Over the past weekend, we welcomed the board of trustees to campus for our last quarterly meeting of the year. The meeting marked Larry Zimpleman’s last as board chair. Larry, BN’73 and GR’79, graciously extended his tenure as chair while I transitioned into the role of president, providing much needed continuity in leadership and excellent insight into the University. Larry deserves our heartfelt thanks. David Golder, FA’79, will assume the role of chair on July 1. The board also approved two new members, Brent Slay, ED’70, and Paul Doucette, BN’97. Ben Ullem, LW’69, will also rejoin the board now that his term as dean of the Law School is coming to a close.
One of the main topics of discussion was undergraduate enrollment and budget challenges for fiscal year 2017. Despite our best efforts, we will miss our enrollment target of 870 new first-year students for the fall of 2016. Transfer student numbers are also down. These lower numbers are being encountered by our peers as well. Our admission team continues to work hard to bring in as many students as we can; incoming Deputy Provost Keith Summerville and Interim Dean of Admission Carrie Lewis are working to identify students who may still wish to enroll this fall while minimizing summer melt. I cannot express my appreciation strongly enough for all the time and effort that Keith and our colleagues in admission are putting forward to get us the best possible results under the circumstances. Graduate programs continue to lag, but efforts are underway to bolster numbers for the fall. The Law School, however, is anticipating 110 incoming students against a target of 100, an excellent outcome in the challenging market.
Because of our lower than anticipated undergraduate enrollment, we are revising our FY2017 budget around a first-year enrollment of 770 students (rather than the anticipated 870). In addition to savings measures that will be continued, such as the 60-day open position practice, we will reduce administrative operating budgets by four percent. Academic units are also being asked to identify ways to use unrestricted endowment funds to cover some operational functions so as to achieve an additional four percent of savings in our budget. Of course, we must continue to look for new ways to exercise stewardship with the resources we have. Teresa Krejci and I will be sharing more information with units and budget managers regarding how the budget adjustments will be facilitated. We will also share more information with the community as we come back to the campus for the fall semester.
A high point in undergraduate admission is the increase in students entering our science disciplines. We are seeing significant improvement in yield in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology (+8.4%); environmental policy (+10%); psychology (+9.9%); and physics (+10%). We anticipated this would be the case as a result of our STEM@DRAKE project, which you can see is continuing full steam ahead. The Science Connector Building is ahead of schedule, showing upward movement with the installation of steel supports. That part of the construction should be complete in July 2017. Geopiers are being installed at the Collier-Scripps Hall site, which is set to be done in August 2017.
The summer schedule for deferred maintenance and capital renewal projects is now underway. The $1.7 million cash surplus spending for deferred maintenance authorized by the board in January will be focused on key infrastructure projects: Cowles Library, Goodwin-Kirk Residence Hall, and the Legal Clinic will have roof work completed; Herriott and Crawford Halls will be further waterproofed; and electrical upgrades will be carried out in the Performing Arts Hall. Kevin Moran was introduced to the board as our new executive director of facilities management—he will begin July 1.
I provided additional updates on other leadership transitions on campus, including the much anticipated arrival of our new provost, Sue Mattison. Sue officially begins on July 18. I informed the board that we are close to making a final decision on for the new Dean of Admission position. We are down to two very impressive finalists and hope to complete the search by the end of the month. I also provided an update on the search for the new director of The Harkin Institute. The search committee, led by Shannon Cofield and including John Smith and Sally Pederson, representing the Institute’s National Advisory Council, identified two finalists for the position. I am pleased to share that Joseph Jones, GR’08, has accepted my offer to take over leadership of the Harkin Institute. Joseph is currently the senior VP of government relations and public policy at the Greater Des Moines Partnership, and he previously worked as a legislative assistant for Senator Harkin from 2011–2013. Joseph’s extensive experience in working on public policy and his demonstrated ability to motivate and lead others to action make him the perfect person to lead the Institute into the future.
Finally, I shared with the board an overview of my recent trip to China. Over the course of a week, Kirk Martin, Greg Johansen (a member of our board of trustees), and I visited five universities: Sichuan International Studies University and Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing; Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang; and Minzu University and the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. Our overarching goals were to increase our Chinese student population across a variety of degree programs, to increase opportunities for our students to study and work in China, and to promote additional faculty exchange and collaboration. In every instance we were warmly welcomed and there was significant enthusiasm for expanding our partnerships. While there, we also met with several alumni, exchange students, former visiting scholars, and government officials, bolstering our growing network in China and furthering our mission to prepare students for responsible global citizenship.
As you can see, while we continue to face challenges in the turbulent higher education market we also have much to be proud of and excited about. The foundation that we are laying today, both physically and metaphorically, is setting us up for a future of opportunity.
—Marty Martin
