President Casteen discusses University at Jefferson Hall
The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society hosted a lecture by President John T. Casteen, III last night, during which he discussed the past, present and future of the University.
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The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society hosted a lecture by President John T. Casteen, III last night, during which he discussed the past, present and future of the University.
The Special Committee on the Nomination of a President will meet today to prepare for interviews with selected candidates.
The Board of Visitors' Building and Grounds Committee met yesterday to discuss and vote on a variety of construction projects, including proposed renovations to New Cabell Hall and a concentrated push for more widespread "green" technologies on Grounds.
The Board of Visitors met yesterday to discuss changes to the University's fiscal policies in reaction to current state budget reductions.
As President John T. Casteen, III approaches the end of his term and the University's Special Committee on the Nomination of a President continues its search for his replacement, Focus looks back on the institution's seven presidents and their terms of office.\n\nEdwin Anderson Alderman (1905-31)
The Virginia Film Festival, operating this year under the theme, "Funny Business," begins today and runs through Sunday.
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia presented a special addendum resolution at its meeting Tuesday detailing a recommendation for an increase in commonwealth funding for financial aid at colleges and universities.
The Institute of Medicine recently honored Medical School Prof. Don Detmer with the Walsh McDermott Medal. The medal, IOM spokesperson Christine Stencel said, is awarded for distinguished service to the Institute of Medicine for an extended period of time.
Money Magazine recently ranked Charlottesville No. 19 on its list of best small metropolitan areas to start a small business. Charlottesville was the only commonwealth city listed and ranked in the top 50 among cities of all sizes.
The Charlottesville City Council unanimously passed a resolution Monday apologizing for its role in the Massive Resistance, an effort to keep Virginia schools segregated in the 1950s.
The Charlottesville City Council recently announced plans to vote on a resolution that would apologize for Council's role in the Massive Resistance effort during the nationwide school integration of the 1950s.
The Board of Visitors Special Committee on the Nomination of a President met Sunday to review input from members of the University community.
The Special Committee on Diversity met Friday afternoon to present the University's 2009 admission statistics to the Board of Visitors.
The University Board of Visitors Finance Committee approved a 5.5 percent endowment spending distribution rate for the 2009-10 fiscal year after meeting to discuss the status of the University's monetary investments yesterday afternoon.
The Special Committee on the Nomination of a President met for the first time yesterday to discuss the upcoming search for President John T. Casteen, III's replacement.\nThe Board of Visitors manual dictates that no fewer than five people should be on the committee, and the current search committee consists of nine members of the Board of Visitors, two former rectors, the chair of the faculty senate, five professors and two students.\nRector John Wynne said the original five was too narrow and that the current 19-person committee is "broader than any single discipline or interest," allowing for more diverse opinions and viewpoints.\nAs outlined yesterday, the search will consist of five stages: process design and staffing, input and information gathering, profile and qualification development, recruitment and selection. Wynne said the process design will be finished before early October, while input gathering started a week ago.\nAlso present at the meeting was Bill Funk of R. William Funk & Associates, who is serving as a consultant to the committee. Funk has initiated the recruitment process, though the committee will not begin to review candidates until it has established a list of qualifications.\nFunk and his firm were chosen because of their experience in the southeast, success in institutions in the Association of American Universities and extensive networking, said Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer.\nA Web site about the presidential search also has been created for the general community and potential candidates, Sandridge said. At the Web site, accessible via the University's homepage, people can learn more about opportunities for involvement and offer commentary.\n"Every effort has been made to gather information from all aspects of the University," Sandridge said, adding that the committee has received a tremendous amount of input.\nFaculty Senate Chair Ann Hamric said she has begun obtaining input from senators, former senators and professors about the presidential search, and plans to report her findings to the committee Sept. 1.\nStudent Council President John Nelson and Engineering Graduate student Jen Warner, meanwhile, the student representatives to the committee, also will collect input through a student advisory group of 21 other students. This group includes members from large-scale organizations around Grounds, including the Honor Committee, the University Judiciary Committee, resident staff, class councils, Greek organizations, graduate programs and minority student organizations. Nelson and Warner will meet with the group for the first time today.\nThe search is "generating more excitement and interest nationally of any I've seen in the past five years," Funk said, adding that of the 300 presidential searches he has worked on, this is the most important.\nBoard member Austin Ligon expressed a similar sentiment, noting that as a "prototypical model of what a public university should be," the University's search is important to many institutions because "the rest of the world looks to us to see how do we achieve the success that we achieve."\nWynne said the presidential search is a "wonderful opportunity to set the stage for the next elevation of the institution," and "the most important thing we do for our University."\nThe committee will begin holding public forums today from 10 a.m. to noon in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom and 3:30 to 5:30 in the Zehmer Hall auditorium.
Although a handful of University faculty members received slight salary increases, the vast majority of faculty and University staff salaries remain frozen because of the current economic downturn, according to released 2008-09 salary figures.Faculty or University staff?The distinction between faculty and University staff does not distinguish salaries, but roles within the University, explained Susan Carkeek, vice president and chief human resource officer. Faculty members are primarily engaged in teaching and research, whereas University staff fill support roles, she said. These support roles include executive, vice presidential, professional staff and entry-level staff positions, like those in administrative assistance and housekeeping.The “University staff” designation has been in place since January, when the commonwealth legislature approved a higher education restructuring act that, among other things, gave the University authority to grant merit-based salary increases for University staff as it had been able to with faculty members for years, Carkeek explained. Nearly one-third of the University’s workforce is University staff and that ratio increases each year, Carkeek said.Where salary money comes from The University receives funding for its salaries — in roughly descending order — from tuition, patient revenues, state appropriations, endowment earnings and gifts, earned revenue from research, distributions from deans’ reserve accounts and other minor sources, University President John T. Casteen, III stated in an e-mail. This distribution applies to most schools, except the Darden School, the Law School and the Medical School. “We made our decisions [on salaries] before the [Virginia] General Assembly convened in January, but one should note also that the GA has frequently frozen all salaries,” Casteen stated.For the 2008 fiscal year, the expenses for all University salaries constituted 63.9 percent of the academic division’s total expenses of $1,187,159, according to an e-mail from Yoke San Reynolds, vice president and chief financial officer. Where the money goes The least endowed school in terms of faculty and staff salaries probably is the College, while the “best” endowed probably either is the Darden School or the Law School, Casteen stated. “In the first year of a downturn, while waiting for better information on how deep it will be and how long it will last, we generally do what we can to maintain equity among the various school faculties,” Casteen stated. Part of the problem of reducing University spending is that the University has large amounts of committed costs, Economics Department Chair William Johnson said. “A huge fraction of University spending is in some sense not discretionary, as long as they’re not going to lay off faculty and staff,” Johnson said. When to raise English Department Chair Jahan Ramazani said the faculty understands the financial situation but noted that frozen salaries make it difficult to maintain normal operations. “It’s difficult when you’re [the] chair of a department and it’s one of the very best departments in the country and you want to reward faculty for the excellence of their research and teaching,” Ramazani said. “Obviously, if you believe in a meritocratic reward system, it makes it very difficult for chairs who want to reward faculty excellence and productivity.” When salaries are not frozen, department chairs recommend raises to the dean of the school, who makes recommendations to the provost. Very often, however, the dean and provost hold back some of the raise allocation in case other schools and departments wish to recruit faculty, Ramazani said. Raises primarily are given to faculty members who the University strongly wishes to retain, who are underpaid compared to their peers or who move to a higher position at the University, Provost Arthur Garson said. In addition, all schools and universities use national benchmarks to help determine faculty salaries, Garson said. These benchmarks — which are derived from national surveys — indicate the standard salary ranges around the United States for similar levels of experience, Medical School Dean Steve DeKosky said. Of the University’s more than 2,200 teaching and research faculty, 286 employees received salary increases in 2008-09, according to statistics received from the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. Seventy-four of these raises occurred in the Law School, which provided merit-based increases to its faculty, and the remaining raises were given by the other schools based on promotion, additional responsibilities or retention or equity concerns. The Law School increased most teaching faculty salaries this past December to compete with other schools’, Law School Dean Paul Mahoney said. “We face very strong competition from peer law schools, most of which pay their faculty more than we do,” Mahoney said. ”Because the Law School is as highly ranked and successful as it is, most of the law schools with which we compete are private.” In many cases, these private institutions have more financial resources than the University does, Mahoney said. The private schools charge higher tuition and have been fundraising for a much longer time than the University Law School, Mahoney said. Most of the Law School’s money, meanwhile, was raised in the past 20 years, during which the school grew substantially, Mahoney said. “In general, public universities have had difficulty keeping up with the salary scale at many of the best private universities,” Ramazani said. This disadvantage exists in part because state funds have decreased considerably during the last 20 years or so, Ramazani said. Although the Law School does not receive any direct state support and is relatively young compared to its rival institutions, it still receives a large number of alumni donations, Mahoney said. “A larger percentage of our graduates donate to us than any is true of any other law school in the nation,” Mahoney said. For example, 52 percent of the Law School’s alumni donated to the school last year, Mahoney said. Private donations and tuition fund the faculty salaries, and the school plans to increase next year’s tuition by 5 percent, Mahoney said. Although the school has been more careful when determining salary increases, the raises still must continue at a lesser rate, Mahoney said. At the Medical School, meanwhile, a small amount of money from the state pays a portion of teaching activities. Beyond this sum, most of the school’s funding for faculty salaries comes from a wide variety of sources, DeKosky said. These sources include research grants, National Institute of Health grants and clinical services that pay physicians’ salaries, DeKosky said. To help determine the appropriate salary amounts, the Medical School uses benchmarks derived from national surveys. The Medical School tries to stay at the appropriate percentiles for given levels of faculty experience, DeKosky said, adding that the school generally starts salaries at about the 50th percentile. The effect on faculty Darden Professor Alan Beckenstein said he thinks the salary freezes are understandable, given the current fiscal condition of the University. Although every faculty member might prefer to get a raise, the freeze is “something we have to live with,” Beckenstein said. Some professors, however, still consider salaries a minor issue, especially in the context of other University expenditures. “No one likes freezes, but the state is broke,” History Prof. Joseph Kett said. “I get annoyed when I see lavish amounts of money being spent on sports palaces; that annoys me more than the freezes.” Assoc. Engineering Prof. Teresa Culver said the hiring freeze is probably a greater hardship for her department than a short-term salary freeze because her office must function with fewer people, even as the number of University students continues to increase. Bigger than the University? Anthropology Prof. Frederick Damon said he thinks the salary freezes are not a major issue in the context of a global financial crisis. “Anybody who thinks otherwise has got his or her head in the sand,” Damon said. Because of the recession, faculty members may have to make do with less, he added. In a national context, there are other universities at which salary freezes are in effect, Ramazani said. Some schools, moreover, have had salary cuts and furloughs — forced vacations during which faculty keep working but are paid less, Ramazani said. The University thus far has managed to avoid such situations. Although it is hard to generalize for the University’s employees, Ramazani said, one may assume that most faculty members understand the situation. “I think people are frustrated when their excellence isn’t rewarded; at the same time, they’re aware of the state of the economy,” Ramazani said.
Members of Charlottesville City Council, Albemarle Board of Supervisors and Metropolitan Planning Organization are working to obtain funding for a proposed railroad project that would link Charlottesville with Crozet.Ann Mallek, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said the idea for a train connection stemmed from an ongoing conversation throughout the past several years with John Pfaltz, a member of the technology committee for the MPO and research professor for the University. Pfaltz said he envisioned the railroad as an alternative to an over-congested U.S. Route 250.“There’s no money and there’s no will to make new roads,” Pfaltz said. He added that if the rail service were created, he believes that University employees would comprise about two-thirds of its patrons.Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said rail use is growing in popularity.“Right now there is a lot of interest on the federal level in expanding passenger rail in this country,” which corresponds with a substantial increase in funding from the federal stimulus package.Mallek said the three groups recently began writing to senators and congressmen including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to secure $95,000 for a well-trained railway consultant, who would conduct a feasibility study and make a proposal to the Virginia Department of Transportation.“What Ann Mallek and I and Norris need is a well-designed proposal to the Virginia Department of Transportation,” Pfaltz said.Pfaltz said the study would take between six to nine months before a project proposal could be made, and “to get everything running would take about two years.”The rail service would be operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad, which owns the railway that runs behind the Corner. Although the track already exists, it is used mostly by Amtrak and freight trains. For a passenger train to run, an extensive length of side track would have to be added to the currently existing rail so that when trains are coming from the other direction, the other train can pull off — a “pretty costly proposition,” Norris said.“I don’t know personally if there are enough people out there to cover the expense of running a train back and forth,” Albemarle County Board member Kenneth Boyd said. He noted that if the train cost $5 million annually — a hypothetical estimate — and the city expected that it would only earn $100,000 revenue annually, the city probably would not go through with the project.Buckingham Branch Railroad, meanwhile, is enthusiastic about the idea if a few conditions are met, Pfaltz said. For instance, the company wants to line the tracks near the Corner with a fence, Pfaltz said, because “the railroad has a terrible time with drunken students on the track.” Norris expressed confidence that officials will continue to explore the project’s possibilities, highlighting the environmentally friendly nature of rail travel.“It is our belief that wherever there are opportunities to provide alternatives to single occupancy vehicles, we should pursue them,” he said.Should the city secure funding for the project, Pfaltz said he believes that possible future expansions could take place. He added that there are a number of people who would like to see the proposed railway extend westward to Staunton and eastward to Gordonsville in the future.
The admissions office continues to work alongside the Virginia Community College System to welcome transfer students, expecting a possible rise in the number of transfer applications because of the recent economic downturn.“We have seen a slight but steady increase in applications the last few years,” Admissions Dean Greg Roberts said. Roberts attributed the increase during the past few years to the establishment of the University’s Guaranteed Admission Agreement.According to the undergraduate office of admission Web site, under the GAA system the University guarantees College admission to any VCCS student who completes an associate degree, earns a minimum of 54 transferable credit hours, satisfies all area requirements and obtains an overall GPA of 3.4 or higher, among other criteria.Andrew Erwin, Piedmont Virginia Community College’s college transfer guide, said the GAA requirements give “a clear cut path for students to successfully transfer over to school,” though he said only about one-fourth of community college transfer students meet these requirements.Roberts added that the University expects an increase in the number of applications because of the recession.“Because of the economic situation since many students choose to attend a VCCS school because of the inexpensive cost of tuition,” Roberts saidCommunity colleges are significantly less expensive not only because of their lower tuition, but also because of their lack of room and board and dining fees, Director of Financial Services Yvonne Hubbard said.“You have to weigh the costs and benefits,” she added.To help ease the financial burden of a four-year institution, Hubbard said Student Financial Services is well prepared to make financial aid available to an influx in VCCS transfer students through AccessUVA, especially during these economic times. She added that the commonwealth will provide a transfer grant to students to help offset the cost differences between University and VCCS college tuition, but noted that the state budget has not been finalized.While the percentage of PVCC students looking to transfer to the University is about the same this year, the two-year institution’s population has increased, Erwin said. He noted that PVCC sends slightly fewer than 200 students to the College each year.Northern Virginia Community College has experienced similar trends and expects its enrollment numbers to continue growing in light of the downturn.In the [past two semesters our enrollment has been up 6 percent and expect that to continue in the fall,” said Julia Brown, special assistant for transfer services at NOVA.“There are so many more [students] in the population now that want to go to college that the four-year schools don’t have room for everyone,” Brown said about the competitive spirit that she believes is forcing more people to come through community college before studying at a four-year institution.As more students opt to pursue community college degrees — either because of financial concerns or increasingly competitive college admissions — the University is preparing to see more applications from these students. “We believe VCCS students add to our community. They have different life experiences, many coming from lower income households, and a higher percentage are first-generation college [students],” Roberts said. ““There is a strong relationship between the two- and four-year institutions in the state and we work closely with the VCCS schools to attract and enroll students who would be interested in transferring to U.Va.”
The Board of Visitors met Thursday to discuss the University’s finances for the 2009-10 fiscal year. During the past fiscal year, the University experienced declines in its endowment, state appropriations and philanthropic giving, and University leaders and board members are now looking to account for these losses in funding.Chris Brightman, head of UVIMCO, which manages the University’s endowment, said the fiscal year policy portfolio is down almost 30 percent. He said the University’s long-term, 10- or 20-year numbers remain positive, however.“Endowments are reduced when we make distributions or payouts to support the endowed programs, or when our investments fall in value as has happened in recent months,” said Yoke San Reynolds, vice president and chief financial officer.During normal economic conditions, “spending policy calls for a steady increase of our [endowment] payout as long as the resulting payout is not lower than 4 percent of the endowment’s market value and not higher than 6 percent of the endowment’s market value,” Reynolds said. “These upper and lower limits help ensure that we do not spend too much or too little of our endowment.”A significant change in the endowment’s market value, though, like the 27 percent decrease seen since June 30, 2008, means that the University has to reset the endowment’s payout level, Reynolds said.Though the endowment’s status was discussed at the Board meeting Thursday, members did not make a decision about resetting the payout level. Leonard Sandridge, executive vice president and chief operating officer, said he thinks it is unlikely the Board will make a decision about possible payout level changes before September, adding that he believes BOV members will likely try to sustain or reduce the current payout level.During the past year, the University’s endowment was not the only source of funding to see declines. State funding also fell, as commonwealth leaders enacted General Fund cuts that will affect the University’s operations.In terms of reducing the impact of these losses, President John T. Casteen, III said he expects the federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide the University money. The University will receive a combined $10.7 million in AARA funds in 2009 and 2010 to help offset Gov. Tim Kaine’s recommended $23.1 million General Fund cut, leaving a net reduction of $12.4 million, he said.The University also saw a reduction in philanthropic giving during the past fiscal year, Casteen said. The University and its related foundations received more than $172 million for the fiscal year through February 28, Casteen said, adding that this is a decrease of more than $31 million or 15.51 percent from the previous fiscal year.Although the combined value of gifts to the University decreased, gifts to the Rector and BOV, Nursing School, the Engineering School, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, the Darden School, the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, the Center for Politics and the Law School increased during the last fiscal year, despite the economic downturn, Casteen said. To further increase philanthropic giving during the next fiscal year, the University plans to pay more visits to potential donors and hold more fundraising events.Board members also agreed that the University will issue bonds to increase financing. Though the decision to issue bonds was not controversial among Board members, the decision between safe fixed-rate bonds and the unpredictable but potentially high-rewarding variable bonds sparked considerable discussion. The Board ultimately decided to issue fixed-rate bonds, which lock in an interest during the bonds’ life, which usually lasts between 20 to 30 years, Reynolds said. She added that although fixed-rate bonds have historically been more expensive than variable bonds — which have interest values that can fluctuate throughout time — they are more predictable.“We are now issuing $250 million worth of bonds and because of uncertainties of the credit market, we are going to issue them fixed rate,” Reynolds said. Discussion of a new federal bond program also raised some debate. Reynolds said BOV members will consider whether to issue conventional tax-exempt bonds or to use the Build America Bond program in the future.Though the University normally issues tax-exempt bonds as part of the federal stimulus package, Sandridge said the University now is considering the Obama administration’s Build America Bond program, which offers bonds with a provision for an interest subsidy. The program’s low interest rate would be advantageous to the University, Sandridge said, should the University qualify under the program and meet the government’s timeline for introducing the program. Sandridge said, however, that “until we know what the details are [and what] strings are attached, we won’t make a decision to go with that option,” adding that if the Board chooses not to participate in the Build America Bond program, it will continue to issue tax-exempt bonds.Reynolds noted that the change in the economy has not hurt — and may have even helped — the borrowing capability of the University because of its Triple A rating. University spokesperson Carol Wood said a Triple A rating tells investors that “the University is considered to be a good, solid and safe investment when issuing bonds to cover.”Wood noted that this is a position the University has held since 2003.“It’s a huge accomplishment for an institution to obtain such a rating, but it’s especially significant in a difficult economic environment to maintain the rating,” she said.The University is one of only three public universities in the country to hold this rating, including the University of Texas System and the University of Michigan, Reynolds said.Despite the changes in the financial climate, Sandridge said he believes the University is managing its situation and positioned well for the future. “The University tries to plan for downturns of this nature,” he said. “We try to anticipate them, plan for them and manage to them.”
The Board of Visitors listened to concerns about the underrepresentation of Asian-American faculty members at the University and also discussed statistics about Asian-American students during the Board’s Educational Policy session yesterday.Overall, Asian-Americans are overrepresented within the University’s student population. Asian-Americans make up 11.4 percent of the undergraduate population, though they are only 4.4 percent of the United States’ population, said Sharon Hostler, interim vice provost for faculty advancement.Admissions Dean Greg Roberts cited a dramatic increase in international applications from Asia as the reason for this overrepresentation, noting that applications from Chinese students increased from 400 to 800 this year.The disproportionate number of Asian-Americans at the University, however, is limited to the student population, as Asian-American faculty actually are underrepresented, Hostler said.The University ranks 58 out of 61 members of the American Association of Universities for its percentage of Asian-American faculty, Hostler said. She said 2007 data indicates that Asian-Americans comprise 6.5 percent of the tenure-track faculty at the University, whereas the median for the American Association of Universities is 9.9 percent. The University of California, Irvine has the highest percentage of Asian-American faculty, according to the statistics, as its overall population is 19 percent Asian-American.Hostler also noted that Asian-Americans are highly underrepresented at the top levels of American higher education, adding that although 14 percent of the University’s tenure-track assistant professors are Asian-American, these assistant professors comprise only 5 percent of all tenure-track professors.Bill Harvey, vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity, said this discrepancy between higher and lower levels of the University faculty may be because of culture. He said Asian-Americans typically do not actively seek out leadership positions and instead may prefer to take a more supportive role. For example, Harvey said, they may appear more comfortable in roles as senior faculty members.Among the University’s Asian-American faculty, there also is a disparity between male and female Asian-American professors, Hostler noted.“[There are] three times as many Asian-American men on the faculty as there are women,” she said, noting that women make up only 11 percent of the tenure-track professors of Asian descent.Board member Glynn Key explained that this underrepresentation of females may result from potential recruitment issues like dual career families, the need for day care and a perception that the University lacks a diverse faculty.To increase the number of Asian-American faculty members, especially females, Key said the University should develop alliances with the private sector to provide alternative work arrangements for potential teachers’ spouses who hold non-academic jobs.The University’s recent emphasis on the sciences also may help attract more Asian-American faculty members, Harvey said, noting that he is optimistic about the University faculty’s future diversity. As the University moves toward that more diverse faculty vision, Hostler recommended that the University continue persisting “to both recruit and retain faculty” with Asian backgrounds.