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Archive of Prior Chancellors' SpeechesState of the Campus Gerald L. Bepko, Chancellor IU School of Dentistry, December 4, 1997 4 p.m.
STATE OF THE CAMPUS 1997 Introduction
Indiana does not have advantages of nature that attract large numbers of mobile, well-educated
people. More than coastal, mountain, or sunbelt states, Indiana must rely on its higher education
system to prepare its populations for good citizenship, good business, and a high quality of life in
the 21st century.
Nowhere does this idea have greater impact than in Indianapolis, which is the population,
government, cultural, and economic center of the state. In order to be a great city, Indianapolis
must have an excellent system of higher education anchored by the highest quality urban public
university -- a new kind of university campus that has adapted itself to the needs of 21st century
America.
THE URBAN UNIVERSITY
In November 1989, IUPUI held a conference on the urban university in the 21st century. The
conference was part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of IUPUI.
University leaders from across the country spoke of the development of a new class of higher
education institutions nurtured in the urban growth of the post-WWII era that were emerging and
moving toward a position of prominence in American higher education. As we expected, the
urban university model that had been evolving in other parts of the country matched very closely
with what we had been doing at IUPUI.
The papers presented at the conference reaffirmed the conception of IUPUI as an urban university
and formed a framework for analysis and planning. Two years later, after further discussion about
just what this urban university was and what it should be, and in response to many questions
about how IUPUI fit into this movement, the urban university was a central theme for the State of
the Campus message in 1991. Now six years later, and three years into IU's Strategic Directions
process, it is time to return to that topic to make a current assessment of what these universities
have become, what IUPUI has become, and what IUPUI should expect of itself in the future as it
helps make IU into America's new public university. This is an especially important time for these
reflections as we plan for a capital campaign for IUPUI to be publicly announced in the year 2000.
New Land Grants
The urban universities have been called the new "land grants" because of their resemblance to the
land grant institutions supported by the Morrill Act, signed into law by President Abraham
Lincoln in 1862. The Morrill Act was not only a testament to the importance of higher education,
having been signed into law at the peak of the Civil War, but it launched the development of large
high-quality public universities that have been enormously important in our national success. The
land grant institutions were designed to help people cope with their environments, particularly
with respect to agriculture, veterinary medicine, and mechanical arts, or engineering as it is called
today.
In the past half century, our national environment has changed. The population of the U.S. has become more concentrated in urban areas and a new range of national concerns has emerged. While such things as food production and distribution are still fundamentally important, and food science is one of the world's cutting-edge fields, the nation's attentions are also more focused on phenomena that are products of urban areas or more intensely focused in the urban environment -- matters such as race, gender, public health, social services, welfare, public affairs, and ecology. Also, economic challenges such as competing on a global basis, creating high value-added jobs, restructuring industries, and developing technology applications are more concentrated in urban areas. To address this evolving agenda, a new kind of urban institution has been emerging that can provide spirited, high-quality, engaged, relevant education and research for the 21st century, in parallel to the contribution of the land grants.
Engaged Institutions
Urban universities are not only located in urban areas. Like the land grant institutions, they are
energized by their engagement with their communities. They incorporate teaching, research, and
service programs that are grounded in the society they serve. They help urban populations cope
with the changing urban environment.
They concern themselves with public schools and educational conditions from prekindergarten
(PK) to postdoctoral (PD). They prepare teachers for urban schools and try to address urban
school issues through their research. They serve as the home for such organizations as the
Indiana Urban Schools Association, which includes superintendents from 17 urban districts
representing 30 percent of Indiana's school-age children; they create specific programs through
collaborative efforts of their schools, such as IUPUI's full-service schools; their schools of
education provide special educational opportunities such as IUPUI's program to allow
Indianapolis Public Schools employees to become teachers, or the systemic math initiative led by
President Brand for selected IPS middle schools.
Urban universities have a special capacity to reach out to underrepresented populations and foster
fuller participation. In this respect, they will be increasingly important as the nation sorts out the
complicated issues of race, gender, and affirmative action (IU has reaffirmed its commitment to
affirmative action). Moreover, urban campuses can use the diversity of their communities as part
of the educational process -- something that will be especially important as the nation seeks to be
more open to people of all cultures and deals with the demographic fact that white people of
European ancestry represent a relatively small and shrinking percentage of the world's population.
Urban universities have a special opportunity to plan educational programming and research to
address the particular needs and opportunities of their communities in areas including the arts,
neighborhoods, public affairs, welfare, poverty, health, aging, social conditions, or urban policy
and governance. These urban university capacities can be especially important in encouraging
economic growth. Urban universities can more easily become involved in workforce issues to
prepare people for their careers, including educating professionals to strengthen their region's
infrastructure. As the IU President's Committee on Distributed Education has suggested,
continuing professional education may become a focal point of the Urban University. Many of the
urban campuses have created cultures of excellence in critical fields that attract people and
economic success. Some years ago, in the Atlanta Business Journal, a commentator on economic
matters argued that concentrations of high-tech industries tended to attract related businesses and
more and more talented people. After achieving a certain critical mass, high-tech companies
attracted each other like metal filings on a magnet. Of course the magnet in Atlanta was charged
by Georgia Tech and Georgia State universities. Universities provide an energy source,
opportunities for renewal, and an intellectual magnet that attracts talented people to their regions.
These forces seem to radiate with greater impact in large population centers than in small
communities that are hosts to universities.
The proximity to large businesses and other organizations may yield benefits through
collaboration in scientific or technological ventures, transfer and licensing of technology, joint
projects, sharing facilities and personnel, and specially adapted educational programs offered in
partnership. For example, at IUPUI Eli Lilly and Company has invested in research activities at
the School of Medicine and most recently has made an investment of $17 million in an addition to
the Adult Outpatient Center for purposes of conducting its clinical trials at the medical school --
something that will bring important benefits to Lilly, the university, and the general public.
Urban universities also have more opportunities to provide educational programs that are suited to today's students and their interests. This includes connecting academic activities to the world of work and making opportunities for service learning. Students seem more interested than ever in this type of connection between work, academic study, and service -- highlighting that people learn better when they are engaged and working to achieve some practical objective. Urban universities like IUPUI have an unusual opportunity to link teaching, research and service at the undergraduate as well as graduate levels, resulting in ever
greater student learning outcomes.
This engagement of both students and faculty leads to another important, but intangible benefit.
Engagement seems to encourage the continuation of institutional renewal and vitality. Of course,
every academic community must remain connected with and compete for national leadership in its
relevant academic disciplines, but engagement in their communities challenges urban universities
in a way that militates against isolation -- that brings home to people the unmanageable,
intractable problems of the real world. Connections with the community also keep universities in
touch with the climate of change that is so prevalent in our era and help the academy accept
change as a natural phenomena. Connections help our universities sustain a hard-working attitude
and a willingness to accept the challenge to prove oneself every year, as people in the surrounding
business and government must. Universities should be prepared to lay themselves on the line each
year in an effort to improve. In a sense this represents the IUPUI spirit -- sometimes known as
the Avis syndrome -- borne of our being second generation, not second class, trying harder, and
staying more focused
Urban universities have a different kind of community support that should permit them to attract
an increasing measure of private philanthropy. Urban campuses not only have the base of alumni
who graduate from those campuses, but they also have at least one and perhaps two other types
of donors who will play a role in strengthening these institutions. Some urban institutions include
medical centers, which can attract private support from grateful patients for their academic
programs. A related group is the leadership of the urban community of which they are a part.
Engaged urban universities are seen as direct participants in the success of their cities. This brings
forth a new and different type of donor, including those whose businesses are located in proximity
to the urban university.
The Urban 13 Plus
When we visited the idea of IUPUI's role in this urban university movement in 1989, we did not
have a fully developed notion of the institutions to which we should look for models. Since then
our faculty have sought to identify the characteristics of urban universities that will yield the most
useful peer group. That analysis has led us to think the best models are found in a loosely
affiliated group of institutions known as the Urban 13. Now 21 strong because of the addition of
campuses such as IUPUI, the Urban 13+ includes many institutions that look a lot like IUPUI. It
is not a homogenous group, but these campuses in varying degrees have the urban characteristics
-- the engagement and connections -- that likely will move them to the center stage in American
higher education.
The "Urban 13 +" includes:
University of Alabama-Birmingham University of Cincinnati City College of New York Cleveland State University Florida A & M Georgia State University University of Houston University of Illinois at Chicago Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis University of Massachusetts at Boston University of Memphis University of Missouri-St. Louis University of Missouri-Kansas City University of New Orleans University of Pittsburgh Portland State University Temple University University of Toledo Virginia Commonwealth University Wayne State University University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
IUPUI has become a participant in Urban 13+ activities. During the past two years, we have
hosted meetings of the Urban 13+ presidents/chancellors, provosts, and development officers.
Along with President Greg O'Brien of the University of New Orleans, and Professor Patrick
Rooney, I testified on behalf of the Urban 13+ at the National Commission on Costs of Higher
Education in Washington on October 22. In November, I became chair of the NASULGC
Commission on the Urban Agenda. These affiliations have helped us look more carefully at those
features of urban campuses that offer the best models for our own development and opportunities
to highlight our successes in reference to a national peer group.
IUPUI: AMONG THE BEST URBAN UNIVERSITIES
When we compare ourselves to our urban counterparts, it seems clear that we are destined to be
among the very best of those that will be nationally prominent. IUPUI will be in the forefront
because it is in one of the best cities.
Our City
Indianapolis is a city of optimal size with an emerging vibrancy and a high quality of life. It has
been ranked as one of the nation's best cities in many categories by several publications that trade
in rankings of this kind. Most recently, Indianapolis was listed among the 10 most improved
North American cities by Fortune magazine. In the article, "most improved" meant not only
better than before, but cities that were measured for overall business viability and quality of life --
places that stand out as great cities in which to do business. In putting Indianapolis in the top ten
with New York, Boston, Denver, and Seattle, Fortune noted that, since 1992, Indianapolis has
created 25,000 new jobs and retained more than 100,000 existing ones, resulting in a drop in
unemployment to a breathtaking 2.7 percent. One of the keys is a "turned-around downtown"
with a new $175 million Pacers arena. Another is White River State Park, the 250 acre city-center park that is home to a zoo, baseball stadium, state museum, IMAX theater, and the
national headquarters of the NCAA -- the capstone to Indianapolis's effort to be an amateur
sports capital. All these features cited by Fortune are related to IUPUI and will give IUPUI an
advantage in its ability to serve in the future.
Indianapolis, through the leadership of IUPUI, can become a city which transforms conceptions of
race as a result of full participation of all citizens in all aspects of economic, governmental, and
social life. It is a city of optimal size for civic involvement and commitment; it has a large middle
class population; city, business, and government leadership committed to diversity; and a public
university campus committed to affirmative action pursuant to IU policy located in just the right
place.
As we continue to create a campus climate where students can more easily interact and deepen a
personal commitment to their academic goals, the students themselves have put greater efforts
than ever before toward bridging any racial and cultural differences that might inhibit their ability
to achieve and work together toward common ends. To some degree this has spread to the
community. Quite some time before President Bill Clinton called for a national dialogue on race,
student leaders at IUPUI began conducting "townhall" meetings on diversity, in which I have
participated and which I personally have found to be a great source of inspiration and renewal.
Our students, too, have found ways to keep learning at the center, and we have been reminded of
John W. Gardner's observation that "Where community exists, it confers upon its members
identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security . . . A community has power to motivate
its members to exceptional performance. It can set standards of expectation for the individual and
provide the climate in which great things happen."
The IUPUI goal will be to provide a national model which meets the multiple needs of an
increasingly diverse society.
Our Location
Within Indianapolis, IUPUI is in the best location, at the very crossroads of the state, within a
relatively short drive of more than one third of the state's population. With the central location of
its main campus, the 45 locations included in its Community Learning Network, and growing
prominence in distributed education, IUPUI is well positioned to deal with oncoming competition
from other providers of distributed education and any changes that occur in how students choose
to learn.
Our Mix of Schools
Many urban universities include previously independent professional schools combined with the
core of the university found in the arts and sciences. IUPUI is no exception; several schools
existed as independent private schools before being incorporated in Indiana University. Examples
include the School of Physical Education, the Law School, the Herron School of Art and, of an
earlier era, the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. Combining independent professional schools
with the rich intellectual traditions of the university, and combining the professions with the arts
and sciences, creates an energy that has enhanced educational experiences for students. This has
contributed to IUPUI's personality and its particular service orientation.
Our Emphasis on Health
The best of these urban universities will include academic health centers. This is because health,
wellness, longevity, and quality of life have become a much higher priority. As the last vestiges of
the "Cold War" disappear, more of our national efforts will be put into living longer and feeling
better. National priorities, as reflected in funding for research, are shifting from defense-based
emphases on physics and weaponry to quality-of-life concerns based in the biological sciences.
Universities with the capacity to discover new knowledge and prepare people for lives devoted to
health, wellness, and longevity will be greater contributors to the public good.
IUPUI has pursued a path of building on the strength of the health sciences. Nearly every
academic discipline has some multidisciplinary activity built around health. IUPUI will continue
to provide the best training for people who choose careers as health care providers (most of the
state's health care providers are trained at IUPUI), but we have also developed centers of
excellence in related interdisciplinary fields that enrich the education of health care providers,
create the potential for technology and intellectual property transfer, and create opportunities in
cognate professional fields. Examples include biomedical engineering, biomaterials and
biomechanics, radiation physics, regenerative biology, aging, law and health, health services and
outcomes research, medical informatics, medical ethics and humanities, and public health.
Our goal is for Indiana to continue to advance as a center of excellence in all professional and
economic activities related to health. The establishment of the Indiana Health Industry Forum is
an expression of the importance of the health industry to our state and mirrors the commitment of
our university. Indiana's health industry, anchored by our university, should play an important
role in Indiana's economic future, especially as worldwide over demand for U.S. health products
and services continues to grow.
Our Health Schools
Indiana's potential as a center of gravity for the health industry is based primarily on the growing
strength of our health schools, which are all ranked among the top in the nation. And they are
well positioned to increase their impact. The School of Nursing is enhancing its national
leadership role in nursing research and moving to be a national leader in distance education and
the use of technology. The School of Dentistry has added to its research leadership at the
national level and developed a new forward-looking curriculum that has attracted praise from
national audiences as well as the dental profession in Indiana. The School of Social Work has
taken a major step forward in developing a new Ph.D. The School of Medicine has continued its
phenomenal growth in research funding and successfully concluded the consolidation of its
hospitals into Clarian Health Partners. The creation of Clarian not only will secure clinical sites
for medical education in turbulent health care markets, but it will serve as another important
ingredient in Indiana's efforts to anchor the larger health industry. It ensures that there will be a
regionally or nationally significant health care organization headquartered in Indiana.
The Clarian consolidation has gone very well, with relatively few snags. In fact, the College and
University Personnel Association gave IUPUI a national award for excellence in human resource
management in conjunction with the transfer of employees to Clarian. Some of the greatest
challenges remain, however. We must continue to develop mutually supportive operating
relationships with Clarian leadership and ensure the preservation of an identifiable faculty who are
appropriately supported and who will be the keepers of the core values of academic medicine.
A Strategic Investment in Health
The growing national interests in health and quality of life, the state's interest in the health industry as a basis for economic growth, the advancing strength of our health schools, and the emphasis on health throughout the university, all combine to make this a critical time for assessing strategic investment opportunities. Any such analysis should begin with the recognition that our core strength lies in the School of Medicine and that strength must be a key element in planning. We must be solidly in the front rank of public medical schools nationwide and increasingly competitive in seeking support from the federal government and other sources.
This is an important time to be more competitive since funding for the National Institutes for
Health (NIH) has increased faster than inflation. NIH funding was increased by nearly 7 percent
in this Congress so that it will be $13.5 billion in FY 1999. It appears that the political
commitment is in place to double NIH funding over the next five years, so that in FY 2004 NIH
funding should be $27 billion. There will not be any such increase in funding for other agencies
and there could even be decreases in funding for the NSF or NEH. Since 1997 the NEH budget
has been cut by nearly 40 percent so that for 1998 it is only $110.7 million.
If Indiana, its health industry, and its educational institutions are to take advantage of these
increases, we must fortify our competitiveness and continue to build our research infrastructure in
health. We must invest more in selected areas, such as cancer research, where we have a
blossoming competitive advantage, so that we can at least double our own research income in the
coming years as NIH resources expand. By way of what we have called the "Top Ten Health
Sciences" initiative, we propose to ask private sources and the state to join with us as we
reallocate to make a total investment in health research infrastructure of at least $15 million per
year to enhance our competitiveness and secure Indiana's role in the national focus on health.
Doubling our research income would produce very impressive economic benefits for the state,
given the multiplier effect from research expenditures, the spin-off of intellectual property, and the
concentration of people that -- combined with such companies as Lilly, Boehringer Mannheim,
Cook, and others -- will continue to charge the intellectual magnet. This past year IUPUI earned
more than $128 million of the all-campus IU total of $207 million in grants. Of that IUPUI total,
nearly $105 million was earned by the School of Medicine, yet nine separate IUPUI schools each
earned more than $1 million in grants. A significant part of the grant activity in these nine schools
was for health-related activities. The highest percentage increase was in SPEA, which went up
63 percent to earn a total of $1.8 million. IUPUI's Purdue schools experienced noteworthy
increases. Engineering and Technology had a 29 percent increase for a total of nearly $6 million,
and the School of Science had a 16 percent increase for a total of $4.2 million in 1996-97.
Considering the relatively small size of IUPUI's general academic faculty, and the broad range of
their responsibilities, all disciplines have established a remarkable record of achievement and
compare very favorably to faculty in other institutions.
Our Research Corridor
This research activity at IUPUI should help advance the vision set forth by the IU Board of
Trustees in the 1970's. In the 1974 reorganization, the trustees designated IUB and IUPUI as the
core campus, and established several interlocking relationships between the campuses in the hopes
that intellectual contacts would build. It was the first stage of an evolving understanding that the
destinies of IUB and IUPUI are intertwined and that the state's three research campuses -- IUB,
Purdue University West Lafayette, and IUPUI -- form a research corridor that will be especially
valuable to Indiana. While the campuses of this corridor will always have a sense of
independence, and there will always be Boilermakers in West Lafayette and Hurryin' Hoosiers in
Bloomington, the intellectual and research resources of these three campuses should be
orchestrated in the interests of the state. The three campuses, in combination, can be competitive
with any university resources in the nation and should continue to build the corridor of higher
education, advanced technology, sophisticated industry, and research that runs along the arteries
from Lafayette to Bloomington and fuels Indiana's economy.
Our One University
The growth in research activity at IUPUI, and the likelihood of continued growth in health
research, have engendered more interest in IUPUI, spawning new kinds of collaborative
management and teamwork involving both campus-based and university officers. For example, as
of the middle of the 1996-97 academic year, all technology management has been concentrated in
a single office -- the IU vice president for information technology. All IUPUI technology offices
had previously been merged into one office of integrated technologies, and this was subsumed in
the new universitywide office. This new cooperative venture will remain grounded in campus
priorities and provide good service to academic programs. Led by IU Vice President for
Information Technology Michael McRobbie, it offers excellent new opportunities for university
leadership, economies of scale, and vision. While retaining responsibility for overall coordination
of IUPUI's technology infrastructure, Garland Elmore will play a leadership role for all of IU in
the applications of technology to enhance teaching and learning.
One important new project is already emerging from this teamwork. Planning has been initiated
for a communications technology complex that would house the various parts of information
technologies on the IUPUI campus, now spread around in places not readily accessible to users;
the school of new media as it emerges; the terminals of new information superhighway systems
such as Internet II; city and state offices related to information technology; private companies that
have reason to locate research or start-up activities in proximity to other uses in the complex; the
Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System; and possibly WFYI, the public broadcast
organization for the region.
More connected intercampus activity was begun with the establishment of the Advanced Research
and Technology Institute (ARTI), led by Doug Wilson, which through additional central staffing
has enhanced the capacity of IUPUI programs, particularly those in the IU School of Medicine, to
transfer technology and license intellectual property. In what could be another important
collaborative venture, a movement is under way to establish the long-awaited research/industrial
park in the area between the 16th Street campus of Clarian and the IUPUI campus. The city,
Clarian, Purdue University, the Indiana Health Industry Forum, the School of Medicine, the
campus, and ARTI are all actively engaged in the planning process.
A New Office for Research and Graduate Education
The collaborative project that has the most far-reaching potential, however, relates to research
and graduate education at IUPUI, the growth of which has made it desirable to create and better
coordinate more multicampus connections. To facilitate this, a new office will be created with
both campus and university responsibilities. Simultaneously an associate vice president for
research, reporting to IU Vice President for Research George Walker, and vice chancellor for
research and graduate education, reporting to the campus administration, the person heading this
office will affirm the importance of research and graduate education at IUPUI, respond to
President Brand's State of the University theme of renewing our commitment to excellence, and
help to usher in IU's new era of national competitiveness in research and grant activity.
Even as the recruitment for this office goes forward, new multicampus corridor projects give
some indication of what may lie ahead. Collaborations to explore proton therapies have grown
between School of Medicine faculty in ophthalmology, cardiology, and radiation oncology and the
Cyclotron faculty at IU Bloomington. The biomedical engineering programs developed between
the Purdue Schools of Engineering at West Lafayette, the IU School of Medicine, and the Purdue
School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI recently were given some important
encouragement by way of an initial $1 million grant from the Whitaker Foundation. Since 1990,
when the IU Office of Research and the University Graduate School (RUGS) began its
multicampus grants, 116 grants have been made for teaching and research activities between
Bloomington and Indianapolis. Of the 94 multicampus grants made primarily for research, 58
involved IUPUI faculty and 38 involved health. This new combined office should enhance these
universitywide research corridor activities.
The office will also lead the development of model graduate education programs for the urban
university of the future, helping to connect the offerings at IUPUI with the university centers in
Bloomington and Lafayette. Indianapolis has the state's largest population of well-educated
people, who will need graduate-level educational opportunities to maintain competitiveness and
explore their various interests. IUPUI will provide the intellectual magnet only if, with the
support of Bloomington and Lafayette, it offers a range of graduate programs that are especially
developed to address community needs. These will not likely be traditional graduate programs.
They will be connected with the region's business and industry. They will be different in terms of
the credentials that will be awarded for study. Few, if any, new Ph.D. programs will be
established. There will be more master's degrees, but at a very high level of quality since the
magnet can be energized only by the highest quality programs. The growth in master's degree
production in recent years reflects these dynamics. Since 1992-93 the number of master's degrees
awarded at IUPUI has increased by 33 percent to 659 in 1996-97. If new Ph.D.'s are created,
they will almost certainly be in interdisciplinary fields closely allied to applied research without an
expectation of academic appointment or an emphasis on teaching as is typical of conventional
degrees.
The high level of quality for this type of advanced education is already in place, as shown by such
rankings as the 8th edition of the Gourman Report on graduate education. Based in large part on
graduate programs in the health fields, the Gourman Report ranked graduate education at IUPUI
26th nationally among public universities, just behind Michigan State at 24th and Ohio State at
22nd, and well ahead of such Urban 13+ counterparts as the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Recent examples of the type of new degrees that should be provided include the master's in
economics, the master's in public health, and the proposed master's in new media that is just
emerging in the approval process.
Such industry-related graduate education may address another issue for the state. Indiana ranks
10th in the production of Ph.D.'s (1,118 in 1996), 14th in total population, but it is among the
lowest in the percentage of the population that holds a baccalaureate degree or more. This is
primarily because Indiana had so many good jobs in agriculture and smokestack industries. The
incentive to go to college was thereby diminished, and enrollments were lower here than in places
where there was less blue collar success. This underproduction has changed and the pipeline in
Indiana's institutions should cause Indiana's ranking in per capita educational achievement to rise
along with median family income. In the interim, connecting IU and Purdue graduate education at
IUPUI with the economic activity of the state's largest city may accelerate this improvement.
A Caveat
The emphasis on engagement, connections, economic impact and health in this discussion of
IUPUI should not detract from our long-term effort to continue to build the arts and sciences as
the core of our university community. This is a continuing commitment, unaffected by efforts to
seize new opportunities. Moreover, our engagement with the community and our health emphasis
will directly enhance many programs in the arts and sciences, which are themselves engaged and
often health related. This is especially so in the biological sciences.
New aspects of engagement are being explored that will have a direct and positive impact in our
basic academic units. For example, at the annual dinner of the NASULGC Commission on the
Urban Agenda in November, we presented an award to Desmond Lee, a St. Louis philanthropist,
for his gifts to create chairs at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. These chairs are in the arts
and humanities and designed to be joint appointments with arts and cultural institutions in the
community -- institutions such as the historical society, art museum, and symphony. The
University of Illinois at Chicago has launched the "Great Cities" program that includes joint
appointments with cultural institutions and community organizations. Discussions are currently
under way in Indianapolis to pursue these same sorts of chairs and relationships.
Urban University Costs
While urban universities are engaged and derive benefits, such as charitable contributions and the
services of highly talented adjunct faculty, additional costs must be borne, as well. Bearing these
costs and simultaneously producing at high levels is another attribute of urban campuses such as
IUPUI. We became mindful of these costs when we offered testimony to the National
Commission on the Cost of Higher Education. In larger cities, prices of most items are high
compared with smaller communities, making the costs of urban universities greater. In addition,
public university campuses often are open to the general public; many urban public campuses have
substantial traffic with attendant costs. This is especially so with respect to libraries. At IUPUI
during 1996, more than 30,000 community users checked out books through the University
Library circulation desk. This represents about 10 percent of all patrons, both university and
community, and a proportionate part of the library budget that equals roughly $750,000. The
public also uses reference and technological resources. For example, in the Indianapolis Marion
County Public Library System, only 90 personal computers are available to the public; at IUPUI,
we offer 180 publicly accessible PCS.
Another new university cost relates to serving students with disabilities. We are proud of our
efforts to serve students with disabilities and believe this is an important ingredient in our
institutional personality, but there are special costs for urban institutions. For example, at IUPUI
the cost for interpreters used by students with hearing impairments has gone from $15,840 in
1990 to nearly $200,000 in 1996. The demand for interpreters has been much smaller at the
Bloomington campus, even though there are more total students. In 1986 at IUPUI, 159 students
registered with the office of Adaptive Educational Services, which provides adaptations for
students with disabilities. By 1996 the number of students registered had grown to 1,612,
reflecting a 914 percent increase over 10 years.
Despite these costs, IUPUI's (and IU's) tuition rose last year by the lowest percentage in 21
years. Still, at IUPUI, these costs must be absorbed in a base of state funding that may not be as
fully developed as for older campuses. Many urban institutions are newer and haven't had as
much time to build up private support, including endowments. They haven't had as much chance
to earn state funding for new or special programs as older campuses, especially those that
participated fully in the period of greatest growth of public funding for higher education. Many
urban campuses grew up during the period when public funding had already begun to erode. This
is the case for IUPUI, whose funding has never caught up with enrollment growth. Urban
campuses also have been disadvantaged at times by funding formulae that are tied to FTE student
counts. These formulae count part-time students only to the extent that their collective credit
hours total the threshold for full-time status. While this may make sense for academic work, it
does not take into account the fact that many services provided by universities -- such as adaptive
services, admissions, registration, bursar functions, financial aids, and academic and career
counseling -- are used by part-time students as much or more as by full-time students. In fact,
many part-time students require more help because of their inexperience and need to balance
personal conflicts with academic demands.
Finally, in terms of costs, there is a chronic problem that has been borne disproportionately by
urban universities and their students, many of whom study part-time. For the most part, state and
federal financial aid is not available in significant quantities for part-time students. This is so
despite the fact that part-time students contribute to society as students, as employees, and as
taxpayers. Not only are part-time students not eligible for benefits, but many of them earn enough
so that their tax liability each year amounts to several thousands of dollars. A model for IUPUI
part-time students was developed which determined that if a single, independent student with no
dependents earned $7,000 per year and enrolled for 9 credit hours per semester, that student
would have crossed the threshold and would pay more in taxes than the student would be eligible
to receive, even as a full-time student, under both state and federal financial aid programs. This
means that we are making those who are in the educational process part-time not only pay for
their education, but pay taxes for the benefits, primarily Social Security benefits, available to
others.
Our Collegial Environment
Another important feature of IUPUI as an urban university is its good collegial environment.
Through surveys over the years, our faculty have indicated that among the most important factors
in their decision to remain at IUPUI are the support, encouragement, and collegiality they find
among faculty and staff, not only in their own disciplines but in other schools and departments, as
well. There is an IUPUI spirit, which is reflected in various ways. It has enabled IUPUI to
embrace change, such as by applying technology and rethinking the role of faculty. An example is
the experiment taking place in our Purdue School of Science Department of Psychology. Using
technology, the responsibility for lectures and examinations for the high-enrollment basic
psychology course has been assigned to small groups of faculty within the department, freeing
other faculty time for tutorials and direct student support. The 30 or more asynchronous web
courses that now emanate from IUPUI's various schools and departments is another example of
innovation that would not be as likely at institutions lacking IUPUI's spirit of collegiality and
mutual support.
This spirit also has helped to create a continuous process of cultivating a highly accomplished
faculty, evidence of which comes to our attention every day through new appointments,
promotion and tenure applications, and the laurels earned by senior faculty. In every way the
faculty continues to grow as a source of pride for the state. It is no surprise that we continued
this year to have a favorable balance of faculty trade, having recruited 24 faculty from other
institutions, including Yale (Medicine), Michigan (Dentistry), Notre Dame (Business), and Hong
Kong (Law), and lost only 9 faculty to other institutions.
Another feature of the campus that supports collegiality is the process of administrative reviews.
This year there were more reviews, and the reviews concluded to date indicate a high level of
trust and confidence among all members of the university family. The reviews of Executive Vice
Chancellor and Dean of Faculties Bill Plater and Associate Vice Chancellor, now Dean of
University College, Scott Evenbeck revealed excellent work on the part of the incumbents, but
also reflect the healthy and positive relationships that characterize life at IUPUI. Moreover, an
exceptionally able group of faculty leaders and excellent conditions in the faculty governance
system have caused IUPUI to be in the forefront of examining and resolving issues confronting
universities across the nation. As the work of IUPUI's Task Force on Faculty Appointments and
Advancements has been fully reviewed and absorbed, IUPUI faculty governance has shown itself
to be a very effective agent for balancing complicated interests to advance the welfare of the
university. The current discussion of posttenure review could serve as a model for other
universities.
The fine work of people in the campus administration will make it easier for us to undergo a
transition that is in process. Earlier this year we asked Gene Tempel to leave his position as vice
chancellor for external affairs to become the executive director of the IU Center on Philanthropy
-- an extremely important model for interdisciplinary work and the subject of long-standing
professional interest for Gene. Also, Herman Blake will be leaving us sometime during the spring
term to join his wife, Emily, at Iowa State, where they both have new and very attractive
appointments. These are nearly irreparable losses and will be profoundly felt. The transition will
be much smoother because we have been successful in recruiting an extremely able successor to
Gene Tempel. Cheryl Sullivan, who has held a major leadership position in state government and
has the exact type of background to guide our external affairs activities in the future. After only a
few weeks, she is already taking hold of a number of important responsibilities.
Our Office for Women
Our mutually supportive environment also has produced a consensus for examining how we relate
to each other and how we can better work together to eliminate historical problems of
discrimination. In this spirit, the Office for Women was created in 1997, and it has developed a
full agenda of activities designed to make certain that we have the full contribution of all members
of our IUPUI community. At the initial suggestion of the Office for Women, and now at the
request of the IU Board of Trustees, we have under way an equity study of compensation that
should allow us to remove any lingering inequities based on race or gender by the year 2000. In
accord with the policy established in November by the trustees, we will simultaneously resume
our compensation study of peer institutions to ensure that we are in the 60th percentile by the year
2000. There will also be a study of the 18/20 retirement programs for faculty and key staff, which
will grow dramatically in cost over the next 15 years. No consideration will be given to divesting
any current employee of benefits. The study will include only an examination of how to finance
the cost of the benefits that are already an expectation for employees.
Institutional Improvement
The system of information management and program reviews initiated when Trudy Banta joined
us in 1992 has helped us make many improvements based on comparisons between IUPUI and
other universities and organizations. We have developed a much better capacity for using data to
analyze institutional issues. Ten years ago we did not have this capacity. Today, as anyone who
reads the Research Briefs distributed by our Office of Information Management and Institutional
Research knows, we have extremely good information that has made our decisions much better
and helped us become a "learning organization.". Our use of data has also been recognized by
others who are interested in institutional improvement. The American Productivity and Quality
Center based in Houston selected IUPUI as one of the top seven organizations in the world in its
use of information to aid decision making. The selection was made from a field of 200
organizations, including both businesses and universities. Based on that recognition, IUPUI was
the site for a visit this fall from representatives of 10 universities seeking to learn about how
IUPUI uses information.
Increasing the institutional data-gathering capacity has enabled IUPUI to develop a more student-oriented, customer-oriented array of services, especially in the student enrollment support
services. The notion of a one-stop service, with an emphasis on having the first point of contact
solve most problems students have, has become much more a reality at IUPUI. We have come to
understand our students' needs better as we see their reactions to questionnaires tracked over
time. In the student satisfaction survey this year, students reported that, as in the past, they are
most satisfied with those aspects of their academic experience that they also value most: the
quality of academic programs and the quality of faculty. They also praised registering for classes
by phone, library hours, and how safe they feel on campus. From 1996 to 1997, statistically
significant increases in learning occurred in 12 of the 15 skills and knowledge areas about which
we queried them. The greatest growth in learning this year compared to last occurred in
integrating knowledge from several different fields of study, viewing phenomena from several
different perspectives, and developing a sense of values and ethical standards. Students this year
are also more satisfied than in previous years with the relevance of classes to their careers,
although they are not as well satisfied with information about career and job opportunities. They
remain least satisfied with their social experiences here; although, unlike parking, it is not high on
the list of things that concern them most.
We also have recent first-hand testimony of how well our students are performing and how
enthusiastic they are about their studies at IUPUI. For example, two program reviews came to
completion within the past couple of weeks. One of them dealt with the Department of Geology
and the other with the Herron School of Art. The review committees, consisting of faculty
members from some of the best universities in the country, marveled at how articulate, talented,
and committed both the geology and art students were. Both committees said that they thought
that we had somehow arranged for professional actors to play the roles of students because their
comments about their programs were so positive, so well grounded in the best academic
traditions, and so convincing. They said that they would be exceedingly proud to have students
such as these speak this way about their programs.
KEEPING LEARNING AT THE CENTER OF OUR MISSIONS
We believe we will be among the best urban university campuses because we are part of one of
the best of the multicampus public universities which, itself, has chosen the best agenda for the
future. The IU Strategic Directions Charter (SDC) begins with the community of learning. It
reaffirms that learning and teaching are the heart of Indiana University and that it is our
responsibility to place student learning, intellectual exploration, persistence, and attainment at the
center of the university's missions. Since the SDC was adopted, we have heard similar thoughts
echoed in the comments of higher education leaders. In a recent speech, outgoing Ohio State
President Gordon Gee (president-designate at Brown University) emphasized three points that
are emerging from the Kellogg Commission study of higher education reform which he chairs.
Gee said: "First, our institutions must become genuine learning communities, supporting and
inspiring faculty, staff, and learners of all kinds. Second, our learning communities must be
student-centered. And third, our learning communities must provide an education of value and
values."
University College
Not only are these ideas part of the SDC, but they have been cultivated at IUPUI for a number of
years, beginning with the creation of the University Access Center in 1987 and the Undergraduate
Education Center in 1991. We have now created the University College -- the successor to the
UEC. The University College is now offering, or will soon offer, all the curricular and
cocurricular services and opportunities that have proven to be effective at other universities in
helping students to achieve their potential and success in their academic work. With the
establishment of the University College faculty at the beginning of the fall term, we have a
leadership group of our most talented and energetic faculty who will continue transforming
IUPUI into the learning community and the student-centered institution of which Gordon Gee
spoke. There is no more important work in the university, and the inaugural University College
faculty will long be remembered for their pivotal efforts. Their talent and commitment has already
had an important impact across the whole university, including on President Myles Brand.
The work of faculty and others in the University College has been rewarded by a series of grants.
The PEW Charitable Trust made a grant to a consortium of urban universities. including IUPUI,
for restructuring urban universities for student success. The Lilly Endowment grant for student
retention entitled "The Road to the Baccalaureate: Fostering Student Academic Achievement and
Increasing Persistence to Graduation at Indiana University" was a major factor in the development
of University College. Two U.S. Department of Education grants have been awarded: one to
develop the Upward Bound Program to increase IPS students' academic preparation for higher
education and one to develop student support programs for first-generation and low-income
students at IUPUI. Finally, there are two Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
(FIPSE) grants. One has already been made to Miami University to study the role of expectations
in student academic achievement and persistence at a consortium of institutions including Miami,
Xavier, Chicago State, and IUPUI. Another pending FIPSE proposal would expand the concept
of instructional teams at IUPUI.
At the same time, we have sought to explore the controversial subject of transmitting values to
our undergraduates. We believe we do transmit values by being a learning community and by
being student-centered. We also transmit values through the establishment of opportunities for
students to understand what Gordon Gee called "commitment, service, and community" through
an increasingly rich array of service learning opportunities. And we convey values by our own
personal and institutional commitment to public service.
These efforts to support the success of undergraduates are important not only because they are
at the center of our missions, but also because they represent a fundamental test of the way we are
organized. In other states, public higher education has been stratified by what has been called
"mission differentiation." There are community colleges, state colleges, and public universities.
In Indianapolis, we have only Ivy Tech and IUPUI. Long ago we concluded that Ivy Tech and
IUPUI should join together to provide a complete range of postsecondary offerings for the
communities we serve. This was the basis for the now 10-year-old IUPUI/Ivy Tech Cooperative
Agreement, which established articulation and a variety of cooperative programs designed to
make access to postsecondary studies seamless to the student. With IUPUI's broad range of
responsibilities, it seemed appropriate to cede to Ivy Tech some of the responsibilities that might
be borne by community colleges in other states, particularly with respect to remediation.
There is evidence that our approach is working. Although the evidence is not abundant, there is
support for the proposition that more students, particularly minority students, complete
baccalaureate degrees in a state such as Indiana, which does not have an explicitly designated
system of two-year community colleges and relies more on four-year campuses to provide widely
distributed threshold opportunities. There is also evidence that there are shortcomings to
Indiana's approach. The retention rates at IU's campuses have not risen. At IUPUI the most
recent data show that retention to the second year has actually slipped by a small amount.
There is also a continuing concern in Indianapolis over what seems to be a low production of
two-year degrees, particularly in technical fields. While IU has a new two-year statewide degree
option that will be completely articulated at any IU campus, and while IUPUI has produced nearly
600 associate degrees per year for many years, there are still community concerns over the total
of associate degrees in the region, which seems to be only about 800-900 per year. This seems to
be more of a problem for Ivy Tech, which, according to ICHE figures, awarded only 330
associate degrees in 1994-95. This can be compared with 2,795 associate degrees produced in
Cleveland and 2,388 associate degrees produced in Charlotte, North Carolina, during the same
year. This puts in question whether Ivy Tech has tried to do too many things and not fulfilled its
original purpose of technical workforce preparation.
These issues are of interest to us because we have an important stake in any organic changes in
the region's system of public higher education. We do not believe that any new institutions
should be created here to address perceived shortages in two-year degrees. Moreover, we do not
believe that there would be any benefit in changing our course to begin to differentiate missions by
breaking up IUPUI. We believe we have a better solution than the one chosen for the city of
Denver which has the Aurorea campus in its downtown area. It is located on one tract of land,
but it contains three separate institutions with different budgets and expectations for teaching
loads and research. On that tract of land are the University of Colorado at Denver, Metropolitan
State University, and the Community College of Denver, reminiscent of the California higher
education system. All this should cause us to reaffirm our commitment to the IUPUI model, to
University College, and to providing the best student-centered learning community managed by
the highest quality faculty.
At the same time, we have recognized that the success of our undergraduate students is based not
only on the academic offerings, but also to some degree on personal commitment. Our
undergraduate students tend to be first-generation college attenders. They often do not have role
models who can assure them of the value of a college education and help them navigate the
turbulent waters of the first year of college. They sometimes lack self-esteem and have little or no
opportunity to find friends and support groups at IUPUI because of the commuting nature of the
campus. We have tried to change that by converting the old library into University College,
where part of the space is devoted to a student center. We have committed to having a new more
suitable student center at the corner of University Boulevard and Michigan by the year 2000, or as
soon thereafter as possible. We have reorganized and enhanced our student affairs offices and
activities and tried to foster more student interaction and life on campus. New child care facilities
and more housing for students on campus are in the final planning stages and we have now
secured the IU trustees' approval to move IUPUI's intercollegiate athletic program to NCAA
Division IAAA. We are hopeful that these strategies will cause more students to bond with the
university and with each other so that decisions to drop out or stop out will be considered more
carefully and more students will complete our programs.
AFTERWORD
Urban universities are destined to play a more and more prominent role in higher education. IUPUI will be in the forefront of those urban institutions. It will be in the forefront because it is engaged, it is in best location in the best city, it has the right mix of programs, including its health emphasis; it is at the center of a research corridor that will be enormously important to Indiana's future; it has a special role in forming the core campus of Indiana University; it has a special spirit and collegiality, and it has chosen to place its greatest emphasis on being a learning community, in the broadest sense, which is truly student-centered. These ingredients should make a very compelling case as we move toward the Campaign for IUPUI in the year 2000 and take one additional step toward IUPUI's destiny of greatness.
Please send your comments regarding the IUPUI Chancellor's Speeches to chancllr@iupui.edu. |