Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences
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Table of Contents • Notables Dean reviews 2006 accomplishments Non-profits workshop and career day, Monday & Wednesday Vision Credits
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Year-End Faculty Meeting Address Gregory Weidemann Once again, it is my pleasure to address you as dean and to update you on the state of the college. While campus enrollment increased only slightly this Fall, our college once again led all colleges in undergraduate enrollment growth with a 7% increase. Graduate enrollment increased 7% as well. Our undergraduate enrollment has now grown more than 60% since Chancellor White established enrollment goals in 1997 leading all colleges by a large margin. If we continue to maintain this growth rate, we will meet our 2010 goal of 2000 undergraduates in the college. I would like to commend Ashley Harris, all of our unit recruiters and all of you for continuing to make this the most student-friendly college on campus. The overall quality of our student body also continues to increase and more than 88% of our freshman class returned to school, leading all colleges. While we have much to be proud of, we do have areas that require our immediate attention. While our minority freshman enrollment increased at nearly the same rate as our overall increase, we still have a long way to go towards meeting our goal for increasing the diversity of our student body. We must redouble our efforts in this area. As I committed to you last Fall, I formed an ad-hoc committee to work with me on the development of a new diversity plan. This plan has been completed and posted on the web. We are the first college to complete a new diversity plan as part of the overall campus diversity effort. We will now be challenged to institute the action items identified in the plan that are associated with our academic programs. I would like to thank Don Herring, Dan Rainey, Navam Hettiarachchy and Alice Griffin for their hard work as members of the committee. While our freshman retention is outstanding, too few of our students graduate within six years. In fact, our six-year graduation rate slipped from an all-time high of 64% to 57% this past year. This is unacceptable. If we traditionally lead all colleges in freshman retention, we should be the leader in the graduation rate as well. Therefore, we need to refocus our energies on retention and graduation. We will schedule dedicated time this Spring to examine what we are currently doing in this area and what we can do better. The chancellor has communicated that our six-year graduation rate is one of the primary factors preventing us from being ranked among the top 50 public research universities. As a college, we must do our part. During our Fall retreat, the chancellor set four short-term priorities for the university -- increasing diversity, increasing the six-year graduation rate, increasing graduate enrollment and enrollment growth. We are doing our part in increasing enrollment but must focus our efforts on diversity and retention. As I committed to you last Fall, I have formed a new undergraduate student advisory board in order to give our students more direct access to my office on issues that concern them and to use them as a sounding board on issues being addressed by the college. Our inaugural meeting was scheduled for last Friday but had to be canceled due to the weather. I believe these students will give us a valuable student perspective on issues we face as a college. The retirement of Preston LaFerney who served as the Director of our International Ag. Program, provided an opportune time for us to examine where we are in our international program efforts and how we might better organize those efforts. Therefore, I charged a committee to address all aspects of our program. Their report was delivered to me this past summer and then presented to the unit heads this Fall. As part of this plan, I have formed a standing committee of faculty and department heads that will serve as an advisory and decision making body. On an interim basis, I will serve as the interim IAP director with Ray Barclay reporting to my office. I thought I would share some of my priorities with you for the next calendar year. First and foremost, we must provide increased focus on improving student diversity and graduation rate. Our Management Plan is now going into its second year and we have not devoted the necessary time to revisit the plan, measure any accomplishments and take necessary action on items that require our attention. I will schedule dedicated time this Spring to address the college portion of the plan. Several issues related to our international programs efforts will need attention as well. Our Honors program has gone through a period of significant growth. Sufficient time has gone by since the program was formed to revisit the program and reset our college vision as needed. I would like to personally commend Duane Wolf as Director of the program for his dedication to our Honors program. On the development side, we are resetting our development priorities post-campaign and would like to thank Mark Power and Chuck Culver for their dedication to seeking out funds to support our students and faculty. As the Chancellor highlighted in his state of the university address, there is a significant desire to increase the number of need-based scholarships and there will be a dedicated development effort in this area. While our college has a number of scholarships that are need-based, there is a great number of students we are unable to assist. During the campaign, a number of our classrooms received a needed facelift but several more are in need of renovation and we will continue to seek donors to upgrade these classrooms. Likewise, we were unable to create the endowment we desired for our International Programs office and our Honors program and these remain priorities. Finally, our Infant Development Center and Nursery School have served us well for many years but are too small to meet the demands of the academic program or to assist the campus community for child care needs. Therefore, we have formed an advisory committee and are beginning the planning effort to seek private support to meet this need. Recently, we announced two more professorships and one new chair that were funded through the Tyson Foods pledge to the Campaign for the 21st Century. I would like to recognize Gisela Erf and Jean Meullenet as holders of the professorships in avian immunology and sensory science and Billy Hargis as the first holder of the chair in poultry health. As additional pledged funds are transferred as part of this major gift, I hope we will be able to recognize other deserving individuals. This has been a particularly tight budget year for the college. As you know the campus was forced to reduce budgets by 1% due to lower than expected enrollment growth. While this was not a significant amount, on top of some other budget adjustments that had to be made, we have less flexibility than usual. This forced us to delay decisions on some hires until the next fiscal year. Finally, this will be a challenging year as we adjust to a new administrative structure. I know everyone in the college and experiment station administration is committed to continuing to provide an administrative structure that meets your needs as a faculty. |