Plenary Address
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
September 14, 2005
Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago

Good afternoon and welcome to all of you — faculty, students, academic and classified staff, friends of the University, and members of the general public who have joined us today.

We are entering the beautiful season of autumn, as the leaves turn and the learning intensifies — settling into our new classes, learning new names and faces, and beginning to work with new colleagues. We also are reflecting on those students and colleagues from last year who have graduated, retired, or otherwise moved on from the active life at UWM. I have always especially loved the beginning of school years for just this mix of reflection on the past year, reinvigoration from the summer, and enthusiasm about fully re-engaging in our common work ahead.

And we certainly have work ahead of us this year. We begin our tasks this fall, however, with an overarching sense of sadness for the lives lost and torn apart by Hurricane Katrina and with a deep concern both for those lives and for the common good of our nation. This campus community — faculty, staff, and students—has stepped forward to aid those who are the immediate casualties of this natural catastrophe and its aftermath. You have shown your generosity and care by your donation of goods and funds. And we have admitted 22 students from sister universities in the disaster area. As on the Gulf Coast, where life and the rebuilding of a society will continue, we also must turn to our work at hand with a belief that the seriousness with which we do so also expresses our compassion and commitment to the larger human good.

The focus of my address today will be on that work ahead of us, most especially on the challenge to our research mission and how together we can best advance our individual and institutional research goals. I have entitled my address The Entrepreneurial University: A New Model for our Research Mission because the term entrepreneur best captures the spirit and strategy that UW- Milwaukee must adopt to thrive in the coming years.

Before turning to the tasks ahead, however, we should acknowledge some of our achievements over the past 12 months. Last year, my first as your Chancellor, witnessed a number of major accomplishments of which we all can be proud:

• Enrollment of a record number of new freshman students this fall. We are projecting a final fall 2005 enrollment in excess of 28,000 students, a new record for UWM. We have an all-time record new freshman class of 4,280, an increase of 14 percent from last fall.
• The ethnic diversity of our student body is beginning to show results in this freshman class. We are showing increases in both the number and percentage of students of color in our freshman class. All targeted groups are showing some increase:
  • African-American new freshman are up 10 percent
  • American Indian are up 16 percent
  • Hispanic new freshman are up 27 percent, and
  • Southeast Asian are up 13 percent.
• Preparation and campus affirmation of Access to Success—our blueprint to enhance student success, access, and diversity. We start this year with the launching of this comprehensive agenda.
• Re-accreditation by the North Central Association (NCA) for a 10-year period with a requirement in 3 years for a progress report on student learning and on faculty, staff, and student diversity.
• Achievement of a record year for gift fund raising — raised $20.3 million, surpassing last year’s record total of $18.8
• million, with approximately 25% of these gifts directed to student scholarships.
• Progress on major building and remodeling projects — most notably the extensive sports and health addition to the Klotsche Center, which will be completed in late fall; the Kenilworth Building renovation, which will open a year from now; and remodeling projects on Lapham Hall, Mitchell Hall, and the Music Building.
• Successful recruitment of 33 new faculty, 17 of whom are female and 11 of whom are identified as ethnic minorities. I think this is a remarkable accomplishment for our academic departments, schools, and colleges in light of the difficulties caused by State budget reductions and the hiring pause last year.
• Establishment of the Wisconsin Institute for Biomedical and Health Technologies. Supported by an initial seed grant of $1 million from our university, this consortium of UW-Milwaukee, the Medical College of Wisconsin, GE Healthcare Technologies, Aurora Health Care System, and the Cerner Corporation will advance Wisconsin’s knowledge-based economy through biomedical research and improved health care. With its extraordinary leveraging capacity, this initiative is a model for the kind of large-scale collaborative research that is crucial to UWM’s future and about which I will speak more in a few moments.
• National recognition for the excellence of our men’s and women’s intercollegiate student-athletes, most spectacularly for the men’s basketball team’s success as a “Sweet 16” team in the NCAA tournament. The Athletic Department was awarded the McCafferty Trophy for the second year in a row, and third time in the past five years, as all-sports champion of the Horizon league.

In addition to being a year of notable accomplishments, 2004-2005 also was a very significant year for assessing our institutional goals and for positioning ourselves for future action. I think we were successful in these efforts. Let me review some of them before discussing with you our major challenges and opportunities for the immediate future.

I believe that we have successfully communicated the long term goals of this institution — goals that are firmly rooted in our historical mission as Wisconsin’s second largest institution of higher education and Milwaukee’s public research university. Our goals are to remain an institution of access and opportunity and to serve our community by bolstering our research and academic profile. These goals imply that we must expand our research infrastructure and graduate education, promote diversity, enable students to succeed academically, and maintain high academic standards.

I am concerned, however, that the sense of urgency that I have about the need to reach these goals is not universally shared within and outside our university. The reality is that Milwaukee has experienced a 30-year economic decline relative to other cities, and it will not be able to make the full transition to a knowledge-based economy without a large, comprehensive research enterprise to serve as its catalyst. The human tragedy on the Gulf Coast also has dramatically shown the precarious state of our most vulnerable populations. The recent report on the growth of poverty in Milwaukee, particularly poverty among children, is another wake-up call. Low high school graduation and high teen pregnancy rates are among the biggest obstacles to overcome if we are to reduce poverty among children. We simply cannot stand by while the quality of life and standard of living of this community continue to decline.

Last Monday I was delighted to represent this fine institution at an important gathering to unveil a regional plan for economic development in Milwaukee and six adjoining counties. I believe that this initiative, led by our political, business, and educational leaders, will, in years to come, be viewed as a turning point in Southeastern Wisconsin’s economic future. At that meeting, it was very clearly articulated by Mayor Barrett and others that higher education institutions must take the lead in ensuring a speedy and successful transition to the knowledge-based economy and that we must “strengthen the economy of our region by attracting, retaining and growing companies and diverse talent.” On a number of occasions the Mayor has told me that he believes UWM is in a unique position to influence our future because we are essential to the economic health and development of not just the city of Milwaukee, but the entire region. He shares our view that we must do everything we can to help the university build its infrastructure so that the important research work already under way can be expanded.

Milwaukee is a community with phenomenal assets (location, culture, arts, diversity, sports, cuisine, and a rich history) but we must insure that these positive attributes are enjoyed by all, not solely those whose incomes are above the median. UWM is fulfilling its mission by maintaining access while facing significant and continuous declines in public sector support. At present, state tax dollars as a percentage of our operating budget is less than 25 percent.

Once again we must ask ourselves: At what point does a public institution become quasi-public? Perhaps we are already there?

We must continue, as we have this year, to bring in well-qualified freshman classes that are more diverse than our student population in general. Applications, admissions, and enrollment of first-year students of color have increased significantly.

We are also particularly encouraged by the dramatic increase in students of color to the first year of graduate study. The increase in first-year African-American students to our graduate programs was an excellent 37 percent.

We intend to be known as the graduate institution of first choice. We must continue to recruit vigorously a diverse and high quality freshman class, and we must also put into place our initiatives to ensure the success of all students on our campus. As we do this, however, we must plan so that the rate of future enrollment growth does not exceed either our instructional capacity or our physical infrastructure, including adequate on-campus housing,
UW-Milwaukee certainly has lived up to its part of the bargain — we have not reduced access despite a $10 million budget cut that has been imposed on us over the next two years. How long we can continue to absorb students with fewer resources is questionable. At what point do we cease to provide access because we simply cannot afford to? Quality will invariably decline if we continue down this road. But we are committed to the success of this city, the wider regional economy, and the State of Wisconsin, and we intend to make the necessary investments using existing resources to meet our goals.

We cannot wait for others to realize that, in the absence of a growing public research university, this region will never make the transition to the knowledge economy and will continue to fall behind other cities. Wisconsin’s income per capita already has fallen below that of the national average, and projections are that by the year 2024 Wisconsin’s income per capita will fall to 83 percent of the national average.

UW-Milwaukee does not have the luxury to wait.

The Greater Milwaukee community does not have the luxury to wait.

We are prepared to move forward. We have a new Provost in Dr. Rita Cheng, a new Vice Chancellor for Research in Dr. Abbas Ourmazd, and a new Vice Chancellor of Administrative Affairs in Dr. Sherwood Wilson. The work of the Council on Inclusion and our Access to Success initiatives will continue to promote diversity and student success. We are hiring an Associate Vice Chancellor with responsibilities for diversity and campus climate and reorganizing our structures to ensure our goals are met. We have six new graduate programs for which we expect System and Regent’s support.

But our work here is far from done. Sustained success will require our sustained effort. I think that we, as a community, have clearly articulated our vision and are ready to meet the challenge we have set for ourselves.

Our most significant challenge this year is grow our capacity for research, especially self-sustaining funded research. To put the situation bluntly:

Unless we act boldly now to adopt a new model for using our resources to invest in funded research, the research mission of our university will steadily and inexorably erode in the coming years.

Let me state clearly that I do not equate all research and scholarship with extramurally funded research. Not all endeavors that we support and recognize as essential to our identity as a public university lend themselves to significant levels of extramural funding.

I know well that many, many faculty and academic staff members, as part of their state funded responsibilities, conduct research that expands the frontier of knowledge in their discipline; serves larger professional, business, and community interests; and trains graduate and undergraduate students in the rewarding rigors of discovery. This is as it should be.
But let me state with equal clarity that funded research at a much higher level than we now have is essential to our survival as a major research university. We depend on extramural funding and the overhead to the university that it generates for many critical activities.

Extramural funding:

• Supports graduate education and the involvement of students in advanced study;
• Supports graduate assistantships;
• Replaces and supplements state dollars in faculty and staff lines, freeing those dollars to support other parts of our mission;
• Supports the physical and administrative infrastructure of the university;
• Enhances our national and international reputation, which attracts top-quality faculty and students; and
• Fuels a knowledge-based economy in our region

We are at a critical crossroad in UWM’s history: Either we act to significantly grow our funded research from its current $23 million to close to $100 million within 10 years, or we conduct business as usual, and our funded research will erode until we no longer are a major research university. That is our reality and that is our challenge.

Why is this my assessment of our current research mission? Several important national and local trends contribute to the situation.

• One factor is that the large federal funding agencies, notably the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are not increasing their overall research funding to higher education. And the funds that are available are increasingly focused on specific national priorities. We are engaged with other institutions in a highly competitive quest for limited, very targeted federal dollars. To compete effectively for these limited extramural dollars, we must invest significant resources in our most promising projects.
• Another factor, which I discussed with you in my inaugural address, is the continued reduction in state funding to higher education. We are a public university with a broad mission, but we are not adequately funded with public dollars to fulfill our research mission.

I will continue to forcefully advocate to the University System, to our constituencies, and to our elected officials for new funds ― making the argument that public investment in higher education is a powerful stimulus to civic life and economic growth. We have only to look at the current economic miracle of Ireland. When Irish President Mary McAleese visited our city and campus in August, we had the opportunity to discuss renewed, strategic investment in public education and an entrepreneurial approach to economic development. But, as I stated last spring, we in Wisconsin cannot realistically look to increased public funding in the near term.

• A third factor, which is internal to the UW System and UWM , is the distribution of those state funds designated to stimulate and carry out research, the so called “101-4” funds. These are dollars that many years ago were earmarked in the budgets of campuses to support their research mission, as distinguished from “101-2” funds, which are earmarked to support instruction. Currently, Milwaukee has $13 million designated as 101-4 funds.

I state to you today that at UWM we are not making optimal use of these funds, which are embedded in many parts of the university’s operating budget, to grow our funded research enterprise. One indicator of this is that an investment model is generally judged to be successful if each dollar invested yields three dollars in return. Using this model, UWM’s $13 million in 101-4 funds should yield a funded-research return of $39 million, plus the overhead generated by those grants — well above where we currently stand.

• A fourth factor is the changing structure of funded research. More than ever, large-scale funded research is conducted by public-private partnerships like our Wisconsin Institute for Biomedical and Health Technologies. This is the structural model for future success in funded research: collaborative ventures that require seed capital from all the partners.

Given these funding and structural realities, we need to take two immediate steps:

First, we must reallocate our own resources to stimulate greater investments in research. That is, we must act as entrepreneurs – people who own, launch, manage, and assume the risks of our ventures. We must quickly develop and implement a plan to ensure that our research dollars are invested strategically to earn a return in the form of support of further research in an on-going, self-sustaining and growing research enterprise.

Second, our research infrastructure must grow simultaneously with increasing participation of government, business and individuals willing to make further investments in research partnerships like the Wisconsin Institute for Biomedical and Health Technologies. It is time for the public and private entities to join us in this win-win plan. To implement this two-fold approach, we must develop a process that makes research seed money available to the entire campus community on the basis of competitive excellence rather than ad hoc allocations.
I have asked our Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, Professor Abbas Ourmazd, to lead this effort. In the weeks and months ahead, Vice Chancellor Ourmazd will work closely with Deans, academic departments, governance groups, research centers, and individual faculty and staff to develop and implement this essential initiative.

I also have asked Provost and Vice Chancellor Rita Cheng, working with these same groups and individuals, to lead a review of our campus administrative structures and policies to ensure that they are best aligned to complement and facilitate our research mission. In doing so, I do not have specific structures or policies in mind as targets for revision. Provost Cheng and I fully respect our campus shared governance system and the employee rights and academic freedom our governance bodies are designed to foster and preserve. We look forward to working closely with these bodies in this effort. Moreover, we should compare our practices with those of successful public research universities to help us consider how we should best achieve our goals.
In approaching these two immediate tasks — developing a plan for research investment and reviewing our campus structures and policies – I think that we should be guided by at least these three principles:

• One — we must accomplish the task of greatly enhancing our funded research while preserving and equally respecting the other parts of our institutional mission, which are student access and success, diversity, teaching excellence, and community and professional service.
• Two — we must strive for unified, resolute action by all parties (administration, faculty, academic staff, and students) in our shared governance system.
• Three — we must only pursue extramural funding and partnerships that are consistent with our institutional missions and that do not compromise the intellectual independence that is the heart of our university.

I have talked with you this afternoon about this challenge to our institutional research mission and some of the key questions attendant on that challenge not as a person with predetermined answers. I have raised these issues with you because I deeply believe that they are issues we must address together right now. The cost of not acting, of not moving forward as co-entrepreneurs is the certain erosion of our research mission. I, for one, cannot accept that outcome.

Our potential is great. I came here one year ago charged with increasing the academic success of our students and building our research capacity. Both goals ensure the development of our community through economic growth and the expansion of a highly educated citizenry.

In conclusion, I wish to say that in approaching the work ahead of us—some of which will be difficult and will challenge ways in which we have been accustomed to working — we would do well to retain a perspective currently afforded us by the human catastrophe suffered by our country men and women on the Gulf Coast.

It is easy at times when immersed in our professional work to view our individual goals, rather than our common good, as the sum of our vision. I want to assure you that as we engage in what may sometimes be vigorous debate, I will remember how very fortunate I am — how fortunate we all are — to have homes, health, employment, and our very lives — those essentials of civilization that make it possible for us to engage in civil debate.

Many thousands of our fellow citizens, and millions of human beings worldwide, do not have this luxury, this gift that we have received. With this perspective fresh before our eyes, let us face our future work with humility and gratitude and with our common good firmly in our view.
Thank you.