Letter to the Community

October 13, 1998
TO: The University Community
FROM: Philip E. Austin

With the Fall semester well underway, let me take this opportunity to welcome those of you who have joined the University community in the last few months. This is a wonderful time to be at this institution. The promise of UConn 2000 is becoming a reality before our eyes, new academic initiatives are taking shape, and we continue to make dramatic progress in virtually every sphere. We are moving aggressively to the position of national leadership appropriate to Connecticut's flagship university.

The summer and early fall of 1998 have been especially eventful, and I want to summarize several major developments for faculty, students and staff.

Growth in the Freshman Class

Enrollment statistics provide one of the clearest indications of our progress. No one has to come to the University of Connecticut. Undergraduate students and their families choose one college over another on the basis of a complex array of factors including price, location, range of curricular offerings and, above all, their perception of quality of academic program and vitality of campus life.

I will let the numbers speak for themselves:

• This fall more than 3,200 freshmen enrolled at the University of Connecticut, an increase of more than 450 over last year's total. That nearly 17% increase occurred in a year when the number of Connecticut high school graduates increased by only about 2%.
• Average freshman SAT scores rose from 1112 to 1120.
• Undergraduate freshmen enrollments increased at Storrs and almost every regional campus.
• Our efforts to enhance cultural and geographic diversity resulted in a 27% increase in the number of minority freshmen and a 36% increase in the number of freshmen coming from out-of-state.

The Hartford Courant ran a story on our freshman numbers in August, and offered an explanation in an accompanying editorial: "The state's investment in UConn and its branch campuses, especially its $1 billion capital campaign known as UConn 2000, s beginning to pay off - UConn is a place where exciting things are happening. Pride has replaced embarrassment." While I would contend that no one at UConn ever had reason for embarrassment (except with regard to the quality of our facilities), I certainly accept the Courant's overall assessment.

The enrollment increase presents great opportunities, but it does not come without its challenges. Thanks to the opening of the South Campus residence halls (about which more below) we were able to meet students' housing needs. We were also generally well prepared to meet instructional needs. But more than a few professors found themselves producing extra syllabi and increasing book orders, and student requests for over-tallies were a norm of the first two weeks of classes. I appreciate the faculty's cooperation and the staff's extra work in these exciting weeks.

Working Toward a Vital Academic Community

Meeting the immediate needs of a growing student body is essential, but it is only the first step in the creation of a university where the quality of campus life matches the excellence of the academic experience.

The University of Connecticut is a research university, and we make no apologies for--indeed, we proudly proclaim--our faculty's commitment to the generation of new knowledge. But we are not a " megaversity," in the negative sense in which that term came to be used in the 1960's. UConn aspires to be a place that recognizes the individual needs and aspirations of undergraduate, graduate and professional students. We work hard to build an environment where young people live with and learn from one another, and where faculty and students associate on a close professional basis. University of Connecticut students are people, not numbers, and their education is our primary concern.

These words, so easy to set forth on paper, belie an underlying complexity. Our students deserve to be treated as adults; even our freshmen, most of whom are 18 years old, are technically no longer children. That is a fact. But it is no less a fact that most of them are experiencing independence for the first time. When they come to Storrs or the regional campuses, they need to be in an environment that is as nurturing as it is demanding. We are working hard to meet that need.

Enhancement of the freshman year is a key part of our effort. Building on a good foundation, this year we strengthened our orientation program dramatically, including many more students in summer visits to campus and capping the many activities held for new freshmen and transfers with a dignified Convocation ceremony in Gampel Arena. I think we conveyed a strong sense of UConn as a welcoming, supportive institution to new students and their parents. Moreover, our special efforts to help freshmen did not stop at orientation. Nearly half of our freshmen are enrolled in one-credit "First Year Experience" seminars that introduce students to the research experience, demonstrate the link between courses in different fields, and introduce university expectations. Our goal is to enroll all freshmen in one of these classes by Fall 2000 and to achieve that goal we will need extensive faculty participation. I am sure that as professors play a growing role in designing the seminars and see their long-term value to students we will meet that objective. We are also enhancing undergraduate advisement across the University, devoting special attention to the 25% of freshmen and sophomores who have not yet made a choice of major.

Residential life is also a critical part of the undergraduate experience, and with the opening of South Campus we have the opportunity to implement some innovative programs. For example, this year we established a number of "academic disciplinary clusters - for special groups of students (e.g., musicians, women in math and science) and designated one of the buildings as a residence hall for non-freshman honors students. We are also innovating in some other residence halls, piloting the idea of clustering students registering together in a First Year Experience in the same residence hall.

On a more fundamental level, we are looking closely at the concept of community life at the University of Connecticut. The sharp rise in freshman enrollment should not blind us to the need for continuing work in that area; every university has room for improvement and we are no exception. Last spring's University Weekend reminded us all of that fact. We dealt with disciplinary issues appropriately and fairly. But the more fundamental concern about how people at large institutions get along with one another needs further attention.

Last spring I asked Chancellor Emmert to appoint a Special Task Force on Community and Civility. He did so and it is chaired by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Triponey and co-chaired by University Senate Chair Peter Halvorson and Student Trustee Alyssa Benedict. Task Force members are working on a broad range of concerns including but not limited to University Weekend, developing recommendations for enhancing a sense of community and assuring that civility is an integral part of life in that community. One of their first recommendations was that the University hold a "metanoia" in late March or early April to focus on the enhancement and sustenance of a sense of community at this institution. The Trustee/Administration/Faculty/Student Committee endorsed that recommendation on September 15.

"Metanoias" (the term's original Greek meaning was "to change one's mind ") are a UConn tradition, reminiscent in some ways to the teach-ins of the 1960's. Past metanoias focused on world hunger, racism, the future of the University and other topics of wide concern. A planning group will begin shortly to work on details, which will be outlined over the coming months. I urge you to communicate suggestions to Vice Chancellor Triponey's office.

An Update on Building

Our campus building program is the most visible sign of the University's progress. Several huge projects are nearing completion: the move into the Chemistry building's faculty offices and lab space is expected to be completed by the end of this semester, and classes will be held there this spring. South Campus residence halls opened their doors to 674 residents at the start of the term; we are putting the finishing touches on the South Campus dining/conference facilities and will have an official dedication this winter. On October 18 we will hold a "rededication" ceremony for the Homer Babbidge Library, which is at long last ready to take its place as a facility worthy of one of America's major teaching and research universities.

Other projects are at various stages of progress. The Fine Arts complex is undergoing significant expansion, with completion anticipated next fall. The Ice Rink will open later this month, construction will begin shortly on a new building for the University of Connecticut Foundation, and work on roadways, such as the Hillside Road realignment and the new shuttle connector between Mansfield and Glenbrook Roads, will be finished in the next few months.

The University's building program extends across the state. As the new Stamford campus is finished, a major new project has started at Avery Point. And construction of the Health Center's 196,000 square foot, 11-story Academic Research Building is on schedule, with ribbon-cutting ceremonies planned for October and occupancy expected in early 1999.

Projects of the scope of those we are undertaking at UConn are never easy, physically, organizationally, or humanly. As I have said before and probably will be repeating throughout my career here, I appreciate the inconvenience that so many faculty, students and staff must put up with - parking, driving, moving to temporary locations and then, finally, unpacking in a completed building. But as each project comes on line, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. The reviews on the Stamford building, South Campus and Babbidge Library are nothing short of raves, and they are a clear sign of greater things to come.

Increasing External Support

One of the University's key objectives is to increase gift, grant and contract support. This is, of course, a means to an end rather than an end in itself. We need external funding to attract strongly motivated students from diverse backgrounds, to lure faculty of international standing in the research community, and to enhance public service consistent with our land-grant mission. We have done well with existing resources. But it is sobering to note that the size of the University of Connecticut's endowment still falls far short of the levels at schools like the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - institutions whose company we aspire to enter. Our continued progress depends on major improvement in our own external resource base. I have devoted a great deal of personal attention to fundraising in my two years here, and as we move toward a capital campaign I will look to many of you for assistance.

It is heartening to note that we are making significant strides. In the fiscal year that ended June 30 the University received more than $20 million in private support, including $6.2 million from our corporate partners. In addition, we have received commitments for future gifts of great significance. These include three extraordinary examples of private philanthropy:

• In May, the University of Connecticut Health Center received a commitment from Fred R. Hollfelder for a $2 million bequest that will support the Charlotte Johnson Hollfelder Chair in Clinical Oncology, named for Mr. Hollfelder's late wife. The chair will be held by a nationally recognized scholar and clinician who will assume administrative, academic and clinical responsibility for the Health Center's entire cancer program.
• On September 25, in conjunction with the official commemoration of the School of Social Work's 50^th Anniversary, Judy Zachs (Class of 1977) and Henry Zachs announced a gift of $250,000 that will redesign and outfit a community space for the School at its West Hartford location. This is the largest gift ever made to that campus or to the Social Work program.
• August brought news that will have a major impact on our ability to serve the thousands of prospective students, public officials, alumni and other Connecticut residents who visit their state's flagship university every year. UConn alumnus ('66 and '67) and Foundation Board Chair Philip Lodewick and his wife Christine announced that the y will provide funds for construction of a new visitors" center, in the area of Alumni Drive and North Eagleville Road. Including a reception area, a small auditorium, and a place for refreshments, the visitors' center will be a superb entry point for those who come to the Storrs campus. Design is now underway, and we anticipate an opening next fall.

Health Center Update

One of my major objectives, in addition to the pursuit of continued quality enhancement at our excellent Health Center, is to strengthen administrative and programmatic linkages between the Health Center and the rest of the University, just as we are strengthening linkages among the regional campuses and between the regional campuses and Storrs. That said, the Health Center--site of a major Connecticut hospital and a center of highly specialized research and training--is a unique entity. In addition to the building and contribution developments mentioned above, several aspects of the Health Center's progress deserve special mention:

• Two outstanding scientists have recently been appointed to endowed chairs.
  Dr. Leighton Y. Huey, a national leader in psychiatric care, is the first holder of the Samuel "Sy" Birnbaum/Ida, Louis and Richard Blum Chair in Psychiatry.
  
  Dr. Huey previously served as Vice Chairman, professor and medical director of the Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Marc Lalande, an authority on human genetics, has been named to the Physicians Health Ser vices Chair in Genetics and Developmental Biology. He comes to the Health Center from Boston, where he served as associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a research associate at Boston Children's Hospital. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles related to human genetics and "parental imprinting"--the genetic patterns that affect the way rare diseases are or are not transmitted from parents to children.
  
  These individuals add to the exceptional strength of a faculty which, during the past two years, added to its ranks a number of other nationally renowned scientists, including Dr. Andrew Arnold, who holds the Murray-Heilig Chair in Molecular Medicine; Dr. David Papermaster, who is in the Solomon Chair in Vision Biology and Eye Diseases; and Dr. Pramod Srivastava, holder of the Physicians Health Services Chair in Cancer Immunology.
• A four-year $2.1 million grant from the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation was recently awarded to the Health Center to fund a comprehensive plan, called to improve the diagnosis and management of asthma among Hartford children. The program, called "Easy Breathing," is one of the first efforts to coordinate public- and private-sector programs to prevent and treat a chronic health problem at the community level, and is expected to serve as a national model.
• The Connecticut Quality Improvement Award Partnership presents awards to companies and businesses whose innovations improve product quality. This year the Award Partnership cited two of our programs. The Health Center's Bone Marrow Transplant Program, a regional center where cancer patients undergo state-of-the-art treatments including bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, received a gold Innovation Prize for efforts to refine treatment strategies, reduce complication rates, and improve cure rates. And a Health Center work design team received a silver prize for its work in redesigning and modifying clinical departments at the John Dempsey Hospital. This is the second consecutive year that Health Center programs have been cited by the state partnership.

Concluding Thoughts

These pages suggest the extraordinary level of activity ongoing throughout the University. As always in these reports, what I mention here is at best a representative sample; limitations of space prevent inclusion of a number of issues that are equally important to the institution. I look forward to discussing in other forums, among other things, the progress of the Pfizer collaboration, the NCAA Division I certification process in which our Athletic program is currently involved, the implementation of the Tri-campus Initiative, the recommendations that will come from the Coopers & Lybrand management study, and the University's agenda for the next session of the General Assembly.

What is important overall, however, is the sense that the University continues to move rapidly along on a positive trajectory. There are frequent frustrations and disappointments; those are inevitable in any large organization, and particularly so in an institution embarked on so ambitious an agenda. But the success we experienced in 1997-98 continued a pattern now several years in the making, and there is every indication that our progress will continue in the academic year just begun.

Last July, introducing our budget proposal to the Board of Trustees, I summarized where I see the University of Connecticut at this moment in our history. I said, in part:

UConn 2000 gives us the tools to build a 21^st century statewide campus. Outstanding scholars have joined an already strong faculty. Student enrollments are increasing in number, academic strength, and diversity. We are increasingly and rightly perceived as an engine driving Connecticut's innovation- and technology-based economy. Our professional schools are outstanding. Attainment of these objectives would be significant under any circumstances".

The University of Connecticut is a large, complex organization, incorporating many elements and serving many constituencies. Excellence, access and service are and will remain the goals of all branches and all units, equally applicable to research, instruction and everything else we do. As we approach the new century, we are superbly positioned to occupy a special place in the American higher education community, and fulfill our mission with special distinction.

I sought in that statement to articulate not just my own aspirations, but those that I believe to be shared by all members of the University community. I believe now, as I have since I arrived in 1996, that the goals I set forth are realistic to our size and scope and appropriate to our mission. I look forward to working with all members of this community as we work to implement them in the coming year.

cc: Board of Trustees