State of the University
Remarks by Reverend Michael J. Garanzini, S.J.
President, Loyola University Chicago
State of the University Addresses
WTC: September 16, 2008
LSC: September 17, 2008
Thank you for joining me today and welcome to a new academic year. We’re off to a good start.
I wanted to share an update on some key areas of our academic enterprise, and then turn this over to you to ask questions that you may have.
Firstly and most importantly, I wanted to tell you about our enrollments. In August we welcomed nearly 2,200 new freshmen to Loyola. We are now at 15,670 students, an all-time high. All programs are solid, and several showed very nice increases, such as Communications, which has grown in its first year to 700 students. Our master’s program in Social Work numbers are down and so is undergraduate education, both of which are likely heavily influenced by the economy. All our schools show healthy enrollments otherwise. Our goal is not to grow, but to remain steady in overall enrollments, except to row off-campus programs. A special thanks to our enrollment management team, and to Father Salmi and all who helped with move-in last month.
Financially, we are in good shape. Residence halls are at capacity with 4,137 students. Our FY08 budget ended with good surpluses to allow us to continue to pay down debt, build reserves, and put money away into the endowment. Over $18M was distributed at the end of the year for debt reduction to Law and Nursing for their facilities, to endow a few programs such as the Ricci program, and to begin an endowed chair in Social Work and an endowed professorship in Chemistry. In addition, we set aside money to refurbish the Cudahy reading room, as well as to complete the fourth floor of the Klarchek Information Commons, which will serve as a conference room, and the third floor of the Terry Student Center, home to a new Campus Ministry Center. A special thanks to all who helped us manage our financial affairs.
Regarding other capital projects, our facilities team continues to improve our campus. The east “academic quad” in front of the Klarchek Information Commons will be completed this fall. The new shuttle stop, as well as numerous residence hall improvements, including the complete rehabilitation of Santa Clara, was completed on time for the start of the year. Additional rooms at Sullivan, and the refurbishing of the Galvin auditorium, were some of the other beautifully executed projects. The men and women who are redesigning our campus and upgrading our facilities deserve our thanks once again this year.
This fall we welcomed approximately 78 new faculty, both tenure track and contract faculty, who are teaching full time for Loyola. Their academic backgrounds and their scholarly achievements are indeed impressive. We welcomed them, and five new endowed chairs, last Sunday at the Academic Convocation. We will likely have another recruitment pool of a similar size this coming year. Some contract lines will become permanent lines, some additional lines will be added, and there will be the inevitable retirements. Over the next five years we will see a substantial number of new faculty replacing our senior members, which is exciting, but brings with it challenges. Faculty need time to do research and that conflicts with the desire of students to have access to more full-time faculty in the classroom. We are studying this issue now and looking at patterns of assignment—which faculty are assigned to teach at what level—and it is clear that we need more faculty in the classroom and in the department or program, especially in CAS, and perhaps in Business. We are looking now at the possibility of 50 additional positions in CAS and Business. This will help us with our class sizes and students/teacher ratios by program.
Stepping back a bit: if one takes a look at the last four or five years here at Loyola, there is an evident change in campus environment. For one thing, more students live on or near campus, and more students are spending time in places like the Klarchek Information Commons and library. Students are smarter. We had a record number of Fulbright Scholars this year (four of them) and a record number of students applying for research stipends or participating in research programs, concerts and art presentations. We also saw more students serving as interns and more students winning external awards of all kinds.
We are seeing a new coterie of younger faculty, who are eager to be productive in and outside the classroom and lab.
We see new facilities and refurbished buildings on each campus. Some upgrades are anticipated and in the planning stages, such as a new School of Nursing building and a new home for the School of Business Administration, as well as a major redesign of the space at 25 E. Pearson for the School of Law.
The last Strategic Plan has served us well. We did not accomplish everything, but we did accomplish a great deal under the plan, including a redesigned core, new classrooms and labs, healthy and stable enrollments, new international outreach, more civic engagement, and the development of the School of Communication and fine and performing arts programs, just to name a few items.
Looking honestly at what we need to do, however, we see some issues we need to tackle. Student satisfaction, in and outside the classroom, is not what it should be. Faculty members want time for research, but that conflicts with the students’ desire to have more face time with faculty, not less. Our discount rate is still high, and thus we are not able to afford either the number of faculty or the leave program they desire. We are also not able to complete certain needed projects, such as athletic facilities to replace Alumni Gym, enhancements for our classrooms and labs, and investments in more sophisticated technology.
The strategic planning process we will now embark on has to do two things, it seems to me. It must look at Loyola realistically, both our accomplishments and places where we have not made progress, and it has to set new goals that are a stretch for us, or we won’t accomplish as much in the next five to ten years as we have in the last five. From here on, it gets harder. We run the risk of building up one aspect and addressing one need and ignoring the other, such as the tension between faculty in the classroom versus faculty with time for research, or building great facilities without great programs inside them, or constructing a campus that has all the right academic amenities, but does not have spirit and community that comes from good athletic teams and places to gather, such as a student union.
To address these issues, and to get your feedback and secure your participation, we have established a planning steering committee that includes five task forces. These task forces are dedicated to student success in the classroom; faculty development; facilities and campus climate; service, outreach, and resource development; and advancing our professional school and graduate programs. You’ll be hearing from them soon. I want to thank those faculty and staff who are already involved in this effort and I hope that many of you will also contribute when these folks call for your input.
In conclusion, then, we know there are a lot of things to do, but we are not sure which or what order we will do them. We are not sure yet of all the things we will need to accomplish or what we want to accomplish, but we do know one thing for sure: it will take a lot more money than we have. So, why not start raising it? To that end, the advancement division has been busy cultivating friends, alumni, and institutions that like to invest in productive and worthwhile endeavors, like Loyola. We will launch our campaign on September 20 with $270M toward a $500M goal that is split between the Lakeside campuses and Maywood. The campaign emphasizes partnering: donors partnering with us and our partnering with one another to accomplish some wonderful things, including more scholarships for worthy students who could otherwise not attend Loyola, more development and program opportunities for faculty, better facilities for all of us, and the like. There was an impressive increase in faculty and staff donors this year, which I am very grateful for. There was an overall Loyola University Chicago record of $43M raised in one year during the past year. So, we are off to a good start, and it will help to know even more precisely what we can accomplish strategically when we approve the 2009-2014 plan, and beyond, in March. Thanks to the men and women who help us reach out to alumni and friends and who accomplished so much this past year.
Thank you for your attention and time. And, welcome to a new year. I would be pleased to take your questions.