U of L Update: January 2004
President's Mid-Year Report to the University of Louisville Community
Dear Colleagues:
In my September 2003 inaugural address, I discussed the importance of "staying the course"-of continuing to move the university forward in these challenging times. To do so, I said that we must state loudly and clearly that higher education and the University of Louisville are making a difference, and we must embrace the values of quality and excellence in all we do.
As we pass the halfway mark in the 2003-2004 academic year, it's appropriate to step back to review the highlights of the first six months and look ahead to the opportunities and challenges that remain for the year. The following brief report offers just a sampling of the many accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff and of our work on behalf of the commonwealth of Kentucky. I appreciate all you do to contribute to the University of Louisville's success.
Sincerely,
James R. Ramsey
President
Inside the Report
- Students Continue to Excel
- Faculty Recognized Through Scholarship and Research
- Restructuring Focuses on University Goals
- Facilities Change Face of Campus
- Donors Support Progress
- Metro Government Partnership Moves Forward
- State's Budget Situation Presents Challenges
Students Continue to Excel
As U of L continues to attract more and more top students, we are retaining more students as well. Our fall 2003 freshman class has an average ACT score of 23.2 (the national average is 20.8), matching our previous record high set the year before. Our freshman retention rate has risen to 76 percent, including an African American retention rate of 78.3 percent.
Our students also are continuing to compete on national and international levels. For instance, our dental students scored seventh in the country on the national Board Dental Examination this December, their fourth consecutive year of ranking in the top 10.
Individual students also stood out. Daniel Sturgeon, a political science graduate currently working on his master's degree at U of L, has been selected as a Rotary World Peace scholar for 2004-2006. He plans to use the scholarship to study conflict resolution in Japan. Honors student Jonathan Ballard was among the district competitors for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, the first time in more than a decade that a U of L student reached that level. Jonathan, a senior and second-year Reagan Future Leaders scholar, also is a finalist for a relatively new but extraordinarily competitive Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Chris Kenner, who already is teaching in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship, made it to the state level in the Rhodes competition.
The growth in our academic emphasis and student success is one factor that contributed to our November application to Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest and largest academic honor society. There are limited opportunities to apply for Phi Beta Kappa, and our self-evaluation was that we should apply at this time rather than wait three more years. We also know that the continuing series of budget cuts are impacting all that we can do. But we have made progress and believed that we should apply at this time. We expect to hear in late spring if we will receive a site visit, which will be the next step toward admission to this prestigious organization.
Still more good news came our way this past fall when the Wall Street Journal reported that U of L ranked 30th among the top "feeder" institutions to America's most elite graduate schools. The newspaper based the article on a survey it conducted to determine where students entering 15 of the nation's most elite medical, law and business schools had earned their undergraduate degrees.
Faculty Recognized Through Scholarship and Research
Our students' success must be attributed not onlyto their hard work, but also to the teaching and scholarship of our outstanding faculty. Randall L. Wells, professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, is just one example. This past fall he received the 2003 Collegiate Teacher of the Year Award from the Southern Business Education Association.
U of L faculty continue to attract federal and other grants to fund critical initiatives that support collaboration and research. Each initiative is designed to make a positive difference for the community and state.
The School of Nursing received federal funding to establish a new Center for Cancer Nursing Education and Research. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earmark of just under $300,000 will allow U of L to work with hospitals, universities and other partners throughout the Louisville Metro community to prepare cancer nursing specialists and support research in that important area.
The James Graham Brown Cancer Center continues its push toward Comprehensive Cancer Center status. Five U of L investigators received a total of $11.1 million from the National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program-the largest single-source grant in U of L history. The funds will help them complete preliminary research that could lead to several promising new cancer treatments.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences selected U of L to be home to the first center for the study of a new research discipline called environmental cardiology, which deals with how the environment affects the heart. The university's first program project grant, a $7 million five-year award, will fund four projects as well as related core services and laboratories.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $989,000 three-year grant to the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville, designating the institute as one of two collaborating Centers for Public Health Law. The other is the Georgetown University/Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Law.
U of L will be a leader in preparing Kentucky's health professionals to fight bioterrorism. A two-year $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration is part of a national initiative to prepare doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians and others to act quickly and effectively should there be a bioterrorism attack.
Overall, conservative estimates for the first half of 2003-04 show that we received more than $68.5 million in total grants and contracts, including $47.2 million for research. Of the total, $55.8 million is in federal funds, including $43 million for research. We continue to be grateful for the leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Anne Northup as they work to support the important research that we do.
Restructuring Focuses on University Goals
The senior administration was reorganized to better focus on the university's mission of teaching and research. The president's office now includes the leadership team of the president, executive vice president and provost, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs, and senior vice president for research. The president's office has five shared goals, supplemented by individual goals for each member of the team. The shared goals are:
- Enhance the educational experience, i.e., student success, through increasing the first-time freshman year-to-year retention rate
- Increase the number of doctoral degrees we award
- Advance our research agenda by increasing the total research grants and contracts funding
- Promote diversity by meeting the goals outlined in the Council for Postsecondary Education's Kentucky Plan for Equal Opportunities
- Show institutional effectiveness by increasing philanthropic support in outright gifts and pledges
The administration continues to take shape in other ways. We welcomed Robert Felner as our new dean of education and human development. Dr. Felner is a national education leader who believes that universities should be engaged in issues involving their communities and state.
We anticipate bringing candidates to campus for the deans of the College of Business and Public Administration and the J.B. Speed School of Engineering later this semester. We also are currently evaluating our next steps as we plan for new deans for the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine.
Based upon the advice of a university-wide committee of faculty, trustees, staff, students and others, we immediately will begin the search for an executive vice president and provost. The committee, ably chaired by Faculty Senate vice chair Bill Pierce, defined the attributes and characteristics of U of L's next provost and suggested that we should initially invite applications internally, since we may well have excellent candidates right here. I concur with the committee's advice and soon will be announcing an invitation to apply.
Facilities Change Face of Campus
The face of the campus continues to change. We opened two new residence halls this year: 1900 South Fourth Street (soon to be named Kurz Hall, as noted below) and Billy Minardi Hall. These facilities, which together house more than 400 students, offer the latest amenities-including fitness facilities, computer labs, Ethernet connections and study areas-to help improve campus life for the residents. With these facilities, we've grown our resident student population to more than 2,400 students, or more than 11 percent of our total enrollment.
This fall we broke ground for the Ralph Wright Natatorium, a first-rate swimming and diving facility that will serve our Cardinal swim teams as well as our general student population. Our Student Government Association helped make this 10.5 million facility happen by establishing a unique partnership in which student fees, spread out over 20 years, will pay $7 million in construction costs.
We also recently acquired the Algood property just south of campus. This purchase gives us contiguous property down Floyd Street from Belknap to Central Avenue and will help us in our efforts to develop Central as an attractive southern corridor for campus.
These revitalization efforts got a boost from a $1 million Kentucky Department of Transportation grant for traffic control and other improvements, and from a new task force of community and campus leaders addressing beautification and access issues.
Donors Support Progress
Longtime donor Heddy Kurz continues to generously support our J.B. Speed School of Engineering, School of Medicine and marching band. She and her late husband will be recognized next month with the dedication of Herman and Heddy Kurz Hall, the 400-bed residence hall that opened last fall to students' rave reviews.
Thanks to the generosity of our health sciences faculty and staff along with the staff at U of L Hospital, we already have raised more than $1 million in a "family campaign" for the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. Led by Drs. Larry and Christine Cook, the family campaign began Jan. 1 after an awareness initiative during the fall semester.
When our external campaign for the cancer center gets under way later this year, internal support will demonstrate the importance of this effort to our numerous community friends. Many thanks to the Cooks for leading this important component of an effort that will eventually raise more than $40 million for cancer research and care. Thanks also to Bob Rounsavall, a member of our Board of Overseers, for leading the overall campaign as chair.
We also are in the early stages of a $23 million campaign to raise funds for the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute, a partnership with Jewish Hospital that will focus on the development, testing and clinical delivery of leading-edge treatments for heart failure. We've received an enthusiastic response from community philanthropists. The Kentucky Office of the New Economy invested $5 million and Sen. McConnell secured more than $4 million to help make this partnership a reality.
Meanwhile, we continue to raise funds to match state monies provided through the Research Challenge Trust Fund, or Bucks for Brains. To date, six new chairs and endowed research funds have been committed in this latest round, and a number of good opportunities lie ahead.
In fact, early figures show an increase of more than 11 percent in gifts and pledges over last year. More than $30 million in gift discussions and strategies are active; each of these solicitations is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The growth in overall philanthropic support and these gift discussions are a testament to the continued loyalty and confidence of our many friends.
Metro Government Partnership Moves Forward
We have been working closely with Louisville Metro Government on a number of fronts.
For instance, an ad hoc committee including representatives of the city and members of U of L's Board of Overseers reviewed current partnerships, looked for new opportunities and made recommendations to better link university and city resources for the benefit of the community. We look forward to finalizing these plans in the coming weeks.
The university worked in partnership with Mayor Jerry Abramson on the successful recruitment of a director of public health for Louisville Metro, closely linking the city's public health initiative with our growing School of Public Health and Information Sciences. Our School of Medicine is engaged in a similar partnership as the city conducts its search for a new director of emergency medical services.
In addition, I and the presidents of other institutions affiliated with Metroversity-a consortium of seven local colleges, universities and seminaries-are working on how to improve our services and offerings to students and the community.
State's Budget Situation Presents Challenges
Understanding the state's difficult financial situation, we spent much of the fall semester identifying immediate ways we can tighten our belts while taking a long-term look at how our budget is structured.
We had anticipated a cut this year and were prepared for the governor's announcement of a 2.5 percent permanent reduction in our general funds. We have identified ways to do this on a one-time basis this year to allow us time to plan to make the cuts on a permanent basis next year.
Any decrease in funding will be a challenge following two previous years of cuts, so we are closely engaged in discussions of those cuts that go beyond what we had originally anticipated, whether one-time or permanent. It is very important that we work with the governor and our legislators to preserve the progress we have made as an institution and state. Further cuts to higher education will threaten this progress.
A campus committee of faculty, staff and students is studying how our budgeting process fits with our institutional goals. To facilitate the discussion, the leadership team is developing a five-year budget model that shows the gap between current funding levels and our needs if we could actually build the budget as it should be built.
In short, we face many challenges that could have an impact on our students, programs and staff.
Even as we work through these challenges, however, we will do everything we can as an institution to maintain our focus on our mission and to move forward. It will take determination, discipline, hard work and the support of our many friends across the state, but we will stay the course.
Our Winter Commencement ceremony on Dec. 18 was a time of celebration. But it was also a time to pause and reflect on what an outstanding semester we have had-and also a time to recommit. Let me conclude by restating a comment I made to our graduates then:
"We as an institution celebrate with you, but we do more. For this is an opportunity for us as an institution to pause and to reflect on our university. The University of Louisville has a history of which we are proud because of the accomplishments of our faculty and their graduates.
"But we as an institution cannot rest on this sense of pride. We say tonight to you, our newest graduates, that we as an institution will dedicate and rededicate ourselves, day in and day out, to continue to be an institution that through our teaching, our research and our service makes a difference in our community and world.
"We recommit ourselves so that the students who come after you will also have the opportunity to be successful in the changing world."