Message from the President
November 14, 2019
Dear Colleagues,
I have good news to share on several fronts: merit, SACSCOC, and enrollment.
Merit
We are pleased to announce that at the board meeting yesterday, The University of Texas System Board of Regents approved our request to transfer $3M to salaries and benefits to fund merit-based increases for faculty and staff effective December 1, 2019, payable on January 2, 2020. We are very pleased to be able to provide a merit raise for a second consecutive year. Our ability to do this is a result of two things: a good legislative session this past spring and careful management through the hiring freeze. Many of you have already seen my presentation on the legislative session; others of you will see it over the next few weeks, and it will be available online before the end of the year. We are still recovering from the $24M reduction during the 2017 legislative session. We have managed this reduction by continuing the hiring freeze and by reducing our administrative costs by $8.9M, or 19%, over the last two years, providing resources that we can reinvest in our faculty and staff. Although we will begin to thaw that freeze over the next couple of years, the President’s Office will continue to approve all position requests until further notice.
The Office of Human Resources has issued guidelines for faculty and staff to all division heads of UTRGV. The increases will be based on a 2% merit pool and will be added to the base salary of eligible employees. Visit the link to the faculty or staff merit program for details.
SACSCOC
As you are no doubt aware, UTRGV submitted its SACSCOC Compliance Certification Report (CCR) in early September. Late last week, we received feedback from the SACSCOC Off-site Committee review, completing the first step in the reaffirmation process. We are pleased to report that out of seventy-four (74) standards addressed in the CCR, the Off-site Committee was unable to determine compliance on only two (2) standards, an excellent result. By comparison, institutions undergoing reaffirmation in 2018 averaged more than fifteen (15) standards for which the Off-site Committee could not determine compliance. The next step in the process requires UTRGV to submit Focused Reports for the two standards, along with our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), in the first week of January 2020. These, along with our CCR, will be reviewed by the On-site Committee prior to the campus visit March 2-5, 2020. During the campus visit, the On-site Committee will meet with administrators, faculty, staff, and students. At the end of the visit, they will issue a report that will be submitted to the SACSCOC Board of Trustees at the December 2020 SACSCOC meeting. At that meeting, the SACSCOC Board will vote on UTRGV’s reaffirmation. While there remains significant work to be done to complete the reaffirmation process, we are pleased with the positive results thus far. We appreciate the efforts of all of those who have already contributed to the process and ask that you continue to assist when called upon to do so.
Enrollment
Lastly, I am excited to announce our official enrollment numbers for Fall 2019. Overall, we welcomed 29,113 students this semester, which is a record for UTRGV and the third-straight year we have experienced an enrollment increase. We also set enrollment records for graduate and professional students (3,793), entering freshmen (4,793), and transfer students (1,790).
With improved retention rates, we should have no problem surpassing the 30,000-enrollment mark and becoming one of only nine universities in Texas with at least 30,000 students.
Recruitment and enrollment is a university-wide effort, and I thank each one of you for your hard work and dedication on behalf of our students.
Guy Bailey
President