2009 State Of The College Address

REMARKS BY DEAN HARRIS TO ARHU FACULTY & STAFF

 

 

 

 

 

 THE DEAN: We live in trying and difficult times. What is true of the country seems to be particularly true of higher education. I have no interest in comparing our experience in Maryland with that of universities elsewhere, but higher education in general appears to be in or entering a period of ‘shake-out.’ In part this is driven by the economy, in part by a necessary reconceptualization of American higher education, a structure that is essentially unchanged since World War II. I am convinced that some things will remain constant, among them the value of a top quality education in a state supported flagship university. Our challenge is to maintain that quality by focusing on our core mission and reconceiving ‘how’ we accomplish it in a way that responds to changing educational needs and significantly less state support.   

 

The specific contours of the current budget crunch at the University of Maryland are taking shape, though not all is yet known in detail. There were no pay increases this year and I believe we must be pessimistic about next year too. Indeed, while we do not yet know the details, furloughs face all of us this year as they did last – but these will, if I am correct, be longer. Likewise -- and I am sure it comes as no surprise to you -- we must return a very significant portion of our base and soft budget to the state. This will mean the elimination of a good number of vacant lines formerly held by faculty, staff, and graduate students. I do not think we can expect this money to be returned to us in the near future; in fact, we must expect a cut next year of at least the severity we face this year.  I do not yet know if layoffs will also occur – to date the number in ARHU has been remarkably and thankfully very small.  

 

Were the budget all we had to consider it would be bad enough, but we must also consider the consequences of an almost certain reduction in personnel. With a smaller number of faculty, we cannot provide quality education unless the number of students we teach also shrinks.   This is a major issue at both undergraduate and graduate levels, but the latter is one we CAN control and we must do so immediately as the shrinkage in jobs posted for Ph.D.s in many disciplinary areas promises to be at a modern low. I have asked Associate Dean Beth Loizeaux to address this issue by working with chairs and directors of graduate studies in the relevant units to cut admissions for Fall 2010 by a very significant amount and to reduce the total size of our graduate programs overall.

 

All-in-all we cannot proceed as if this were ‘business as usual’ because it is not. Following a series of very significant cuts from the early ‘90s to the aftermath of the .com crisis, to today, there is no program left in the college of Arts and Humanities that is seriously weak. All changes, of whatever form, must be strategic in nature. In order to reduce expenditures and to position ourselves strategically for the future we must change the way we operate. This will be painful, and I ask all of you to work with your chairs and directors and with me and my staff to assure that the changes we make are rational and forward-looking. I will address these issues in a minute or two.

 

As we contemplate change, we must recognize that we have many recent successes and accomplishments to build on.  Our new faculty are superb – as you saw earlier – and I have authorized fifteen (15) new searches in the coming year so that we may continue to bring new talent into our community. Professors Vin Caretta in English and Juan-Carlos Quintero-Herencia in Spanish both were awarded John Simon Guggenheim fellowships – the gold standard in our academic world. My congratulations to both – I was proud that two-thirds of all Guggenheims won on campus this year came from ARHU. The Provost has created a new Honors College and ARHU has been awarded a new program, Digital Cultures and Creativity, to be directed by Matt Kirschenbaum (Associate Professor in English and Associate Director of MITH). In conjunction with Honors Humanities so ably led by Peter Mallios (also an Associate Professor in English), ARHU will be a major factor in attracting the very best students to this campus. The entering class of undergraduates is excellent by any standard with average SAT scores up 20 points in one year on campus and in ARHU.

 

On the grant front we have had a banner year and ARHU played a role in the campus reaching a new high in external research funding of over 500 million dollars. External funding in ARHU (not even including Foundation funding) was up 21%. The National Foreign Language Center under Catherine Ingold won an award for STARTALK of over 22 million dollars, Linguistics was instrumental in bringing an fMRI to campus (the PI was Professor Collin Phillips of Linguistics), and MITH has won a number of awards from a variety of funding centers – under Neil Fraistat’s inspired leadership.

 

Space, always a major problem, was a part of the good news this year beginning with the wonderful renovation of Tawes – we were fortunate that President Mote was able to secure state funding for this project when he did. The result is spectacular and I hope everyone here will tour the building.   The renovation also freed up space for Communication and the Flagships programs in Persian and Arabic in Susquehanna. Another very significant renovation occurred in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and work on the new Collaboratory in Art History proceeds as we speak. Cooperation with BSOS resulted in a swap of rooms that allowed Art to contemplate a new configuration of a larger and better computer lab in Art Sociology. 

 

Finally, as we saw earlier, our staff are the best in the university – they make possible so much of the work that we do and they do it with good spirit even in down times. My thanks to them all.

 

Now I must return to the tasks facing the College as it positions itself to face the future. To begin with, we need to do all we can to concentrate our energies and resources on our core mission by setting priorities. Over the past year the chairs have met with me and my staff several times to discuss what is important to us in the future and how to build toward it – and we are pursuing these goals in the form of reallocation requests for a variety of new programs and faculty searches. Continuing to build is indeed significant even in down times. The searches this year are made possible by funds derived from the Provost’s award of reallocation dollars – for new faculty, or those who have not followed this structure, the campus Strategic Plan called for an internal reallocation of 2% each year – units give back dollars that are then reallocated by both the Provost and the Dean. This past year we received funds to support faculty searches and I am also reallocating within the college to support these searches and other new programs.   

 

Despite the influx of funds from the Provost, in the short term we need to find ways to meet both our obligation to the state as well as to set aside money for next year’s reallocation and to fund our own new programs. I have been assisted with this process by my staff, by the chairs and directors, and by College APAC (a permanent standing committee of the Collegiate Council that advises me on fiscal matters.). Consultation and discussion will continue as we move through the year within the College and within the units. I am investigating a wide range of possible changes throughout the college.

 

Several steps must be taken immediately. For example all units must find ways to cut costs in their daily operations, partially because we will be giving back a good amount of money in what is commonly called ‘soft’ budget – for example, funds earned by Summer or Winter programs.   The History Department -- as you will know from the Diamondback -- is moving toward a paperless environment reaping significant savings. I have instructed all units to notify me about the cost-saving steps they intend to take in this regard by October 1. I greatly appreciate creative approaches to both saving funds and generating revenue – small changes can make a real difference.

 

Generating additional income in the ‘soft’ budget category is also important. Summer and Winter term programs, Freshman Connection, and other entrepreneurial activities can, if carefully planned, yield greater revenue. Grants, too, are a way of supporting individual faculty and graduate students, and faculty have met twice with Michele Eastman and Anne Geronimo from the office of the Vice President for Research to discuss how that office can help. Fund-raising is more important than ever – and much harder to accomplish in today’s fiscal climate. All of these are crucial to future growth.

 

Cutting costs and increasing revenue are tried and true remedies that go beyond the band-aid level, but not far enough to supply a cure. To do that I am convinced that we need to question traditional priorities and practices, to ask whether the ways we have ‘done business’ in the past are appropriate to the future. The old is not, I suggest, good ‘because’ it is old, just as the new is not good just because it is new. But it is harder to question something one has done for years, if not decades, than something one is only contemplating doing in the near term. We must give serious thought to the new in this environment. 

 

Appointments must also be carefully considered and implemented. When we hire, we must hire only the very best – as we did this past year. If anything we must be even more diligent this year not only because the money we are budgeting for appointment searches is really scarce but because we must answer to the Provost for its proper expenditure. And we must hire strategically in support of our goals. This year we will search in ‘clusters’, one in the area of the digital humanities and one in Latin American Studies. This approach emerged from a college retreat and has the promise of building a critical mass in particular areas of importance quickly. If successful, we will repeat the process.

 

Finally, we must begin now to plan for next year. The Humanities Center was not funded by reallocation this past year, but I am convinced of its importance to both the College and the campus. We must continue to develop the proposal and resubmit it in a form that will find favor at the campus level.  Because our graduate programs are key to our status as a first-rate research university, every program must make the success of its graduate students a top priority. We must request campus funds from reallocation to add to our own so that we may raise graduate stipends, lower time to degree, improve the graduation rate and improve placements. This will not be cheap or easy.

 

In conclusion, let me say that I am convinced that we will get through this crisis, but it will be two years of real struggle. Much of it will be neither pleasant nor comfortable and I ask faculty, staff, and students to give their chairs and directors the support they deserve and need. Key to our success will be our commitment -- one we have discussed and agreed on over the past two years -- to a calm, civil, and reasoned approach to problem solving of all kinds. As I watch and listen to much of the national debate in our country, I come away convinced that higher education, and our university in particular, is one of the few places where we CAN discuss and CAN disagree on the important issues of our lives in a civil manner.

 

That makes our task and my job much easier and I thank you for it!