• Significant Appointments
• 1996-97 Accomplishments
• Implementation of the Strategic Plan
• The Need for Improved Faculty/Staff Compensation
• The Proposed Tuition Increase
• Graduate Program Review
• Developing and Funding Retention Efforts
• The Campaign for Maryland
• Quality for Working Life
• Administrative Reorganization
• The Feasibility of Replacing Cole Field House

Significant Appointments

Before I begin my comments on the major issues facing the university, I'd like to mention several significant appointments that were made this past year. First, I'm delighted to recognize Greg Geoffroy, our new Provost, who joined us on June 1 from Penn State. Greg is a distinguished chemist. He has over 200 publications in refereed journals and a book to his credit. A Ph.D. graduate of Cal Tech, Greg has received the prestigious Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, and both Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships. He also has an outstanding record as an administrator, serving most recently as the Dean of Penn State's Eberly College of Science. As you will learn a little later in my comments, Greg's portfolio has been expanded even beyond the already significant responsibilities we have established for our chief academic officer. From the moment I met Greg, I sensed there was something special about him. Now I know what it is: he, too, grew up in Kentucky, where he got his bachelor's degree from the University of Louisville.

Our second major appointment this year is Howard Frank, the new dean of our College of Business and Management. Howard has had a truly remarkable career. He got his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northwestern University. He has served in a variety of positions, including a tenured faculty position in the University of California, Berkeley's department of electrical engineering, a White House advisor on information technology, a successful business entrepreneur, a business CEO and, most recently, the head of DARPA's information technology program. Given this wealth of experience, Dean Frank will be a great asset both to the business school and the university. Dean Frank assumes his duties this week.

Our third major administrative appointment is Dr. Jeffrey Babcock, who just accepted the position of Director of the Maryland Center for the Performing Arts. Jeffrey's credentials include an impressive set of career experiences. He got his Ph.D. in music composition from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Most recently, he was the director of the Cultural Olympiad and the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival for the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. He is also the founder of the celebrated New World Symphony, the co-founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, and was a professor of music theory and composition at Olivet College.

The university also made a number of very distinguished faculty appointments this past year. The list is so long, in fact, that I will not be able to mention them all. I do want to note, however, the appointment of George Lorimer in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Professor Lorimer is one of the world's leading chemists and was recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

Another major faculty appointment is Dr. Shibley Telhami, a renowned expert on the Middle East. Dr. Telhami will be inducted next month as the university's first holder of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace Studies. He comes to us from Cornell University. Another very special appointment is Dr. Elsa Barkley Brown, who comes to us from the University of Michigan. Dr. Brown will hold a joint position in the Departments of History and Women's Studies. She is a prize winning scholar and will be a valuable addition to our Freedman and Southern Society projects. Finally, I want to mention Professor Athanassios Panagiotopolous as a joint appointment in the Institute for Physical Science and Technology and Department of Chemical Engineering. Professor Panagiotopolous also comes to us from Cornell. He recently won the Chemical Engineering Society's award as the outstanding young chemical engineer in the United States. This is just a sample of a stellar group of new faculty appointed to the university this past year, a group that would bring honor to any university fortunate enough to recruit them.

1996-97 Accomplishments

As we begin this school year, I would be remiss if I did not point out a few extraordinary accomplishments of this past year:

• 1996-97 was our most successful ever in terms of grant and contract funding. The total for the year just ended is $155 million, the first time we have ever exceeded $150 million and nearly a $10 million jump over last year's total of $146 million.

• We also had our best year ever in development. The total giving for last year was $47 million. As we approach the kick-off of our $350 million fund raising campaign, it is encouraging to see impressive growth in our fund raising success. Just 5 years ago, the total annual giving was in the range of $20 million.

• Four members of our faculty were inducted into the national Academy of Sciences this past spring— George Gloeckler, John Mather and William Phillips of the Physics Department and, as I mentioned a moment ago, George Lorimer of the Chemistry Department. There are only two other universities in the nation that had as many as four faculty inducted into the Academy this year.

• The quality of our freshman class continues to rise impressively. Once again, this fall's class is, in terms of academic profile, the best ever. The class' average GPA is 3.5 and its average SAT is over 1200. One third of the entering class are students of color, one third come to us with advanced placement credit and approximately one third are in either the Honors Program or College Park Scholars. Incidentally, both of these programs were over-subscribed because of unexpectedly high acceptance rates. There is no question that we have now achieved a very competitive level of undergraduate admissions.

• The quality and diversity of our entering class is just one measure of our success with diversity. In a recent study, College Park ranked first in the nation among non historically black schools in the number of degrees awarded African-American students in the life sciences, fifth in degrees awarded in the sciences generally, and fourth in the number of degrees awarded African Americans in engineering. These numbers are a source of great pride for the university.

• This brings me to the final highlight of the recent past, the remarkable accomplishments of Lancelot. As most of you probably already know, a group of undergraduates, majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, entered a robot in the Tokyo Robot Olympics this summer. MIT and the University of Maryland were the only U.S. institutions to respond to the invitation to participate in this competition. The MIT students didn't complete their robot but our students did, a robot they named Lancelot. They took Lancelot to Tokyo as the lone U.S. competitor against 200 Japanese robots, which in many cases were built by Japanese companies. And guess what! As reported on the front page of the Washington Post last month, the little guy from College Park took first place, although the Post used somewhat more colorful language to describe our victory.

  The success of this effort was due in large measure to the brilliance of our undergraduate students. But it also resulted from the willingness of faculty, led by Professor Gregory Walsh, to spend time with these students inside and outside the classroom, working on this project. There can be no doubt that the direct engagement between faculty and students is the key to our continuing success in recruiting talented students, and in improving our retention and graduation rates.
  

All this good news tells us that we have much to be proud of as a university. But as all of us recognize, there are still major issues that we need to address if we hope to sustain the momentum that has brought us to our current level of quality. Chief among these issues is the present inadequate levels of compensation for many faculty and staff, a new personnel system for non-exempt employees that has been launched with mixed results, the deficient operating budgets for many, if not most units, the condition of many of our older facilities, and the increasing reliance on tuition increases to compensate for insufficient state appropriations.

Implementation of the Strategic Plan

Perhaps the most visible impact of the plan is the manner in which it was used to guide budget allocations for the current fiscal year. Last year we initiated a budget process, tied to the objectives of the plan, that asked our four divisions — academic affairs, administrative affairs, student affairs, and university advancement — to prepare for a 1% reallocation of their budgets in support of the objectives and initiatives of the strategic plan. In my view, this effort was highly successful. The result was a reallocation of some $3.2 million in support of the plan with $2.6 million going into academic programs. This included $250,000 in support of the faculty salary goals, $250,000 for student retention initiatives, and almost $1 million in support of our residential learning communities.

As you may know, I appointed an advisory committee of faculty and staff, chaired by Jim Lesher, to assess the strategic plan implementation efforts. The advisory committee's report was very encouraging and pointed to many successes in the implementation of the plan, as well as to areas that need greater attention during this year. Based in part on this committee's recommendation, we will continue the 1% reallocation process for the next several years. A copy of my memorandum to the vice presidents launching this year's process and identifying university wide priorities should be available to all unit heads. If it is not, a copy can be obtained from the appropriate vice president's office. This memorandum makes clear the campus administration's strong commitment to the goals and objectives of the plan and sets forth university-wide priorities for the current academic year.

The Need for Improved Faculty/Staff Compensation

In the State of the University address two years ago, I announced the goal of restoring faculty salaries to the 85th percentile by the year 2000. According to the most recent available data, FY 1996-97, our assistant professor salaries were at the 71st percentile, our associate professors at the 56th percentile, and our full professors were at the 63rd percentile. I say "were" because these figures do not take into account the $2.25 million of faculty salary enhancement that the Governor and the General Assembly appropriated last year, the $1.25 million that the university budgeted internally through the strategic plan budget process for faculty salary enhancement, or the 1.25% faculty merit fund also appropriated by the General Assembly this past spring. Of course, other universities awarded salary increases too, so we face a moving target. Nonetheless, preliminary analysis suggests that we made real progress this past year toward our goal of reaching the 85th percentile among Research I public universities.

Prospects for further advance seem good at this moment. The Governor has indicated that he will include a 3% COLA [cost of living allowance] in the FY 1999 budget for all state employees. In addition, we are planning for the standard annual 1.25% faculty merit pool as part of the budget, and the Regents have made a second $2.5 million salary enhancement fund request for College Park one of their top priorities. If all of this happens, and I realize that a lot could change over the coming months, we would be very close to realizing our 85th percentile target.

The competitive level of staff salaries is also a deep concern and top priority. Here again our plans and actions must be guided by Regents policy. According to the Regents' staff pay plan for non-exempt staff, the goal is for the mid-point of the pay ranges for non-exempt staff positions to be at the median of the salaries of similar positions in the public and private sector as determined by a statewide survey. Further, the plan calls for non-exempt staff who meet expectations to receive annually a one step pay increase, which amounts to a salary increment of 2.5%. The plan also calls for the possibility of a merit increase of an additional step for non exempt employees who were rated outstanding when, and this is important, the System budget contains funds for this purpose.

There are two major deficiencies with the implementation of this policy. First, the systematic survey of salaries called for in the Regents' policy has not occurred. This is a matter that I intend for the campus to champion with the System and the Regents this year. The second deficiency is that the System's budget has never included funds for the extra merit step. Last year College Park and several other System institutions made institutional funds available so that some extra merit awards could be made. In our case, we allocated funds so that 5% of the non-exempt employees could receive an extra merit award. This year, I am committed to raising this figure to 10%, using institutional funds if necessary. I want to caution that no one can foresee what the FY 1999 budget will actually look like at this time. But, unless there is some unexpected decrease in our budget, we will move ahead with this plan. I also want to note that the 10% target for extra merit awards is roughly comparable to the percentage of faculty who benefit from the special retention funds.

Last year there was considerable discussion about the criteria used to make the extra merit awards. The decisions were based in part on the PRD evaluations but also relied on other criteria, including the discretionary judgement of supervisors, such as is done with faculty merit. It was not a perfect system, in part because the criteria were not uniform and in part because they were not promulgated in advance. At my request, Vice President Sturtz is developing broad guidelines for the next round of extra merit awards. These will be reviewed by various advisory groups, including the Senate Staff Affairs Committee. Once these guidelines are approved by the Cabinet, they will be widely distributed. I anticipate that this will occur no later than October 15.

Let me summarize, then, the salary prospects for non-exempt staff. The 3% COLA, if actually appropriated, would of course apply to all non-exempt salaries. In addition, there would be a 2.5% increase for all non-exempt staff who "meet expectations" in the PRD process. Finally, unless we experience some unexpected budget setback, there would be the possibility of an additional 2.5% for up to 10% of the non-exempt staff. I hope you will agree that, in comparison to the recent past, this is an encouraging prospect.

Regrettably, there is no System salary policy for exempt staff, as there is for faculty and for non-exempt staff. The System administration has a commitment to develop one over the coming year and we will have considerable opportunity to influence the policy. The positive side of this situation is that, within available resources, there is somewhat more flexibility in making salary adjustments than with non exempt staff. For exempt staff, next year's budget will contain the 3% COLA, and the standard 1.25% merit. In addition, with the same qualification that I made on the non-exempt extra merit, the university will allocate the equivalent of a 2.5% merit increment for up to 10% of the exempt staff. This means that all categories of staff and faculty will have roughly the same percentage allocation for merit pay.

I have spent considerable time on the topic of compensation both because I believe it to be vital to our success as an institution and because it is a subject that has the unfortunate potential to pit one employee group against another. If all of the plans I outlined come to pass, it will not solve our compensation problems, but it will be a big step forward. I hope everyone recognizes that the intention is to treat all categories of university employees in a similar and equitable manner.

The Proposed Tuition Increase

As you may know, this university proposed a tuition increase of 6.8% for in-state undergraduate students, similar to the rates recommended at several other System institutions. This increase would keep our in-state tuition well within the guidelines established by the Regents and still below all of our regional competitors except Virginia Tech, whose in-state tuition would be slightly below ours. The Regents were prepared to approve this proposed increase but Governor Glendening expressed concern. His concern is justified because the dramatic rise in college costs around the country threatens the opportunity for many students to attend our nation's colleges and universities. The dilemma we face here in Maryland is the conflict between a state unable or unwilling to invest appropriately in higher education and a university determined to move forward with efforts to elevate its quality. Although Governor Glendening has been remarkably supportive in allocating discretionary resources to higher education, the sad fact is that our state historically has not been committed to education as a top priority. One indication of this fact is that our General Fund support this fiscal year is still below the level we had in FY 1991, and that's in actual — not inflated — dollars!

My hope is that a compromise will be reached by the time of the October meeting of the Board of Regents. A proposal has been sent forth to reduce the tuition rate to the range of 4 to 5% with the understanding that the state will increase the General Fund appropriation to make up the difference. From my perspective, this would be a victory for everyone. It is certainly a proposal that the entire community — faculty, staff, and students — can rally around, and I hope we will. Our alumni advocates are meeting this week and, I am confident, will express their support for this proposal to leaders in Annapolis. I will be meeting with campus student leaders this week, asking for their support of this plan as well.

Graduate Program Review

Another item of major importance before the campus this year is the graduate program review called for in the strategic plan. As you know, such a review was conducted over the course of the past academic year by a committee appointed by Dean Ilene Nagel and chaired by Professor Mahlon Straszheim. The committee has issued its report and all units are being given an opportunity to respond.

In consultation with various groups, including the Senate Executive Committee, Provost Geoffroy has developed a very thorough process for university-wide review of the committee's recommendations and the unit responses. In particular, this process includes a provision for a thorough Senate review of any recommendations for program closures. I want to emphasize that the purpose of the review is to identify our targets of opportunity for developing programs of excellence, not the singling out of programs for elimination. Nonetheless, as a by-product of the process, it is possible that recommendations for program closures will come before the Senate. If so, I am confident the Senate will deal with these recommendations in the thoughtful and deliberative manner it has in the past. I also believe this graduate program review, once scrutinized by the campus community, modified if necessary, and approved by the university will be an extremely useful document in helping us achieve the goals of the strategic plan. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mahlon Straszheim and the other members of the committee who spent long hours developing the report.

Developing and Funding Retention Efforts

Another item of great significance for the university is our retention initiative. As most of you know, the university sponsored a retreat last spring chaired by Interim Provost Nelson Markley and Vice President for Student Affairs Bud Thomas. This retreat was a remarkable and highly successful event. It involved more than 150 faculty, staff, students and administrators, and developed a real sense of momentum toward our goal of graduating within five years at least 70% of the freshman class that entered this fall. Given that we currently graduate only about 66% of our entering freshmen in six years, this goal is a stretch. Given the quality of the class, however, it is achievable. But only if we make a university-wide commitment to the goal.

In launching the budget process for this year's round of reallocations, I placed a great deal of emphasis on the graduation rate goal and called for units to come forth with creative programs that can contribute to its achievement. Several colleges have gotten a head start on this effort. BSOS, for example, has created a safety-net program which, among other things, ensures that every freshman has at least five conversations with an advisor during the fall semester. BSOS also plans to have a mandatory advising system in place by next fall. Life Sciences has implemented a program that requires all of its majors who are not in Honors or College Park Scholars to take the semester long orientation course, EDCP 108O. The instructors in the sections of this course also serve as the assigned advisors for their students. Among other things, this ensures that all freshmen in Life Sciences will have a small class experience and an advisor with whom they have regular contact. I hope those colleges that have not implemented programs as an out growth of the retention retreat will soon follow the lead of these and other colleges that have.

The Campaign for Maryland

The university will launch a very important initiative this year: the public phase of our Campaign for Maryland. On October 24, we will officially announce the campaign, which has a goal of $350 million to be raised within the next five years. To date we have raised something over $100 million of this total. So, to be successful, we will have to raise about $50 million a year for each of the next five years — a daunting prospect. If we are successful, and I have every reason to believe we will be, the campaign will have a major impact on the university. Our specific goals include: $77 million for endowed faculty chairs and professorships, $63 million for student scholarships and fellowships, $21 million for educational and research equipment, $23 million for the Maryland Center for the Performing Arts, and $10 million for the construction of an alumni center. Success with this campaign will require the participation of many people on the campus, both in helping to make the case for gifts and, hopefully, in actually making a gift. There will be a faculty/staff drive as part of the campaign and I'm pleased to say that Charles Wellford, a former Senate chair, has agreed to serve as the chair of this portion of the campaign.

Quality of Working Life

There are three final items I want to report on. First, in last year's State of the University address, I expressed my concern about quality of the working environment and its impact on staff and faculty morale. I announced my intention to appoint a committee to look into this matter and report back to me. A Quality of Working Life Committee was appointed and Professor Susan Taylor, a faculty member in the College of Business and Management and an internationally recognized expert on workplace issues, is its chair. Professor Taylor and her colleagues on the committee have worked diligently over the past year and presented me with a list of ten recommended actions, most of which have been endorsed. They include several of the compensation actions that I mentioned earlier. They also include the development of a comprehensive plan for staff development tied to the objectives of the strategic plan, and a more substantial investment in meaningful training programs for staff to upgrade their skills. A full status report of the committee's work to date will appear in a forthcoming issue of Outlook.

Administrative Reorganization

The second item I want to mention is the contents of a memorandum I recently sent to the deans, directors, and department chairs outlining several changes in campus level administrative bodies. These changes result from two primary considerations: the need for the campus level administration to increase its efficiency and its responsiveness to campus units; and the recognition that I will need to spend considerably more time off-campus working to meet the goals of our capital campaign and building a stronger base of support among our external constituents.

Because of these external requirements, I have asked Marie Davidson to play an expanded role in the administration of the President's Office. She will operate as a Chief of Staff. Several offices that previously reported directly to me will now report to her.

A second change involves the Cabinet, which is advisory to the president, is chaired by me, and consists of the Vice Presidents and Marie Davidson as Executive Assistant to the President. The cabinet is the primary body that sets policy and determines priorities for the university. In the past it has met weekly, in part because its agenda has included non-policy matters. In the future, the Cabinet will meet at most bi-monthly and will strictly adhere to its policy-making and priority setting purpose.

To augment the work of the cabinet, a new administrative body — called the Administrative Council — has been established which will be chaired by Provost Geoffroy. The membership will include the other vice presidents, Marie Davidson, representing the President's Office, Terry Roach, the University's general counsel, and one of our deans, chosen on a rotating basis. This Council will deal with all day-to-day administrative matters that require campus level action. A second new council has been established called the Facilities Council. It, too, will be chaired by Provost Geoffroy and will include the the Vice Presidents for Administrative Affairs and Student Affairs, the Dean of the Graduate School, and a second dean on a rotating basis. This council will have primary responsibility for the planning of new and the upgrading of existing facilities. It also will recommend major facilities budget allocations to the president.

Finally, the Finance Committee, which consists of the vice presidents and is chaired by Vice President Sturtz, will be expanded to include a dean on a rotating basis. This committee will continue to serve as the primary source for the management of our current year budget.

These changes may all sound somewhat mundane and bureaucratic to some, but I believe they are significant, and they should help increase the administration's efficiency and responsiveness to the community, and also give me more time to attend to the university's external matters.

The Feasibility of Replacing Cole Field House

In order to ensure that the Cole project moves forward in a manner that is consistent with the university's overall needs and priorities, I have appointed a committee, chaired by Charles Wellford, and including Marvin Breslow, current chair of the Senate, David Meier, president of the SGA, vice presidents Chuck Sturtz and Bud Thomas, Debbie Yow, our Director of Athletics, and Chad Gobel from my . office, who is Director of Governmental and Community Relations. We have a consultant, Bruce Hoffman, who is analyzing our options and developing cost estimates. The ad hoc committee will make a recommendation to me, based on Mr. Hoffman's advice, by the end of the fall semester.

This concludes my report. I would like to close with one final observation. We must not allow the scope and importance of the issues I have discussed today to mask one central and unassailable fact: we have every reason to be proud of what we as university have accomplished over the past several years. While recognizing our problems, and they are significant, we must also acknowledge — with a sense of celebration — the excellence that exists in virtually every corner of the university, from our nationally recognized honors programs, to the extraordinary accomplishments of our students — such as the victories by Lancelot and our mock trial teams, to the high national rankings of many of our graduate programs, to the international recognition our faculty receive through impressive awards in unprecedented numbers, to the rave reviews our grounds receive, to the national leadership we have established with many of our student affairs programs. Talented students now seek us out rather than consider us a second choice. In many disciplines we compete on more or less even terms with the most prestigious universities in recruiting the best faculty in the nation. Believe me, people are noticing these things. Almost every day, the people I meet off campus remark on the wonderful news they hear about College Park. So while we continue to work on our many nettlesome issues, let us also begin taking more collective pride in what we have become as a university. Thank you very much for allotting me this time today.

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