Chairman's Goals for the Coming Year
Remarks by Board of Regents Chair J. Timothy Shelnut
Board of Regents Meeting
August 2, 2005
I'd like to begin my remarks today by thanking you, once again, for your vote of confidence in asking me to serve as Chair. This Board is comprised of a talented and committed group of individuals, and I am honored you have asked me to serve on your behalf in this capacity.
The University System of Georgia currently faces many significant challenges that the Board of Regents is prepared to tackle in the coming months. These challenges include, most importantly, filling the vacancy in the Chancellor's post, accommodating rising enrollment, meeting the demand for new facilities, wisely directing the increases in budgetary support the System is receiving now that the state's fiscal strength is improving, and ensuring that the University System maintains and enhances its reputation of national preeminence in order to continue attracting the state's and the nation's best and brightest students, faculty, researchers, and administrators. I look forward to joining with the Board's Vice Chair Pat Pittard, the Board's Committee chairs, and each and every one of you as Board members to address these important priorities.
Our most visible work presently, of course, focuses on the selection of a new Chancellor, and I assure you that the full Board is hard at work on this task, pursuing an ambitious schedule to fill this critical post by year's end. As I have committed, we will keep all of our key constituents fully apprised regarding the search process.
Regarding some of the additional immediate challenges we must address as a Board, today I would like to outline a four-point plan that will serve as the agenda for my chairmanship during this year. I would like to label this plan and our work as the "Year of Creating Opportunities." Special task forces will be appointed to address each of the "opportunities" in the plan. All of the initiatives will have measurable goals and action plans. This work will involve fellow Board members, University System Office personnel, campus presidents, System faculty and staff, and, in some instances, support from the private sector.
For our first opportunity, I would like us to build upon the successful recent work done by the Chancellor, the University System Office staff, and the campuses focusing on the retention, progression, and graduation of our students. We must improve these three performance measures, including particularly the retention and graduation of minority students, where there are large gaps against their peers in other ethnic cohorts. One outgrowth of these efforts would be the creation of an accountability system for the University System to share performance data. I've asked the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academics and Fiscal Affairs, Daniel S. Papp, to chair this task force, and have already shared specific ideas regarding financial incentives for students that will need to be fleshed out from the finance and legal perspectives. The Senior Vice Chancellor for Support Services, Corlis Commings; the Vice Chancellor for Academic, Student, and Faculty Affairs, Frank A. Butler; and the Vice Chancellor for Fiscal Affairs, William R. Bowes' expertise will help us shape these incentives. The bottom line is we need to implement more innovative strategies, ones that also will address the needs of academic students who don't qualify for or maintain their HOPE Scholarships, but who still have potential and deserve the opportunity to earn a college degree.
Another vital opportunity we have is the need to expand our communications efforts. Regent Patrick S. Pittard will chair this task force, and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Media and Publications, Arlethia Perry-Johnson, will staff this important project. You all are aware of the many different public issues we have faced over the past couple of years, and we have addressed those issues head on. The goal for this new effort is to expand our proactive public relations activities, including the publication of a new periodical for the Board, as well as other strategies that will emphasize the System's strengths and achievements. System institutions also will be asked to engage in these efforts.
The third opportunity we have identified enables us to launch a comprehensive assessment of the total impact of the University System on the State of Georgia. We will begin the first phase of this work this year by focusing on the research university sector. This will be followed by an assessment of the total impact of the other 30 – soon to be 31 – System institutions. President G. Wayne Clough of the Georgia Institute of Technology has agreed to chair this task force, and the Executive Director of our Office of Economic Development, Joy Hymel, will staff it. Through the Intellectual Capital Partnership Program ("ICAPP®"), related work has been conducted in this arena since 2000, assessing the economic impact on the System's 34 institutions on a biennial basis. Studies were conducted in 2000, 2002, and 2004 that measured the System's and each institution's spending and job creation in their local service areas. We look forward to building on those successful ICAPP® studies with this new initiative as we assess the total impact of System institutions across a wide variety of impact measurements.
Our final opportunity focuses on the need to accelerate the construction of new facilities for the University System. Regent Alan Vigil will chair the task force that will tackle this issue very aggressively. He will work directly with the Vice Chancellor for Facilities, Linda M. Daniels, as the University System Office staff member. It also will be important for us to have representation from the Georgia State Finance and Investment Commission ("GSFIC") on this task force as well as a representative from the Governor's office, since we will need to collaborate regarding the financing aspects of this initiative. This task force will have several goals. It should identify recommendations to address the current need and backlog for University System capital projects, assess the effectiveness of the Board of Regents' current capital priority selection process, identify ways to get ahead of the future demand for facilities, and balance the need for additional facilities against the priority of effectively maintaining existing facilities. The group will be asked to identify potential strategies that might include a special capital needs bond package, increased privatization, and other fast-track measures. We want the leadership of our campuses to know that we recognize the critical nature of their ever-increasing facilities demands and that we will do everything in our power as a governing body to ensure that these needs are being addressed.
So, to summarize, during this "Year of Creating Opportunities," we are going to place strong emphasis on four critical areas of operation. One, student success – in particular, the retention, progression, and graduation of our students. Two, expanded communications activities so that we can broaden how well we tell our story. Three, an assessment of the total impact of the University System of Georgia on the state from the number of jobs we create to our cultural impact to our economic ramifications, among other factors. And four, the development of an accelerated facilities financing module that will allow us to aggressively address the capital needs of our campuses as they accommodate student growth. I think we all would agree that we have a very aggressive and ambitious agenda for the year ahead, but this is work that is essential, and it's doable.
These initiatives will require many people rolling up their sleeves, working together. We will leverage and build upon existing activities and existing resources – as well as engage and secure new resources and additional expertise – to shape solutions to some of our most pressing priorities. We will make sure that the work of the various task forces will intersect with our official standing Committees of the Board, as protocol dictates. Keeping with my commitment that this work will be measurable, it is our intention to bring back reports to the board as early as November. These reports will reflect the progress we have made in fleshing out, launching, and/or implementing these initiatives, with future reports to come as additional progress is made. I look forward to our combined teamwork in the coming year, and thank you in advance for the hard work I know you each will do. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about this agenda and/or any of the individual priorities.