KU News Release

Sept. 6, 2007
Contact: Todd Cohen, University Relations, (785) 864-8866.

KU chancellor speaks on status of university at faculty-staff convocation

LAWRENCE — Below are the prepared remarks of University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway for faculty-staff convocation today.

This is the 142nd time to convene this body on this occasion, the beginning of the school year for the University of Kansas.

Because this has been such a long-standing tradition, the opening convocation has become an annual opportunity to present a State of the University report. It is an opportunity to present the mosaic of facts and figures, accomplishments and challenges that have come to define this university at this point in its history.

Why focus on where the university stands? The simple answer is that this is the way that good universities measure themselves. Good universities set ambitious goals and they pursue those goals and they report on progress toward those goals. A good university has an understanding of why these goals (and the measurements used to evaluate them) are important.

A good university’s method of measurement and extent of ambition have a transparency. The facts that define a good university help distinguish that university from its imitators.

Achievements, not slogans, are the currency of excellence for a major research university like KU. Any university can claim that they are the best in the world.

But what do the facts prove?

Universities annually question whether their “ranking” is a true measure of a school’s success. We like it when we are ranked high, we worry if we are ranked low. But what measures true accomplishment?

We measure KU every year in many different ways against a national group of research universities. Our benchmarks are nationally recognized universities in the AAU.

As an AAU university, we measure not by hyperbolic assertion or ad hominem claims. We measure by the evidence of the university’s success or lack of it.

So I will share with you a number of facts and figures that taken collectively chart where KU stands.

Let me begin, as we should, with students and faculty. We have managed a steady enrollment climb toward 30,000 students and expect to maintain a stable enrollment in the coming years. Our state and our nation rely on the pipeline of new degree-holders that we graduate: KU awarded more than 6,000 degrees this past academic year, including the highest number of doctorates in our history — 327. KU’s role in producing doctorates is significant. A national report last fall listed KU as among the nation’s top 50 universities for doctorates granted in the 20th century.

On the undergraduate side, we have managed KU’s growth by focusing on improved scores on standardized tests and an increased number of students of color.

Despite modest admission standards, we have successfully recruited academically talented students.

If you have talented students you have to have talented faculty, and KU clearly has a nationally ranked faculty.

We have award-winning teachers and are proud of the diversity of our faculty.

The key to recruiting good faculty is competitive salaries. KU faculty salaries in Fiscal Year 2007 were slightly more than 93 percent of the average of salaries at our 14-member AAU-university peer group (Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and the like). That’s up from 85 percent 10 years ago. The average KU faculty salary for FY 2007 was $82,302. The average KU salary 10 years ago was $53,897. We are not content to be at 93 percent of the average of AAU peers because we should not be interested in just being average. Do you aspire to be average or above average?

Where competitive faculty go, award-winning students follow.

Having recruited good students and good faculty, we should not be surprised when others recognize our success.

KU is a national, public university. We engage in research to discover new knowledge, to cure diseases and to improve our world. We measure this research in many ways.

One way a research university measures success is to consider the amount of research dollars successfully competed for.

Another way is to measure how we contribute to the economic development in the state. KU has a partnership with Kansas, and to this partnership we bring a strong economic presence.

Still another way to measure success is to tally the university’s capability to provide research capacity to its faculty and graduate students.

In federally funded science and engineering research expenditures in 2005, KU is 44th among the nation’s public research universities — our highest ranking yet. KU has risen 11 places in 10 years. No institution has passed us.

All of these efforts are designed to build a cadre of professionals in the state of Kansas.

How does a good public university achieve such goals? It does so by managing state resources well and leveraging additional funds from the base budget that we start with.

KU has asked for and received from our state legislature techniques to better manage our resources: tuition ownership, the formation of our own University Support Staff from the state civil service system, delegated purchasing authority.

The state also agreed to our rationale for tuition ownership. Without that we would not have achieved the success of our tuition enhancement plan, which has added $43 million to the Lawrence campus operation beyond our annual funding. The tuition funding enabled us to hire 100 new faculty and markedly improve salaries for faculty and staff. In June, the regents heartily endorsed the new KU tuition compact for entering freshmen, which will give students and parents predictability in planning financially for the costs of college.

Our partnership with the people of Kansas extends to the entire state educational system. We endorsed the state’s recent $450 million investment in K-12 education. Whatever helps education at one level, helps education at all levels.

The word partnership should not pass without acknowledging the support our university has received from the philanthropic community. During the past 12 years, more than $1 billion dollars has been invested in the KU physical plant. A significant percentage of this came from private individual and foundation gifts to our endowment association. Those gifts are a profound vote of confidence in what each of you do every day.

Are we perfect? No, we are not, and we are not the kind of enterprise content to stand still. We can do better in a number of areas. In closing, I would cite three areas for improvement.

1. Planning — we must create a university-wide strategic plan which encompasses all of our campuses, including both the medical center and the Lawrence campus. You will be asked this year to participate in a university-wide strategic planning exercise that will help us set directions for the future.

The value of a university-wide strategic plan is to take us to a new level in our development as the leading research university in the state. Our planning efforts from 10 years ago produced notable results, but it is time for us to join all of KU's separate parts into a plan for the future.

Two years ago I announced a university-wide priority to develop a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, an ambition that resonates with KU cancer researchers and physicians, legislators and Kansas families.

The medical center has recently announced a broad initiative titled “The Time Is Now,” and on this campus the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has launched a new five-year plan. An overarching strategic plan will connect and build on these efforts.

In the coming months we will develop a “planning structure” that will prepare us for creating a university-wide planning document in the spring of 2008. I will ask your involvement in these critical, direction-setting activities, with the goal of adopting a plan by the end of the spring semester. That plan should include many initiatives.

2. We need to continue to challenge our students to complete their degrees more efficiently, in four years. Our “graduate in four” message is penetrating. But we still have too many capable students who fail to graduate.

3. We should continue to grow our research enterprise. A survey seven years ago showed that 96 percent of Kansans thought it important to support university research. They recognize that research holds the promise of improved quality of life, cures for diseases and economic benefits.

We should build our research capacity still higher with a new goal of $400 million brought to the state each year.

The evidence is clear: KU has accomplished much in the past 10 years. But we aspire to take our university to a new level. We will continue to be a university that measures itself against its peers and is not afraid of being ranked or measured against the very best universities in the world, a university that knows where it stands and believes in where it is going.

Let me end by saying I am keenly aware of the hard work you, KU faculty and staff, contribute to the successes I have outlined today and the vital role you will play in our aspirations for tomorrow. Your dedication and commitment to innovation, discovery, research and teaching will continue to bring credit to KU and will continue to generate the evidence which speaks for itself when observers ask, “What kind of university is the University 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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