Coleman shares results with regents of progress in meeting Iowa's goals

“At best we can say that this year’s report is mixed,” she said. “To be frank, our strategic plan is in jeopardy. Because of the UI’s substantial state budget cuts totaling $44 million over the last two years, our goals are at risk.”

The University measures the success of its mission performance through 24 targeted indicators. The University just completed the second year of its five-year strategic plan, New Century Iowa: Bridges to the Next Horizon.

During her presentation, President Coleman highlighted some of the areas which have had success and other areas of concern. One of the top priorities, she said, is to create the highest quality student experience possible.

• The new Pomerantz Career Center, to be completed by 2004, is one of the most exciting, she said. The first targeted indicator is to increase the number of undergraduates taking advantage of the center. As well as expanding state-of-the-art programs in comprehensive career development and placement services for students, the center’s staff will implement programs for Iowa businesses to help them recruit UI students through the center.

• The University is holding steady on its four-year graduation rate of 37%. “Maintaining this priority will be increasingly difficult if the number of classes we are able to offer declines because of budget cuts,” Coleman said. “Even better news is found in our six-year graduation rate, which this past year rose to 64.7%”.

• Graduate and professional students continue to score consistently above national averages on qualifying, licensing, and certification exams in their disciplines. The University aims to maintain above national average pass rates in 100% of its programs. According to Coleman, within this population of students there is one troubling sign: the number of Ph.D. students who did not obtain (or did not report) employment within six months of graduation rose to 9%.

• The University established the goal of maintaining its Association of Research Libraries ranking in the top 15, but University Libraries has dropped to 18th. “We are very concerned about this statistic, because our libraries are actually one of the areas that we have protected from budget cuts,” Coleman said. “Acquisition costs are escalating dramatically, so even maintaining current funding levels is not adequate to maintaining quality.”

• Last year two new faculty members were elected to the ranks of national scholarly academies, a decline from four elections of the previous year. “There are signs that our declining ability to support them fully in their professional activities impacts our strategic goals regarding a high-quality faculty,” Coleman said. Another measure of the quality of faculty activity, Coleman said, is the number of intellectual property disclosures, which the University wants to increase to 100 annually. This number also has declined, falling to 65 this past year.

• According to Coleman, one of the most worrisome trends is the significant decline in the University’s ability to increase funding for facilities renewal to 1% of the building’s value. In just one year, the University fell to .649%, a 17% drop. “These funds come exclusively from the General Education Fund, so they are especially vulnerable to loss of state support,” Coleman said. “If we cannot provide the appropriate facilities, our faculty—and of course our students—cannot do their optimal work.”

• A bright spot in the staffing landscape is continued success in recruiting and retaining minority faculty and professional and scientific staff. Both of those indicators increased this past year: to 12.9% of tenured and tenure-track faculty, and to 6.1% of professional and scientific staff.

• Faculty and staff continue to participate in professional development activities on campus. “Yet these programs also are at risk,” Coleman said. “They provide for the professional and personal betterment of our employees, and thus an improved campus climate, yet we can only provide such programming when we have the resources to do so.”

• UI faculty and staff received $278 million in external funding for research, scholarship, and artistic creation. Simultaneously, the University’s total annual gift productivity increased to $172 million, a 17 percent increase over the previous three-year average. “But these numbers are only one side of a double-edged sword,” Coleman said. “We are grateful for such healthy numbers, but number one, such funding cannot replace state appropriations; number two, increased dependence on external sources will diminish the public character of our institution; and number three, external research dollars and gifts are grounded on appropriate levels of public support.”

• On a positive note, Coleman added, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics continued to increase its patient satisfaction rate to 4.3 on a 5.0 scale (Last year it was 4.0).

Coleman concluded her report by focusing on the University’s public service mission.

“In our efforts at building community, we are inextricably linked to other public institutions across Iowa. We are an integral part of a continuum of public education in our state, inseparable partners with the top-ranked K-12 schools of which Iowans are so proud,” she said. “In order to provide Iowans with the educational excellence that they have long expected, and in order for us to be part of the solution to our state’s troubles, our public leadership, at the behest of their—and our—constituents, must partner with us and continue to support us in our ambitions.”

Article by Thomas Dean