The State of the University

On Monday afternoon, the University of Michigan’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, gave a state-of-the-university speech, summarizing some of the institution’s recent accomplishments, challenges and new initiatives.

Highlights of her remarks are below, and the full text of the speech is posted online. The same text was handed out to the media immediately prior to her presentation. It is not, however, exactly the speech she delivered. More on that later.

The speech was widely covered: The Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Michigan Daily, Crain’s Detroit Business and AnnArbor.com all filed stories. Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, also attended the event – a crew from the PBS show is in town shooting footage and doing interviews for an upcoming segment.

Despite the press coverage, the event did not draw a large crowd to the new Blau Auditorium at the Ross School of Business – the venue seats about 500 people, and it was less than half full. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a look at what you missed.

The Speech: Some Highlights

Though acknowledging some of the serious financial challenges posed by Michigan’s economy, Coleman was upbeat in her assessment of the university’s current condition, and its future.

Research initiatives

The university logged a record 350 inventions during its last fiscal year, Coleman said, in areas ranging from medicine to engineering. She also noted that the university hit the $1 billion mark in federal research spending for the year, and is on track to reach $2 billion in research spending by 2017 – the university’s 200th anniversary. This goal had been mentioned during the Sept. 17 UM Board of Regents meeting as well. From The Chronicle’s coverage:

In his report to regents, Stephen Forrest, UM’s vice president for research, noted that the university had crossed a major threshold by logging a record $1.016 billion in federal research funding during fiscal 2009, which ended June 30. That’s up 9.4% from the previous year, he said, and includes only a very small amount – about $130,000 – of federal stimulus funding. Stimulus dollars will show up in the report for the current fiscal year, he said. So far, university researchers have been awarded $103.2 million in stimulus grants.

He joked that it took the university 192 years to reach the $1 billion mark, but he has set the goal of reaching $2 billion in eight years. “We’re well on our way,” he said.

Faculty hiring

The university is recruiting faculty, and has a $30 million initiative to hire 100 young professors by 2012, Coleman said. So far, they’ve funded 49 positions, with the first of these new hires starting this semester. “The hiring process is somewhat more time-consuming than with a single scholar,” she said, “because we are building teams and the faculty on those teams must complement each other.”

North Campus Research Complex (NCRC)

Coleman called the former Pfizer site, which UM bought earlier this year, a “once-in-a-century opportunity to redefine academic research in critical areas.” The university is recruiting a full-time director for the complex, she said. During the Q&A portion of her presentation, Coleman also said they were launching an effort to improve transportation links between NCRC, north campus and central campus. They plan to host a transportation technology forum next semester, and include representatives from Ann Arbor and the state.

Sustainability

Concerns over climate change have “captivated” students, Coleman said. “Students want to know what we are doing to protect the environment, whether through teaching and research or in our operations as a large consumer of water, energy, food and paper. Frankly, our students exhibit a passion and an urgency that I have not seen since the space race.” [Several students spoke on the issue during the March 19, 2009 board of regents meeting.]

Coleman said the university is elevating its emphasis on sustainability. She has named Don Scavia, current director of UM’s Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, to be her special counsel on environmental sustainability.

“We are going to examine the academic enterprise at all levels, to offer new courses and expand existing ones,” Coleman said. “As one example, we will be doubling the enrollment of a course on sustainability and the campus. Here, students apply ecological, social and economic theory to hands-on practice, with our own campus as their living laboratory.”

The university is also establishing an Office of Campus Sustainability, to measure and improve how the university uses energy, recycles materials and builds facilities.

Economic development

Coleman said the university plays a role in supporting new and existing businesses. She noted that UM faculty have launched 83 start-up companies since 2001, including eight start-ups last year, during a tough economy. Members of the University Research Corridor – UM, Michigan State and Wayne State – have a combined economic impact of $14.5 billion, she said. They’ve just hired the first URC executive director – Jeff Mason, a former Michigan Economic Development Corp. executive – and have opened an office in Lansing.

Financial challenges: UM’s $7.5 billion endowment is down more than 20%. “No organization can absorb a 20% loss in investments and not feel it,” Coleman said, “but we are slowly recovering, because of an investment strategy that is conservative, highly diversified, and squarely focused on long-term performance.”

UM’s Michigan Difference fundraising campaign, which ended last year, raised $3.2 billion. But private donations dropped 22% during the last fiscal year, Coleman said. State funding has also declined by about $42 million, or 10%, over the past seven years.

Coleman outlined how the university has responded: “We have reduced spending by $135 million in the past seven years. We are doing everything, from reducing how many flowers we plant and re-negotiating contracts with suppliers, to streamlining information technology practices and asking employees to pay a greater share of their health benefits. By being more efficient, we have reduced natural gas consumption – and spending – for the first time ever, at the same time our space and levels of activity are growing.”

The Great Depression

Coleman concluded her speech by saying there are lessons to learn from the Great Depression of the 1930s. During that time of economic hardship, the university created new scholarships and loan programs, and built “iconic” structures like the Law Quad and Rackham. Today, they “should look at how faculty, students and staff of that era met those dark days,” Coleman said, “and draw on their dedication and resolve.”

Audience Questions

Five people asked questions before the moderator, UM business school dean Bob Dolan, called the event to a close. Here’s a summary of the questions, and Coleman’s response:

Q: You talked about sacrifices that faculty and staff have made to cut expenses, but that the university needs to redouble its efforts. Does that mean more cuts are in store?

State funding is uncertain, Coleman said, and several task forces have been formed to look at ways to cut expenses as well as to increase revenue. Here’s the relevant section from her speech:

Work already is underway by task forces of faculty and staff exploring more ways to reduce spending and increase revenue. We are looking at offering more classes in the spring and summer semesters, which makes greater use of classrooms and buildings, generates tuition income and, most important, helps students complete their education in a timely fashion.

We will explore shared staffing and more centralized services. We’ll examine the concept of offering non-traditional programs and classes. We will explore best practices for academic centers and institutes.

She also noted that they are being strategic in their decisions. They haven’t stopped hiring – in her speech, she had highlighted the fact that UM has a $30 million initiative to hire 100 young professors by 2012. Coleman also said that the only facilities projects they’ve halted were two parking structures, and that was because they’d acquired more parking with the Pfizer acquisition.

However, she concluded her answer by saying, “Everything is a moving target.”

Q: The sustainability effort sounds interesting – how can students get involved?

The goal is for students to work on real campus projects, Coleman said. The university faces a daunting challenge, she said – they’re growing, yet trying to curb their energy use and impact on the environment. The sustainability initiative is a way to create standards and practices, and actually measure their results. Students can be a part of that, she said.

Q: How is the university positioned in areas like stem cell research?

The university has benefited from last year’s ballot initiative which loosened the state’s restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, Coleman said. UM has started a lab that’s now producing cell lines that will be shared with other researchers nationwide. She said she expects to see this type of work flourish.

Q (asked by Ann Arbor community activist Alan Haber): You spoke about the role that the university is playing in addressing climate change. What is the university doing to address the issue of war and peace?

It’s very troubling to see the many intransigent problems in the world – and sometimes it doesn’t even seem possible to have a reasonable dialogue, Coleman said. Saying that she was speaking personally, not representing the university, Coleman said she was encouraged by President Obama’s efforts at promoting dialogue. She’s also encouraged by the work that UM’s faculty and students are engaged in, addressing global issues like poverty and health care. One of the best things the university can do for students is to teach them to think critically, engage in civic life, and challenge those in authority, Coleman said.

Q: Can you talk about your commitment to the Michigan Healthy Community Initiative?

This effort started about five years ago, Coleman said, as a way to deal with the escalation of health care costs. It’s another example of using the university as a test case – trying different approaches, then measuring outcomes. She cited the example of eliminating co-pays for certain medications for chronic diseases, such as diabetes. The overall initiative is one of the things she’s most proud of, Coleman said.

What Else Happened: A Few Vignettes

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Teleprompter glitch

During the Q&A, Coleman noted that the speech she delivered differed slightly from the one that had been distributed to the media (and which was subsequently posted online). An older version had been mistakenly used for the teleprompter, she said. It reminded her of the time when something similar happened to Bill Clinton: “But he’s a lot brighter than I am because he did it extemporaneously.”

Coleman brought this up because the speech she gave didn’t include a section about efforts to improve transportation between the north and central campuses. As the north campus becomes more densely populated because of UM’s recent acquisition of the former Pfizer site, they’ll need to figure out a better way to move people between the different locations, she said. To that end, the university is planning a transportation technology forum next semester, Coleman said.

American Sign Language

Coleman’s speech was translated into American Sign Language by Jill Rice, UM coordinator of services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Rice is also responsible for finding signers to interpret during events like this, and interprets at some of the events herself. She told The Chronicle that she assigned herself to Coleman’s speech because she wanted to be part of it. She got a copy of the text in advance, to help her prepare.

When asked whether words like “explosion” and “bombardment” were written into the speech especially for their rather dramatic ASL flare, Rice said that they weren’t, although she acknowledged that they were fun words to sign. [For those readers who are interested in context, the words were used in these sentences: "Think about the explosion of digital information and information sharing in recent years." and "Our job as educators is to give students the skills to interpret this bombardment of information, analyze its meaning and credibility, and understand how it affects individuals and communities."]

Media instructions, sort of

Prior to the speech, there was a bit of negotiation between the university’s public relations staff and photographers representing various media outlets. The PR folks wanted the shooters – specifically, anyone using “clicky cameras,” as one staff member put it – to stand at the back of the auditorium, so as not to be a distraction during Coleman’s speech. The photographers said that they couldn’t get decent shots from that vantage point. The Chronicle didn’t hear the end of those negotiations, but did witness the outcome: Several photographers took shots from the front and sides of the auditorium, with no apparent restrictions on their movements.

Pre-speech prep

Coleman arrived about 30 minutes prior to the start of her speech, when the auditorium was virtually empty. She talked with some of her staff about how the two teleprompters would work, and was outfitted with a lavaliere microphone.