Dear Colleagues:
Despite remnants of winter weather over the past few weeks, UMD’s
summer season is upon us. Not only did our graduates recently cross the
finish line, but we also moved many campus initiatives forward this
year. At the start of this academic year, I presented six priorities. I
am pleased with the progress we made and ask for your continued support
as we drive these forward. As a recap of the priorities and progress:
1. Reinforcing our commitment to a healthy campus climate and building on the prevention of sexual misconduct training.
In terms of campus climate, we launched the It’s More Than That campaign, continued training and development programs, and launched a new diversity and inclusion module.
It’s More Than That highlights many of the projects, efforts, and initiatives already underway at UMD. Please take time to explore the It’s More Than That website where you can find more information about the campaign, suggested actions steps, and take your own pledge.
UMD has contracted with Everfi to offer diversity and inclusion online
training modules to students, staff, and faculty. Two modules were
deployed to campus leaders this spring with a plan for a full campus
rollout next fall. In the fall, students will also be invited to
complete the Diversity & Inclusion module. The training will provide
staff, faculty, and students with important skills and resources to
help foster a more inclusive and engaging campus.
In addition, we continue to provide face to face training and
development offerings to staff and faculty across campus. For fall term
offerings and a link to sign up, go to Campus Climate: Training and Development website.
Related to our efforts to prevent sexual misconduct, we continue to
provide online training to new employees. The UMD Sexual Violence
Response Team held several follow-up sessions this year where
participants were able to meet members of the team, ask questions about
the Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct training and/or the University's Administrative Policy: Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, Stalking and Relationship Violence, and explore scenarios based on different faculty and staff campus roles. The It Ends Here campaign also brought further awareness to the initiative and will roll into next year.
I am also happy to share that UMD is one of the sponsors to the Zeitgeist Arts Year of the Womxn
celebration. The YOTW is a series of programming to recognize and
celebrate women and I encourage you to review and participate in the
event series.
2. Continue to make progress on the implementation of the UMD
strategic plan and coordinate with systemwide strategic planning
efforts.
This year, various campus groups were asked to submit ideas for
objectives and key performance indicators related to our strategic
goals. This summer the leadership team will use these ideas to draft a
concise set of objectives with measures that can be tracked over time.
The campus will have an opportunity to review these items and provide
feedback in the fall. Once finalized, we will provide the information on
our strategic planning website and regularly publish progress toward goal attainment.
In terms of systemwide strategic planning efforts, several individuals
from UMD are serving on systemwide planning groups and continue to move
forward with their efforts.
3. Moving our retention and graduation rate to new levels of success.
Improved undergraduate student success rates remain a central
priority, and annual benchmark indicators show improvements in both
student persistence and four-year graduation. Our campus first-to-second
year retention rate for the 2017 entering cohort was 78.7%; up 1.7%
compared to the previous year. Our campus four-year graduation rate for
the 2014 cohort was 42.5%; up 4.9% compared to the previous year. These
improvements are the result of your collective actions to address high
DFW rates in gateway courses, implementation of mentorship programs, an
expanded emphasis on strengths-based advising and coaching, proactive
use of hardship grants to prevent stop-outs, enhanced student debt
education, and numerous other initiatives.
Continued improvement of student persistence and graduation remains a
priority for the BOR and for all of us. Moreover, enrollment will remain
an ongoing challenge as we face increased competition and changing
student demographics – making retention of our current students even
more important. Whether through interactions with individual students,
implementation of large-scale initiatives or delivery of services and
facilities, we all have an impact on the success of our students. Many
of the joyful stories I heard from recent graduates were about
individual staff or faculty connections or opportunities for involvement
or leadership roles that made a difference in their lives and
persistence to graduation. We will continue to strive for all our
students to have these experiences.
4. Expanding UMD's International Education programs and alliances.
UMD has expanded its partnership footprint with exchange, transfer,
and training programs in Asia (China, South Korea, Vietnam); the
Americas (Canada and Mexico); and Europe (Croatia, Ireland). The
university has also invested in securing a dedicated international
student recruiter.
5. Expanding UMD's public engagement reach.
UMD spent the last year conducting an inventory on community
engagement initiatives and public service activities. We will look to
reinforce our position, consistent with the strategic plan, as a key
partner to the region via its research, education, and volunteer
programs. These collective efforts are also consistent with UMD’s
connection to the Association of Public Land-grant Universities’
Economic Development and Community Engagement projects.
6. Expand research and doctoral education.
We continue to make progress and have productive conversations with
System administration in regards to doctoral education. We also continue
to refine and appropriately expand other graduate education offerings.
Fundraising.
In addition to these six priorities, we continue to have another
record-breaking year in UMD fundraising. Our goal for private
contributions during fiscal year 2019 is $12 million. As of May 15, 2019
we have raised $12,522,530. Our current campaign total for private
contributions is $89,052,079 towards a goal of $100 million, and we
still have two years left in the campaign. Our fundraising needs
continue to be great, especially in scholarships, so we will continue to
work hard to surpass the $100 million goal. I am pleased that 719 UMD
faculty and staff have contributed $13,824,562 to the campaign, and I
give my most sincere thanks to those who are helping us fund UMD’s most
critical needs.
As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any
questions. I will send a budget campus communication later this summer
after the Board of Regents approves the fiscal year 2020 budget. Thank
you again for another great year.
Sincerely,
Lendley C. Black
Chancellor
