Report to the Board of Trustees

Report to the Board of Trustees – February 2019

Thank you, Chairman Gingo. And I extend my welcome, too to our new Advisory Trustee, Superintendent David James.

Update of Three-Year Action Plans

At the December Board meeting, the University’s 3-Year Action Plan was endorsed, the culmination of hard work across the campus.

Established Four Priorities for all units:

1. Increase Student Success
2. Emphasize Academic Distinctiveness
3. Increase Revenue
4. Improve Efficiency & Effectiveness

In December, we held individual meetings with deans & VPs about aligning their respective action plans to these UA priorities. Since January, all units have been revising their action plans to align with these four priorities. When completed, all final plans will be posted to the 3-Year Action Plan website.

Continuous Planning Process

January inaugurated the beginning of our Continuous Planning Process. I am working with the action plan steering committee to implement the process efficiently. On a regular, 12-month schedule, units will collect data, conduct analytics review, and update plans.

At the very beginning of the fall term, all updated division action plans will be submitted for development into an updated University action plan. Senior management will prepare a preliminary plan for review by University Council and Faculty Senate by October. Revisions will follow as needed.

In December, an updated University plan will be submitted to the Board. The plan will be finalized before the end of the year. The cycle begins again each January—with the State of the University Address.

FY20 budget

We will use the action plans to construct a FY20 budget and project out two more years. Very soon the senior administration and University Council Budget & Finance Committee will review budget estimates and assumptions. Using these assumptions, we will gather planning & budgetary information from academic and non-academic units.

Then the CFO, President and Provost will begin formulating a university budget. CFO will meet with University Council’s Budget & Finance Committee, so they can review budgets and consider them for endorsement. University Council as a whole will consider endorsement of the budgets. CFO will present budgets to the Board of Trustee’s Finance Committee.

At its June meeting, the Board will consider the budgets under a consent agenda or as new business.

Our budgetary goals are two-fold:

• Prepare UA to grow enrollment in 2023, when a positive demographic shift is forecasted.
• Eliminate our large structural deficit over the next 3 years. This will require revenue gains from increased student success and fundraising; expenditure cuts beginning with significant reduction of base expenditures in 2020, and; participation by all elements of the University in expenditure reductions.

Coaches

I would like to acknowledge two leaders in our athletics department. First I want to formally welcome Tom Arth, new head football coach.

He is an Ohio native with many Northeast Ohio connections. Tom has a fine record of success as a leader of two programs. He is as passionate about his student-athletes’ academic success as he is of their athletics accomplishments. Funds that enabled us to bring Tom to Akron did not come from the General Fund, but from game revenue earned in the 2018 season.

I also want to congratulate Jared Embick, head coach of the men’s soccer team.

In 2018, the men’s soccer team competed in the College Cup for the 6^th time in program history and the 3^rd time under Jared’s leadership. Since he became head coach in 2012, his teams have compiled 94 victories, the most of any Division I team. They have the highest winning-percentage in the nation, and have won 11 conference tournament titles.

Predictably, other programs have shown interest in Coach Embick.

I am grateful that we were able to assemble a compensation package based on external fundraising that is commensurate with Coach Embick’s national stature, and that he has chosen to remain a Zip. I am also deeply grateful to those supporters whose private donations have enabled us to properly compensate Coach Embick, without drawing upon the General Fund.

Rethinking Race and Black History Month

Please remember that “Rethinking Race,” our University’s annual forum on race and related issues, takes place Feb. 25 – March 8. This will include films, performances, face-to-face conversations, and keynote speakers.

There is a pre-event next Friday titled, “Understanding Cognitive Bandwith and Student Success.” It is a professional development workshop for faculty, and for staff who work with students, and it aligns well with our #1 institutional priority: student success

I encourage our university community to take advantage of this learning opportunity.

Update on 150^th Celebration Preparations

The Sesquicentennial Steering Committee has been formed, comprising 32 campus and community members. The committee is organized into six working subcommittees

• Special Events
• Academic Excellence
• Campus and Co-Curricular Programming
• Community Engagement
• Historical Commemoration
• Branding and Marketing

The committee has identified 4 goals for the Sesquicentennial Celebration:

1. Honor the history of The University of Akron.
2. Celebrate successes and achievements of students, faculty, staff and alumni.
3. Explore UA’s impact on the Akron community and beyond.
4. Envision what the future will look for Akron Zips.

One project already underway is “Hail We Akron.” It is a collection of UA memories from alumni, athletes & coaches, friends, faculty, community members, etc. It will be produced as a coffee-table book, paperback book, and a curated website. Solicitations have gone out via email and postcards asking for participation. They have made it easy to submit material. Simply go to the website: www.uakron.edu/hail/. There you can see examples of recent submissions, and submit your story & photos.

We also have a logo for our sesquicentennial celebration. May we see the logo, please.

The large size of numerals is intentional. It serves as a reminder that UA has lighted the way for Akron’s citizens for a century and a half. It also is a reminder of the honor and obligation entrusted to us to carry that mission forward into the future.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I’d like to take a moment to reinforce a phrase from the SOTU, that we need to be “candid and confident” as we address our challenges.

That phrase was inspired by a recollection I have about one of my special interests, space exploration, and by a conversation I had with a colleague several years ago. In 2003 the U.S. launched two robotic vehicles, called rovers, toward Mars. Their mission was to explore the surface and geology of the planet.

If you may recall, prior to this there had been several spectacular failures of Mars missions. Most notorious was the 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter. Instead of orbiting the planet as its name implied, it plunged into Mars’ atmosphere and burned up. We later learned this happened because someone forgot to translate metric measurements into English measurements, so the calculations were…well, a little off.

So there was a lot of pessimism about whether the rovers would land safely on Mars.

It took almost half a year from the launch until the spacecraft landed on Mars and as it approached, the tension mounted. One day during this interim, I discussed my anxiety about the rovers with a member of our engineering faculty. He shocked me by saying he had no doubts whatsoever that this mission would safely land the rovers on Mars.

“How can you be so confident?” I asked.

He replied that the landing systems’ airbags had been tested by NASA Glenn personnel. He said some of those individuals were UA alumni and partners. He said, “I know those people. I know how good they are. When they say the landing will be successful, I believe them.”

My colleague was right: the mission landed successfully.

The two rovers were intended to last for 90 days. Instead, one continued to operate for 6 years, and the other for 14 years. During the long lives of the rovers, I saw television footage of the NASA Glenn technicians in a sandbox on their hands and knees with a replicate rover working on unexpected problems. They weren’t asking IF the rover could be fixed, they were asking HOW it could be fixed.

I often think of the engineer’s pride and confidence in our graduates and colleagues. I know that pride and confidence still exists here at The University of Akron. The names of those rovers are Spirit and Opportunity. As we prepare this University for its next 150-year mission, let us take some encouragement from those two robotic rovers, and remember: our spirit is our greatest opportunity.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, that concludes my report.