The beginning of the academic year is a good time to step back and remind ourselves of what we are about at KU. It is worth remembering that we are the beneficiaries of a sacred trust. An institution like KU carries with it the investment of the lives and treasure of alumni, faculty, taxpayers, well-wishers, donors and our current students and their families. An institution like KU does not achieve the level of excellence it has quickly or easily or through the work of a handful of people. KU’s status is the result of generations of work, dedication and investment by the entirety of the KU family. We, the faculty and staff of KU, are the current trustees of that sacred trust. I have high confidence in this group of current trustees to preserve and promote the high achievements of this wonderful institution.
Last January, we launched a strategic planning process for KU called Initiative 2015. This process was overseen by the chancellor and involved the medical center as well as the Lawrence campus. Three task forces were created — Teaching and Learning, Discovery and Innovation and Working for Kansas. During the spring, more than 60 faculty, staff and students from throughout the university met to discuss these key issues and draft recommendations for addressing them. In quick order, they produced a very useful document that was distributed to the community for comment and suggestions. The result of that process is the document that we will use to help shape our immediate future. It is a useful and elegantly straightforward document and I urge you to read it if you have not.
Initiative 2015 lays out for us a number of tasks that can be summarized under three rubrics:
At a retreat this summer, the deans began a discussion of these principles in the context of the respective schools and their essential missions.
We will use the Initiative 2015 document to engage the larger KU family. During the course of this academic year, we will invite a group of 50 or so of KU’s highest achievers in the national and international arena to return to the campus and have a look at what we are doing. This will be an extended engagement in which we will put some questions to them and, in turn, respond to their questions. We will ask them to tell us what they expect of us in the coming decade. Many of you will be part of those conversations.
As most of you know from personal experience, we have had a significant increase in enrollment this year. We will not be able to give specific numbers of students until after the 20th class day. What we know right now is that on the first day of class we were teaching 8,129 more semester credit hours than one year ago. To be up more than 8,000 semester credit hours in one year is remarkable. You may wonder how it is that we are experiencing such a surge in enrollment. Lots of people assume that this is due to the Orange Bowl victory or to the National Championship. As wonderful as those two sporting achievements have been for KU, our record numbers of applicants had submitted their applications before either of those events. (It is worth taking a moment to recognize not only these victories, but the equally remarkable fact that the average grade point for KU’s student athletes last spring semester was 3.03, the highest ever since such records have been kept. There are 58 of our student athletes who have perfect 4.0 grade-point averages.) Our yield data, the mix of in-state and out-of-state students and other metrics indicate that it is very unlikely that sports success is driving this surge. This year does represent a peak in the number of high school graduates in Kansas. But we shouldn’t discount what we’re doing here at KU. First and foremost, students continue to be attracted by the outstanding teachers and talented researchers we have on Mount Oread. They’re also attracted by our tuition compact, which the parents of our incoming freshmen students again applauded. We also have made a shift in focus and tactics in our recruitment and admission operations and the alumni association has been extremely helpful as well. But fundamentally, KU is an institution of established and growing reputation for the quality of its research and its teaching and is quite simply one of the great bargains in the world of higher education.
Watching the University of Kansas deal with these dramatic enrollment increases has been a source of considerable pride. I have a good deal of experience in dealing with the phenomena of unexpectedly large enrollments, but I have never seen an institution rise to the challenge as brilliantly as KU has done this fall. A sudden surge in enrollment puts strains on all aspects of a university, and it is impossible to know in advance how those strains will manifest themselves. No matter what the difficulty or the challenge, you responded quickly, effectively and with consistent good humor. It was — is — a performance to inspire pride and gratitude.
Six-thousand of those 8,000 semester credit hours are in the College. Marcia Powers and her colleagues and the staff in the registrar’s office managed to find courses, classroom space and schedule accommodations with speed and amazing efficiency.
The KU Card Center had extended periods when they processed more than 600 students a day and managed to do so in such a way that there were seldom waiting lines of more than five or six students.
The dorms are full — completely full. Diana Robertson and her colleagues in housing have worked magic. The rooms were ready, clean and fully functional, the waitlists have been accommodated, and no one has been relegated to having to sleep in lounges or to be put three or four to a room.
Tammara Durham and her colleagues in the University Advising Center and Cindy Derritt and her colleagues in the registrar’s office have done a marvelous job of counseling and placing record numbers of students.
Departments like chemistry and mathematics have been valiant in absorbing unexpectedly high numbers of students. Joe Heppert and Jack Porter and our colleagues in those departments have done a superb job of adding sections, labs, adjusting schedules and the like.
I could go on for a very long time listing specific individuals, departments and units that have gone beyond what is normally expected and made this place shine with excellence. It is a level of performance that should make the people of Kansas proud.
But it is not only in response to enrollment pressures that KU has shined this past year. In an environment where federal funding for research has declined for a second year in a row — an atmosphere in which 45 of the top 100 universities receiving funding from NSF saw their numbers decline — KU has seen its numbers increase.
You have continued to get grants, win prizes, be recognized nationally and internationally for your research and to push the envelope of human knowledge at a rate that has become the expected norm at KU. There is more to do, and we will do it, but your achievements in the area of research in the past year are impressive and worthy of high praise.
Not only are you leaders in research, but the energy and focus invested in teaching at KU is something that should be celebrated widely. The Teaching Summit orchestrated by Dan Bernstein and his colleagues in the Center for Teaching Excellence is a good example of the level of dedication to teaching at KU. This is an annual event: a five-hour series of meetings in which our faculty exchange ideas and insights about teaching. I find it remarkable and a emblematic of the pride in teaching at KU that nearly a quarter of the faculty take the time — at an incredibly busy time to the year — to participate in this voluntary work to make teaching better and more exciting at KU.
As you know, the budget of the state of Kansas is entering a period of uncertainty, as happens to every state university from time to time. All state agencies have been asked to plan for significant budget cuts. Thanks to the hard work of the deans at KU, we have produced such a plan, but it is our sincere hope that we will not have to implement that plan. We are duty bound to take sharp pencils to current operating budgets in the event that budget shortfalls affect state spending. We recognize the economic conditions we’re facing nationally are dim, and we must make responsible plans for weathering a possible downturn in state spending. However, I can tell you there are signs for encouragement: The governor has made clear her intention to shield public education from sharp reductions.
Budget receipts for the first two months of this fiscal year are at or slightly above estimates.
We know KU alumni and other supporters of education in Kansas will be strong advocates for continued investment in higher education.
I can tell you that the chancellor and all of those whom we can enlist to help us will work very hard to avoid reductions in higher education budgets. The motive for this is not personal aggrandizement. Everyone in this room is dedicated to preserving what KU does because we understand that what we do here is laying the foundation for the future of the state and the nation. Thanks to your effectiveness, the university delivers teaching and research with less cost to the taxpayer than most of our peer institutions, and when you factor in quality and effectiveness, I would argue that this institution is among the most efficient in the country.
Reduced investments in higher education are not in the state’s best interest. We cannot afford to ignore the workforce needs of Kansas and the duty we have to help meet these needs. As the budget debate unfolds there is one thing I can tell you with certainty: there is no group of people in whom I have a higher degree of confidence than you.
I began today by describing the sacred trust that KU represents and the fact that we are the current trustees. It is important to remember this fact in the course of our days. We are shaping the lives of tens of thousands of students and the future of human knowledge. That is a daunting responsibility. Every single day — every hour — is precious in this work. I am impatient to get on with this work. I am impatient because I want the best for this place. When I am too impatient for you — feel free to let me know.
Given the national economic situation — not to mention the international economic situation — we may well face some budgetary challenges in future years. Every university will. As keepers of the sacred trust that is KU, we will get through it. I know — certainly — that whatever vicissitudes may await us, that you will continue the professional excellence, the pedagogical excellence, the research excellence and the broad range of service that is the norm at KU. You are — collectively and individually —state treasures. Your work shapes the future of this state, the nation and the world. Thank you for that work. Thank you for the inspiring way you do it.
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