Letter to the Community

December 8, 2003
TO: The University Community
FROM: Philip E. Austin

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As we come to the end of the Fall semester, I want to take this opportunity to present a status report on a number of recent developments at the University, and offer some thoughts about several significant issues that we are working on this academic year.

While we face our share of challenges, there continues to be much reason for excitement and optimism regarding the state of the University. Since my last report, we adopted a budget that maintains our commitment to quality and access; strengthened our processes for research oversight; reached noteworthy Signature Program milestones at the Health Center; began implementation of an administrative structure that will improve services by streamlining process and by linking some key Storrs-based and Health Center operations; opened a new regional campus in downtown Waterbury and several facilities at Storrs; and proceeded with the vital work of planning for 21st Century UConn. We dedicated several research, teaching and student life facilities at Storrs, played a wonderfully successful football season at Rentschler Field, took steps to protect our athletic conference status, and met ongoing goals for our $300 million fundraising campaign, Campaign UConn. And, last month we announced the largest gift in the University’s history, an in-kind grant of software from EDS PLM Solutions to the School of Engineering valued at $146 million. Thanks to this grant, we will be able to provide our engineering students with training in the most cutting-edge design software on the market today, enhancing their educational experience and, ultimately, their career success; the EDS PLM/UConn partnership represents an extraordinarily valuable collaboration.

Along the way, we welcomed several exceptionally well-qualified individuals to leadership positions, along with dozens of outstanding new faculty and thousands of bright, talented students. In late August, just as our new freshmen were arriving on campus, we welcomed U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of UConn among the top 25 public universities in the country and, as in past years, as the number one public university in New England. All this bodes well for the future.

Budget Overview

In September the Board of Trustees approved a spending plan for Fiscal Year 2004 (which roughly coincides with the 2003-04 academic year) of $693 million for the Storrs-based programs and $551 million for the Health Center—adding up to a total University operating budget of $1.244 billion. In technical terms, the budget is balanced; anticipated revenues equal anticipated expenditures. The budget is balanced in a more fundamental sense as well. Though it calls for major cost savings in almost every area of activity—and reflects sacrifice by faculty, staff, students, and their parents—it provides resources we need in order to meet our key academic, research, student life, and service goals in the year ahead.

Development of the University’s budget presented an especially formidable challenge this year. The long-term trend of declining State support as a portion of the University’s aggregate budget not only continued, but in fact accelerated sharply, due primarily to the impact on Connecticut of the nation’s ongoing economic difficulties: at the start of the last decade, the State provided 50% of operating funds for the Storrs-based programs, a number which dropped to 40.7% in Fiscal Year 2002 and will be less than 38% in FY ’04. At the Health Center, where clinical revenues and grant funds provide a larger proportion of operating budget support, the decline in State funding is nevertheless significant as well: a drop from about 21% in FY ’02 to less than 18% in FY ’04. What is particularly noteworthy this year is not just the decline in State support as a percentage of total funding, but an actual decline in the amount itself. At the end of the process, when all aspects of the budget are factored in—including losses to the University resulting from a return of only about 50 cents on every dollar lost through the State’s early retirement incentive program—total State support (excluding fringe benefits) actually drops from last year’s level to $263.8 million across the University in FY ’04, including $190 million at Storrs and $73.8 million at the Health Center.

Yet our needs continue to increase, along with our students’ expectations and our faculty’s aspirations. We held the size of this year’s incoming freshman class at Storrs to last year’s level of 3,200. But we experienced a 7% increase in the number of new students at the regional campuses, and the impact of prior-year increases at Storrs, the regional campuses, and, notably, the School of Law meant that our aggregate enrollment in September 2003 stood at 26,629, or 787 more students than were here a year ago. Thanks to UCONN 2000 and, in some cases, donor support, we now have 18 more buildings than was the case one year ago, giving us 820,000 additional square feet. Student demand and our own desire to assure a full range of positive activities means that recreational and library facilities are open longer hours. Just to meet what the budgeteers call “current services” targets—that is, the amount needed to provide services equivalent to last year’s level—we would need an increase in our appropriation of $11 million at Storrs and the regional campuses and $2.7 million at the Health Center. Yet State support has decreased.

Compounding the difficulties presented by the raw numbers, the early retirement incentive presented problems of its own. Four hundred eighty-six faculty and staff across the University took advantage of this program, and when they left they took with them a vast wealth of experience and talent. Even if we were able to replace each on a one-for-one basis, it would take years to make up for that loss. As indicated, the State has allocated only about 50% of the aggregate support for the positions funded by the State. The immediate challenge has been to assure that we continue to meet our students’ instructional and non-instructional needs—and at a level commensurate with the expectations of a student body that has drawn nearly 500 high school valedictorians and salutatorians since UCONN 2000 came into being and whose graduate and professional programs attract equally outstanding men and women. This we were able to do, partly through the recruitment of many recent retirees for part-time teaching or other positions, partly through a redeployment of resources (including those made available in the limited pool of early retirement replacement funding), and partly—perhaps mostly—through the expanded contributions of all members of the UConn community. The sacrifices of our faculty, staff and administration in accepting wage freezes in exchange for a commitment to avert budget-induced layoffs, coupled with our students’ families’ willingness to accept 7.9% increases in costs of attendance, is evidence of an extraordinary and widely shared commitment to the progress of our University. (While in no way minimizing the impact of significant cost increases to students, it is worth noting that between 1997 and 2004 UConn’s in-state undergraduate tuition and fees increased at a lower percentage rate than that at all but one other flagship public institution in New England.)

But this is a short-term solution to a long-term challenge. I wish I could tell you that State funding will rise sharply next year, or the year after, or the year after that. We will certainly lobby for that to happen. We cannot, however, realistically expect a return to 50% State operating budget support levels within the foreseeable future. Instead, we need to continue to work aggressively to expand other sources of funding (notably including research funding, private philanthropic support, and clinical service revenues), continue and expand our efforts to attain efficiencies through management restructuring, and work to assure that our physical as well as fiscal resources are targeted in a manner consistent with our areas of programmatic focus, as determined through a community-wide development of a carefully considered academic plan.

This year, the budget allows us to maintain our overall progress, expand activities in key areas, and implement a few significant initiatives. Among the items approved by the Board is an increase in undergraduate academic and honors program support, and funding to implement several recommendations of the Substance Abuse Task Force; increased support to accommodate additional enrollment at the Law School and for programs in Human Rights, and Business; funding for operating needs at the regional campuses; targeted support to enlarge programs in areas in which we help meet Connecticut’s need for highly skilled professionals, notably including nursing, pharmacy, and education; and implementation of our Diversity Plan. Building on our success in achieving federal and other external funding, the budget invests in our Fuel Cell Research Center and other major research centers and provides added support for technology transfer programs. At the Health Center, increased investments will be made in the implementation of the Signature Programs (cancer, cardiology, musculoskeletal medicine, and Connecticut Health), research administration, patient care, information technology and campus planning.

Strengthening Administrative Operations

The transformation that began at UConn in 1995 would not have been possible without the contributions of an exceptionally dedicated and talented staff. Universities are inherently complex organizations, and this one—consisting of multiple sites, a health center and hospital nearly 40 miles from the main campus and a law school at its own location, a broad array of programs, a vibrant continuing studies program, and multiple funding sources—is more complicated even than the norm. Yet we are implementing a $2.3 billion infrastructure program on time and within budget; putting into place strategies and work plans to attain the sophistication expected of twenty-first century information technology; maintaining 435 buildings across the State; purchasing more than $300 million worth of goods and services every year; protecting the security of tens of thousands of students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors; and meeting the human resource needs of approximately 8,000 faculty and staff in more than 500 departments. There is a natural human tendency to focus on the occasional error or frustration, and all large organizations have their share of both. But any fair-minded observer who stands back and looks at what has been accomplished here—and what goes on every day—can only take pride in the aggregate achievement and in the people who have made it happen.

As we have grown in size and quality, however, it has become increasingly clear that we need to make fundamental changes in our organizational structure if we want to maintain high standards of service delivery, especially in an environment characterized by ever-tighter budget constraints. Two years ago the University retained the Pappas Consulting Group, Inc., an organization with extensive experience in higher education, to examine our administrative operations and structure. Pappas personnel met extensively with all of the University’s constituencies, including the University Senate, AAUP and UCPEA leadership, administrative and student service officials, and others. The essential objective of the study was to find ways we can utilize our resources in the most efficient, cost-effective and responsive manner to achieve our goals. As I said in a message I sent to the University community last June, every dollar saved in administrative operations can be devoted to our instructional, research, student life and service responsibilities.

On July 22, the Board of Trustees approved a revised administrative structure at the University that will move us several steps in this direction. The key elements of the revision, which I outlined in my June message, are as follows:

• The title of the Provost and Chancellor for Academic Affairs has been changed to Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, making this official’s role as the chief academic officer for the Storrs-based programs more explicit, and allowing the holder of the position to devote full energies to activities that lie at the core of our mission.
• The position of University Vice President for Institutional Advancement has been eliminated, with the chief development officer holding the exclusive title of President of the University of Connecticut Foundation, Inc. and supported entirely by Foundation resources.
• The position of Vice President and Chief Operating Officer has been established, with responsibility for operations across the University—at Storrs, the regional campuses, the professional schools and the Health Center—in areas including facilities, construction, purchasing, payroll, other business services, human resource management, and information technology. A similar position exists at most major universities, and the need for a chief operating officer at a $1.2 billion enterprise is, in my view, self-evident.

I was delighted that Linda Flaherty-Goldsmith, former Vice President for Finance and Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and previously Vice Chancellor for Financial Affairs for the University of Alabama system, accepted this new position and arrived at UConn this summer. Ms. Flaherty-Goldsmith has more than 25 years’ experience in public higher education, including administrative oversight at a public research university with a major hospital and medical program. She certainly understands difficult budgets, and has demonstrated the ability to find opportunities for progress even under severe budgetary pressures. Perhaps most significant, she brings to UConn two equally important personal traits: she understands and respects the work of people who keep the University functioning on a day-to-day basis, and she has a strong orientation to “consumer service”—with primary consumers defined as faculty and students. As she said in an article in the Advance, “My goal is to break down barriers and make it possible for all of us to do our jobs better.”

An important part of Vice President Flaherty-Goldsmith’s mandate is to link services at Storrs and the Health Center, eliminating unnecessary duplication and taking advantage of economies of scale. Obviously, some activities are unique to one campus or another. But most routine administrative processes are common across the University, and where that is the case it makes sense, both in terms of cost savings and, ultimately, enhanced service delivery, to develop a single, institution-wide approach. Another key goal is making all processes “user-friendly,” eliminating unnecessary paperwork and reducing significantly the time involved in processing purchases, personnel actions, and other administrative activities. A third, overriding goal, is assuring that all members of the community, particularly faculty and students, have input in the development and assessment of administrative systems.

This is a demanding assignment, and I know that we have a vice president who is equal to the task. Ms. Flaherty-Goldsmith has met with a great many people over the past two months to hear their concerns and outline her goals. I know that she will look to all members of the community for support, and I am sure it will be offered in full measure.

UConn Athletics: Contributions and Challenges

Throughout my seven years at the University I have been able to point consistently to the Division of Athletics with well-justified admiration. More important than our success on the court or playing field is a record of unquestioned integrity in our intercollegiate programs. Here at UConn, excellence in athletics translates not just into six national championships since 1995, but into a program that takes the term “student athletes” literally, with an emphasis on the first word, plays by the NCAA rules without looking for ways to cut corners, and provides our students, faculty and all the people of the State with a common point of excitement and pride.

It is an understatement to say that UConn’s Division of Athletics has had an eventful year. In April our women’s basketball team won their fourth national NCAA championship, an event that is by now becoming almost routine but is no less exciting than it ever was. Our men’s basketball team also capped a successful season, as did players in many other sports last year. Work on the State’s new stadium at Rentschler Field proceeded toward completion and led to a triumphant opening on August 30 with 38,109 excited fans on hand to cheer our victory over Indiana, and an exceptionally successful season thereafter.

But along the way we confronted several challenges that had implications not just for UConn athletics, but for the University as a whole. The departure of Athletics Director Lew Perkins this summer marked the end of a 13-year period during which our program, like UConn itself, moved from regional to national prominence. To our great satisfaction, former Associate Director of Athletics Jeffrey Hathaway, who spent the last two years as AD at Colorado State University, accepted our offer to return to UConn and assume the Athletics Director’s position. This appointment was greeted with enthusiasm in the Division of Athletics and among UConn fans across the State. As those who have worked with Jeff know, he brings to his new responsibilities a deep commitment to a clean, successful athletics program, an appreciation of academic values, a keen ability to bring people together to work toward a common goal, and an intimate—indeed, an encyclopedic—knowledge of our own athletics program.

Those traits will be important in the years ahead. Our move to Division I-A football is well-launched, and despite its distance from the Storrs campus, Rentschler Field has proved a great asset. (Attendance through the season has averaged 37,059 at each home game.) But the key challenges are external and political rather than athletic. The University of Connecticut has been a member of the Big East Conference since the Conference’s founding. Following a nation-wide movement of universities to new athletic conference affiliations (including the moves of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to the Atlantic Coast Conference), this fall the Big East announced the addition of five new members effective in the 2005-06 academic year: the Universities of Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida, which will begin participation in the Big East as Division I-A members in both the football and all sports conferences, and DePaul and Marquette Universities, which will commence participation in all sports except I-A football (which they do not sponsor). UConn will become a full member of the Big East Football Conference with the start of the 2004 season.

I will be frank in saying that the conference events of the summer and fall generated turbulence and uncertainty, creating problems I wish we might have avoided. Nevertheless, I am confident that the new conference alignment gives us a very good structure in which our athletics programs can build on a strong foundation of success.

Graduate Education

In many of my previous reports to the University community I reported extensively on the progress of our undergraduate students, and particularly the sharp rise in applications and in the diversity and academic strength of incoming students, trends which accelerated this past fall. I focused less on graduate education, not because it has a lower priority, but because, as at most major universities, oversight of masters and doctoral programs is highly decentralized and department- and program-based. Graduate students’ key relationships are, as they should be, with their faculty advisers and other faculty closely involved in their academic program; general policy is set by the Graduate Faculty and implemented by the Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Research. The central administration’s responsibility is to create a supportive environment, facilitate close linkages between graduate education and research, and work to assure appropriate distribution of resources.

The foundation of graduate education at UConn is generally strong. A few programs have exceptionally high national ranking; many others are recognized as solid and moving in the right direction. Since 1997 each department has been mandated to engage in self-study and external review, and that process creates the context in which priorities are determined and funds allocated. Dean Janet Greger and her colleagues, in close collaboration with the academic deans, program heads, faculty and students, continue to strengthen these processes, coordinate them with relevant accreditation activities, and seek to align graduate program goals with the institution’s overriding instructional, research and service priorities.

Approximately 5,400 masters and doctoral students are currently enrolled at the University of Connecticut, in addition to 1,340 students in our Schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, and Law. Their success, here and in the future, is critical to the success and reputation of the University as a whole, and we take very seriously our responsibility to facilitate their progress. We currently provide 2,100 graduate research and teaching assistantships, up from 1,800 five years ago. The Graduate School also provides $1.81 million in competitive fellowship funding for graduate students, up from $1.43 million five years ago.

Last spring Dean Greger appointed a Graduate School Task Force on Program Review and Admissions and Record Reports, which developed an extensive set of recommendations to improve the focus and administrative operations of the Graduate School. Based on the Task Force’s findings, on May 9 the Graduate Executive Committee approved a “Revised Policy for the UConn Graduate School,” which cites three primary goals: 1) allowing programs to define graduate excellence in terms of the standards of the discipline; 2) empowering programs to manage the progress of students internally through information technology; and 3) using program reviews and oversight authority to elevate the stature of constituent graduate programs. The full policy, available at www.grad.uconn.edu/faculty/forms.html, is designed to assure high quality, systematic benchmarking and program review, and streamlining of administrative processes to allow maximum attention to core activities of instruction and student advisement. For example, starting this fall graduate students can use an electronic web-based application for admission. Thus departments can monitor students’ intentions to apply before the final application is received. Another innovation is simplification of the rules concerning dissertation proposals, shortening the form from eight pages to one. In a related area, the Graduate School is collaborating closely with the UConn Foundation. Working together, these two units have established electronic connections between the PeopleSoft Student Administration system and the alumni database. Out of this partnership has emerged the long-needed ability to focus on a critical measure of program efficacy, the career success of alumni. This is also important to the University’s preparation for the impending National Research Council’s survey of doctoral programs. I endorse the proposals in concept and encourage the Graduate School, academic departments, and graduate student government to work vigorously for their implementation.

One other issue affecting many of our graduate students bears special mention. Following the State’s decision to eliminate graduate assistants from access to health care benefits offered to state employees, the University worked with the Office of the State Comptroller to develop a high quality, relatively low-cost alternative option for our 2,100 graduate, research, and teaching assistants. The University’s financial contribution, coupled with our success in securing some additional State support, assures that rates charged to individual graduate assistants for this coverage will be kept to affordable levels. Moreover, graduate students supported on externally funded training grants and post-doctoral fellows are now eligible for coverage. These latter groups had been ineligible for health insurance coverage under the state employee-based plan, which placed both them and the University at a competitive disadvantage. Under the new plan this disadvantage has been eliminated.

New Arrivals

The months since last May’s Commencement have been particularly notable because we welcomed several outstanding men and women who will play important roles in our ongoing progress.

• As also discussed earlier, Jeff Hathaway’s return to UConn from Colorado State to accept our appointment as Director of Athletics provides a near-seamless transition as we meet the challenges of Division I-A football, the Big East Conference issues, the state’s wholly justified expectations for ongoing triumphs in basketball, and the UConn community’s equally justified expectation of continued strength and integrity throughout our athletics program. If this fall is any indication, we know that under Jeff’s leadership UConn athletics will continue to be a point of statewide excitement and institutional pride.
• The new President of the University of Connecticut Foundation, John Martin, comes to the Foundation from the University of Maryland system, where he served as Vice Chancellor for Advancement and as President and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Maryland Foundation. John is a Connecticut native who knows UConn’s environment well, and he brings to his responsibilities at the Foundation a long and impressive track record in university fund-raising and advancement. As Campaign UConn moves toward successful completion the summer of 2004, John will guide the Foundation to a new level of support for the University.
• Just this month Dr. William C. (Curt) Hunter, former Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, assumed his duties as our new Dean of Business. A graduate of Hampton Institute with an MBA in Finance and a Ph.D. in Finance and Environment from Northwestern University, Curt held teaching positions at Chicago State University, the University of Georgia, Atlanta University and Emory University, developing a strong record of scholarship focused on fiscal and monetary policy and on issues pertaining to the global economy, which he applied to public policy over the course of more than a decade at the Federal Reserve. The School of Business has made dramatic progress in recent years, moving to number 33 in the U.S. News and World Report’s national ranking of undergraduate business programs, occupying a wonderful new building, and attracting outstanding students and faculty. Curt’s leadership will be instrumental in maintaining and accelerating that momentum.
• As mentioned above, Linda Flaherty-Goldsmith arrived from the University of Alabama in August to assume the new post of Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. She has acclimated herself to the Connecticut environment and has worked tirelessly over the last ten weeks to get to know the people at Storrs, the Health Center, and the regional campuses whose activities she will oversee and whose efforts she will assist and support.

Last but by no means least, the University’s Board of Trustees began a new era under the leadership of its new Chairman, Dr. John W. Rowe. A physician, internationally recognized scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, former President of The Mount Sinai Hospital and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and now Chairman and CEO of Aetna Inc., Dr. Rowe brings to the Board both a clear understanding of UConn’s mission as Connecticut’s premier public research institution of higher education and a deep appreciation of the University’s potential. His own academic background and prior service on the Health Center’s Board of Directors gives him unique insight into the role of scholarship and the special challenges confronting academic health centers. He also has a high level of interest in all other aspects of University life, including undergraduate and graduate education and administrative and fiscal operations. I have told Governor Rowland of my great appreciation for the appointment of a chairman of this quality, and for the concurrent appointment of another highly qualified new Board member, former Connecticut House of Representatives Speaker Thomas Ritter. As those who have been at the University through the past decade know well, Tom Ritter played a critical role in the enactment of UCONN 2000 and has been a steadfast supporter of the University throughout his career; he will be a great asset as a member of the Board.

In addition, I am delighted that Dr. Andrea Dennis-LaVigne, a veterinarian, former Alumni Association President, and active member of the University community for many years, has been elected by her fellow alumni as a member of the Board. Michael Nichols, former President of the Undergraduate Student Government, is our new student member. Our chairman and three other new members join 15 colleagues who have guided UConn through a time of unprecedented progress and growth.

Final Thoughts

As is always the case with these letters to the community, space limitations prevent me from addressing the full range of issues that lie before us, or highlighting many of the individual contributions of our faculty, staff, students, and other members of our community. Suffice it to say that our ongoing progress in an exceptionally difficult budgetary period would not have been possible without the assistance of a great many individuals, and as we move into the holiday season this is a good time to express my thanks.

The coming year will doubtless bring its own challenges, but we remain well positioned to meet them. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: the University of Connecticut is in the midst of movement as dramatic and positive as any public university in the country, and all the important indicators demonstrate the scope of our achievement. We fulfill our teaching, research, and service missions with increasing distinction, and represent the greatest single public asset in our state. That is something in which all of us can take great pride as we come to the end of another calendar year.

Happy holidays.

cc: Board of Trustees