Presented by Gerald L. Bepko, Chancellor
to the IUPUI Faculty Council on December 5, 1996
at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

This year's State of the Campus message makes just three points:

First, we have accomplished a great deal. We are making real progress in developing a new, responsive model that will allow us to address the changes that are becoming so vexing to higher education. Nearly all of the traditional indicators that we use to measure our performance are up and some have hit all-time records. The development of our physical surroundings continues at an impressive pace, both on campus and in our neighborhood.

Second, only our efforts to maintain the historic breadth of programs at IUPUI and our continuing correlated effort to promote better undergraduate retention still qualify as unfulfilled commitments. We must continue to try to deal with these issues.

Third, even these nagging issues of retention cannot detract much from the fact that right now all the forces are aligned, and we are on the brink of a unique moment of opportunity. We have the right position as a campus, at the right moment in time, with the right planning and the right forces marshaled in our behalf, both here in Indiana and across the country. Over the next few years, if we pursue our plans, we should put the final pieces in place and step to the forefront as a new significant model on the national higher education scene.

Let's first look at some of the evidence of our success.

OUR GROWTH IN SIZE

As a campus, we have become very large, especially in terms of operating budget, as shown in Chart 1. At nearly $1 billion, we represent 54 percent of the total IU budget and are larger than Bloomington and all the other campuses of IU put together. As of January 1, 1997, this will change, as can be seen in Chart 2, because of the separation of the hospitals.

CLARIAN HEALTH PARTNERS

January 1, 1997, marks the effective date of the creation of Clarian Health Partners, Inc., which will operate the IU and Methodist Hospitals. This consolidation will create one of the nation's most prominent centers for complex medical care. It will ensure that the School of Medicine has ample sites for teaching and research, including expanded teaching opportunities in managed care, ambulatory care, and neighborhood facilities. It will contribute to the maintenance of control of our health care industry by Indiana-based companies. It will serve as an anchor for the broader health industry, and it will keep jobs in Center Township. It will relieve the university of the financial liability for hospital operations and, at the same time, ensure a strong, privately funded annual contribution of roughly $40 million for medical education. This bold step will privatize our hospitals, in one sense, but leave us in a good position to influence the culture of the emerging organization. Clarian will be a new, competitive, cost-effective health care enterprise, but with a culture that is hospitable to medical education. We think it will be the best model in the country.

There will be some disengagement issues as Clarian moves to buy services from providers other than the university. We will be working to settle these issues in the next few months, and we are optimistic that, with one possible exception, disengagement will be invisible to our general academic community. The other remaining challenge will be to continue to better organize ourselves as physician faculty to secure our culture of excellence and the role of the School of Medicine.

Our enrollments are up, once again, now to more than 27,000 students. Many of our graduate professional programs have capped enrollments, so our attention to enrollments and the potential for fluctuation is within our large general academic programs, particularly at the undergraduate level. Thanks to a successful marketing campaign, our renewed service orientation, and our Enrollment Management Group, in the fall term we gained again in headcount for all of IUPUI for the second year in a row. The increase is fueled by a much larger undergraduate freshman class, also for the second year in a row. This means that we're loading the pipeline, and we could well see our overall enrollment continue to improve in quality, quantity, or both, in a very measured and controllable way. Finally, we set an all-time record this fall for credit hours generated or FTE enrollment. This increase was prompted by another interesting development increases in the number of full-time students. We now have more full-time than part-time students on campus.

The quality of our undergraduate students seems to be rising as measured by SAT scores. This year the average SAT scores for each of our entering undergraduate groups Undergraduate Education Center (UEC), Undergraduate Education Center Preparatory(UECP) program, and direct admits to schools have gone up, although our overall average SAT has gone down a bit because the UECP class beginning in 1996 is a bit larger as a percentage of the total than it was last year. Our commitment is to continue to work with our K-12 colleagues to improve performance, to encourage students to prepare themselves better, to attract more well-prepared students, and to continue to explore new partnerships with Ivy Tech State College to provide the best range of options for less well-prepared students.

One of the many other reasons for our enrollment increases is the growing recognition in the community for the quality of our academic programs, including our service learning opportunities, which build on our historic strength of giving students an opportunity to relate learning to work. Undergraduate students get exposure to the professions, businesses, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations in which they may some day choose a career. Also, students get ample exposure to the important American institution of volunteerism and philanthropy.
We've also become known for our collaborative programs, which have permitted us to engage the community better through interdisciplinary problem solving. Our emerging programs in public health, aging, biomedical engineering, medical informatics, philanthropy, urban policy, urban geography, computer mapping, religious studies, and others have begun to make an important impact on the public and the academic community.

In part, because of our collaborative work, the quality of our faculty continues to rise. It seems clear that each year our faculty becomes more accomplished, and they earn more standing in their respective fields. Our schools and departments have gained commensurately in recognition around the world as well as here in Indiana.

One factor in the high performance of our faculty is the pride they take in their own work, their colleagues, and in the institution. This year we conducted another study of faculty perspectives, which showed a high regard among faculty for their colleagues in academic units and a generally good sense of the plans laid for their units and the university. The study did show the usual antipathy for parking services and a not surprising disappointment with faculty salaries, particularly among women. We have gone through several years, from 1991 to 1995, of flat or reduced funding from the state, and our salaries recently have not grown as fast as at other periods of our development. To address issues of concern to women, we are pleased that we now have an Office for Women that will review gender equity in compensation and all areas of the university to help women overcome remaining barriers and reach new levels of participation in every aspect of university life, especially its leadership.

Table 1: Faculty Balance of Trade
Number of Faculty Recruited by IUPUI from Other Institutions =	24
Number of Faculty Recruited Away from IUPUI by Ohter Institutions =	17
Balance of Trade =	+7

Fortunately, disappointment with salaries has not resulted in any flight of faculty. Our balance of faculty trade is still favorable, though not as lopsided as it once was. The universities from which we have recruited, however, continue to be impressive by any measure.

Table 2: Faculty Balance of Trade Insitutations from Which IUPUI Has Recruited
University of Arizona Yale University Northwestern University University of Chicago Tufts University University fo Washington Penn State University University of Rochester Georgetown University	Michagin State University University of Michagin Case Wastern Reserve Vanderbilt University Univeristy of Houston University of Texas University of Pennsylvania University of North Carolina Nat'l University of Singapore

The accomplishments of IUPUI faculty are encouraged by a sound system of shared governance that is now a deeply felt tradition. We have proven, through the work of this Faculty Council, that shared governance can work effectively and that faculty, themselves, can be conscious of the need to make consultation expeditious and to rally around consensus principles so that we can cope with the escalating change that is on the horizon.

EXTERNAL SUPPORT

The quality of our faculty has continued to produce a heartwarming affirmation by funding sources. Our faculty have continued to produce spectacular increases in external awards for teaching and research. As you can see in Chart 3, IUPUI continues to gain in relationship to both West Lafayette and Bloomington. IUPUI has come closer to doubling the external support that is earned by the Bloomington campus and is ever closer on the heels of West Lafayette.


Nearly $100 million of the $124 million 1995-96 total of awards for IUPUI has been produced in our health schools. This is a record number. What may be most interesting, however, is that this past year more than $25 million was produced by our general academic schools.

This is remarkable compared to what other public universities in Indiana attract. The next graphic (Chart 4) shows the Ball State and Indiana State figures for 1995-96. As you can see, our general academic faculty, who number 503, which is only about 75 percent of the Ball State faculty and about equal to the number of Indiana State faculty, have generated four and six times as much external support, while managing a larger and more complicated student body.



The quality of our work has not only produced amazing results in generating grants, but we have also attracted significant gift income. For all of IU, private gifts have gone up impressively in recent years, but as you can see from Chart 5, that growth has been driven largely by IUPUI. It is important to note that the large gain in this past year was influenced by the enormously successful Campaign for Medicine, concluded this year with total commitments of $211 million, as well as a $15 million gift of software to the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI.



Finally, we have continued to see capital investment on the IUPUI peninsula move forward at an excellent pace. Construction funding on the IUPUI campus has totaled more than $640 million in the past 12 years. As Chart 6 shows, only a small portion of that has come from state higher education bonds. Major percentages of support have come from the federal government, private developers, gifts, and income from our operations, primarily in the hospitals. No less than nine construction projects are currently in some stage of planning or completion.

OUR CONTINUING RETENTION CHALLENGE

No matter how well we are doing in these areas used as measures of success, there is still one area in which we have not succeeded. Today, many business and community leaders refer to a single fact to show a critical problem for Indiana's future: The fact is that Indiana ranks 49th out of 50 states in the percentage of the population that holds a baccalaureate degree or higher.

Other large states have much higher percentages as you can see in Table 3. Although there is some evidence that new enrollment patterns in Indiana's postsecondary institutions are alleviating this deficit, higher education in Indiana is frequently challenged to try to improve this condition.

Table 3: Educational Attainment (Bachlor's Degree or High in 15 Largest States
State Massachusetts New Jersey Virginia California New YorK Illinois Texas Georgia Florida Ohio Michigan Pennsylvania North Carolina Missouri Indiana	Percent 30.0 27.9 25.8 25.0 24.2 22.1 22.1 21.1 19.8 19.5 19.1 18.7 18.5 17.5 14.1	Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 (49th Nationally)
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Eductional Attaintment in the United States: March 1993.

We've accepted this challenge with alacrity, since it is built on the assumption that advanced education is the key to economic and social success. To that end, many years ago we set a goal to increase the number of degrees we award, and we have made some progress. But there are some demographic phenomena that could affect our achievements.

In the past, some populations have made better use of universities because they have had greater access and encouragement. Those populations, however, are not growing as fast as populations that, in the past, have not made the same use of universities. Chart 7 shows one perspective on the growth in the percentage of urban populations. They will consist of greater percentages of minority groups whose access and participation rates have been inhibited. These patterns hold true for the state of Indiana.



Chart 8 shows national college-going rates for different groups. These data show that the more rapidly growing segments of our population have lower college-going rates. This suggests that we may have even more work to do in providing encouragement and support to promote success.



We've been modestly successful at recruiting minority students. Our total this fall of 3,464 minority students is the largest in our history, and the largest in Indiana, but we have not been as good at helping our students succeed, whether minorities or otherwise. As you can see from Table 4, our retention rates are not up to our peer institutions and have fluctuated but stayed generally steady over the past five years, despite major efforts on our part.

Table 4: Peer Institutions (Graduation Retention Rates Reported in America's Best Colleges Guide)
Institution University of Pittsburgh SUNY-Buffalo University of Cincinnati Temple University Univ. of Missouri Kansas City Wayne State University Univ. of Illinois Chicago Univ. of Wisconsin Mwilwaukee Univ. of Alabama Birmingham University lf Oousville University of Houston IUPUI	1997* 65% 60% 48% 43% 41% 40% 38% 35% 33% 30% 27% 24%	1996* 63% 54% 47% 44% 41% 40% 34% 37% 33% 30% 35% 25%	1995* 64% 55% 52% 43% 43% 40% 33% 37% 32% 30% 31% 25%
*Publication year

One particular reflection of our opportunities to improve retention is found in the success, or should I say failure rate, in some basic undergraduate courses. We keep track of what we call the DWF rate, which represents the percentage of undergraduate students who receive D's, F's, or withdraw during the term. In the spring term, English 131 had a DWF rate of 34 percent; Math 153 and 154 had a rate of 59 percent; Psych 104 a rate of 46 percent; and Econ 201 was at 38 percent. While we must not lower our standards, we should be able to encourage a greater rate of success in courses such as these.

One not uncommon reaction to retention issues is that we should improve our retention rates by refusing admission to underprepared, higher risk students. This is tempting, and it is clear that for the long term, we will strive to increase the preparedness of students we admit. But a precipitous change would highlight a shift in our institutional mission. Our campus here in Indianapolis began at the undergraduate level with two-year degree programs and modestly competitive or even open admissions. Those who are responsible for our funding have been reluctant to see us divorce ourselves from that heritage, especially since there is no community college alternative. Ivy Tech's development of more community college programming may help, but cannot eliminate our duty to plan for the success of all the people of this key region of the state.

There is a related, somewhat disturbing viewpoint that is being advanced by some community leaders across the country. It can be found in Indiana in the form of a movement to prohibit remedial work in public universities and to limit admission to students who have completed a certain rigorous high school preparation. While on the surface we might agree that these are desirable goals, nevertheless, at their foundation, they represent a view that higher learning should be limited to a smaller, elite percentage of the population and that others should be given only lower order training opportunities. This view tends to reduce social mobility, creates a caste system, and could have the effect of protecting traditional fulltime residential higher education, while eroding the more democratic movement of campuses like ours.

Perhaps more importantly, we must recognize that if we limited our enrollment to those students who are very well prepared for university work, we would have to reorganize in substantial ways and give up what we think is the optimal way to use resources to meet the broad educational needs we must address. Of our undergraduate entering freshmen last year, 82 percent needed, by way of our placement testing, which is by design quite rigorous, at least one developmental course. This can be compared with the national average of 29 percent.

Our retention issues go far beyond those students who are enrolled in UECP, but, for the sake of analysis, consider what would happen if we didn't have what we now call the UECP. We don't know exactly what would happen to our upper-division and graduation rates, but we do know that roughly one-third of our baccalaureate graduates have come through the UECP, and we do know many credit hours are generated by UECP students. On that basis, if we ceded UECP to another institution, we would lose 16 percent of all our undergraduate students.

By the most conservative modeling, this would represent roughly 80 FTE faculty who would have to move to another institutional setting, most of whom would seem to have to come from the arts, sciences, and education where these students currently take their courses (see Chart 9). This is not an attractive alternative, and we believe there is a much better way to manage these educational challenges through the proposed University College, which I'll talk about in a moment.

THE URBAN UNIVERSITY

Those retention, persistence, and degree completion issues should be addressed in the movement that we started here many years ago the movement to become the best of a new class of urban universities that will move to center stage in American higher education. This movement has never been more compelling. There seems to be a political atmosphere that is more hospitable to educational institutions, particularly those like IUPUI which are in the midst of society's concerns for workforce improvement and which are responsively adapting the values of higher education to a new age. While it is clear that we'll not return to the growth era of the 1960's, it seems that political commentary is turning more to the undeniable premise that advanced education is the answer to most of society's problems. For the first time in my memory, the nation's President has made higher education and its funding a key priority.

We seem to have improving conditions within Indiana. Governor-elect Frank O'Bannon has made friendly comments about higher education and is clearly devoted to the improvement of the state and its people. For the first time, again in my memory, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education has adopted an impressive part of our recommendations regarding the budget for 1997-99, including urging support for the completion of funding at an increased level for the Herron/Law project, and $1 million planning funding for the new general academic building to provide additional classroom space and replace the Mary Cable Building.

The nation's university leadership is increasingly subscribing to an agenda for reform that sounds a lot like the urban university we're building. The well-regarded Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities is developing papers that look like our planning documents with emphasis on renewed undergraduate general education, a focus on outcomes, encouraging learning by doing, learning in teams, interdisciplinary problem solving, offering courses in varying packages and at various times or "just in time" as demand dictates, and a general "engagement" with relevant communities.

IU President Myles Brand gave his State of the University address here at IUPUI this year, the first time a university president has done this to the best of my recollection. He said: "IUPUI is emerging as a national model for urban universities. These are not merely oases of studied intellectual reflection; they are a vital force contributing to change, growth, and innovation. They are not isolated islands; they are partners in the search for ways to realize the promise of explosive social and economic evolution."

Later, in an interview in our IUPUI alumni publication titled Partnerships, Myles said: "We know the future is going to be one of continued and rapid change. We are not so smart that we can definitely determine in advance what that set of changes will be. But we know that there will be serious change. And I think the urban universities are very likely to emerge in leadership positions. Urban universities, like IUPUI, will become far more important for the educational process and be better positioned as the kind of contributing institution that our country and our cities need. Indianapolis is fortunate to have an urban university that is maturing at the right time and is establishing itself nationally as a leading institution of higher education. . . . The success of Indiana University and the success of the Bloomington campus depend directly on the success of the Indianapolis campus."

STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS

The Strategic Directions planning process, inaugurated by Myles Brand, provides the perfect matrix in which to build the urban university model. The Strategic Directions Charter: Becoming America's New Public University fits well at IUPUI and from that flows a renewed campus plan, which is a restatement of earlier planning. This document is now before the IUPUI Faculty Council for consideration and comment. It is very important at this time for us to sharpen our focus, to refine this plan, to perfect it, and then follow it. This year the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges sanctioned a study titled "Renewing the Academic Presidency." Former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles was the chair. One of the key conclusions was that institutions must formulate a vision, build consensus around it, and take the risks required to achieve that vision, on campus and beyond. This repeats a theme that is being played all across the country today. With the Strategic Directions Charter and our resulting campus planning, we are in a position to seize the initiative and with it some measure of national leadership.

We have proposed that Strategic Directions for IUPUI be organized around five familiar themes: (1) the responsibilities of excellence, (2) centrality and connections,(3) collaboration, (4) accountability and best practices, and (5) placing student learning, intellectual exploration, persistence, and attainment at the center of the university's missions.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

The cornerstone of the campus plan is the creation of the University College (UC), the idea for which has come from many different sources over the years, but most recently from the faculties of the School of Liberal Arts and the School of Science, whose College Consolidation Committee produced a white paper on "the idea of a college" at IUPUI. A memo containing the proposal for University College has just gone out to a broad audience. The IUPUI Faculty Council's Executive Committee, the Council on Undergraduate Learning,and many others have the entire proposal. All members of the IUPUI Faculty Council have the Executive Summary. We trust that a consensus is building that this concept is just right for this moment in our development, for it represents an evolutionary step, building on the work of our Commission on General Education and the Undergraduate Education Center. The essential elements of the college include a new student orientation program; faculty leadership in advising; a first-year gateway course taught by a faculty member in collaboration with a librarian, an advisor, a technology expert, and a peer mentor; learning communities which take advantage of block scheduling and other means of connecting students with each other and the campus; supplemental instruction through peer mentors in key first-year courses; intrusive advising for at-risk students; a model general education program based on the Principles of Undergraduate Learning; development of an honors program to attract students and reward achievement; development of competency in core skills courses to serve as the foundation for advanced learning; and transfer of well-prepared, engaged students to schools for thecompletion of their degrees.

Upon matriculation, too many of our students feel isolated and disconnected, since they have no true academic home. They need a more visible and coherent point of reference, orientation, and guidance a college with which to identify in academic terms. This is the new University College, which should be a magnet, with an exciting new first-year experience, the promise of a compelling new general education, supplemental instruction to help build confidence, and a variety of other responsive student services, especially for those who are in the new majority. We want word to spread among students and their parents that the University College experience is just what is needed for the intellectual development of today's students. We want the experience at IUPUI to be so positive that it causes students to persist and attracts more and better prepared students to pursue their undergraduate education at IUPUI.

THE COMMUNITY OF LEARNING

But there's much more in the campus plan too much to even outline in this forum. Here are a few highlights. We must continue to do all we have been doing to bring ourselves to the high achievement that we've already recorded to keep on our rapid upward trajectory.

We must continue to strengthen our schools and departments, providing additional support for faculty work, additional access to cutting-edge technology, and higher salaries to move up among our peer institutions. To create a learning-centered campus, we must renew our technology plan and employ technologies in the learning process at an escalating pace; we must convert the old library to a student learning center; we must create a full-fledged student center; we must help implement the university-wide Associate of Arts degree; we must add campus housing for students to create a greater round-the-clock ambience; we must finally advance our commitment to be a family friendly institution and build a new child care facility; we must create a new era in student activities to support the learning process; we must add a new academic building for additional classroom and other academic space; and we must complete the move of the IUPUI intercollegiate athletic program to NCAA Division I.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF EXCELLENCE

To fulfill our responsibilities of excellence, we must continue to develop centers of excellence and invest courageously in them. We must continue to seek diversity in every aspect of our university's work. Consistent with the outline for graduate education that we've developed with leadership from Myles Brand, we must take the report of the Task Force on Graduate Education and build a new era and a new identity for graduate education at IUPUI, while refining our capacity for research. We must complete and fully develop the new Indiana Cancer Pavilion and the new Indiana University Cancer Institute to secure a national cancer center and complete our progress to national leadership in this field. We must build a new law building and move Herron to campus, although the foundry and ceramics activities may go to adjoining land on Stadium Drive; and we must continue our efforts to internationalize our university, such as by continuing the development of our Center on Southeast Asia and expanding our abilities to teach English as a second language by bringing ELS Language Centers (formerly English Language Services) to our university community.

CENTRALITY AND CONNECTIONS

In continuing to build centrality and connections one of our historic strengths we must stay on our course to develop the critical linkages between West Lafayette and Bloomington; we must maintain, strengthen, and initiate partnerships with businesses, industries, government agencies, K-12 schools, and neighbors such as the Indiana State Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum, the Indiana Historical Society, the United Northwest Association, White River State Park, the Indianapolis Zoo, the WFYI Teleplex, and Ivy Tech; and we must develop the full potential of the Community Learning Network.

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION

Another historic IUPUI strength is interdisciplinary collaboration, which will be advanced by maintaining and enhancing our interdisciplinary centers; establishing clear and broadly supported priorities for new investments; establishing programs in public health and health informatics; further developing the program in biomedical engineering; investing in a center of excellence on aging research; establishing a program in new media by building on current faculty and existing courses in music, library and information science, telecommunications, journalism, computer technology, and other fields; establishing a collaborative baccalaureate degree program in tourism/hospitality; and adding a multipurpose building that will house many of our interdisciplinary centers and commercial activities.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND BEST PRACTICES

Finally, we must continue to be accountable and use best practices. We must develop specific student learning outcomes for the Principles of Undergraduate Learning and a means of demonstrating competency in all undergraduate degree programs. We must strengthen the program review process and campus administrative review procedures; continue our efforts at defining, redefining, and documenting faculty work; refine and strengthen RCM and activitybased cost analysis; privatize where indicated (omnisource); experiment with financial incentives; increase technology transfer; consider the creation of a research park; and support faculty initiatives to improve and strengthen faculty governance.

CAMPAIGN FOR IUPUI

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we must prepare for and launch a capital campaign for IUPUI. This campaign, scheduled to begin as the Campaign for the Bloomington campus crests, in two or three years, should not only raise much needed endowment and capital funding for all of our programs but raise the stature of IUPUI and position us solidly in the public mind as a new kind of university for the future, indispensable for the success of the state of Indiana, and just as much a part of the state's educational treasures as Bloomington and Lafayette.

THE NINTH WAVE

Nautical metaphors have not played well this year, at least not in this forum. However, I'd like to resurrect one that recalls an ancient superstition of the sea. It holds that, inevitably, one wave comes along that is greater than any that has preceded it. It is called the Ninth Wave. It is the powerful culmination of the forces of sea and wind coming together at just the right time. To catch the Ninth Wave at the critical moment requires the right preparation and the ability to time your entry so as to be in a position to ride the wave when it is at its peak. Today, we see such a powerful wave in our future our own Ninth Wave. I think we are well prepared and ready to catch it, and in doing so will realize its power in moving IUPUI to the forefront of American higher education.