KU News Release

Jan. 31, 2007
Contact: Lynn Bretz, University Communications, (785) 864-7100.

KU chancellor speaks to House Education Budget Committee

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway testified today before the House Education Budget Committee. Below is the text of his prepared remarks.

Chairman McLeland, Vice Chair O’Neal and Ranking Member Feuerborn: Thank you for allowing me to come before the Education Budget Committee to visit with you regarding progress the University of Kansas is making and where KU is going.

Joining me this afternoon are the academic leaders of the Lawrence and KU Medical Center campuses: Richard Lariviere, executive vice chancellor and provost of the Lawrence campus, and Dr. Barbara Atkinson, executive vice chancellor for the KU Medical Center and executive dean of the medical school.

There are three topics I would like to cover:

1. The university’s strong momentum in fulfilling its mission,
2. Our careful stewardship of the state’s investment in the university and
3. Our progress on the KU Cancer Center initiative to become a Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Today, KU is stronger than ever before. We have sustained record-high enrollment and have attracted a remarkably qualified student body. Our alumni association is active throughout the state, and our endowment association is one of the oldest and most successful in the nation.

KU is a public university, and 24 percent of our fiscal year 2006 budget came from state appropriations. We maximize this state investment to offer an exceptional higher education degree for undergraduate, graduate, nursing and medical students. We support the governor’s proposed 5 percent increase in the Regents’ operating block grant.

However, I want to remind the committee that since 1985, higher education funding has declined as a state priority. While state spending has grown by 54 percent, state university support has only grown by 5 percent. The Kansas Board of Regents recent report alerted Kansans that by 2010, if current state funding trends continue, hard-working students and their families will contribute more to the operation of the state universities (through tuition payments) than the state will (through annual appropriations).

Yesterday, the committee heard testimony on legislation that would require a study on tuition at KU and Kansas State University and require the Legislature’s approval of the study. The five-year tuition enhancement plan undertaken by KU in 2001 was done in partnership with KU students. They sought to fund improvements to KU on their own.
Tuition revenue was targeted toward funding additional faculty positions, improved technology, additional financial aid for the neediest students and other enhancements to improve the KU campus. More than $7 million, or 20 percent of new tuition revenue, has been committed to KU tuition grants for the university’s neediest students, helping more than 12,000 students pay for college.

On the Lawrence campus, student tuition provided:
— $2.4 million for new faculty positions/programs
— $2 million earmarked for faculty salary increases
— $900,000 set aside for unclassified staff salary increases
— $1 million earmarked for libraries

At the medical center campus, student tuition was allocated for:

— $300,000 for financial aid
— $350,000 for curriculum improvement
— $19,300 for student programs
— $103,000 for classroom improvements
— $220,000 for instructional support

KU is a Kansas asset that returns great rewards throughout the state. More than 142,000 KU alumni live and work in Kansas. These alumni, armed with a KU education, contribute to their Kansas community as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, city managers and law enforcement officials.

— On the Lawrence campus, our enrollment is 26,773, and 70 percent of our students are Kansans. We have students from all 105 Kansas counties. We enroll more Kansans than any of the other Regents institutions.

— The KU Medical Center enrollment is 2,840, and 66 percent of our students at the school are Kansans; 83 percent of this year’s School of Medicine entering class are Kansans; 29 percent of them are from rural Kansas.

— Twenty-six percent of KU undergraduates prepared themselves for the global economy by taking advantage of the university’s study abroad programs. Their participation in overseas study ranked KU eighth in the nation among doctoral research institutions.

— Our education extends beyond undergraduate and graduate programs. Eighty-five Kansans graduated in December from the University of Kansas Public Management Center’s Certified Public Managers program. For the first time, the course was offered in southwestern Kansas with classes in Liberal, Dodge City and Garden City. We are continuing the southwestern Kansas courses this year, too.

KU also is highly regarded as a top public research and teaching university. A few markers of our progress in this area:

— We have invested $300 million in research labs in the past five years.
— We rank 39th among the nation’s top 162 national public universities in U.S. News’ survey of undergraduate programs.
— Twenty-four KU graduate programs rank 25th or higher among public universities by U.S. News. Two programs — special education and public administration — are rated No.1 in the nation among all public universities.

KU is a research university

Like the Kansas economy, KU’s research mission continues to grow. Earlier this month, we announced that research awards at the University of Kansas soared 13 percent to a record $218 million in the past fiscal year, a 50 percent increase in just the past five years.

What these numbers tell us is that by any standard, we are doing very well in winning competitive research grants. This includes awards from the nation’s life science research agency — the National Institutes of Health. The NIH funded $86 million in KU research projects, a 15 percent increase over the previous year. This was accomplished despite a flat NIH budget last year. We are more competitive for grants, thanks to the hard work of our talented faculty and graduate students.

NIH funds are important to the Kansas economy; they are the engine of life science businesses. It is NIH funding levels that economic development analysts note in state-to-state comparisons. No state or community can have a life science industry without a university that competes for and wins funding from the NIH.

Research is not static at KU. We are always looking at collaborations, for ways to expand our research expertise. This year, KU made neuroscience research a priority, in part because families across Kansas deal with brain diseases and injuries on a daily basis. Our citizens want the best research and outcomes for loved ones struggling with Alzheimer’s or autism. We do our best to provide that research and the hope that advances in research instill in all of us.

Our goal through research in laboratories and clinical trials is to provide new knowledge about the functioning of the brain and nervous system. Our research will contribute to new and better ways of treating and curing disorders such as strokes, mental retardation and other learning disabilities, mental illnesses, alcoholism and other substance abuse problems and other disabilities due to disorders of the nervous system.

By any measure, the University of Kansas Medical Center had a banner year last year — building on an unprecedented five-year performance record. The medical center’s funding from the NIH rose from $38.4 million to $46.7 million — a 22 percent increase in one year.

Plans are in place to build on this momentum, with the hope that NIH funding, which has more than doubled over the past five years, will double again in the next five.

To accomplish this goal, the executive vice chancellor of the medical center, Dr. Barbara Atkinson, has made the tough decisions to reallocate resources and invest in growing programs with aggressive attention to faculty recruiting. She has successfully brought to Kansas some of the most distinguished science and medical faculty from around the nation and world. Last year, KUMC recruited 22 basic science researchers, nine clinical researchers and 48 clinical practitioners. In the current academic year, KUMC has recruited six new basic science faculty, one new clinical researcher and 43 new clinical practitioners.

Just last week, the medical center opened the new 200,000-square-foot Kansas Life Sciences Innovation Center. This new space provides our state with a state-of-the art life sciences laboratory where world-class investigators are working to discover new treatments and cures to enhance human health.

The medical school rolled out a new curriculum this year that will train doctors for 21st century medical practice — using case-based problem solving in multidisciplinary team environments. This new curriculum also will encourage students to develop better communications skills and to interact effectively with technology in the clinical setting.

Last year, the Legislature embraced our dream to build a world-class cancer center at the University of Kansas. I have declared this effort to be our university’s top priority — reflecting my belief that KU is uniquely positioned in Kansas to lead the fight against cancer.

The Legislature’s decision to appropriate $5 million in this year’s budget already is bearing fruit, as we work to advance our goal of eliminating suffering and death from cancer. With your investment, we are putting in place the people and infrastructure to support a vibrant array of clinical trials as well as prevention, screening and survivorship programs. We also have the goal of becoming a powerhouse of new drug development and discovery. Our cancer initiative is supported by our partners at the University of Kansas Hospital, where a new cancer treatment center is currently under construction in Westwood.

Let me say thank you for your support and leadership — we appreciate the trust the Legislature has placed in us, and we are working hard to continue to produce impressive results.

KU considers our obligation to serve the medical needs of Kansans to be an important priority. KU-trained doctors now practice in 85 Kansas counties and represent collectively 52 percent of all the doctors in our state. We work hard through our rural health office to link Kansas communities with doctors. The American Academy of Family Physicians recently ranked the KU School of Medicine first in the nation for placing graduates in family medicine residencies. With our telemedicine program and our outreach efforts bringing specialists to clinics throughout Kansas, we have provided health treatment to thousands of Kansans in dozens of counties.

We are seeking to expand the tools we use to bring doctors to Kansas through enhancements to the Kansas Medical Student Loan Program. We hope you will give this legislation your favorable consideration.

The KU Medical Center, with campuses in Kansas City and Wichita, and area health education centers in Pittsburg, Garden City and Hays, continues to excel in education, research, clinical care, outreach and service.

KU is a careful steward of state funds

We appreciate the Legislature and the governor’s response so far this year to the deferred maintenance issue at Regents institutions. We also appreciate last year’s provision by the legislature to allow tuition interest to go toward addressing this issue. And we greatly appreciate the support of the Legislature when we bring before you legislation needed to assist us in securing continued efficiencies. But investment in the University of Kansas has never been left solely to the state. KU actively seeks innovative ways to save and maximize taxpayer investment in our operations.

Here are two recent examples — one small, one large and both significant.

Last summer, in collaboration with the Department of Administration, KU independently contracted with an international long distance service provider to reduce long distance costs. The projected savings for fiscal year 2007 are expected to exceed $24,000. We are moving forward on domestic long distance rates as well and the savings are expected to be substantial.

Through creative purchasing options and energy conservation, the KU Medical Center has protected itself against rising costs for natural gas. The combination of participating in a natural gas purchasing management program and a 1 percent reduction in natural gas consumption insulated us against price increases that would have approached $300,000 in fiscal year 2006.

We also continually seek ways to involve the private sector in supporting our public university. The most recent example of private sector investment may well be the extraordinarily generous $4 million donation from your former colleague Rep. Carl Krehbiel, which we announced this past weekend. Carl’s gift will establish our 12th scholarship hall — a beautiful 18,000-square-foot facility for 50 men. It will be a beacon of contemporary energy efficiency, with a noise-free, environmentally friendly geothermal heating and cooling system and a structure that will blend in with an historic, late-19th century neighborhood.

We engage donors and corporate friends to support need- and merit-based scholarships for more than 5,000 KU students each year, most of them Kansans. It is our mission to maximize private dollars and tuition grants to ensure that prepared Kansas students can attend the University of Kansas.

The KU Cancer Center

KUMC also continues working toward the goal of housing a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. The KU Cancer Center makes progress toward this goal every day. We are pleased to have Dr. Roy Jensen as director of the KU Cancer Center and Dr. Karen Kelly as deputy director. Both of these renowned clinician-researchers are Kansas natives who did post-graduate training and worked for a time out of state. We are pleased to have recruited them back to Kansas and look forward to continuing the very promising momentum of the KU Cancer Center.

Of course, this momentum is due in large part to the support we have received from you, the Legislature. Please accept my sincere thanks for your confidence in us and your investment last year of $5 million of the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. The KU Cancer Center is using that money to fulfill infrastructure and staffing needs that will make the KU Cancer Center truly world class. More important, those funds are helping create the Midwest Cancer Alliance, a network that will eventually link physicians, hospitals and clinics across the state to bring innovative treatments and clinical trials to all Kansans. Again, we thank you for your generous support and look forward to sharing our progress and successes with you.

Mr. Chairman, we are proud to acknowledge today the accomplishments of our faculty, staff, students and our university programs. Their performance shows that your investment in the University of Kansas is a sound investment and an investment in the future of the great state of Kansas.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.

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