you know, we have made it a priority the last couple of years to stem the loss of faculty numbers and return to a level appropriate for our aspiration. We truly had a banner year last year in recruiting new faculty, hiring 107 new faculty, which is one-third more than were hired the previous year. However, that was offset by a large number of retirements, and early indications are that the total number of tenured and tenure-track faculty did not change much. The good news is that we stopped the loss.

We had another record year of sponsored funding, with $230 million brought to Iowa State by our faculty and staff. This attests to the strength of our research enterprise and the excellence of our faculty and staff.

Our new academic initiatives, established last year, are doing well; some extremely well. Six new faculty have been added to these initiatives, including three in the Human Computer Interaction initiative.

Last year, we started the process of incorporating the Memorial Union, a historic part of the campus, into the fabric of the university, and that process is going extremely well. One of the reasons we wanted to do this is so that we can use the university's bonding capacity to finance needed renovations. We are now planning the first phase of those renovations, which will begin in about a year. They will involve the first floor and include improved "way finding" as well as many other improvements. This is a great building, but it is looking and feeling "tired," so it needs renovation.

Other facilities improvements are proceeding very well. Indeed, this has become a year of building completions and dedications. We dedicated the new Reiman Gardens Conservatory and Butterfly Wing and the Union Drive Community Center earlier this fall. Hoover Hall dedication is this weekend for the College of Engineering. The Carver Co-Laboratory dedication is Oct. 18 for the Plant Sciences Institute, and the Extension 4-H/Youth Building dedication is Nov. 8. The Gerdin College of Business Building will be dedicated Feb. 20 and while the Bergstrom Multipurpose Use and Indoor Practice Facility will be completed this year, we'll probably hold the formal dedication until next year.

This is also an interesting year of anniversaries. It's the 125th anniversary of the Alumni Association; the 75th anniversary of the Memorial Union; the 25th anniversary of the founding of the College of Design; and the 100th birthday of John Atanasoff, who invented the electronic digital computer here, and we will host a symposium beginning Oct 30 focusing on modern computing. It's also the 50th anniversary of the historic Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which has had a profound impact on our nation, and we're observing it with a year-long celebration.

Finally, I'm often asked about the morale on campus. I perceive it to be generally good. We have weathered the budget challenges well, but not without pain. And most importantly, we have been able to maintain our strong focus on increasing excellence, and it's important that we always do this no matter how bad the budget gets.

I would now like to review specific agenda items for the current academic year.

First, and most importantly, we must keep a strong focus on advancing the overall level of academic excellence of Iowa State. This must always be our top priority. To that end, I see three needs.

First, we must strengthen the university's culture of excellence, and make sure we value excellence in everything that we do. We must celebrate excellence as we are doing here today, and we must place a high value on excellence in all the decisions that we make. We must also keep a strong focus on recruiting and retaining the very best faculty in our academic enterprise. Faculty are the heart of everything and the excellence of the institution will rise and fall with the excellence of the faculty. We need to work to advance excellence on all fronts, but the budget situation requires focusing, and it's important for all members--faculty, staff, deans, and department leaders--to decide where to focus our resources and our energies, particularly in times of budget constraints. This will be the topic of discussion at all levels as we go through our planning activities.

Second, we must continue our efforts to foster diversity and ensure that we have an inviting and welcoming climate that supports success for every member of our community. We will continue the campus dialogue, and our first Conversation on Diversity program will be held Oct. 6. We will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education throughout the year, and we had a great kickoff a few days ago with the lecture by Roger Wilkins. Last year, Provost Allen appointed a taskforce on the recruitment & retention of women and minority faculty. Its report was issued last May, and it included a number of important recommendations, which the Provost's office is now reviewing. It's important that we follow through on these recommendations in a timely and effective manner. We also need to strengthen our efforts to diversify our students, faculty, staff and university leadership. We have a number of important positions to fill, which gives us opportunities for progress in this area.

Third, this will also be a year of planning, and getting ready for planning. It's time to start looking toward assembling the university's next strategic plan, to go into effect on July 1, 2005, and I will appoint a planning committee this spring. Then we have our accreditation visit by the North Central accreditation team in the Spring of 2006, which means we must have our self-study completed in Fall of 2005. We will start with preparatory work this fall. I will appoint several study groups to examine important planning topics, some of which were recommended by last year's budget and planning advisory committee, and I will mention those later in today's address.

In regards to planning, I see four key questions before us, and how well we answer these will largely determine the future success of Iowa State University.

How can the university best adjust to the new fiscal realities?
As we all know, state support for higher education decreased in Iowa and nationally, and there is no indication the situation will improve anytime soon. Because of the budget cuts, we have had to increase our reliance on tuition, and increase tuition much more than we would like. I believe we are reaching the limit of large tuition increases and that the tuition level is beginning to have an impact on our enrollment. There is also increasing resistance to large tuition increases.

The bottom line is that our budgets will stay very constrained for the next several years, and we must adjust. How well we adjust will determine our future success. We must become more focused on where we decide to pursue excellence; more efficient in use of existing resources; and more entrepreneurial in seeking and strengthening alternate revenue sources.

As state support has decreased, we have shifted the funding of core operations to students and parents through tuition and fees. As a result, there is a growing discussion, on campus and among the Regents, suggesting that we should examine possible alternate tuition structures that might work better for all parties in the years ahead. For example, should we charge by the credit hour? Should we have differential tuition charges, for example, by major or by class standing? Provost Allen will announce this week a committee that will examine these questions, and the Regents are also studying this issue.

We're also seeing the advancement of excellence being supported more and more by private funds from our alumni and friends. As taxpayer support decreases, there is even greater reliance on private support - for scholarships, for faculty endowments, for facilities construction, and for program support. The tight economy has significantly challenged fundraising, but there are good signs that this situation is easing. And it's time now to start planning for the university's next major fundraising campaign to be conducted by the ISU Foundation. Our role is to set the priorities and determine the objectives for which we will ask the Foundation to raise funds, including facilities and initiatives that support our students, faculty, and staff.
How can we best define our land-grant responsibilities for the coming years, and how can we sharpen our focus to ensure that those responsibilities are effectively met?
We must ensure that our interpretation of those land-grant responsibilities reflects the current realities and needs of Iowa and the world. Then we must ensure that our resources, programs and activities are sharply focused on meeting those responsibilities. This will be a major part of our future planning. An approach I want to explore is to first, determine our specific goals and objectives and then develop strong incentives, particularly financial incentives, to encourage individuals and units to make the right decisions to move us toward those goals.

This year, we will appoint three study groups to get us started. First, I'm going to appoint a group to examine a number of issues around continuing and distance education, including incentives for participation, funding models and the most appropriate governance structure. Provost Allen is going to announce next week two committees. One is to examine institutes and centers, of which we have a growing number and we need to examine how they are funded, their true cost, how they fit with colleges and departments, and how they might be discontinued, when appropriate. The second committee will examine interdisciplinary programs and low enrollment courses and programs.
How can we provide the kind of student-experience that will ensure our attractiveness for generations of students to come?
There are storm clouds on the horizon. First, demographics reveal that the population of high school age young people in Iowa and the Midwest is declining. Second, there is increased competition, not only from traditional competitors, but from for-profit educational providers. The enrollment challenges we face thus have the potential to be serious.

To remain as the institution of choice, we must determine what makes us especially attractive to students and what we must do to increase that attractiveness. Then we must determine how best to market those features to prospective students and their parents.

We do know that high-ability students typically select schools partly on the basis of the strength of their honors programs. This year, I will appoint a study group to examine the honors experiences at Iowa State and recommend ways to strengthen it. We know we have an outstanding Freshman Honors Program, but after the freshman experience, it tapers off, and I believe that there are opportunities for improvement. For example, some universities have full 2-year and 4-year honors programs, some have special residence halls for honors students, and some have other variations that we may want to consider.

I also believe we need to study ways to improve our student persistence and graduation rates, and ways to shorten the time to degree. However, I may hold off on this study for another year because it appears we have plenty on our plate already.

We do need to expand our entrepreneurship and innovation educational programs. My vision is for Iowa State to be known as the university in the greater Midwest region for students who have a desire to become successful entrepreneurs after college. If we are successful, the university benefits, our students benefit, and Iowa benefits. This year, we are developing plans for an entrepreneurial learning community, which may also have a living component. We are working to expand out-of-class experiences, with funds for internships, lectureships and other programs. We have enormous opportunities for private funding in this area with alumni who are very successful entrepreneurs and who are eager to support our efforts to increase entrepreneurial education.

And as I mentioned earlier, this year we must improve the university's student recruitment efforts, particularly with out-of-state students and the most academically talented students. Our goal for next fall is to enroll 4,200 new freshmen and 1,500 new transfer students.
In general, how can we best convince the taxpayers of Iowa and our most important constituents to support us at the level we need?
It's essential that we create and maintain a positive public image in the minds of all important constituents, and this year, we will be re-examining our marketing and advocacy efforts.

Especially this year, we must re-energize our legislative advocacy efforts through a program called Alliance for ISU. The Alumni Association will lead this effort to enlist 150-200 alumni advocates--influential people from all across Iowa who will advocate for Iowa State with business, community and elected leaders. I want to thank Jeff Johnson for leading this extremely important effort for us.

Those four questions are critically important for the future success of the university, and they will be central in much of our planning efforts this year.

There are some other specific agenda items for the current year.

One is a reality that we have to deal with each year--budget planning. Iowa's economy is still uncertain, although it is growing slightly. We have some adjustments yet to make this year. The residence system has experienced a shortfall in contracts, which presents budget challenges, and they are still adjusting. The Agriculture Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service are still developing plans to fully respond to the budget challenges that they have been presented with in the past couple of years.

We must also plan effectively for next year's budget. We recently announced the appointment of the Advisory Committee for Budget Priorities and Planning, and it will be a bit different from previous years. I will chair it; it will be a bit smaller and more nimble; and it will focus on the big issues so that it will be less bogged down. That will give more responsibility to the vice presidents and their administrative teams and advisory groups. We will work very hard to communicate and keep the campus community well informed on budget issues.

To advance on all these fronts requires outstanding university leaders, and we have several key leadership positions to fill this year: deans for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Family and Consumer Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine, as well as a chief information officer to bring together several information technology functions that are currently separate.

Among other items on this year's agenda are: completing the fundraising campaign for Morrill Hall--we're at about $5.1 million of the $9 million goal; and reaching a decision on the best academic calendar. We're seeking your input until Nov. 15 and a decision will be made by the end of Fall Semester.

In closing, we have a lot on our plate for the coming year. It will be a year of careful planning for the future--planning that will be influenced by the four questions I outlined. But our aspiration is the same, and we will keep a strong focus on the four overarching priorities.

Thank all of you for your excellent work, and your devotion and loyalty to Iowa State. It's truly because of faculty and staff like you, and our great students, that we are advancing. And that is why I am so pleased and proud to be President of this great university.

Thank you!

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