Remarks by President Gretchen M. Bataille

October 4, 2008

Joint Lunch Social
UNT Foundation Board
UNT Alumni Association Executive Committee
UNT System Board of Regents

Advancing Our Agenda

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be a regular opportunity for the boards that are so important to UNT to get together to socialize and compare notes on what will contribute to making UNT the great university it can be. Our theme today is "Advancing our Agenda," and that agenda is a broad one, encompassing fundraising and friendraising, addressing the upcoming legislative session, and continuing the trajectory we have set for our students, our faculty, our staff, and our alumni.

I have learned since my arrival a little more than two years ago that Denton is too often considered "far away" from Dallas and really "far away" from Austin, but I believe that UNT is really close to understanding the needs of Texas.

But we have to communicate more and better. Our recently launched marketing campaign is designed to do just that, to spread the word about UNT to audiences who still think we are a small teacher's college up here in Denton.

You each have a copy of a summary of UNT's legislative request for Exceptional Items/Special Items. Our first priority is funding for Institutional Enhancement-while on the surface this request for $10 million a year does not look "exceptional," the reality is that UNT faces a Legislature that for years has provided Exceptional Funding to other universities in addition to formula funding, resulting in UNT's Exceptional Item funding per full-time student equivalent being $497 compared, for example, to Houston at $1,880 and Tech at $1,860. Even El Paso and San Antonio are funded at around $1,500 per full-time student equivalent. Because UNT has not kept pace with funding at other Emerging Research Universities, we have to find ways to respond to an increasing student population, meet federal and state mandates that cost real money, and reallocate existing funds into priority areas such as advising, research support, graduate student stipends, and technology. Our faculty-student ratio is among the highest in the state, and we have far more temporary and adjunct faculty than is healthy for quality instruction.

At the same time, we have committed reallocated internal funds to support six research clusters because we know we must increase our research funding to be taken seriously. In the next session, we are seeking funds to hire more faculty - faculty who will teach and those who will come to us in senior positions with research grants and successful teaching and research records. This request for funds to improve our student-faculty ratio and hire senior faculty who can bring with them research grants is intended to "level the playing field" with other Emerging Research Universities.

We also know that our redesign of core courses has been successful in addressing the changing student learning environment. Our request for funds to develop more NextGen courses will enable us to improve learning and respond to student needs as well as maximize the use of both faculty and technology. These courses were developed to address the increasing class sizes and to improve learning by teaching students in ways that they learn - through groups and through technology. Our goal is to redesign all of our core courses, providing all faculty in those areas with the opportunity to provide students with a better learning environment.

Our request for Tuition Revenue Bonds this session-and we hear that there will be an opportunity to make this request-is for funds for a new building for the College of Visual Arts and Design. Our arts program is the largest in Texas and among the best nationally. Our students go on to jobs in fashion merchandising, furniture design, graphic arts, and fine arts. They work in museums here in Texas-particularly in the DFW area-and they teach art in the schools. Right now, we are teaching art classes in seven different buildings, and most of the classrooms were not designed for sculpture, weaving, or metalworking. Legislators who have visited our fifteen thousand-piece fashion collection, or art gallery, and who have seen classes being held in hallways understand our need.

Locally, Denton is the tenth fastest-growing city in the country with two universities and a close-by community college with a strong program for career development and a history of partnerships with our campus. In fact, I'm sure you know that UNT is the top university in the state for the number of transfer students and this year we jumped to sixth nationally for the number of transfer students in public universities. We have a 70 percent graduation rate among our juniors and seniors who transfer from other institutions.

UNT leads the state in responding to the Closing the Gaps initiative to get more young people to graduate from college. Our increase to 34,795 students this fall continues the UNT tradition of enrolling a diverse class. Hispanic enrollment at UNT is 12 percent and African American is 12.8 percent. In fact, at UNT, nearly one-third of our students are ethnic minority students and about three-quarters of our Emerald Eagle Scholars are first-generation students. UNT is among the top fifty universities nationally for the number of graduates who are African American or Hispanic. Support for these successes comes from our Division of Enrollment Management, headed by Troy Johnson, and our newest division, Institutional Equity and Diversity, led by Vice President Gilda Garcia. By elevating this position to a VP with a seat in the cabinet, we put diversity in focus at the highest level.

This fall, we moved the multicultural center and women's center under the Division of Institutional Equity and Diversity's scope to better align diversity initiatives. Dr. Garcia assembled the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) Team, a diversity council made up of faculty, students, and staff to ensure that we remain diverse and inclusive.

You all have been engaged in the creation and success of the Emerald Eagle Scholars. When it was launched, this is one of only thirty similar programs in the nation. As you know, the program guarantees cost will not prohibit our state's most talented students from earning a high-quality education. It also gives students the best chance for success, by assigning them peer and faculty or staff mentors in their fields of study and hiring them to work on campus. The program pays tuition and fees for four years for academically talented undergraduate students with high financial need.

As we enter the legislative session, we do so amidst much conversation about the need for Texas to have more National Research Universities. Both Senator Shapiro and Senator Zaffarini have engaged the seven presidents in conversations about how best to address the fact that Texas is woefully behind other states such as California, New York, and Florida in support for research universities.

At UNT, we have had many discussions about the options open to the Legislature. Some legislators would like to anoint new research universities and infuse $70 million or more into two or three campuses. We disagree with this approach. UNT, as an Emerging Research University, has taken huge steps to respond to the needs in Texas and to respond to economic development through stronger research programs that contribute to the economy.

This fall, I announced a $25 million investment in collaborative research clusters in a sweeping effort to strengthen the state's economy, bolster research, and develop technology vital to addressing today's most pressing needs. We expect to hire several new faculty members for each cluster. Many of the new faculty hires will be senior-level researchers with national and international reputations. Among the clusters' wide-ranging and high-profile initiatives will be discovering more effective ways to treat conditions such as autism, cancer, and heart disease; developing more durable jet engines; investigating molecular plant signals that could lead to innovations impacting many different industries and needs; and exploring new ways to support and improve environmental sustainability.

The clusters are: bio/nano photonics, materials modeling, developmental physiology and genetics, autism spectrum disorders, signaling mechanisms in plants, and advanced research in technology and the arts. In addition, two areas of interdisciplinary research will receive seed funding to encourage further development: human health and sustainable environment, which will research how environmental risks accumulate and affect health, and multi-scale damage, lifetime prediction, and design of materials, which will study damage caused by aging in various physical materials in hopes of creating new, more resilient materials for aerospace applications, automobiles, and prosthetic devices.

Vish Prasad has reorganized the Office of Research and Economic Development, hiring new staff with experience at both the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes for Health. As you know, we also have hired a director of Discovery Park. Perhaps the most significant achievement is that our research dollars increased by 15.2 percent last year. We are already on our way to another increase this year with the recent announcement of $6.36 million secured through the offices of Representative Burgess and Senator Hutchison.To support these efforts, more than ninety new faculty members joined our group of excellent teachers and researchers who already are here. They bring with them nearly 250 degrees. Collectively, they have written nearly sixty books and 147 chapters. They have eleven patents and 139 film credits or exhibitions to their credit. And they bring with them about $28.9 million in grant funding.

Even with these recent successes, if the state were to make a decision on funding only a few research universities, UNT would not be among that group. We came to the funded research arena later, and UNT was not created solely to produce science and engineering graduates. We do far more in many areas than some other institutions in the Emerging Research University group.

We support a state-matching funds program that would provide funds in four areas: endowed chairs and professorships, endowed graduate fellowships, endowed merit-based undergraduate scholarships, and federal and state research funding. As we move ahead, we believe we will be competitive in all areas. What would help UNT tremendously would be programs such as those in more than twenty other states that provide state-matching funds for endowed professorships and endowed fellowships and merit scholarships.

As I have indicated, UNT has not received its fair share of legislative support under a system that does not fully fund the formula and that continues to respond to individual legislative and regional requests for Special Item funding. We need your support for our legislative request, but we also need your support for those initiatives that can support research at UNT as well as the other six Emerging Research Universities.

It is important to note that Research Universities are not characterized by only research dollars-UNT produces nearly two hundred doctorate degrees a year in many fields. And, importantly, during the 2006-07 academic year, about 1,200 students completed our certification programs to teach, counsel or fill other leadership roles in Texas schools. We continue to excel in art and music, both known internationally. This past year, donor funds paid to install a new organ in the Murchison Performing Arts Center and we garnered donor support for a new endowed chair named for Anshel Brusilow, who conducted at UNT for thirty-five years. We believe that all these elements of a broad-based research university need to be supported. All these areas contribute to the Texas economy-much of what we do contributes to the cultural life of our region and state. UNT responds to more than minds; we respond to hearts and souls as well. The integrated campaign reflects our commitment to our musical heritage as well as other strengths of UNT. The projects for which we are seeking support reflect the importance of people, places, and programs. We care about the many people in our society who have been diagnosed with autism disorders, and one of the first successes of our new Dean of Education was securing a $250,000 gift in support of this initiative. We care about the shortage of math and science professionals in this country, and the Greater Texas Foundation contributed $1.4 million to a four-year grant, and the National Math and Science Initiative, which is supported in part by the ExxonMobil Foundation, pledged an additional amount of up to $1 million in matching funds to endow the program. Just recently, we learned we had received $500,000 from the Hoblitzelle Foundation as a matching grant for science facilities to be incorporated into the new Life Sciences Complex. The College of Business-on November 1 "Administration" will be dropped from its name-is actively engaged in raising funds to supplement the $50 million from the state for the Business Leadership Building, and logistics and entrepreneurship are included in the campaign. The College of Visual Arts and Design is included in the campaign for projects that will be located in downtown Dallas, taking advantage of the creative environment there that was described in Richard Florida's newest book.

The largest project included in the campaign is the football stadium. Students took the first step and will have a referendum for an athletic fee on the fall ballot. Our vision is that the stadium will be part of an entertainment complex with a convention center and hotel. We have a good track record. The Athletic Center is now paid off. And UNT owes less than a half million dollars on its athletic facilities. All of these projects will enhance what we are doing at UNT and will further demonstrate that UNT is indeed a robust university-with both great academic programs and twenty-first century facilities. In most cases, we are still in a relatively "silent" phase as described by fundraising professionals, but we know that this is the time for all of us to be working hard so that when we make a formal announcement in the spring we can also demonstrate that we have achieved early successes.

Thanks to many of you, in my first year at UNT we increased our endowment by 34 percent. Of particular note was the initiative of the Alumni Association and the Foundation to pool funds to provide opportunities to award more scholarships to our students. The Alumni Association-with a new name that will soon become effective-has been re-energized with the leadership of Derrick Morgan, and both Phil Glauben and Steve Broadback have been incredible in leading this group of committed UNT alums back to the campus. Activities such as the Alumni GameDay Grille at football games, plans for receptions in various venues, online groups, and international chapters are all extending the word about UNT.

We know that times are changing. As we watch our endowment go down along with the funds around the country, we are discouraged. But what goes down will go up again, and so we must continue to seek new donors and new friends and bring back our alums.

At the same time, we are growing UNT as a strong academic institution. We continue to support the entire college experience for our students and the community in which we live. There are other student support initiatives that make a huge difference for our students. The Money Management Center is the first of its kind in the nation to offer students free advice for financial literacy. This year, we received notice that we had received a Title III grant for nearly $2 million to improve advising and track students in trouble. As you know, last year we opened Chestnut Hall to provide health and wellness services and counseling, and we initiated Eagle Alert-a system to alert everyone in our university community of any security threat or severe weather condition.

I am particularly proud that the UNT community has taken environmental issues seriously and we have taken a leadership role in sustainability. From now on, all of our buildings will meet LEED standards-we are aiming for Silver, but may actually reach Gold with the Life Sciences Complex. And the stadium will be the first LEED-certified stadium in the country.

UNT is an exciting place and Denton is an incredible community. We have 112,000 alumni in the North Texas area who generate more than $10 billion in regional economic activity. I am proud to be part of the incredible success that started in 1890 above a hardware store in Denton. We've come a long way-and those of you in this room are at the heart of our success.