The State of the
University
August
19, 2003
Good morning and welcome to our new
academic year. Please join me in thanking Craig Purdy, Assistant
Professor of Music, for his performance of “The Hot Canary” by Paul
Nero.
I am proud to join you as one of your
newest colleagues. Thanks to all who have been so gracious in
welcoming me to campus and in helping make the transition such a
positive experience. Kathy and I are both thrilled to be part of the
campus family and feel privileged to be citizens of Boise. The people
of Boise have been so gracious in welcoming us to town and we are
particularly impressed with the breadth and depth of support that
Boise State enjoys from the local community.
Others join us today who are also new to
key leadership roles. Please join me in welcoming our new Dean of the
College of Engineering, Dr. Cheryl Schrader, and the new Dean of
Extended Studies, Dr. Michael Stockstill.
I also want to acknowledge new faculty and
staff who were successfully recruited and who we are so fortunate to
have join the Boise State family. Would you please stand to be
recognized?
As we gather on this day in anticipation
of the new fall term, there are two gentlemen present who remind us of
what our work is all about. This year, the Boise State student body
is ably represented by Mr. Ali Ishaq, President of the ABSCU, and Mr.
Jim Wolfe, Vice President. As I have come to know these student
leaders, especially over the last few weeks, I have been impressed by
their enthusiasm, bright ideas and positive contributions. Please
welcome them.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge
the administrative team that has played such a critical role in
helping me assume my new duties. A special thanks to Dr. Daryl
Jones, our Provost; Dr. Peg Blake, Vice President of Student Affairs;
Dr. Buster Neel, Vice President for Finance; Dr. John Owen, Vice
President of Research; and Dr. Rick Smith, Vice President of
University Advancement.
I have been asked to use this occasion to
call to your attention events that will help us kick off the new
academic year. You are, of course, all invited to the University
Picnic scheduled for tomorrow evening at 5:30 at Julia Davis Park.
Kathy and I look forward to seeing you there. There is also the
campus-wide barbeque on Saturday, August 30th at the Union
Patio beginning at noon.
It’s an interesting challenge to deliver
remarks traditionally named, “the state of the university” when I have
no more than six weeks on the job! It gives new meaning to the word,
“presumptuous.” What I would like to do this morning is update you
on the latest developments as they have unfolded over the last few
months and address a number of issues that will challenge all of us in
the months and years to come.
First, let me share the latest information
on enrollment for the fall semester. When the official census is
taken on September 8, the University should shatter every enrollment
record at Boise State and at our sister institutions in Idaho
with a headcount likely to exceed 18,000 students. As record-breaking
as that number is, our enrollment would have been even higher if not
for two factors. First, our higher undergraduate admission standards
resulted in a total of about 500 applicants being denied
degree-seeking admission to the university. Second, our
lower-division classes have filled to capacity.
As you know, reduced state aid in the last
couple of years has frustrated our ability to admit all students who
stand in line for admission. This has forced Boise State to do what
its peer institutions have been doing for some time. The admissions
standards have been raised in order to give highest priority to those
students who are most likely to succeed and statistics do show that
students who fall in the lower ranges of the admissions index are more
likely to fail or drop out during their freshman year. Redirecting
these academically at-risk students toward better options will improve
their likelihood of success. One of those options, which has become
quite popular at institutions such as Boise State, allows students
admission as part-time, non-degree seeking students. Once they
demonstrate that they can handle undergraduate study at Boise State,
they are admitted as full-time students.
There are a number of students who have
registered late and are experiencing difficulties getting classes. If
you know students who are struggling with their fall class schedule,
encourage them to log onto Bronco Web over and over again this
week to shop for classes that will be opening up. Because of the
heavy drop-add activity that occurs this time of year, many classes
that have been full for months will have openings. We will also
publish in Update,
our online faculty/staff newsletter, other tips to assist students
with limited class availability. I encourage you to review those
suggestions as well.
As you can see from the construction
around campus, we are trying mightily to keep up with the increase in
enrollment by providing more housing for our students. The Student
Housing Office is in the midst of two very large construction
projects, which will substantially increase our inventory of residence
hall rooms and apartments. Near Chaffee, Morrison and Driscoll Halls,
the new residence hall project will house 336 students in two
buildings. The new halls include opportunities for faculty
involvement with two seminar rooms, two faculty offices and two
faculty apartments. This project is scheduled for completion in July
2004.
On the site of the old University Courts
complex, our new (and highly visible) apartment project is comprised
of two separate neighborhoods. 100 two-bedroom apartments will be
located in an area primarily for families, and 76 four-bedroom
apartments in an area designated for single students. Amenities
include a convenience store, community center, and outdoor play areas.
The first of these buildings is scheduled to open in February of 2004,
and the final facility will open in July of 2004.
The expansion of the University Children’s
Center is scheduled to open next week and will make daycare available
to 40 additional infants and toddlers. The addition was funded
entirely by private donors who recognized the need for additional
infant and toddler care so student-parents can achieve their
educational goals.
The remodeling of the Union Dining Room
will be completed shortly and will offer new retail food service
options, including a Sushi Bar and Mexican food concept.
One of the more impressive collaborations
between student services and academic affairs is our efforts to focus
on domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and other threats to our
students’ lifestyle and health that impacts student success. Thanks
to the dedication and expertise of key faculty in Health Sciences,
Psychology and Health Education, we have been able to address critical
issues standing in the way of our students’ success. Among the
programs benefiting from such collaboration is a new Campus/Community
High-Risk Drinking Coalition; the development of the Sexual Assault
Response Network; and the creation of the Socially Isolated Students
Project.
I wish that I could come up with a segue
from such a serious subject to an update on parking, but I’m not sure
that’s possible. The addition to the Parking Garage is nearing
completion and both portions of the parking structure should be ready
for use on the first day of fall classes. Concrete for the bus
turnout lane should be poured by this week. Both westbound traffic
lanes should be open for the start of fall classes. Later this fall,
6 bus shelters will be installed on the BSU shuttle bus route and one
bus shelter will be installed on the south side of University Drive in
front of the Student Success Center. This project is funded by the
Federal Transit Administration.
Over at Boise State West, I think it is
safe to say that all is not quiet on the Western front, nor will it be
in the years ahead. We can expect the frenetic pace of teaching and
learning to accelerate as growth continues. Enrollment on our Canyon
County campus has doubled in four years. Enrollment in adult basic
education is up 79% and Applied Technology programs have also grown.
The Center has served more than 6000 students in its short history.
Enrollment could have been greater, but we have been limited both by
space and by the number of faculty we can employ.
Last week we moved a giant step closer to
dealing with the space problem. Governor Kempthorne joined us at the
new Canyon County site for the ground-breaking of our new classroom
building, a 65,600 sq. ft. academic building that will house 14
classrooms, three teaching laboratories, a computer lab, two distance
learning classrooms, five student services offices, a bookstore, a
study lounge and more. Thanks to the bonding bill passed by the
legislature and signed by the Governor, Boise State will be able to
expand its offerings to the growing number of students in Canyon
County. As we move to the new building with our offerings from the
core curriculum, we will be able to free up space in the existing
center for an expansion of programs in the College of Applied
Technology. With so much growth and development in Canyon County,
Boise State will play a major role in meeting the workforce
preparation needs of Canyon County and the Treasure Valley. Allow me
to add a note of reassurance to those of you who have expressed
concern over the extent to which Boise State West might dissipate
resources on this campus. We will monitor our needs on both campuses
closely so we do not distract from the programming on the Boise
campus.
At this point, I would like to share with
you some thoughts that I have on the progress that we have made at
Boise State and comment as well on the challenges that lie ahead. I
understand from listening to members of our campus family that this is
not the best time to hear university officials announcing new
additions to satellite campuses when faculty and staff are entering a
third year without any increases in wages and salaries. When I
delivered an interim progress report to the Board of Education last
week, I shared with the members of the Board my concern that we stand
to lose our competitive edge and thereby risk losing some very
talented faculty and staff if the State cannot reverse the shortfall
in state aid. I shared the same concern two weeks ago with our
Foundation and suggested that perhaps the Foundation could find a way
to recognize and reward outstanding performance in the classroom and
across the university.
While we can agree that this city is a
great place to live and work, I certainly do not presume that we do
not have to work hard to keep good people in this day and age. I also
know that you expect to be treated with respect and dignity in return
for the dedication and commitment that you have made to this
institution and to Idaho higher education. I must tell you that it is
nothing short of inspiring to work with people who are as upbeat in
the performance of their duties and demonstrate in everything they do
a sincere love for Boise State and its students. But I also know that
many of you are frustrated and that it is a tougher job keeping morale
high when wages and salaries are not forthcoming.
I come to my position with no silver
bullet to get us past these difficult times. I appreciate and admire
the way you have dealt with the current situation. I pledge to do
everything that I can in the short term and the long term to impress
upon those who decide these things the value of your contribution and
the consequences of not making an adequate investment in your work.
In the short term, I intend to work
closely with our staff in the next few months to identify any possible
means in our internal budget by which we can improve the financial
position of our faculty and staff. In addition, I will advocate for
funding levels from the state that reflect the quality of the
education we offer here at Boise State, with special emphasis on the
equity funding that the State has identified, but has not yet funded.
Our long-term goal is to become a
metropolitan research university of distinction. To achieve this
goal, we must be collaborative, entrepreneurial and competitive.
Although there is plenty of history pitting one institution against
the other here in Idaho, the general public who pays the bills for
public higher education doesn’t understand the intramural fighting
that oftentimes results in duplication of effort, programming and
resources. The State Board of Education feels so strongly about
duplication of resources that it passed a new policy last week
providing a framework for the statewide coordination of the delivery
of education. The Board’s new policy encourages a planning process
among Idaho’s institutions and creates a mechanism for institutions to
cooperate in the development and delivery of academic programs.
We at Boise State take this policy very
seriously and expect to fulfill our role as the designated institution
within the primary service region of Boise with a statewide mission of
public service as well. We expect our sister institutions to play by
the same rules promulgated by the Board and truly honor the spirit and
the letter of this new policy. As you know from accounts in the media
last week, Boise State recently invited Idaho State to join us on our
campus by building its graduate nursing facility alongside a new
Nursing building that we have planned. Although ISU is exploring
other options at the moment, I want the offer to be understood by all
as my own personal commitment to collaboration and Boise State’s
willingness to work with our education partners across the state. I
believe that our plan places students first and provides them with a
campus setting that affords them easy access to our library, student
union, housing, food service and other amenities.
It is also imperative that we be
entrepreneurial in our approach to educating our students. Please
know that my own educational roots cling firmly to liberal arts
education. I believe the university’s most important responsibility
is to teach our students to think critically, to compute accurately,
to communicate clearly and concisely in oral and written form, to know
themselves through an appreciation of literature and to know the world
in which they live by a command of history and the physical and social
sciences. But we must understand the nature of the higher education
marketplace in which we find ourselves in the 21st
century. Gone is the monopoly that public higher education once
enjoyed in the last century. Here in the Treasure Valley alone,
independent colleges and universities, both not-for-profit and
for-profit, have moved into our service region and are slowly gaining
market share in this changing educational environment. There may be
room for everyone at the higher education table here in southwestern
Idaho, but we should be sure that the structure and the quality of our
programming across the board is simply the best that students can
access. They deserve no less.
Online or virtual universities have made
their presence known in the Treasure Valley as they have nationwide.
What oftentimes distinguishes their success in a community that
already offers an abundance of courses is the flexibility of their
offerings and the asynchronous nature of their online coursework. It
may be useful for us to review our offerings and make sure that we are
as nimble and responsive to students’ needs in Idaho as we can
possibly be.
We must also continue to build on our
graduate education programs. Again, our friends in the
independent sector move into niche areas with specific graduate
offerings that match workforce needs. Here in Boise, with our
corporate partners in the technology sector, we have a highly educated
workforce that is a niche for specially designed programming.
Perhaps the best
example of our responding to such needs is our new Materials Science
master's degree that we will offer this fall for the first time. Our
Master’s in Raptor Studies is also a great role model for future
programming that links our academic offerings to the environment in
which we live and work. I
challenge and welcome your ideas for coursework and institutional
focus that will help position Boise State as a nationally ranked
university with significant research and graduate programming.
Finally, we must be competitive. You may
ask, isn’t competition the enemy of collaboration? Not if you’re
competing against yourself, not if you’re competing against past
performance. Let’s just make every effort to improve on the quality
we offered last year in everything we do. This is especially
important to those of you who provide services to our students.
Whether it’s financial aid, advising and counseling or food service,
quality in these areas contribute greatly to the campus experience.
No matter where we work or what we do, each of us in our way
contributes to the reputation of Boise State as a student-centered
university.
There is one line that no new president
likes to hear:--“that’s how we’ve always done it.” It may well be
that how you have done it is the best way, but let’s
never assume that going into a meeting to solve a problem. We will
not reach our final destination if we keep looking in the rear view
mirror. That will do nothing but distract us from focusing on where
we should be going.
And I have no doubt, by the way, where
Boise State is going. We are fortunate enough to be situated in a
metropolitan region with a diverse economy anchored by the technology
sector that has enormous potential for growth. There is a symbiotic
relationship between the Boise region and economy and Boise State
University. The Boise economy is dependent on the resources of a
large, metropolitan university with a proud tradition of teaching
excellence and a girder of research expertise that supports and
nurtures the discovery process in the marketplace.
In keeping with the vision of Boise State
as a metropolitan, research university of distinction, your
Provost, Dr. Jones, and I asked the Board of Education recently to
allow us to amend our list of peer institutions and substitute the
University of Louisville, the University of Cincinnati and Wayne State
University, institutions, like Boise State, with missions and roles
which are deeply rooted in the history, politics and economies of
their respective metropolitan communities. Although it is unclear to
me at this time just how the Board will use those peer institutions,
Daryl and I wanted the Board to understand the context in which we
view our growth and development and what expectations. others should
have of us as we position Boise State in the state’s higher education
system
Too often in higher education, especially
in the past, we assumed that we had to choose between a research
mission and a teaching mission. Boise State University can and must
do both. We must never lose our commitment to excellence in teaching
and personal attention to students that has characterized Boise State
from its early days as a junior college. But, on the other hand, we
must support and encourage our faculty engaged in the discovery
process, especially in those areas where we can build linkages between
the research of our academic departments and the economic activity of
the region.
Let me frame this with a lesson from
history. Agricultural development in the United States, as we know it
today as the most advanced in the world, owes its status, to a large
extent, to the land grant mission of our state universities and, more
particularly, to the research and extension activities of our flagship
institutions in the states. What an interesting parallel, albeit in a
new century and in a metropolitan rather than a rural setting. Here
we are, positioned in a growing metropolitan region with the
foundation of our economy grounded in the technology sector, but with
sophisticated partners in health care, state government, the arts,
service and retailing industries, light manufacturing, and tourism.
From computer science to Shakespeare, the Boise region is a treasure
trove of research opportunity for our faculty interested in adding to
the knowledge base of their disciplines and society in general.
And to those who are concerned about the
quality of our teaching suffering at the hands of a research mission,
I refer you to our nation’s flagship, research institutions, who, with
the help of the Kellogg Foundation a few years ago, re-examined their
undergraduate missions and discovered more effective ways of teaching
undergraduates that complemented rather than competed with other
aspects of their missions. It’s a delicate balance, but it can be
done.
The reduction in state aid to higher
education makes a strong case for ratcheting up development efforts at
public universities and developing fund-raising strategies once
thought to be the exclusive preserve of private colleges and
universities. Just two weeks ago, Dr. Rick Smith introduced a new
college-based fundraising strategy that engages and supports our Deans
and their faculties in building financial support for their programs.
With this newly decentralized approach and the assignment of
development staff to the Colleges, I am confident that we are going to
take fundraising to new heights here at Boise State. One thing I know
for sure. I will personally dedicate the time and effort required to
distinguish Boise State University in university advancement, alumni
relations and development work.
Just before I arrived, Boise State
announced the new Campaign for Students that will provide increased
scholarship money for our students. The Boise Industrial Foundation
kicked off the campaign with a $1.5M donation. A few days after the
initial announcement of the Campaign, we received an anonymous gift of
$280,000. When you examine the return on the investment of a
university education over a lifetime and you examine our peer
institutions’ tuition and fee levels, Boise State’s fees are
reasonable. What must accompany our recent hikes in fees, however, is
a companion commitment to raise funds for students who struggle to
make those payments and who cannot borrow more than they already have.
I am looking forward to working closely
with the Boise State Foundation in identifying new friends of the
University, revisiting old friends who have been generous and asking
for their help in significantly increasing our endowment at Boise
State. As we concentrate on ways to support research and teaching on
our campus, I intend to raise funds for more endowed Chairs and
Professorships as well.
During my interviews as a presidential
candidate, I often heard that Boise State’s story is yet to be told.
The history of Boise State is truly a remarkable one. If you were to
survey comprehensive universities who have reached beyond their
liberal arts and teacher education roots to develop a College of
Engineering, a 1-A athletic program of national repute, and a Ph.D. in
Geosciences, how many would you find? Not many, I assure you.
It is now time for Boise State to tell the
rest of its story, but in order to do so; we must have information
about the accomplishments of our faculty, staff and students. I
understand that many of you have worked with our Department of Public
Relations in sharing the good news of your work. Today, I encourage
you to double your efforts in reporting on academic and professional
honors, awards and achievements that would be noteworthy to our
statewide and national audience.
I have already met with staff responsible
for the design and maintenance of our website and they are excited
about the prospect of re-designing it and working with our campus
community on providing more information and improving its design as
well. We will leave no stone unturned in our search for more
effective ways of getting the Boise State story out for all to see and
hear. Please contact us if you have thoughts on how we can position
our university.
I will be playing my own role in marketing
our campus, its faculty, staff and students. I will host a radio
show, New Horizons in Education that will air on KBSU at 3:30
on Friday afternoons. My guests will be newsmakers, dignitaries,
authors, faculty, staff and students, discussing important issues of
the day. The goal is high quality, interesting radio. But the most
important outcome, I hope, will be to showcase Boise State in yet
another venue as a metropolitan, research university of distinction
and to enhance our reputational currency.
Speaking of reputational currency, by the
way, we should all congratulate the football program for getting that
headline on the front page of the Sports section in USA Today:
“Boise State raises the bar.” Not bad, huh? Our thanks to Coach
Hawkins and Gene Bleymaier.
Let me conclude with one final thought.
Notwithstanding the challenges we face with funding, I really think
it’s important that each of us feels a strong sense of community on
the campus. It is so important that we trust one another, especially
in times of crisis or difficulty. That trust factor must be as strong
as the thickest gauge of steel and that trust must depend on candor,
honesty and an open system of communication at all levels of the
organization. It is equally important that we foster a collegial and
inclusive working environment and I will do all I can to make it
happen.
To the Vice-Presidents, Deans, Chairs,
faculty and staff, I thank you so much for your good work. I am
honored to be your President. Have a great day, have a great year and
I look forward to seeing you at the picnic tomorrow.
