Remarks by President Gretchen M. Bataille

Sept. 11, 2007
Fall 2007 Convocation

Fall 2007 Convocation

Good morning. Thank you to all of you for joining me this morning for breakfast for this ceremonial start to the year. I know many of you are really already well into the year, but ceremonially we begin today.

As I thought about speaking today, I couldn't help but reflect on the date of our coming together: September 11. That day six years ago will be forever be etched in the minds of those of us who remember, and I think all of us remember, where we were when we first learned of the tragedies unfolding in New York, in Washington and in Pennsylvania. As I thought about it, I realized that six years ago our freshmen were in junior high and I think about how quickly time goes by and how we remain somehow connected to certain places and times. For us, that is a time and place where we are connected.

This month, too, reminds me of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that came to New Orleans, but it also reminded me of the goodwill and outpouring of support that came from all over the world after these disasters. So I thought we should begin this morning by reflecting in a moment of silence as we remember the many lives lost and the lives that were inalterably changed by these events, and then to consider how fortunate we are to be able to come together today. So let's pause for a moment of silence.

Thank you.

This is a time for us to renew our commitment to build a stronger UNT for our students, for our alumni, for our community and for ourselves.

All of us, whether we're students, whether we're faculty or staff or alums - we all continue to make a huge difference in our communities, and in the state and the nation, and indeed, in the world.

I have been told this past year over and over again by alumni and others, and even some of you, that you feel that UNT is finally being recognized for what it is we've been doing all along because we've been doing such great things all along. And now we're doing them a little more loudly and a little more proudly, and people are noticing what's happening here at UNT. And many of these people want to be part of what we're doing and they want to support our success.

Last year, when we met here for the first time, I talked with you about the changing world and about how higher education must change to ensure that we are preparing our students for the challenges they will meet in our global society.

In the past 12 months, we began to experience those changes that must accompany strategic growth. In fact, I really do believe that last year we accomplished quite a bit. And today, we can see both immediate progress as well as the building of a foundation for more long-term advances that will complement our status as one of Texas' fastest-growing and top-quality institutions.

One of the most critical changed realities facing public universities is indeed the decline in state support and the transfer to students and their families more of the full cost of an education.

As higher education increasingly has become viewed as a commodity with a primarily personal benefit to the student rather than to the whole society, state funding has decreased. And we have to plan as though those decreases will continue even as we rail against what's happening.

To meet this reality head on, we've taken some important steps.

The first was to develop a program - our Emerald Eagle Scholars program - that helps ease the financial burden for our students, but also does much more by committing to the students' success. Last week, we formally welcomed our inaugural class of Emerald Eagle Scholars at a reception where almost 400 of these bright students were able to meet with the faculty and staff mentors who have committed to their journey of discovery.

The second thing we've done was to begin to align - often through reallocations - our existing financial resources. The intent is to support the programs, initiatives and activities that will provide the most impact in meeting our institutional goals.

And while we don't anticipate seeing a significant increase in new funds from this legislative session during the next two years, I do believe that through the inclusive and transparent budget discussions that were held with the deans, department chairs and representatives from both the Faculty Senate and Staff Council, we have begun to be able to meet some critical needs.

Importantly, we were able to make significant strides in closing the gaps between the salaries of our faculty and the faculty at our peer institutions. After conducting a comparative study, we knew that, on average, our faculty members were paid 93 percent of the average of our peers. By targeting salary dollars to the departments most behind, we were able to narrow that gap.

Because we must also offer competitive salaries to attract the high-caliber staff needed to achieve our goals, we are hiring a consultant to help us conduct a university-wide classification and compensation review of staff salaries. Donna Keener, our new assistant vice president for Human Resources, anticipates that this is not a small process. It's going to take us a year. And as you know we reallocated monies in the 2008 budget for staff reclassifications. This will bring the pool of reclassification funds back to the high that was there in 2003. Since then, that pool had continued to decline. We will hold those in reserve and use those to address the disparities we find as we do the study over the year.

This fall, existing staff were awarded an average 4.2 percent salary increase. This figure is the result of awarding merit salary increases but also a $900 a year across-the-board raise for those staff who are in the lowest classifications and pay grades.

We invested heavily in our faculty and staff because I truly believe they are key to our continued success.

We professionalized department chairs so they can work year-round on the important business of the university. And we funded additional faculty lines for next year. Currently, we are searching for 85 tenure and tenure-track faculty members for next year. And 22 of those lines are brand new lines. So, we listened, we heard from the faculty, and we know that as the number of students increases we simply must increase the number of tenure and tenure-track faculty. This fall, more than 100 new faculty joined us for orientation. And as I looked over those bios for these folks - some of you are here - you come from some of the world's most prestigious universities and corporations. I look forward to the difference that our new faculty will make every year as they appear in our classrooms and laboratories and as they become part of the UNT team.

We also invested in our students - by dedicating more funds to graduate stipends and need-based financial aid, and by cutting in half the tuition increase that had been originally approved by the board. UNT is the only university in Texas to seriously address tuition costs in a time when these costs to students and their families have continued to escalate.

And these are not the only things we've done to respond to our changing climate and to prepare for future success.

You have already met Wendy Wilkins, who began this fall as the new provost. She joined us just a few weeks ago and already she is exploring to see how we can increase collaboration and inter-disciplinary partnerships to improve our research and our teaching.

She will also spend time with Dr. Gilda Garcia, our first vice president for Institutional Equity and Diversity. Gilda will join us October 1.

Together, and with your help, they will address our need to recruit and retain more minority faculty. Our faculty must represent the student body they teach and the communities they serve.

I believe strongly in this university's commitment to diversity, and this to me means far more than simply ensuring that our faculty and staff ranks include people from all walks of life.

The modern, global world demands that we not only embrace diversity but seek to strengthen its placement as a cornerstone of the human experience.

It's why I launched a leadership series with a presentation from Evelyne Villines, a leading national spokesperson for people with disabilities.

And that's why I sought to advance our commitment to use the services of Historically Underutilized Business vendors as departments across campus engage with others for services and products.

And I am really proud that UNT is home to Texas' first professorship named for an African American woman, Hazel Harvey Peace, a Fort Worth resident who is a longtime educator and advocate of children's literacy.

In the future, we will all work in so many ways to ensure that diversity in all of its forms is nurtured on our campus and that our students have the opportunity to experience the breadth of human differences and similarities.

In the years to come, as we continue to consider the recommendations made by the peer review teams that assessed our operations in research, in academic affairs, student development, information technologies and advancement, we will continue to align our resources in ways that will most effectively help us achieve our goals.

We will continue to make changes, but not just for the sake of change. We will continue so we can progress, so we can make UNT an even better university. And even though I'm certain each of you knows a lot about our university, I want to talk a little bit about how great I think we really are.

This fall, we welcomed more than 34,200 students to campus - another record enrollment. That enrollment shows growth at all levels and increases in African-American and Hispanic students. Moreover, our freshman class is taking a higher average number of semester credit hours than the freshmen class did a year ago. So, I think we have really perhaps reached that tipping point, because during orientation the emphasis was to graduate in four years. And if our students take 15 credits every semester for four years, then they will graduate in four years. At least most of them. We all know there is always a little slip.

Our student body includes more than 2,000 international students who come from 117 different countries, solidifying our proud tradition of attracting the best and brightest students from around the globe.

This is really important because our campus does have a diverse population and it provides for all students experiences necessary to launch their own careers in a global society.

Our new undergraduate students include some of our brightest entering freshmen to date. Among our freshmen are nine National Merit Scholars who joined our Honors College and 24 other National Merit Scholars who are working on degrees at UNT.

Our group of new students includes a large number of transfer students. So many, in fact, that U.S. News and World Report ranks UNT in the top 10 institutions nationally for serving transfer students. This designation recognizes our commitment to partnering with our regional community colleges and it really recognizes the work we've done. We have partnerships with six community college systems and that includes 20 community colleges so students can come to us and not lose ground when they transfer.

Ideas, creativity and human ingenuity more than anything else will drive our economy. As we look to move from the information age into the age of technology, and now I believe we all recognize that we are in an age of creativity, it is critical that we are preparing individuals to discover and generate ideas.

We are at the forefront in finding innovative ways to ensure students really can learn in a class of 150 or 200 or more. That slogan that you hear is more than rhetoric; we are making our big classes better through the QEP.

Through the hard work and creativity of our faculty, many of our basic courses, such as history, literature and math, are being restructured to take advantage of technology in a way that allows large classes to harness the power of small group and one-on-one instruction. That restructuring, I'm proud to say, is being supported by significant grants from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

By using the technologies that today's students are naturally comfortable with - interactive and online programs, gaming and electronic forums - we are making the classroom information more accessible, more engaging, more relevant and more memorable.

Ultimately, we are providing for our students in all of our classes the tools they'll need to think critically, to solve problems and to generate ideas of their own.

And our students' ability to generate ideas has garnered many significant national awards. Last year, our students earned 23 nationally competitive, prestigious scholarships for their academic prowess. UNT is one of only seven universities in the nation whose students earned the maximum of four Barry Goldwater Scholarships in Math and Science. And we do that regularly. We really have outstanding students who are being recognized nationally.

But we're not just teaching these skills to our own students. UNT offers many programs for middle and high school students to advance their development and prepare them for continuing education and a life of learning.

This summer, we welcomed about 150 high school students into our Texas Governor's School, the first in Texas to focus on "The Future of Science and Technology in Our World." The program offered courses to further develop the students' abilities in science and technology as they explored the impact of these fields on past, current and future societies.

We also offered a number of science and engineering programs to middle and high school students. Among our most popular are a series of robotics camps, which were started in 2004 with funding from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas Engineering and Technology Consortium. Last year, the camps expanded with support from the National Science Foundation. We all know that our nation faces a critical shortage of young, bright students who go into the sciences, mathematics and other STEM disciplines. It is our job to respond to that need, and we are well equipped to do so.

UNT has long taken seriously our responsibility to reach out and help grow an interest in education and develop an improved society.

We earned more than $400,000 in grants this past year to support our outreach efforts that are dedicated to preparing the next generation of students for success in college.

As a result of the summer bridge programs we provided to one small group of 20 high school seniors who were in need of developmental education and wanted to go to college but were not college ready. But at the end of the summer, 13 of them enrolled in university classes. Without our intervention, this likely would not have happened and they would not have been in college.

So, in context of our size and impact, those numbers seem very small. But for those individuals, it was everything. It helped them change their world. It is our responsibility to respond to the educational needs of our communities, our state and our nation - in every way we can and at every single opportunity.

In Texas, only 13 - 13 - of 100 ninth-graders will receive a college degree six years after high school. Yet corporate leaders tell us that 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs in our country require some college education. The United States is behind seven countries in the percent of young adults (age 25-34) who have a college degree. These realities are unacceptable.

Public universities, which are the guardians and providers of accessible and affordable higher education and are thus the guarantors of a community's prosperous future, must do more to reach out and ensure that everyone who wants a college education has the opportunity to earn one.

One of the most important advancements - again - is the Emerald Eagles Scholars. I know I've mentioned it, but I do want to talk about it a little more. This student success program embraces the principles of hard work, creativity and excellence. Our Emerald Eagles Scholars program is giving academically talented undergraduates who have high financial need the best chance at success.

There are only 30 other universities nationwide offering similar programs - and none of our peers, including our fellow Texas institutions - offers a program quite like ours.

Each of these nearly 400 students is assured of four years of tuition and fees if they maintain a 2.5 GPA and complete 30 semester hours each year. One of these scholars recently told a television reporter that many of his friends in high school just quit trying because they knew they could not afford college.

During last week's welcoming reception, a young man, Harris Martin, represented these students. And he told all of us how he didn't believe that his hard work in high school mattered to anyone until he got a letter from UNT telling him that his academic achievements mattered, and that we not only wanted him to come to UNT, we wanted to help him earn his UNT degree.

It is our social obligation and it is the obligation of public universities to keep this dream of higher education and a better life alive and attainable for everyone.

But because earning a bachelor's degree takes a lot more than just the ability to afford the cost, this program is engaging students in the richness of university life to ensure they succeed. The program will connect these students to the university through on-campus work and service learning, through campus events, through mentoring and through other support programs, such as the Student Money Management Center, designed to lead all of our students to success.

I suspect many of you in this room are among the now 100 or more staff and faculty who have volunteered to mentor these students. We still need more mentors, so if you are interested, please contact Bonita Jacobs or Troy Johnson and they will hook you up with one of these fine students. As mentors, we are meeting with our students at least once a month and giving them the opportunity to ask questions and to learn more about the university. I thank those of you who have already made that commitment.

The program, as you know, is supported initially by more than $350,000 raised by the inaugural activities. And to ensure that the fund grows, we are going to hold an Emerald Ball every year. The next one is set for March 1, so put it on your calendar. You'll be hearing more about it as the date draws near.

This year, the university added nearly $1.4 million to our need-based aid programs, and yet we must always strive to add more funds. We will never catch up with the need that is out there.

That's why this past year, I've made a concerted effort to connect with alum - many of whom have not been engaged with the university for years.

As I've met with many of our graduates, I have seen firsthand the depth and breadth of UNT's greatness. We have more than 170,000 alums who live around the world. It is important that we engage each of them - I'm working on them, one at a time - so they remain involved with and proud of their alma mater. I look forward to working with Derrick Morgan, our new North Texas Exes executive director, in reaching out to even more of our alums.

In the past year, alumni have given more than $3.7 million to support the university's programs and students. This year, the endowments that support UNT reached a number more than $91 million. That is up from $67 million when I joined you last year. These visits, these conversations are making a huge difference for our campus.

This growing support really directly reflects the pride that many people have in UNT, and particularly the pride our alums have. I cannot tell you enough. As most recently as this Saturday, I met someone who said to me, "I think I'm rich because I went to UNT. UNT gave me the tools I needed to be a good businessman." And I hear that over and over again. That pride surrounds everything we do, and it can be seen on our campus and throughout the city in very bold ways. I hope you all have noticed that there is more and more green on campus, not just on Fridays but all the time.

And when we were at the SMU game last Saturday, where we sold over 7,000 tickets, there was green everywhere. It was so wonderful to see the sea of green in the midst of all that red and blue. And even at Oklahoma, where we were surrounded by red, our green and white waved very proudly as our team played their hearts out to the very end. And last week, I believe we were equal rivals on that field, and we were very excited about what we saw.

Some of this pride clearly is built on the new levels of enthusiasm for all things Mean Green that Todd Dodge, our new head football coach, is bringing with him to campus. But it also is built on the success of our basketball team last year that just recently announced its schedule for this season as they seek to defend their conference title.

But it really is not all about sports, although I know many of you recognize that USA Today features coaches and they don't feature the faculty member who won a big grant. And so we need to think about what is behind that, and what is behind that is our academic success.

Last year, UNT faculty members and departments earned $24 million in grant awards to support research and creative activities, including nearly $4 million from the NSF (National Science Foundation). Those grants are supporting everything from nanotechnology to documenting endangered languages and digitizing historical newspapers.

This year, two of our faculty members will conduct research and teach in Austria and Amman as Fulbright Scholars.

We really are a university to be proud of. We have a legacy of producing quality graduates, conducting important and applicable research, and being a very dependable partner and - always - breaking new ground.

You likely know that students in our College of Engineering began studying this fall for the nation's first degrees in mechanical and energy engineering. This groundbreaking program focuses students on the production of energy, which is a critical need as our nation seeks alternatives to fossil fuel.

With the support of a grant from the Sloan Foundation, we began planning a series of professional science master's degree programs, which will respond to the growing need in industry to have scientists who also understand policy, business theory, technology and logistics.

This work will help us continue to expand our growing partnerships with business and industry. And so will our preparations to launch Texas' first program in biological and environmental engineering. This interdisciplinary program will focus on issues such as engineering applications to deal with climate change and sustainability.

Working to solve global issues and being an active, responsive partner in improving our global society is one of our many strengths.

In August, a U.S. Department of State delegation of educators from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia visited our campus to learn about the role of public education in the United States and how religion, culture and politics are taught at American public universities.

Earlier this summer, I traveled to Thailand to sign an agreement with 35 presidents of the Rajabhat Universities, making UNT Thailand's partner and university of choice in improving the education of their faculty. The Thai government intends for more than 30 percent of the Rajabhat faculty members to earn doctoral degrees by 2014.

Many of those Thai university presidents - and two of them, by the way, are graduates of UNT - will visit our campus during Homecoming to further develop and begin implementing this program, which stands to make a tremendous difference in the quality of education and life for the people of Thailand, where we already have more than 1,000 UNT alumni.

In addition, we are actively engaged with the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico in Toluca, which opened an office on our campus in 2005. Together, we recently created a dual master's degree program in linguistics and teaching English as a second language that will provide students at both UNT and UAEM the opportunity to study in each country and earn degrees from both universities at the completion of their two-year program.

In Hong Kong next spring, we plan to offer four master's degrees in merchandising, hospitality management and MBA programs with concentrations in strategic management and marketing.

And as the home of the Turkish Institute for Police Studies, UNT is Turkey's partner in providing master's and doctoral education for its national police force, which is committed to ensuring a secure world where democracy can thrive.

These important partnerships put UNT at the front of institutions internationally that are working to improve societal conditions around the world. Education is key to development, improvement and progress. The appointment of Earl Gibbons as our first vice provost for international education will help ensure that we meet the goals in support of internationalization in our Strategic Plan.

You may have heard me say this before, but I think it bears repeating.

There is a proverb that says when planning one year ahead, plant grain; when planning for 10 years ahead, plant trees; but if you are planning for 50 years ahead, educate the children.

The health of a society, indeed, the health of this country is dependent on educated citizens, prepared for global realities.

Yet, we must do more. We must do what we can to open the world to our students. Our nation is competing in a world market that values creativity, that rewards hard work and that expects excellence. As you know, we have a tradition of producing graduates capable of all these things.

The measure of a university ultimately is the quality of its graduates. The point is not just to recruit, support, fund and enroll students. The point is to engage, to educate and to graduate our students.

Our graduates are our most important product. They are where we as faculty, as staff, as the university community have our most profound and continuing impact.

Everything we do - the research, the creative activities, the teaching, the service, the creation and support in every way of a lively, enriching environment - supports the development and growth of our students, our graduates.

I thank each one of you, sincerely, for the advances you've made, for the dedication you've shown, for the care you've given and for your continued enthusiasm to build a brighter tomorrow.

It will be a tomorrow that will give all of us the opportunity to discover the power of ideas, because that is not just our slogan. It is, in fact, the very essence of our foundation.