Planning for the Future
October 21, 2016
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for your efforts in getting a new semester up and running. We have a great deal to be proud of as we reach the half-way point of our third regular semester; we also have much work to do. This letter will highlight a few of your most significant accomplishments over the past year, review progress on some of the matters mentioned in my letter of June 3, 2016, and outline some of the challenges we face going forward.
Some of UTRGV’s major achievements over the last year include:
- The opening of the School of Medicine (SOM), with an entering class of 55 students chosen from among a pool of more than 2,700 applicants. SOM is currently reviewing more than 5,000 applicants for its second class
- Freshman-sophomore retention rates of 80% for freshman entering in Fall 2015, above the national average of 78.6% and well above the state average of 72.4%
- An excellent freshman class in which 20% of the students were in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. The pool of applicants for the freshman class increased by 21% from Fall 2015 to Fall 2016
- An increase from 24.3% to 32.5% between Fall 2015 and Fall 2016 in the number of students taking 15 or more hours (remember that you must average 15 hours a semester to graduate in four years)
- Total research expenditures of $28.7 million, up from $16.4 million last year; the South Texas Diabetes and Obesity Institute was particularly successful, generating $13.4 million in research expenditures
- The opening of UTRGV’s first SOM building. In addition, construction is underway for two PUF buildings (Permanent University Funds awarded by UT System Board of Regents): an academic building in Brownsville and a science research building in Edinburg. Further, designs have been completed for two TRB buildings (Tuition Revenue Bonds awarded by the Texas Legislature last session): a multi-purpose academic building in Brownsville and an interdisciplinary engineering building in Edinburg. In addition, we have groundbreakings scheduled for two research facilities: a facility in McAllen funded through a public-private partnership with DHR and a new STARGATE Technology Center on Boca Chica beach.
- Private giving of $26 million, including a gift of $15 million to establish the Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship; gifts for the first month of the current fiscal year already stand at $6.4 million (philanthropy at the legacy institutions combined was typically $7-8 million per year)
Private philanthropy (e.g., the Vackar gift and large gifts from Plains Capital Bank and the Valley Baptist Legacy Foundation) is absolutely crucial to what we want to accomplish at UTRGV. The primary differences between UTRGV and schools like the University of Houston, Texas Tech, and UT San Antonio are the private resources they have available to them. Private gifts establish endowed chairs for faculty, provide much-needed merit scholarships for students, and fund facilities, centers and institutes. The primary role of a university President is building resources through private philanthropy and external relations. If you don’t see me much on our campuses, it is because I am out doing this work. The Provost and other Vice Presidents handle the internal work of the institution under my direction.
All of the accomplishments listed above reflect the hard work of our faculty and staff. They are what make UTRGV a success, and as I noted in my June 3, 2016 letter, we are committed to compensation for our faculty and staff that is competitive with that of our peers. In that letter, I indicated that “as a down payment on this commitment and assuming we meet our enrollment projections, next fiscal year we will allocate more than $3M in compression and equity adjustments and merit increases to faculty and staff (but excluding administrators at the dean level and above).” As you probably know by now, we did not meet our enrollment projections (more on that below), and we absorbed some significant financial obligations (almost $5 million) related to the closeout of the legacy institutions. Nevertheless, we still believe that we can make a first step toward fulfilling the commitment made in the June 3, 2016 letter. We intend to allocate between $4.5 and $5 million this fiscal year to equity, inversion, and compression adjustments and perhaps some modest merit increases. Although we are still working out the details of this plan, equity, inversion, and compression pay adjustments will begin to be reflected in December 2016 paychecks (deposited January 2, 2017).
In order to accomplish this allocation, we will implement a soft hiring freeze, effective immediately. Any new hiring will require the approval of the Vice President in whose area the position lies. If Spring 2017 enrollment (and especially graduate enrollment) is strong, we can make further progress on the commitment to competitive salaries while maintaining the long-term fiscal health of the institution. I apologize for being so long in getting this information to you, but as I’m sure you understand, this was not an easy plan to work out in light of the challenges mentioned above. Please thank the people in Budget, Human Resources, and Academic Affairs for their creativity and hard work.
Progress on other matters continues apace. The Strategic Planning process, under the leadership of Provost Rodríguez, is nearing its completion, as is a multi-campus Master Planning process. The redesign of our business processes to make them more user-friendly is also underway. You will be hearing more about these over the next few weeks.
Finally, we still have significant challenges with which we must deal. The most immediate of these is enrollment. Although we expected some decline in undergraduate enrollment this past fall because of exceptionally large graduating classes the past two years and tightened admission standards for UTRGV, we did not anticipate the decline in graduate enrollment that we experienced. As mentioned above, the decline in graduate enrollment creates significant challenges that impact what the university is trying to achieve, and it is the responsibility of all of us to help reverse the decline. Please work with your Chairs, supervisors, and Deans to find out how you can help.
Thank you again for your efforts and your dedication to our students. As I indicated in my June 3, 2016 letter, we have many challenges and much hard work before us, but we also have the most exciting opportunity in American higher education. I look forward to continuing our work together to take advantage of this opportunity.
President