Dear Colleagues,
This truly is one of the best weeks of the year
as we welcome new students and get ready for another academic year.
Campus is full of activity and I want to express my appreciation to the
staff, students, and faculty who have spent time preparing for and
making this week successful. I encourage you to watch this move-in video that beautifully captures the excitement, emotions, and energy from Tuesday.
I thank those of you who were able to make it to the welcome breakfast Monday
morning where you donated 281.5 pounds of food and $156 in
contributions for Champ's Cupboard. If you would still like to donate to
this worthwhile cause, please do so at the Office of the Vice
Chancellor for Student Life, Room 245, Kirby Plaza.
If you were not able to attend the breakfast, I will recap the highlights in this email.
Students are at the center of everything we do, so please take a few minutes to hear what some students have to say about their experience here and their advice for faculty and staff.
Enrollment update
Speaking
of students, we have had another strong enrollment year. This fall, UMD
received over 10,300 new freshman and transfer applications - the most
in UMD's history, and an increase of 5% over 2017. Our outstanding
reputation is strong and growing.
We monitor new-student
enrollment closely and make adjustments to ensure the highest quality
experience for our students. Capacity in high demand programs as well as
within co-curricular experiences, like on-campus housing, are at the
forefront of our enrollment planning. For these reasons, the decision
was made last fall to decrease the size of this year's freshman class to
around 2,220, about 55 students fewer than last year. This is still
about 80 students more than the fall 2016 cohort. In terms of our
overall headcount, we are on target to meet our enrollment and budget
goals with a projected total of 11,040 students.
Congratulations
to the many staff members, as well as faculty and students, who help
keep our student enrollment strong. Successful student recruitment,
retention, and graduation works best when we are all supporting academic
excellence and students' success. This is not the job of one group or
unit in isolation. It's the job of all of us working together.
Review of accomplishments
I
want to share a few accomplishments from this last year. The UMD
Development team completed the best fundraising year in UMD's history.
During the 2018 fiscal year, we raised $18.1 million. Part of that
success was the kickoff of the public phase of our ten-year
comprehensive campaign that began in 2011 under the theme "Wanted: The
Adventurous and the Generous." Watch our inspiring Driven campaign video with voiceover from Tom Isbell.
We're
seeking to raise $120 million by 2021. To date, UMD is nearly 80
percent of the way there, having raised more than $94 million since the
campaign's soft launch in 2011. We have 5,453 new, first-time donors
among the 12,783 donors who have contributed to the campaign. As we have
broadened the UMD donor base, 114 new scholarships have been created,
which is a 29% increase in the number of scholarships since the campaign
began.
Last year, we also had excellent success in our
reaffirmation of accreditation process with the Higher Learning
Commission. Their final team report indicates that UMD meets all five
criteria and all of the 21 core components under these criteria. In
addition, we meet all of HLC's Federal Compliance requirements. Many
thanks to Dr. Jennifer Mencl along with a large group of dedicated
faculty and staff who served in coordinating roles, prepared documents,
and hosted our site visitors.
Student success
Our
students had remarkable achievements last year as well. UMD production
of Antigone was one of seven productions invited by the Kennedy Center
American College Theatre Festival to perform at the Region 5 Festival in
Des Moines. Students in LSBE's Financial Markets Program were crowned
champions of the Americas and then traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
and competed in the global final.
Students in SCSE took second
place in their division of the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering
Competition in New Mexico this summer. With only two semesters to
design, build, and test their rocket (which went up to 30,000 feet) the
Bulldogs placed higher than teams representing entire countries with far
greater resources. Student members of the SUN Delegation led the effort
to have solar panels installed on part of the Oakland Apartment
Complex. The array will produce more than 50,000 kilowatt hours each
year, equal to about $3,500 in electricity savings for UMD.
UMD
student athletes excelled this past year by posting an average GPA of
3.25, an all-time high. In addition, they had great competitive success,
including a national championship in Men's Hockey, UMD Softball
advancing to the Super Regional, and two Bulldogs playing for the USA
Women's Hockey Olympic Gold Medal winning team. In addition, student
athletes logged over 3,600 hours of community service last academic
year.
New programs
We have new innovative programs to
better serve our students. In CEHSP, a new Bachelor of Individualized
Integrated Studies will allow students to "build their own degree" in
the Human Service Professions. Education also had the non-licensure
Early Childhood Studies major approved. In January 2019, the Teaching
English as a Foreign Language Certificate (TEFL) and Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Multilingual Education Minor
will start.
In CLA, the Masters in Tribal Resource and
Environmental Stewardship has launched. We have a Public History track
starting in the History program that will give students a pathway into
museum, state park, national park, and other arenas in the public
humanities. There is a new Cognitive Science major beginning in
Philosophy that is at the intersection of STEM, social sciences, and the
humanities.
In LSBE, we've established an Accelerated 12-Month
MBA and a 4+1 Integrated MBA. In SCSE, we've launched a Master of
Science - Applied Materials Science degree.
Facilities update
We
have new facilities to better serve our campus. Renovation on Romano
Gymnasium is going very well, and UMD Volleyball will kick off
competition in Romano on September 21
when they host MSU-Moorhead. Construction on the Heikkila Chemistry and
Advanced Materials Science Building is proceeding ahead of schedule
with partial opening in January and full occupancy by August 2019.
We
received only roughly $4 million in HEAPR renovation funding from the
state legislature this last session, which was not enough to totally
upgrade one of our older buildings. That funding will be spread out over
various smaller projects such as HVAC in Tweed, sprinklers and ADA
upgrades in Darland, a water line replacement in Kirby Student Center,
and the replacement of the Ward Wells Field House floor. We are working
with the Twin Cities to again have an upgrade of AB Anderson on the next
capital projects list.
Upcoming priorities
Some of our priorities for the coming year include:
1. Reinforcing our commitment to a healthy campus climate and building on the prevention of sexual misconduct training.
I
am pleased that we have over 99% participation on the recent training
to prevent sexual misconduct. Over the summer, the UMD Sexual Violence
Response Team worked on follow up sessions to be held this fall. Those
sessions will be announced in the next several weeks. The Team will also
be consulting with the UMD Sexual Assault, Stalking, and Relationship
Violence Committee about other training and educational opportunities
for faculty, staff, and students.
We all need to reaffirm our
commitment to make UMD more diverse, more inclusive, and to decrease and
ideally eliminate bullying at UMD. Each of us is responsible for
creating a healthy work environment and for supporting the retention and
success of faculty, staff, and students of color, of diverse cultures,
women, GLBTQAI and all members of the UMD community. We also need to
call out bullying when we see it and support those who are bullied.
As an example of how one unit on campus is working to improve campus climate, The Listening Project was
initiated by staff at UMD's Kathryn A. Martin Library who were seeking a
way to foster communication and understanding between members of the
campus community. We invite you to join this effort and the rest of the
Campus Change Teams in the many initiatives and events, like this one,
designed to help move us closer to realizing Goal 2 of our Strategic
Plan.
2. Continue to make progress on the implementation of the
UMD strategic plan and coordinate with systemwide strategic planning
efforts.
3. Moving our retention and graduation rate to new levels of success.
We
are taking part in the Association of Public and Land-Grant
Universities (APLU) Transformation Clusters Initiative. APLU has placed
100 interested universities into 10 clusters and each cluster will focus
on a specific challenge to retention and graduation, then work together
to refine, implement, and scale innovative practices among the
participating institutions.
4. Expanding UMD's International Education programs and alliances.
We
are expanding our international partnerships in several countries.
During the fall semester, we will revisit Vision 2020, the international
strategic plan we adopted a few years ago.
5. Expanding UMD's public engagement reach.
Building
on our public education mission, we will work across campus and
collaborate between units to build on our engagement work with critical
issues related to sustainability, homelessness, and food insecurity on
and off campus.
6. Expand research and doctoral education.
Academic
Affairs will continue its exploration into ways to expand the success
of our research and to explore the possibility of additional doctoral
programs. In addition to internal work at UMD, we are in the discussion
phase with the Twin Cities to learn more about the path and options
moving forward.
Additional Activities for this Academic Year
A. New and Renovated Facilities:
In
order to continue to meet our enrollment goals, we recognize that we
need to increase our capacity as we improve our academic facilities.
Staff from Student Life and Finance and Operations are working with the
Twin Cities capital projects management group on plans for a new
residence hall, expanded dining options, and increased parking.
B. Presidential Search:
The
Board of Regents is currently choosing members of the presidential
search committee, which will be chaired by Regent Omari, with the goal
of choosing a new president by January. I am pleased that the
committee's leadership will visit UMD in September and conduct listening
sessions with faculty, staff, and students to get your input into the
qualifications and characteristics we need in the next President of the
University of Minnesota. The Board of Regents is committed to conducting
a search that includes much input from various stakeholders, and I
encourage you to share your opinions.
C. Budget:
We will
share information with you about your Fiscal Year 2019 budget after we
receive our final allocation letter for this fiscal year.
Thank
you for your commitment to our students and to the work each of you do.
Your drive and dedication is the energy that makes UMD thrive.
Have a wonderful semester and Go Bulldogs!
Sincerely,
Lendley C. Black
Chancellor
