Hazelett Forum: Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence

Hazelett Forum: Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence

I know there are many Indiana University faculty, staff, alumni, and friends in attendance this evening—and I extend a special welcome to all of you.

And, of course, I want to thank both Randy and Deborah Tobias for all they have done—and continue to do—for Indiana University, our state, and our nation.

Your service on various IU boards and councils has helped the university to thrive, and you have been great philanthropic supporters of IU across a wide variety of areas.

This evening, I intend to talk a bit about some of the challenges facing higher education broadly—and IU specifically. And I’ll speak a bit about how we are already addressing some of those challenges at IU what we intend to do in the years ahead to seize the opportunities before us and create a better future for all of those we serve.

My path to IU 

But first, let me say a few words about the path that brought me to Indiana University.

I earned my undergraduate degree at Tulane in the mid 1980s and got married right after college at age 21. I’m still married to the same man after 37 years, and we raised three children along the way. I went to the University of Kentucky to earn a master’s degree in organizational communication. Then I worked for a time in Germany, where I ran corporate communications for a bank that had the contract to do banking operations on American military bases. After a while, I moved back to the U.S., and worked in corporate communications in healthcare.

Then, I decided to go to the University of Kansas to earn a Ph.D. I had always been interested in technology and healthcare. So, I drove up the road 30 minutes to the University of Kansas Medical Center. I literally started knocking on doors. I said: “Hi, I’m Pam Whitten, I’m a PhD student and I’m interested in technology and healthcare… is there anything interesting going on here?” I eventually connected with an oncologist, who told me about this thing called “telemedicine” and there were only four programs devoted to its study in the U.S. I convinced them to fund me as a PhD student to study why telemedicine was underutilized. Then I was invited to serve as the first director of the medical center’s telemedicine program to develop clinical service delivery and to launch the program’s research portfolio.

Eventually, I wanted to get back to my dream of being a regular college professor, so I joined the faculty at Michigan State University, where my research focused on healthcare interventions via communications technology and health costs and outcomes related to telemedicine. For those of us who did early work in the field, it was rewarding to see that it only took the pandemic for telemedicine to become ubiquitous.

There was an opportunity for me to move into university administration as dean of the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State. I served in that role for about five years. Then I had the opportunity to become provost—the chief academic officer—at the University of Georgia, which, of course, is a large, public flagship and a top-tier research university. Among many other responsibilities, I was charged with increasing research productivity there.

Then, I had the opportunity to become President of Kennesaw State University, a highly diverse, urban-serving institution in the Metro Atlanta area. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to work in a different setting. It was going very well, and I was not interested in leaving, but the presidency of IU became available… and it is a dream job.

The serendipity of the variety of experiences I had throughout my career:

• working in a medical school,
• working in the Midwest and at a Big 10 institution,
• at a top-tier research university in Georgia,
• and an urban serving institution, which IU has in Indianapolis at IUPUI,

all combined to make a good match for IU.

I am honored to be the first woman to serve as president of IU. At the time I earned my doctoral degree, it was not at all common to see women serving as university presidents, but it has become quite common now. In fact, half of the Big Ten universities have female presidents today. I am enormously grateful to stand on the shoulders of countless women who have brought their energies to IU over the years, blazing new trails as students, faculty, and administrators.

Higher education continues to face questions about its quality, cost and relevance

Over the past several years, higher education has been faced with sustained and powerful criticisms of: its quality, its costs, and its relevance.

At IU, we continue to embrace the enduring value of a rigorous college education while at the same time recognizing the validity of many of these criticisms. Indeed, we share many of the concerns with our critics—and are asking deep questions about our underlying organizational and academic assumptions.

But the evidence is overwhelming that a college degree significantly improves one’s employment prospects and earnings potential. Bachelor’s degree holders are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers who only have a high school degree and they make $1.2 million in additional earnings on average over their lifetime. And, analyzing outcomes data from over 30 million students, a group of economists also found public universities offer the greatest upward economic mobility.

Higher education's traditional funding models under pressure

All of higher education’s major sources of revenue are under pressure.

Major increases in tuition are out of the question: the market and public will no longer bear them. Tuition revenue is also a challenge for many universities because of declining enrollments, which I’ll say more about in a moment.

Given recent trends, we can’t expect massive increases in funding from the state in the near future.

Research funding is becoming more scarce and more competitive.

In philanthropy, IU is the beneficiary of extraordinarily generous alumni and friends—generosity that has made many of our gains possible. Despite the fact that last year was a record year for fundraising at Indiana University, even under the excellent leadership of the IU Foundation, philanthropy can only do so much.

Student population shortfall

Let me say a bit more about the student population shortfall.

The college-age population is expected to drop five percent in the Northeast and Midwest by the mid-2020s.

Nathan Grawe, a leading scholar on demographics and the demand for higher education, projects a second drop of close to ten percent from 2026 to 2031, fueled by the peaking of domestic births in 2007. The Northeast and Midwest will be hit hard.

International students have counterbalanced demographic trends in the last decade, but that may soon end.

Changing expectations

And what our students and their families expect of us, and what our partners in government and business expect of us is changing.

Students expect a quality, affordable education in fields that are relevant to them… an education that prepares them not just for their first job, but for their entire careers.

Indiana employers want well-trained graduates in professional, high-tech, and other specialized areas that are essential to the state’s economy.

And our state leaders expect us to produce more Hoosiers with degrees and to be a partner in Indiana’s economic development.

How are we addressing these challenges at IU?

So, let me talk about how we are addressing some of these challenges at IU.

First, we have to ensure that we are operating as efficiently as possible and in a fiscally responsible way. The annual growth of IU’s operating expenses has been outpacing revenue growth for a number of years. So, we made $70 million in permanent budget cuts to bring IU’s operative revenue and expense trends back into alignment.

We also need to do all we can to ensure that IU remains affordable. I’ll say more about that in a moment.

And we have to reimagine how we fulfill each of our core missions.

Priorities as president of IU 

In my inaugural address last fall, I outlined the three main areas that will be our focus at IU in the years ahead.

First, we want to improve the student experience, and support their success.

Second, we want to do all we can to foster excellence in research, scholarship, and creative activity.

And third, we want to make major contributions to improving the quality of life for all Hoosiers.

A student-centered university

Our top priority will be taking care of our students and doing all we can to help them succeed.

While I’m president of IU, students will be the center of the IU universe. They are the reason we exist as a university. Their time at IU will be the only college experience they have, so we need to make it exceptional for them. We need to ensure that they get the coursework that prepares them for the career path they choose and that they graduate on time. But we also need to enhance the student experience. We want to create experiences for them outside the classroom that teach them to think analytically and creatively so that they can develop the skills they need to contribute solutions to some of the state’s most pressing problems. With every decision we make and every initiate we launch in the coming years, we will ask “how does this impact our students?”

I mentioned the decline in the number of college-age students. At IU, enrollment has been trending down year-over-year on every campus except Bloomington. We are getting fewer students, so we need to do more to retain the students we have and to ensure that they graduate in a timely manner.

IU has seen strong gains in the diversity of the student body in recent years. Last year, the student body included a record number of students of color. We intend to build on those gains and further increase the diversity of our student body.

We are already working on other new initiatives to help our students succeed.

One major focus of my first year was to assemble an executive leadership team, due to a number of retirements and other transitions among IU’s senior leadership. Nine cabinet positions have been filled over the last year, and we now have an exceptional team in place to help position IU for a bright and successful future. One of those positions is completely new, and it demonstrates—in a highly visible way—IU’s commitment to students. IU’s first Vice President for Student Success, Julie Payne-Kirchmeier, who comes to us from Northwestern University, will work with leaders across all IU campuses to enhance the student experience. Julie started at IU on August 1.

Affordability

We have given particular focus to keeping an IU education affordable in recent years, with tuition increases at historically low levels.

As you can see on this slide, IU Bloomington is one of the most affordable Big Ten campuses. IUPUI is also highly affordable relative to its peers, and our regional campuses are the most affordable 4-year schools in the state.

And over the past six years, IU gift aid to undergraduates has increased by $72 million to $220 million in fiscal 2020. Those aren’t loans—that is financial aid that doesn’t have to be paid back.

We have also implemented financial literacy programs that have had a major impact on student debt. We’ve seen a reduction in student borrowing of $126.4 million since 2011. That represents a 19 percent decrease in student borrowing across all IU campuses.

Special task forces

We have also established task forces this year that are working to improve various aspects of student life. As I’ve met with students and parents around the state, I’ve heard feedback about the opaque nature of the process of setting undergraduate tuition and fees. And so, we established a task force that is now working to simplify that process, provide more transparency for students and families, and find ways to keep an IU education affordable.

Another task force is working to ensure that our graduate students receive the support they need. We recently announced that IU Bloomington will increase minimum stipends for student academic appointees, graduate students who hold part-time teaching or research appointments and what we will cover course-specific fees for SAAs in programs that charge them. These actions are evidence of what can be accomplished on IU’s campuses with a collaborative, solutions-focused process.  

And still another task force is working to identify opportunities to reduce IU’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is a major concern for our students and for all of us at IU.

We have also placed a renewed focus on our students’ mental health and well-being. We know that transitioning to adulthood, to college, to a new living situation with new people is difficult—and doing this in the midst of a years-long pandemic was even more difficult. So, we’ve reviewed our current services and are developing long-term plans for monitoring students' mental health.

Expanding excellence in research, discovery, and creativity

Our second area of focus at IU will be to expand excellence in research, discovery, and creativity.

IU’s outstanding faculty and students are engaged in a wide range of research and scholarship that results in the generation of innovative new ideas, new intellectual works, and discoveries that cure disease, protect our environment, help secure our nation, grow the economy, and advance art and culture in our communities.

The IU School of Medicine accounted for more than 64 percent of IU’s total research funding last year.

The Bloomington campus accounted for 21.7 percent, IUPUI for 9.4 percent, University Administration for 4.1 percent, and the regional campuses for just over half a percent.

In the coming years, our goals for our research enterprise are to increase productivity and develop priority areas in areas of strength where IU can accomplish the most.

We also want to accelerate the translation of IU research into products, businesses, and services that benefit society in countless ways.

The IU School of Medicine

Our School of Medicine is the largest school of medicine in the nation in terms of enrollment. Its primary campus is here in Indianapolis, and it also has eight regional medical education centers around the state that offer all four years of medical education.

The school currently ranks 14^th among public schools of medicine in the nation in terms of the amount of funding it receives from the National Institutes of Health, the leading source of federal funding for biomedical research. We announced last week that it is our goal for it to move into the top 10 in this regard in the next five years.

The school’s research programs in neurodegenerative, musculoskeletal and pediatric diseases among best in the country.

Service to the Hoosier state

And third, as the state’s namesake university, IU has an obligation to serve the state by advancing the quality of life for all Hoosiers.

The importance of public universities like IU to the long-term economic vitality of the state is enormous. We are incubators for jobs and economic growth. We help to keep top students from Indiana and beyond in the state as our next generation of leaders. We train the majority of doctors, nurses, dentists, social workers, optometrists, and teachers in the state. Our School of Medicine and other health science schools conduct research that leads to cures and treatments for disease and illness.

In the coming years, we intend to partner closely with the state in helping to attract new businesses and industries to Indiana. We are also working to strengthen our existing relationships by connecting business and government leaders with IU’s resources and expertise in ways that will have a positive and meaningful impact on Indiana’s economy.

Advancing the quality of life for all Hoosiers

The importance of public universities like IU to the long-term economic vitality of the state is enormous. We are incubators for jobs and economic growth. We help to keep top students from Indiana and beyond in the state as our next generation of leaders.

IU is committed to being even more intentional in the years ahead about its engagement efforts in communities all across the state. In the coming years, we intend to partner closely with the state in helping to attract new businesses and industries to Indiana. We are also working to strengthen our existing relationships by connecting business and government leaders with IU’s resources and expertise in ways that will have a positive and meaningful impact on Indiana’s economy.

We train the majority of doctors, nurses, dentists, social workers, optometrists, and teachers in the state.

Our School of Medicine and other health science schools conduct research that improves Hoosier health, as does our partnership with IU Health.

And as president of IU, I want to ensure that Indiana-based employers and businesses enjoy a special advantage in access to IU’s talent base—be it faculty subject matter experts, student internship opportunities, or graduates seeking employment opportunities.

Recreating what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for Indiana University 

We are also recreating what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for Indiana University.

We have already accomplished a great deal at IU in terms of diversity.

Last year, degree-seeking students of color totaled 23,782, a record enrollment level of 29 percent.

A record share -- nearly 33 percent -- of IUPUI's degree-seeking students were students of color, and the campus boasted the largest number of Hispanic/Latino students as well as Asian American students in its history. 

Students of color reflected a record share of the degree-seeking student body at six of IU’s seven regional campuses and centers last year.

Hispanic/Latino students represented a record share of nearly 27 percent of the student body at IU Northwest, earning the campus a designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. 

But we aren’t going to rest on our laurels. We intend to build on this progress and increase diversity at IU.

Presidential Diversity Hiring Initiative

After nine years of serving IU admirably as both dean of the Indiana University Graduate School and vice president of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, James Wimbush has stepped down from his UGS role to focus solely on efforts surrounding advancing our culture of inclusion, accessibility and belonging. He will build on the success of IU’s existing DEI programs.

We've also invested in increasing the diversity of our teachers and researchers, through a seven-year, $30 million fund to accelerate our efforts to hire a more diverse mix of faculty. This initiative will provide our students with access to world-class teachers and researchers who bring diverse perspectives to our classroom and laboratories. In year one, we have hired 52 new underrepresented faculty members, and we estimate spending $7.5 million.

Of course, the retention of our current underrepresented minority faculty is also vitally important, which is why we hired Pamela Jackson as our first associate vice president for faculty and belonging. Pamela began her new duties on June 1, and she is providing leadership and a university-wide vision for recruiting, retaining, and recognizing underrepresented faculty. Her leadership and experience in community building will be key to building a more diverse campus environment that supports equal access, participation, and representation on all IU campuses.

IUPUI realignment

One week ago today, the boards of trustees of both IU and Purdue approved a new framework for our future operation and cooperation in Indianapolis. This new vision will transform IUPUI into separate academic entities in which IU and Purdue will govern their own programs.

IU will assume responsibility for the School of Science, with the prospect of preparing greater numbers of students for science-based careers. 

In addition, IU will add new computer science programs to help address Indiana's IT workforce needs. 

Purdue will be taking over responsibility for the School of Engineering and Technology, where students currently earn Purdue degrees, as well as the School of Science's Department of Computer Science.

IU and Purdue will partner to create a new joint biosciences engineering institute, which will develop new life-enhancing therapies and technologies and create a much-needed pool of professionals whose unique research and training will create start-ups and attract new companies to Indiana.

IU, which already has responsibility for the overall campus, will retain its current schools and programs, including intercollegiate athletics.

The campus will operate as IU Indianapolis.

This is truly an historic moment for Indianapolis, for IU, and for our entire state. We are building on IUPUI’s more than 50 years of accomplishment to propel us into becoming one of the preeminent urban research universities in this country.

In addition to expanding our science and technology programs, we plan to grow across the board, create more opportunities for students, and become even more deeply integrated with the Indianapolis community through close relationships with local businesses, nonprofits, sports organizations, and more.

Strategic planning for the future

Members of my cabinet have, over the last few months, been engaged in initial stages of strategic planning around our three areas of focus.

For our students, they have been discussing new initiatives to increase retention and graduation rates, to further increase the diversity of our student body, and to enhance the overall student experience. Concerning IU’s research enterprise, discussions have centered around increasing productivity and developing priority areas. And we are discussing ways IU can further contribute to the economic development of our state and make a greater impact on Hoosier health. 

 In fact, we recently concluded a productive retreat where these and other strategic action items and goals were discussed. Decisions will be make soon about goals and action items that will be prioritized, and we will begin meeting with campus leadership to discuss integrating these into campus strategic plans.

Conclusion

We are at an exciting crossroads. As we continue to engage in strategic planning, we’ll are planning for not only for IU’s next few years, but for the next 50 years.

IU is a university that is making major contributions to the state, the nation, and the world—and one that is in an excellent position to take the next bold steps to truly become one of the nation’s greatest public research universities.

We want to ensure that a first-rate education is affordable and accessible for Indiana’s best students and that it allows them to realize their greatest hopes and dreams.

For our communities, we share a vision of more jobs with better pay, enhanced educational and cultural opportunities, and a wider range of career opportunities.

And all of us want to see healthier and happier Hoosiers, who have access to the best health care, medical education, and research.

So many of you who are here today help make IU’s success possible.

Thank you for all you do for Indiana University.