STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY ADDRESS

John Bassett
February 3, 2005

It is one of my great pleasures each year to give this "State of the University" address. Not only does it bring together a very broad group of University colleagues but also it is an opportunity to reflect systematically on the progress we are making at Clark, benchmarking year by year. This is my fifth such reflection, and by the fifth year one knows he really is no longer the new president-with the usual alibis for being new-but indeed the old president needing to show results.

It really is fun in moments of levity to take credit for bringing New England its first World Series victory in 86 years and its first two Super Bowl championships ever. After all, before I came you hadn't won any Super Bowls or World Series. Amazing Red Sox wins over the Yankees and Cards did provide an opportunity for splendid celebrations at Harrington House, including cider and donuts for 800 students at midnight, a week after 400 students trooped up Woodland Street celebrating victory over the Yankees and calling the president from his bed to share in the festivities. Kay and I are grateful for the work of campus police those nights and for the wonderful behavior of Clark students, the best bunch of young people in America.

On a more serious note, this 2004-2005 year is an important watershed year for Clark. We are in the process of revising our Academic and Financial Plan (our strategic plan) because so much has changed in the past three years and because we are committed to more rapid progress over the next five years in defining our institutional identity; improving our academic programs, campus life, and student quality; and telling our story better to bring greater visibility and more acceptances from excellent students.

Let me borrow from a draft of that plan to reflect on the advances already made at Clark in the last few years.

The quality and fit of the incoming undergraduate classes have improved (for example, the high school GPA of enrolling students increased from 3.27 in 1999 to 3.40 in 2004).
The campus has been enhanced through the addition of the Traina Center for the Arts, the Dolan Field House, new athletic fields, the Lasry Center for Bioscience, and renovation of older residence halls.
The information and technology systems of the University have been substantially upgraded.
The University Park Partnership (UPP) is cited as a model for university-community cooperation in neighborhood development and has given Clark considerable national visibility, a visibility increased by the success of programs in K-12 education. The UPP has also contributed to improved safety within the neighborhood. I should add that at last week's meeting of the AAC&U in San Francisco, Lani Guinier in a keystone address spoke glowingly of UPCS and Clark.
The University has successfully hired many superb new faculty who are a good fit for Clark's mission - with approximately 25% of the tenure track faculty hired within the past five years.
Campaign 2000 was successfully concluded, having surpassed the $100 million goal, and has been followed by significant investments in alumni programs based partly on an alumni strategic plan.
Over the past five years, the endowment has grown from $129 million to $200 million. Investment income has grown from a target of $5.2 million in 1999 to $8.1 million in 2004.

The successes of our last five years, however, bring into sharp relief the challenges we continue to face in order to have the quality of the educational experience at a level appropriate for Clark University.

The recent growth in endowment and tuition income notwithstanding, the revenues per student available to support academic programs remain substantially below those of most excellent private colleges in New England.
Several of our graduate programs are close to the minimum size required to maintain high academic quality.
The number of faculty members who have successfully obtained the major, multi-year externally funded research grants needed to support research groups is relatively small.
In undergraduate admissions, the yield on admitted students has remained flat resulting in total enrollment and net tuition revenues below target. We are competing with better colleges for better students but are not yet achieving improved yield among these students.
We are still short of our goals for retention of first year students.
We remain heavily dependent on merit aid to recruit outstanding undergraduate students, and we also have a low percentage of enrolling students paying full tuition.
Our location continues to be cited as a significant negative by many prospective students

In evaluating our current position, we know that two factors steer many students away from Clark-our location and our perceived academic reputation. Our academic image is very strong in relation to that of a lot of colleges, but not yet in relation to some of the strongest New England private colleges with whom we are now competing for students. Our location is partly a matter of neighborhood, which is much less a negative factor than ten years ago because of the fine University Park Partnership, and partly a matter of Worcester not being a hot ticket for 17-year-olds. That, too, is correctible as we not only make major changes downtown but also learn how to market better this city's remarkable assets.

We do have constraints. As I said before, Clark spends less per student than other elite New England colleges. Why? Our endowment of $200 million is better than ever before but much smaller than that of most all of the best colleges (Williams is at $1.2B, Smith at $850M, Trinity at $364M). The annual fund is also smaller largely because for decades Clark did not engage the loyalty of its alumni the way that Amherst and Dartmouth and Bates did. The net tuition revenue per student is smaller, partly because Clark attracts fewer students than those other colleges from high income families and ends up providing more financial aid per student than they do. Clark may spend every dollar it has more wisely than the other schools, because of our excellent staff and administrators, and surely there good reasons for excellent students to choose Clark; but still there are fewer resource dollars per student available here than at other top colleges.

Clark's fundamental identity remains that of a research university with a very strong commitment to undergraduate liberal arts education. The 17-year-old may compare Clark with other liberal arts programs, but our identity is also tied to having a number of strong doctoral and masters programs and a commitment to increasing knowledge through research as part of challenging convention and changing our world for the better. Undergraduates can benefit from being partners in that research, which is not true at many other universities.

Let me briefly review our recent recruiting of undergraduates. Last year we had the largest number of applications ever, 4400 (5% more than the year before). We took that opportunity to reduce the percentage we admitted to 62.49%, which may sound high but must be compared to an 80% figure only a few years ago. Quantitatively our yield was, as a result of this gamble on quality, disappointing-528 against a budgeted goal of 555. The quality overall remains solid with an SAT average in the 1180s and a high school GPA of 3.40, both figures much higher than in the late nineties. Most importantly faculty praise the general improvement in student quality over the last five years; but we still have a ways to go to fill classes of 600 students with the kind of student who will thrive in the learning environment here. Partly to achieve this goal and partly to develop an integrated marketing plan to better tell our larger story, I have made marketing a University priority-drawing on and implementing findings of a task force last spring, forming a Marketing Group under my direction with Harold Wingood as my vice chair, and hiring a consulting firm.

We know that to compete effectively at the undergraduate level we must not only have a strong curriculum but we must also be distinctive. We are currently planning several program improvements in order to increase our applicant pool and to increase our yield on the students we admit. When students do visit campus, the odds of their choosing Clark go way up. Again I want to thank all of you who help us "close these deals" through your courteous and helpful treatment of students and their parents and through making our campus so attractive. Once again this spring hundreds of those families will be here in Worcester, and I thank you in advance for being great ambassadors. Harold, by the way, tells me that our application totals this year are running ahead of last year. As of January 31 we have 3840 applications compared with 3575 at the same time last year (a 7% increase).

Perhaps the most exciting development this year has been construction and opening of our new bioscience center. A generous leadership gift from two loyal alumni has helped make possible this superb facility, the Cathy ('83) and Marc ('81) Lasry Center for Bioscience. My thanks go out to our many donors including the Lasrys but also to those of you who were hands-on involved from the start. I particularly want to mention Paul Bottis, who has provided excellent leadership, and, of course, Jim Collins and Fred Greenaway, Tom Leonard and Susan Foster and their Biology colleagues as well as Dave Thurlow and Chuck Agosta and our friends at Tsoi-Kobus Architects and Consigli Construction. There are also many others. The formal dedication will be April 28. At the celebration we will look forward in the field of Biology and also look backwards as we re-establish Founders Day with reflections on the contributions of earlier Clark faculty to research in the life sciences.

Now we have started renovation of the old biophysics building. By August it will provide updated and splendid quarters for Physics and for Mathematics and Computer Science. Subsequent renovations of Carlson Hall will allow for growth in our fine School of Management. Plans are also being finalized for additional space for one of Clark's most dynamic programs, the program in International Development, which, as IDCE, also includes Community Planning, Environmental Policy, and GIS Studies. Our major science project, moreover, comes on the heels of new facilities for the arts as well as upgraded athletic fields and the Dolan Field House. Even as we enjoy these new facilities we are discussing the feasibility of improvements to Goddard Library and turning it more into the real academic center of the University. We are planning a new residence hall, for the near future. Perhaps later down the road, not now, there will be a new alumni house and some significant work to improve our Main Street frontage.

A key player in all these discussions has been the Provost, David Angel, now in his second year as Academic Vice President. He has, as his colleagues say, gotten his legs as Provost, which is good since a year and a half ago he hit the ground running legs or not. In addition to leading the development of a University Self Study, whose completion this spring will precede the visit of our accreditation team next fall-as part of a process done every ten years, David has overseen the drafting of a "refreshed" Academic and Financial Plan as I noted before. The A&F Plan of a couple of years ago was a good one. But a lot has happened since then, and it needs updating. The new plan defines a sharper focus for the University's next five years and a more aggressive set of action steps designed to make Clark more competitive and successful in reaching its goals. Many of you will be commenting on the draft, whose primary goal is tied to undergraduate recruiting, primary because reaching that goal is necessary in order to gather the resources to reach our other just-as-important goals in graduate education, research, and visibility.

Strategies for reaching our goals will include academic program enhancements, improved opportunities in student life, aggressive marketing, ambitious University Advancement targets, sharpened focuses in graduate education, and selected investment in key research areas. Particularly important will be enhancement of programs related to three signature areas of the Clark experience. I was reflecting on these as I looked at my first draft of a letter I am sending to alumni this month and hope you will not mind my using the same phrasing as in the draft.

One signature is the global and intercultural dimension of Clark's student body, programs, and perspectives. A second is a commitment to bring academic learning into engagement with local and world challenges in order to make a positive difference. The third is a pedagogy based on the belief that textbook and classroom learning is richer when complemented by active participation in cutting-edge faculty research and by creative practitioner opportunities off campus.
Future Clark students will have more chances to engage in active learning, to be involved in making-a-difference projects, and to study abroad and gain international perspectives. New Associate Dean Judith Miller, a microbiologist, brings experience and expertise in developing active-learning options. Redesigning Dana Commons as a true intercultural and international center, increasing the number of students from abroad, expanding Study Abroad options, and increasing international course offerings will provide a richer global dimension to learning at Clark.
Your University, moreover, continues to be widely acknowledged for its successful and effectual record in community engagement. It was a thrill for me to receive from Rosalynn Carter in Boston last September the first Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award in Massachusetts for the most outstanding college-community partnership in the state, an award made to Clark and the Main South CDC together. Clark's remarkable projects and research in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, moreover, signify that "making a difference" and "changing our world" refer to regions beyond as well as in Worcester. I should add that gratifying and enlightening trips last year to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico reminded Kay and me that enthusiastic alumni elsewhere in the world remain very loyal to and proud of Clark.

We have also made a major investment to return the natural sciences to a central place in the Clark experience, and we will want to make sure that our programs and offerings in those areas complement our upgraded facilities. All of the program improvements, of course, cost money, and at some point in my annual talk our discussion turns to money. If our investments bear the fruit expected, the out years of Clark's budgets will be healthy. The difficult years will be FY06 and particularly FY07, which follows the graduation of our largest class and therefore the disappearance of a large chunk of tuition revenue. We are looking to make savings in these years that do not, however, negatively affect program improvements needed to recruit students. We have also had a continuing commitment to upgrade facilities and to improve staff and faculty salaries. With full awareness that FY2007 may require a short-term compromise on those commitments, they still remain at the top of our agenda. The Board of Trustees, by the way, will approve this weekend the income side of our FY2006 budget. That will set the boundaries for the expense side, which will be approved in the Spring.

Last year I mentioned three guiding themes that govern decisions now, and I will repeat them without expanding on them. One is focusing resources on campus priorities and making financial decisions on the basis of importance to reaching our specified goals. Another is more effective communication and cooperation among units; the vice presidents and I will continue to make changes and to reorganize in order to ensure an efficient, collaborative campus. The third is rigorous evaluation of graduate, research, and undergraduate programs. That continues and is influencing many decisions. All of these themes will continue to guide us as we face a more competitive domestic and international recruiting environment, a challenging fund-raising environment, spiraling health-care costs which bedevil all of us, and an opportunity to make major changes in the City of Worcester. While our Main South commitment continues, and in particular the Kilby-Gardner area will change significantly over the next year, downtown Worcester has an opportunity the likes of which it will not have again in my lifetime. Multiple projects including the Berkley Group's razing and creative rebuilding of the outlets area, a new Common, a new courthouse, a new hotel, improvements in Union Station, the Mass College of Pharmacy residence hall, a performing arts center, and new condominiums-all in conjunction with the new city leadership, a new partnership with the universities, and plans to reinvigorate business leadership-all this offers real hope that a more magnetic Worcester will have a positive impact on recruiting young people to Clark University.

Let me now review for you some of the statistics you often request of me. Last fall Clark had 2004 undergraduate students as compared with 1985 the previous year. This spring there are 1956 as compared with 1916 last year. Retention continues to improve in part due to better recruits but also to fine work by Dean Little, Dean Darrigrand, and their staffs. Among our 748 graduate students, 316 are in Management. The staff total 429. There are 159 tenured or tenure-track faculty and another ten full-time faculty. There are also 145 part-time or adjunct faculty, many of them teaching a special course in one area. We are searching for eight new faculty members this year.

The total budget this year is $83 million, our largest ever. As always only about one-eighth comes from endowment income and annual gifts, so we remain very tuition-dependent. Let me repeat, however, that our endowment for the first time has reached $200M, thanks to judicious stewardship by the Investment Committee of the Board and Jim Collins.

Last year I cited many important books published by our faculty. Let me tell you about some of the more recent ones. Bob Ross, as many of you know, has completed an important study of sweat shops in the global economy called Slaves to Fashion. Laura Hammond published an incisive study of refugees in Ethiopia entitled This Place Will Become Home. Hot off the press this month is Amy Richter's Home on the Rails, a study of the American railroad in connection with several social and gender-related issues. Dorothy Kaufmann wrote a splendid book on an unduly neglected French woman of letters, Edith Thomas. Mark Miller edited a collection of essays called Making Policy, Making Law. Jaan Valsiner edited a large collection of essays titled Heinz Werner and Developmental Science. Other faculty members such as Patty Ewick and Jackie Geoghegan published articles that won awards in their disciplines, and dozens of articles by Clark faculty appeared in major journals.

There were also many grants received. A few are quite large and deserve special notice. Michael Addis received a large NIH grant for work on depression and anxiety disorders among men; Tim Downs, Laurie Ross, and colleagues in IDCE a large grant from NIH for work on strengthening communities; Susan Foster and John Brown one from NSF for work in evolutionary biology; Arshad Kudrolli one from NSF for work on particle diffusion; Yuko Aoyama and Sam Ratick one from NSF for work on technology and globalization; Sharon Huo one from NIH for her work in organic chemistry; Ron Eastman one from Conservation International for work on biodiversity in the Andes; Billie Lee Turner and several colleagues one from NSF for work on the human environment; and Deborah Woodcock one from NSF for work on forests in Peru.

Students also received many honors. Sarah Connarley received a Compton Fellowship to study in Namibia. Kim LeBlanc won a Homeland Security Scholarship that also included research at Sandia Lab in California. Three Geography students won awards for outstanding presentations at the national convention. Five graduate students in Geography won major fellowships for their dissertations. While attending to student accomplishments, moreover, do not forget the stunning student productions of Twelfth Night and The Shape of Things. Our performing arts programs-including those in choral and instrumental music-are now giving us much of which to be proud. The athletic department also makes a major contribution to student development. Women's basketball played in the NCAA tournament last year, but I particularly want to thank our coaches for their tremendous overall contribution to education at Clark. They provide a very positive influence.

Each year I mention some of the new faculty members who energize the academic life of the campus. There is a new Strassler Professor of Holocaust Studies, Thomas Kuehne in the Department of History. Lisa Kasmer, a specialist in the 18th and 19th century, joined the Department of English. Amy Ickowitz, with an expertise in developmental economics who has done research in Africa, joins the Department of Economics. Deborah Martin, an urban geographer, is now part of the School of Geography. Odile Ferly, who studies and teaches Caribbean literature in French, is new in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Rob Boatright is our newest addition, this month in fact. A specialist in American politics and political theory, he joins the Department of Government. In IDCE we have three new faculty members-Miriam Chion in Community Development & Planning, Jude Fernando and Duncan Earle in International Development. Finally I want to note that Professor Don Nelson in Chemistry, a true role model for the inclusion of students in research, is now the Peter and Andrea Klein Professor.

We have a number of new administrative and staff colleagues. I cannot name all but hope you will accept the following as representative of our new staff. Judy Miller is a new academic Associate Dean providing leadership in active learning and special initiatives. Wes Gadson is the new Director of Academic Advancement in the Provost's office. Bill Edington has made a big addition to our Research Office working with Nancy Budwig. Jen Matos is the new Assistant Dean in Student Life and coordinator of ALANA programs. Guiyun Wang has joined Goddard Library as the Science Librarian. Ron McGuire is now Academic Technology Coordinator for the natural sciences. Several new Admissions professionals have joined the team-Hadley Camilus, David Shapiro, and Deborah Pratt-Barnette. In University Advancement several new faces are evident-Jeremy Hastings and Mary Jane Rein as gift officers, Paul Mondestin as Associate Director of the Clark Fund, LaDona Lanphere as Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs, Zaharah McKinney most recently as the other Assistant Director of Alumni Affairs, as well as Liz Walker, Margaret Hook, and Marycarol Horstmann. Marny O'Brien is new in Public Affairs. John Mattson is Director of Career Services in GSOM. Eric Saczawa is Assistant Director of Career Services for the University. Our new men's basketball coach is Morgan Cassara, and Brent Riddle is our new trainer. Tristan Tosh is Assistant Director of Res Life. Paul Bottis's team in Physical Plant has several new players including Russell Gray, Charles Hawk, Andrew Hogan, James Ekins, and Joseph Boule. Please forgive me for stopping here.

Kay and I this summer complete our fifth year with Clark staff, faculty, students, and alumni. We enjoy working with you to make this campus an exciting place to learn and meeting alumni with fond memories of teachers and students who made a difference in their own lives. We look back on these five years as one in which Clark built excellent new facilities; added forty-five new faculty members and many fine staff; defined its identity and mission more clearly; achieved greater visibility for excellence and contributions in areas such as international development, Holocaust and genocide studies, and education; and built programs to engage more alumni with their alma mater. Over the next five years I look forward to working with you to make Clark an even better university and one better known to potential students and the general public. Thank you again for all that you do.