Leebron updates faculty on implementation of V2C in State of the University address

Leebron updates faculty on implementation of V2C in State of the University address

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News Staff

In his annual “State of the University” address, President David Leebron said Rice is making significant progress in preparing for the expansion of its student body, building new facilities to support research and enhance the student experience and campus vitality, and extending its international reach – key goals of the university’s Vision for the Second Century (V2C).

DAVID LEEBRON

“We all have a stake in realizing the V2C and we all have an important role to play,” Leebron said.

He spoke Oct. 4 to about 200 Rice faculty members and other employees who attended the Faculty Senate’s annual plenary session in Anne and Charles Duncan Hall. Using a detailed series of charts and graphs, Leebron discussed faculty hiring, undergraduate and graduate admissions, diversity, construction, finances, new programs and progress toward V2C goals.
 
Leebron said 33 new faculty members were hired in fiscal year 2008, while there were 17 departures and five retirements in the preceding year. He said competing universities are increasingly recruiting Rice faculty, but Rice succeeded in retaining 21 of the 23 faculty members for whom retention efforts were mounted over the past year.

“The good news is other schools think our faculty is very good,” Leebron said. “The somewhat bad news, perhaps, is this is a constant endeavor and threat to the university.”

Leebron said the university has made progress in attracting more female faculty: 10 out of 33 new hires in fiscal year 2008 were women. However, he said he was concerned about the university’s “glacial” progress in enhancing the level of underrepresented minorities on the faculty.

A diversity task force created last year is focusing on faculty hiring, and Leebron encouraged all faculty and staff to contribute recommendations for strategies to increase success in recruiting minority faculty members. 

Leebron said Rice fared very well in recruiting minority undergraduate students this fall, particularly African-Americans. This year’s entering class had 58 African-Americans, compared with 37 last year.

Regarding the overall admissions picture, Leebron said Rice was on track with a gradual increase in undergraduate enrollment. This fall 742 new students entered Rice, which brought total undergraduate enrollment to 3,002, a slight increase over the 2,995 last fall. He said admissions would increase only slightly each year until the two new residential colleges open in 2009.

Leebron said he met recently with the presidents of the nine existing colleges to discuss how to populate the new colleges. He said a number of factors will determine how the colleges are initially populated, including the scheduling of extensive renovations on one or more of the older colleges. 

In an overview of construction, Leebron talked about future projects and showed a campus map that illustrated the many projects under way, including the new colleges, the Collaborative Research Center, the South Utility Plant, Brochstein Pavilion, Autry Court and others.

“I think in terms of the aspirations of the institution, there is nothing on this plan that isn’t vitally important to what we are trying to achieve,” Leebron said.

Perhaps the best-received news of the evening — which drew spontaneous applause from the audience — was the fact that Rice’s endowment grew by more than 21 percent over the past year, to a current value of $4.6 billion. Leebron said this is particularly good news for Rice since the university gets a much larger proportion of its operating budget — about 44 percent — from its endowment than other universities get from theirs.

Fundraising was also a bright spot last year, with more than $148 million in new gift commitments. The annual fund registered double-digit growth for the third year in a row.

“It’s almost unheard of to have that kind of sustained growth in the annual fund,” Leebron said. “Our goal is to double the amount in the annual fund by 2011, and we are on target to do that.”

Operating revenues for fiscal year 2007 rose by 3.9 percent to almost $416 million.  Operating expenses rose 6.8 percent to nearly $397 million.

In discussing the university’s progress toward V2C goals, Leebron encouraged the faculty to consider how Rice can best apply its limited resources over the coming years. For example, he noted that Rice classrooms are not used efficiently and said it may be unwise to spend dollars on new classrooms at the expense of more pressing needs. Similarly, Leebron said departments and schools should consider whether their goals are best served by adding new faculty positions in the future, as opposed to support staff that might make existing faculty more effective.

“We have a tendency to think that the answer always is to hire more faculty, and then we are surprised that the problem that we face is there is not enough staff support,” Leebron said. “So we hope as we go through this process people will think very carefully about where these resources will be applied.”

Leebron said Rice’s faculty is expected to grow by about 20 percent by 2014. At the same time, undergraduate enrollment will grow by 30 percent. Rice’s undergraduate student-faculty ratio, now 5-to-1, may rise to approximately 6-to-1, which will still be on the low side compared both with the ratio at Rice just a few years ago and with peer institutions’.  Only CalTech’s student-faculty ratio is lower. 

Leebron also asked the faculty to help the administration determine what priorities to focus on in expanding undergraduate admissions.

“One of the things we would like to have a conversation about is, ‘What should we be looking at in this applicant pool?'” Leebron said. “We want to have that discussion with the faculty and other groups to see what people might be looking for as we expand the applicant pool and the student body.”

Rice is also making strides toward becoming a more international institution. Leebron said 7.3 percent of entering undergraduates this fall were international students, compared with less than 3 percent just two years ago.

“The visibility of Rice University in China and India, as a result of some strategic investments, is rising,” he said. “The next step is to figure out how to take that enhanced visibility and move it into operational programs and relationships.”  He also said that this year there would be an increased focus on Mexico and Latin America.

Leebron recognized a number of faculty members who have shown leadership in establishing new programs, centers and institutes and who have taken up the challenge of leading their departments or becoming college masters.

For the year ahead, Leebron said the university will continue to work to enhance the research environment, improve diversity, work with the faculty on curriculum reform, continue planning for the expansion, establish more international collaborations, engage more closely with the city of Houston and continue gaining ground in fundraising.

He closed by reinforcing the importance of raising Rice’s visibility and creating a stronger brand identity.

“I spent a few minutes this morning surfing our Web site, and in the case of one department’s home page, Rice University was barely identified,” he said. “The visibility of this university is critical to our success — if we can’t project all of our strengths, which are remarkable, we can’t compete in this world.”

The following day, Leebron shared most of the State of the University presentation, plus additional information, with a Town Hall audience that packed Duncan Hall’s McMurtry Auditorium.  The next Town Hall meeting is scheduled for 9-10:30 a.m. Oct. 18 in James A. Baker III Hall.

To submit a question for the second Town Hall meeting, go to the Town Hall Web page.