>> The past few years have been a difficult period for the UNLV community. We are all, students,
>> staff and faculty, hopeful that by now the university has weathered the worst of the storm
>> and is moving forward onto solid financial footing. We all remain deeply concerned about our
>> long term prospects to achieve our goals of offering broad opportunity for our students, of
>> enhancing our regent's competitive position as a research university and of improving the
>> quality of life for our families on campus and across the valley. Well the outcome of last
>> spring cannot be considered a victory. UNLV did stand together on behalf of affordable,
>> quality higher education in the service of Nevada. We, as a campus, spoke passionately and
>> affectively that our research achievements, our educational commitment to our students and
>> our value to Las Vegas. This fall, as we have for the past few years, our faculty and our
>> staff continue to show our belief in UNLV by working creatively and harder, by teaching extra
>> courses, by advising additional students, by shouldering heavier responsibilities in service
>> of students. And all of us are reaching out farther and better to serve our community. That
>> energy and that effort gives me such pride in our UNLV faculty, in our staff and such high
>> hopes for our students. Based on these past few years of collaboration, I have confidence
>> that whatever course we, as a campus, chart will set high academic standards and we'll pursue
>> clear academic priorities and we'll do so together. I'm now proud to introduce the president
>> of the university, Neal Smatresk, to address where we are as a campus, the challenges we face
>> and how UNLV is moving forward. President Smatresk. 

[ Applause ]

>> Thank you very much, Greg. And I want to say to everybody, the faculty senate has been an
>> incredible partner over the past few years. The leadership of the faculty senate has
>> certainly stepped up to help us through all of the various cuts and crisis we've had and Greg
>> will be a terrific partner this year. He's already off to a fast start and I look for great
>> things to come in the partnership between administration, faculty and the faculty senate and
>> the rest of our staff. Thank you, Greg. It would be inappropriate for me to start any other
>> way right now than by acknowledging a few people and then by really acknowledging the hard
>> work that all of you have put into this university in the past few years. I would like to
>> briefly acknowledge, and I hope I haven't missed anybody here, I see president emeritus Carol
>> Harter here. Thank you for coming, Carol. 

[ Applause ]

>> And I heard that president emeritus Pat Goodall would be here, although I don't see him. He
>> might be back there somewhere. We can thank him as well. 

[ Applause ]

>> And I want to just ask if the deans and the vice presidents will stand up and let us
>> acknowledge you as part of the team who have ably led this university through the past few
>> years of tough weather. 

[ Applause ]

>> Now while I've singled out some individuals for recognition, I would tell all of you that the
>> first order of business is to say we have pulled together over the past few years and it's
>> the compassion and commitment of the faculty and staff here, as Greg so ably stated, that has
>> held this university together. Universities are not created from brick and mortar, they're
>> made from people. And the people at this university are committed to division with dedication
>> and making sure that we will move forward and continue to build, continue to serve our state,
>> continue to serve our students and to create a more prosperous future. It is you, sitting in
>> the audience, it is those folks who couldn't come here today, it is the faculty and staff of
>> UNLV who I am so proud of and so thankful for and I wish we could all join in a round of
>> applause for everything we have achieved together to make sure that we're on solid ground. 

[ Applause ]

>> Now let's see if I can make the technology work. Today we will cover several substantive
>> issues. We'll review the legislative session. We will discuss budget cuts and our current
>> fiscal status. We'll have a planning progress recap, because it was time to tune up and brush
>> off our strategic plan. We'll look at our vision going forward. And we'll look at the
>> priorities that we will establish this year through our implementation teams for rebuilding
>> UNLV. If we take a look at what was certainly a challenging year, if we had a series of
>> legislative priorities that I put out in our last state of the university address. We sought
>> to maintain current funding and the furloughs restore [inaudible] merit and merit and
>> maintain our benefits. I will tell you we did not succeed. We didn't succeed all by
>> ourselves, we had lots of help. And many, many good people in the Nevada system of higher
>> education led by the chancellor and many of our board of regents certainly was in the fray
>> with us, were working hard on these issues. And it simply wasn't something that in the
>> current fiscal climate we were able to achieve. We also asked if we could keep our own
>> tuition and registration fees to invest them on campus so that our students had confidence
>> that the funds that they gave to the university were being invested in their education. And
>> we wanted to separate our tuition and fees from the formula. We did not achieve this. We will
>> not give up, but it is a critical issue for all of us. We requested a formula study and I'm
>> pleased to announce that under the leadership of the provost and the board of regents and our
>> legislators, the formula study committees are forming and the formula study will begin. And I
>> think that that's going to be a critical piece of how we move forward. We requested funds to
>> support economic diversification and job creation in Nevada. We received AB449. It is not a
>> highly funded bill, but it is a platform that we are going to be able to build on going
>> forward. And we also sought to educate legislators and local stakeholders on the value of
>> UNLV. And while I'll say it's times that felt like a pyrrhic fight, I believe at the end we
>> got through to them. We got through to them through the chancellor's four point plan. And we
>> gained many allies from the business community and our legislature in support of the mission
>> of higher education and its central importance to our state. Let's turn to our budget. And
>> I'm going to give you a fairly terse summary of the challenges we've been through. Last year
>> we had an initial set of proposals that would have been and represented draconian cuts at
>> this university. We received about half of the originally proposed cut. And as Greg Brown
>> said, while we don't declare that a victory it was certainly better than it could have been
>> and left us able to manage our way through the budget crisis. But we have lost 73 million
>> dollars and over 700 positions. I'm sorry, I'm not keeping up here. We have lost 73 million
>> dollars and over 700 positions since 2007. Furloughs and salary cuts have been implemented.
>> Our students are paying 13 percent more in tuition and we thank them and hope that we'll be
>> able to continue to give them the classes that they need to precede in a timely fashion. Our
>> benefits have been seriously cut. And we are covering the load here at UNLV, because the load
>> is nearly the same as it was at our peak, through your hard work and commitment to UNLV. Now
>> the good news, and I think this is something I hope we will all internalize, we are on solid
>> financial ground and we have a sustainable budget going forward. Through the hard work of our
>> chief financial officer, our provost and the cabinet, we made sure that we had cuts that
>> reflected the cuts that were delivered to us, we prepared vigorously and far in advance to
>> meet this session, which we knew was going to be a low water mark for Nevada. And at this
>> point, I believe we have a sustainable budget going forward. Perhaps most importantly through
>> the sacrifice of many faculty members who took the TV [inaudible] that we offered we were
>> able to protect tenure at UNLV. This is a fundamental principle of our university, it's a
>> commitment that I made last year and I'm pleased to tell you that through the worst budget
>> crisis that we've faced in Nevada history we did not eliminate tenured or tenure tracked
>> faculty. 

[ Applause ]

>> While we have lost programs and program structure, we protected students at our core academic
>> programs. And I think this is critical because students need to know they have a solid set of
>> programs that they can select from as they go forward to complete their careers and career
>> aspirations. We were worried at one point that we were going to have to very significantly
>> cut GA lines as part of our budget cutting maneuvers. We protected those GA lines and we're
>> proud to say that we'll build on that success of protecting them as you'll see in a later
>> part of this discussion. And at this point I will tell you I believe that short of global
>> economic meltdown, and if you looked at the stock market today there could be a legitimate
>> worry, I believe that we are at a low water mark. And while we know we still have a
>> structural deficit in our budget going forward, as we see tourism on the strip pick up and as
>> we see revenues increase, the size of that structural deficit will shrink. And this year the
>> size of that deficit was about, was the size of the sunsetted taxes that were renewed. So I
>> am confident that our legislators will put together either an appropriated package of sunsets
>> and continue them or an appropriate set of new tax policies that will allow us to stabilize
>> our budgets and build on solid ground as we go forward. And I want this to be a key feature
>> of what you take away today. We are on solid financial ground. I'm planting a flag in the
>> bottom. We've been looking down and it's time to start looking up again. 

[ Applause ]

>> We should talk about exactly what our current fiscal status is. And you know that I believe
>> in transparency of all of the numbers that we produce for the university. This year, in order
>> to catch up to the budget that we will have implemented, we have 14 million dollars of bridge
>> funding as a hole in our budget. But because of the pay date shift, and I know there's been
>> confusion about that, so let me please make sure everyone here understands. Everyone who
>> works here will be paid for every day they work. 

[ Applause ]

>> But through the expedient measure of shifting of payday from the end of the month to the
>> beginning of the next month, we will be able to generate approximately 17 million dollars in
>> one time funds and that will cover the bridge funding that we need to move through this year.
>> It's a trick you can do once, now is the time to do it. We have also been prudent. We
>> prepared an adequate reserve level because we didn't know how big the cuts were going to be.
>> The cuts could have truly been catastrophic and had we not saved we would have been poor
>> financial managers of this institution. The cuts weren't as large as we expected and that
>> affords a measure of opportunity because we now have a pool of one time funds available for
>> strategic investments back into the infrastructure of our university to help us achieve our
>> vision. And finally, we have about a million dollars for hires and we can replace faculty and
>> staff members going forward as they are lost. We will continue to do so as strategically as
>> possible. And if the board of regents grants an additional tuition increase to the Nevada
>> system of higher education, we could generate another 6.5 to 8.5 million dollars of go
>> forward money that we can use for the rebuilding effort and for staffing back in highly
>> critical areas and areas where the state needs our support and areas where our students need
>> our support. Now I have to pull out and discuss very separately our health care benefits and
>> PEBP. If there's one issue I have heard repeatedly as I have gone to faculty meetings around
>> this campus, it's that the health care benefit plan that we have this year is hurting our
>> faculty, it's hurting our staff, it's making it difficult for people to get critically needed
>> health care, to afford prescription medications, and in fact it is perhaps one of the largest
>> and most significant of the cuts that we saw coming out of this session last year. We know
>> our benefits fell dramatically, but the good news is led by UNLV and Gerry Bomotti, and you
>> all know just how tough Gerry is, the Nevada system of higher education and Bart Patterson
>> are seeking a health care consultant group to help us investigate our options. And I would
>> say, unequivocally, at least for UNLV, we want to move out of PEBP. 

[ Applause ]

>> Now I'm going to quote, or perhaps misquote, our chancellor. Health care benefits, an amateur
>> elected board, what could possibly go wrong? We'll be discussing a direct supplement to our
>> health care benefits if we can't successfully achieve our goal of moving out of PEBP with our
>> board of regents and we hope that we'll be able to offer you some hope for a better benefits
>> package next year. I know how critically you all want this. And we are also continuing to
>> look at and track possible financial incentives or penalties tied to participation in the
>> wellness program. But you need to know that this is a top priority. The council of presidents
>> discusses it virtually every single meeting. Our chancellor is highly supportive of it. And
>> our board of regents are going to help us to move forward and to get a benefits package that
>> we can use to recruit and retain as opposed to dissuade. Now one of the pieces of this
>> speech, which is a mandatory piece, is to review the commitments we made last year to move
>> the campus forward and to talk about what success we had on them. Last year we listed
>> approximately six major goals that we were trying to achieve along with the many things we do
>> every day. First, we proposed that we should implement differential tuition, expand self
>> funded programs and use education outreach to generate new revenue streams. I'm proud to say
>> those efforts were successful. The board approved them. The programs that are benefiting from
>> differential tuition and self funding are stable. They were not on the chopping blocks. And
>> we have been quite entrepreneurial in generating funding streams that support us and help the
>> provost to manage an academic budget that has been a bit challenging, especially around part
>> time fees. So I'm going to say we've done a good job on that one. We've completed it and
>> we'll continue to look for entrepreneurial opportunities. We proposed to develop a funding
>> model that would help improve freshmen enrollment and success, some of you've heard me
>> discuss the rebel challenge, and to support upper division and graduate education. At this
>> point we've raised tuition 13 percent this year. In the face of such a large raise, we have
>> to take a wait and see attitude to see what subsequent increases we'll see in tuition,
>> because we know for our students that creates barriers to access. And we also have to await
>> the results of a formula study, which I hope will offer us the ability to fund and
>> incentivize the funding of bachelors and advanced degrees in a region that critically needs
>> those degrees. And finally we're going to collaborate with deans and faculty senate to
>> implement general education plans and first year programs. That was a high priority last
>> year. We didn't quite get it across the finish line, but I think we had very healthy
>> discussions. As ably led by Cecilia Maldonado, and I know she's out there somewhere, and by
>> Greg Brow, we think we will be able to move forward and get approval for beginning to
>> implement a plan through this year. We said we were going to expand our Brookings educational
>> and curriculum partnerships and make participating faculty Brookings fellows. This is one of
>> the great rays of light that I believe we've experienced in the past few years. Our Brookings
>> interaction has led to so many productive interactions between faculty, students and
>> Brookings fellows. We have much better connections to Washington, inside the beltway
>> connections, we are publishing the Brookings Mountain Monitor, which is increasingly becoming
>> viewed as a high quality source of information about the economic health of the metros in the
>> inter mountain west. And our faculty and students are working with Brookings scholars to
>> create a Brookings minor. And that's currently being drafted with the help of UNLV faculty. I
>> think that we have a lot to celebrate in the success of our interaction with Brookings. And
>> it certainly brings credit and reputation to this university. The Lincy Institute faculty and
>> graduate fellowships for 2011 should have been awarded last year. That was one of the
>> commitments we made. In fact, we have awarded them. They're working hard. In many cases
>> they're working with Brookings faculty. And I would want to recognize Lindy Schumacher, who I
>> know is out in the audience, for her great efforts with the Lincy Institute and just say this
>> is something that we're also very proud of and we believe is one of the great paths forward
>> to helping this region to produce the human capital that it needs. 

[ Applause ]

>> We said it was time to give our strategic plan focus 5100 an update and you're going to see
>> the results of that soon. We've done a nice splice job between faculty senate input and
>> administrative input and I'll talk about that momentarily. And we said that we were going to
>> improve our culture and commitment to diversity. We delivered a campus climate survey. The
>> recommendations from the faculty senate and the presidential advisory committee will be
>> forthcoming. I know that great progress has been made in that area and that will be part of
>> something that I believe the faculty senate will roll out for discussion in the next faculty
>> senate meeting on Tuesday. So I look forward to the recommendations and then I look forward
>> to engaging the office of university initiatives now led by vice president Luis Valera, to
>> tackle the challenging issues we face around diversity and campus climate. Now I want to step
>> back and I want to talk about the planning tune up. And the first thing I want you to do is
>> to remember a little bit about what we said we wanted out of focus 50 to 100. And if you
>> haven't read it for awhile, maybe go to our website and take a look. Because I will tell you
>> that if you look at that plan, it's a solid plan. It's a good plan for moving us forward. It
>> is quite encompassing and it had a number of implementation points that I'm very proud to
>> tell you that we successfully have put into play and implemented over the past three years.
>> But what did we say we wanted? And is our plan still relevant? We asked for an aligned campus
>> community with shared identity and values. We're moving in that direction. I believe that you
>> can see, especially through our accreditation visit that we were very successful in having a
>> campus community that gathered together and supported our accreditation efforts and supported
>> great vision for UNLV going forward. We said we wanted better educational effectiveness and
>> student success. Our retention for freshmen has steadily gone up. Our six year graduation
>> rates have steadily improved. We've implemented the academic success center and we're proud
>> to move forward. I just got to give you a great statistic. If a student visits the academic
>> success center, it doesn't matter what class they're in, what year they're in, they have a 94
>> percent chance of being retained the following year. That's an amazing statistic.
>> Congratulations to Ann and David Burgess for that. 

[ Applause ]

>> Our freshmen retention rate will be approximately 80 percent this year, which is well above
>> the state university national average. It is something that has been growing steadily since
>> we've been here and reflects a commitment to providing a warm and success inducing atmosphere
>> for our students. We are also going to continue to drive home our efforts around educational
>> effectiveness, as you'll see momentarily. We said we wanted decisions driven by planning and
>> improved focus. I think that while the budget cuts have certainly not expanded our efforts as
>> an educational institution, they have forced us to evaluate what the core of our university
>> is and what is the strategic base that we will build off of going forward. And I do believe
>> we're using data far more effectively than we have to evaluate what is critical for this
>> campus. We said we wanted to have better community and legislative effectiveness. I will tell
>> you that our partnerships with business through our foundation and through our legislators
>> have improved steadily and hopefully that will translate into an improved fiscal climate for
>> our university in the near future. We said we would use research themes to guide investments
>> and we wanted to create a more collaborative research environment. And there's ample evidence
>> of that. And again, the effort revolving around how we focus limited investments will be
>> critical in the plans of this university going forward. And we said we wanted improved image
>> and rankings. I would submit to you that the plan is still relevant and now what we need to
>> do is to ask some questions through our planning tune up about what our priorities are going
>> forward. As a result of a strategic planning retreat that had administrative, student,
>> faculty representation as well as pro staff representation in it, and as the result of a
>> faculty senate exercise in planning and planning priorities, we have identified the following
>> priorities as part of our planning tune up. And I'm going to tell you, these are generally
>> consistent with the original focus 50 to 100 plan, however they represent slightly different
>> emphasis in terms of how we move forward. First we said we wanted to improve scholarships to
>> recruit more highly qualified freshmen. And again, while we don't have the resources to
>> continue growing exponentially as we have in the past, the emphasis will be on selectivity
>> and qualifications of our incoming students to further enhance their success and to minimize
>> the needs for remediation. We said we wanted to complete our general education plan and build
>> first year programs to offer a better qualified student body a more rigorous curriculum. We
>> have prioritized the recruitment of exceptional and diverse faculty to enhance our offerings,
>> reputation and rankings and to water the green spots and the many strengths that we have on
>> our campus. We've said that we want to establish strong faculty mentoring programs to enhance
>> retention and faculty success. And these will be critical and key activities of the senior
>> advisor to the president, Marta Meana, and the VP for diversity initiatives and governmental
>> affairs, Luis Valera, as we move forward. And we are going to strongly commit to providing
>> better mentoring to improve the qualifications and success of our faculty. We said we'd work
>> with K12 to acquire ACT's and to improve college readiness. And while the interface between
>> us and Clark County is still challenging we will not give up on this task and the chancellor
>> has made sure that we will continue to interact in positive ways with the K12 structure of
>> our state. And then finally for the campus as a whole we feel a strong need to communicate
>> our quality image to perspective students, to the region and to the world. So we've got to
>> take our light out from under the bushel and we have to tell people what UNLV is all about
>> and how good we are. I think most of you know that we've organized our planning priorities
>> around three implantation teams, one's education, one's research and one's infrastructure.
>> For research our key planning priorities are to hire faculty teams to enhance strengths and
>> reputations. In some cases this might require what people refer to as cluster hiring, several
>> faculty in related areas so that we can have a large impact, especially around issues of
>> economic diversification. We want to develop a regional economic development interface with
>> public and private stakeholders. Increasingly this state is asking higher ed to help lead the
>> way to a more diversified economy by acting as a resource for the private sector to attract
>> new businesses and, of course, to train a highly qualified workforce for those new
>> businesses. So we're going to work on that. We're going to prioritize extra [inaudible]
>> funding success and support to develop extra [inaudible] funding. We will seek to increase GA
>> stipends to incentivize PhD student recruitment and retention, a critical area for a research
>> university. We want to prioritize reorganization of the graduate college, something that's
>> already begun. And we are going to reconstitute the faculty research council. We need to
>> address our needs for research space and infrastructure, develop relevant research
>> experiences for all of our students, because that's one of our great educational benefits of
>> a research institution. And, of course, if we're going to pursue a vigorous research agenda,
>> we need to maintain our library's capacity to support research. The infrastructure list
>> should actually be far longer than this, but I'm going to summarize the priorities that came
>> out of the planning exercise. Number one, improve health benefits and restore competitive
>> salaries so that we can continue to be a competitive university. And while this is
>> challenging, I think we need to seek from our legislators and our board of regents an idea
>> about when the cuts will end and when we may begin to look forward. Of course, our
>> legislators will have a lot to say about that. We need to develop a funding formula that
>> supports upward division and graduate level research. We need an IT master plan to improve.
>> We need to improve our structural technology. And we need to support the continuing
>> development and integrate both the first phase and integrate to the business phase, which we
>> are once again leading for the system. We need to support campus master planning, UNLV now
>> and the mid town vision to create the campus, the sticky campus, that our dear colleague Milt
>> Glick used to refer to so that our faculty and students stay here, learn here, recreate here
>> and are successful here. Because we know the more they're here, the more successful that they
>> will be. We need to really work hard on improving promotion and tenure processes to make it
>> transparent, to make our expectations clear, and again to provide the critical mentoring so
>> that faculty can be successful and we can build scholarly outputs that are wonderful for all
>> of us as we look forward to improving in the future. And we need to enhance the support we
>> give to our students and our customer service to our students. We're charging more money. We
>> need to make sure that our students are having a great experience when they come here. And
>> that's something all of us need to participate in. Now planning priorities are a wish list
>> and we've always had many, many different items on our wish list. Where the rubber hits the
>> road is how we implement a plan. We have three planning implementation teams. Each of those
>> teams has two representatives that were nominated by the faculty senate audit. They're
>> critical staff who are knowledgeable about that area and they're led by the vice president's,
>> the executive vice president and provost leads the education team, our senior vice president
>> for finance and business leads the infrastructure team, and our VP for research and the
>> graduate college leads the research team. These teams are charged with helping us to
>> implement our plan. But let me talk to you now for a moment about where the rubber hits the
>> road. And that is can we finance the dreams that we have? And how will we do that? Through,
>> again, careful fiscal management. We will have one time funds that we can invest in things
>> that are critically needed to build capacity to support education and research on our campus.
>> We will also have some continuing funds going forward, again, primarily contingent on board
>> of regents decisions around registration fees and tuition. We will begin this year to make a
>> series of hires. And here's where we all need to pull together. We will authorize the funds
>> to begin searches. And I will have to say pending availability of funds, but we are confident
>> that we can get well into this list of approximately 30 high impact and opportunity hires to
>> support the strengths that we've built over the years and to make sure that we are supporting
>> the state's vision for economic diversification. So we're looking for people who can help
>> solidify the strengths that we currently have on campus, great programs, for example on the
>> Boyd School of Law, on creative writing in the Black Mountain Institute, in our hotel
>> college, in science, engineering and in many other disciplines where we are proud to show
>> strengths. And what we are looking for are people who can help lead us into a very high
>> quality future, who can show the rest of the country that Nevada's not dead in the water, but
>> that we're still growing and we're prospering and we're moving forward. We want to increase
>> PhD stipends, effective fall of 12. I will be specific. In order to incentivize PhD
>> production we would like to add 1,000 dollars to the base PhD stipend for an entering student
>> and 2,000 dollars for a student who has achieved qualifications to officially be termed a PhD
>> student, whether it's prelims, oral defense, as they move forward. So a total of 3,000
>> dollars difference from the current PhD stipend level. This is still short of nationally
>> competitive in every area. But it is a very positive step in the right direction to help us
>> recruit strong, great students who will bolster our research efforts and go out and build
>> credibility for us as they assume high level academic positions and positions in the private
>> sector. We will accelerate our IT planning and implementation. I've talked to you about
>> integrate two, but we are looking at server space, access to our partners as Switch
>> Communications to the cloud, which I think is a growing area of research interest and support
>> and we'll vigorously support those with IT intensive and data intensive demands in their
>> research. And we need to look at how we will look at accelerating the implementation of
>> digital measures, the faculty database that will support generation of dossier's for tenure,
>> CV's, bios and updating web pages. We also need to look hard and, hold your applause for just
>> a second, we need to look hard at a new email system. Now you can applaud. 

[ Applause ]

>> And I think it's time that we actually move that forward so that we can all have a much
>> simpler time accessing the data that we have. We are also having discussions, I have to kind
>> of joke, it's easier for me to log into my retirement account and manage the money that I
>> have than it is for me to log into almost anything at UNLV. A common portal, one sign in, all
>> services available, is something that we seek. And I know it'll take us a while to get there,
>> but we will continue to push for much easier access for faculty and administrators to all the
>> different data sources, to the student information system, to your benefits, to your email,
>> to your web instructional packages. So that's going to be a commitment that we make as well.
>> We will proceed, as I said before, with integrate two, which will help us improve our
>> business practices. We will, very important investment that we are going to commit to is we
>> will develop a comprehensive faculty mentoring program to better recruit, retain and support
>> faculty, and in particular diverse faculty. We will create an office of economic development.
>> We will begin to implement general education and first year experience plans. We've started
>> and now we need to expand our efforts so that we're offering a high quality induction
>> experience to our freshmen that will improve their success. We need to focus our recruiting
>> activities, financial aid and scholarship distribution to attract highly qualified students.
>> We've made major changes in how we're packaging financial aid. We've made major changes in
>> how we'll distribute scholarships, particularly to non residential students. And we need to
>> ramp up and enhance recruiting overall so that we can bring in highly qualified students.
>> Last year, we brought in three national merit scholars. This year we brought in three more
>> national merit scholars. We have about 14 national merit scholars on campus. We'd like to
>> have about 30 or 40 national merit scholars on campus. We need to provide better packages and
>> be more aggressive about building the academic qualifications of our freshmen students as
>> they go in. And as we do that our students who are here and are alumni will see the value of
>> their degrees increase. We need to focus fundraising and philanthropic efforts and supporting
>> our faculty, especially during these lean economic times, and on supporting student
>> scholarships. And I have been spending most of my personal fund raising efforts, through the
>> angel investments that we have we've created quasi endowments that can support approximately
>> 20 faculty. In the not to distant future we're going to make an announcement that will be
>> very significant for one of our colleges in a major naming gift that will support faculty and
>> students. And we have been really working with a number of different foundations and groups
>> for expanding student support, like the kinds of support our Engelstad scholars have right
>> now, which at maturity will support approximately 100 highly qualified and high need
>> students. Those are great students and we want to get as many on our campus as we can. We
>> will begin replacing interim appointments in executive leadership with national searches for
>> highly qualified people to move us forward. We will identify and resolve barriers to student
>> graduation. And I was just at a great meeting with the chairs yesterday in which we talked
>> about many of these, but I want it to be everybody's business to make our students
>> successful, to not throw up roadblocks, but to help them knock down the barriers to their
>> graduation, to find ways to put the classes we need on the table and to make sure that they
>> are getting the services and support that they need so that we can graduate our students in a
>> timely fashion. I think this is critical for the future success of this campus. So we will
>> invest in our planning priorities in concrete ways to help us achieve the vision that we've
>> laid out. And the question that I would ask for all of you is what does the next iteration of
>> UNLV look like given the limitation of resources and our current fiscal status? We will
>> become more selective with an emphasis on student success and we will drive freshmen
>> enrollment because we know that they gain learning help comes in higher measures than many of
>> the other students who come in after our freshmen year. We are going to build better learning
>> and research environments for an increasingly diverse student and faculty body. That means
>> investing in our classroom technology and investing in critically needed research spaces or
>> scholarly spaces so that faculty don't have barriers to being able to publish, to being able
>> to perform and to being able to get grants. We need an increased emphasis on scholarship and
>> research to build reputation and to improve extra [inaudible] funding. It's time that we
>> begin slowly raising the bar and clearly communicating our standards to the faculty who come
>> into this university so that they can be highly successful. We need to expand our commitment
>> to economic diversification through focused hires and programs. And we need focused growth
>> around the core of sustainable programs that we have as a result of the winnowing that we've
>> been through. These are critical features for UNLV. Now we won't get there without your help.
>> The vice presidents, the deans, the chairs, the faculty, the staff, we need to gather
>> together like we did for our [inaudible] visit. And we all need to work to achieve our dream.
>> I need your best ideas. I need to know when you're seeing barriers. We need to know how we
>> can do better and serve our students better and serve this region better. Your passion and
>> commitment have made all the difference for UNLV as we grew into the institution that we are
>> today. I need your leadership, passion and commitment now to help move this forward and to
>> make UNLV the UNLV of the future that you have all told me you want. And the time to do it
>> starts now. The time to do it starts now. And we need to let our community know what an
>> incredible asset they have and that this region and this state can never achieve its
>> potential unless they invest in UNLV, they invest in the future economy of this state and
>> they invest in the students who need degrees to improve the quality of this region and to
>> build that better future that we've all talked about. And so I also need you to help me send
>> out the good news to this community. I need you to share what you know about our university.
>> We need you to show the pride and passion that you have. And we need to send a strong message
>> to our whole community about UNLV. 

>> Yes, we've been down. But this is Las Vegas. Don't ever count us out. This community has
>> passion. It has vision. It will overcome the challenges and ultimately prevail. And it all
>> starts and ends with education. That is the key to maximizing our potential. We need to
>> diversify the economy. A community that invests in its youth, a community whose quality of
>> life for is residents does not solely hinge on the success of a brilliant boulevard.
>> Education refines the gifted. It gives hope to those seeking a better future. It gives a
>> voice to those who want to change the world. Education makes the weak strong. It's time for
>> us to come together and stand for something we all believe in, ourselves. This is our future.
>> This is our community. This is our university. Rise with us. 

[ Applause ]

>> I thank you all so much. In asking you to rise with us wasn't actually a request for a
>> standing ovation. 

[ Laughter ]

>> To be clear. But I think the message is powerful and it's time we got it out to the
>> community. And I believe that the time to make a difference for this university is now. The
>> time to influence our legislators so that they understand the value of UNLV is now. And I'm
>> confident with the people in this room and the incredible faculty and staff and student
>> populations of this campus that we will work together. And I ask all of you, rise with us.
>> Thank you, so much. 

[ Applause ]

>> And if we could turn up the house lights, I would certainly like to address questions,
>> because I know that you always have questions and are ready to hold my feet to the fire. So
>> please come down. There are microphones to the right and left. And if you have questions,
>> we've got all the expertise we need up here on stage and we'd love to answer them for you.
>> Now I'd be shocked if Mary [Inaudible] students weren't at the microphone. 

>> They're on their way. 

>> Okay. 

[ Laughter ]

[ Silence ]

>> Hello. Fine speech. I just wanted to ask whether or not you believe tuition rates will hold
>> steady or do new, incoming students and returning students face bigger raises. 

>> At this point I'd have to tell you that with the state level of support that we have the only
>> way we can build our campus and offer you all the classes that you need, we know there's
>> critical bottlenecks that we're not serving right now, is for another tuition increase. We
>> hope that it can be reasonable. We hope that I can provide, and others who have raised funds
>> for us, will be able to expand our commitment to providing financial aid and scholarships to
>> you. But I think there's a partnership here. And on our side of the agreement we need to
>> offer you great faculty, access to top quality research experiences, and we need to make sure
>> that critically needed classes are provided and we can't do that without funding. Right now
>> we're at a level. We don't have a lot of room to expand. With an increase in tuition we'll be
>> able to build and grow and give you the experience that you so richly deserve. 

>> Thank you, sir. One more question. You spoke about having a reserve of money for new hires, I
>> was just wondering why is that money being used towards new hires rather than sustaining the
>> faculty and staff that we have before their lost. 

>> Great question, and one that I get at virtually every single faculty meeting. If you took a
>> look at the level of money we have for new hires right now I'll tell you it's a million
>> dollars. I know it sounds like a lot. It isn't much for hires. And that's where we are unless
>> we get a tuition increase. A million dollars would be a rain drop in the desert for trying to
>> restore the cuts and the lost benefits that our faculty are currently facing. Yet, we know
>> that if we can hire a few students in areas where we have been depopulated, and there's a few
>> departments that got hit very hard by the [inaudible] that we'll be able to make sure you
>> have the classes you need and our programs will be able to continue. I think the continuity
>> of programs and our efforts to provide you with high quality degrees has to be our top
>> priority right now. And I think that we're going to need a legislative solution to make sure
>> that we can restore nationally competitive salaries and benefits to our faculty. Having said
>> that I thin it's incumbent on all of us to look very carefully at where modest investments of
>> one time funds can be used to support faculty success, particularly for assistant professors. 

>> Thank you, sir. 

>> Hello, my question is with the increases in tuition, what's going to be the incentive for
>> people to stay in Nevada rather than going to a neighboring state where we'd get a discount
>> on tuition? 

>> Well, the simple answer is because we're still cheaper than they are. 

[ Laughter ]

>> The more compelling answer is that you should select an institution based off it's ability to
>> offer you the degrees and career paths that you seek. We are working hard to build the best
>> degree paths we can for you. And I mean, I'll just take a for instance. We attract a huge non
>> residential population. We have students from 50 states and we have students from over 80
>> countries at UNLV. Most of those students are paying about 18,500 dollars a year to come
>> here. So there's a market. That international marketplace helps to underscore what the value
>> of a UNLV degree is. We know that, for example, students coming out of our college of
>> business are very competitive in getting great jobs, especially in some of the high needs
>> areas like [inaudible] and accounting. We know that students out of our hotel college, the
>> premiere hotel college in the country, are getting great jobs and are moving into leadership
>> positions on the strip. If you look up and down you'll see CEOs in many of the casinos are
>> UNLV graduates or alum. As we approach 100,000 graduates, and that's something to celebrate,
>> as we approach 100,000 graduates, which we'll hit during our December graduation exercise, I
>> would submit to you that a UNLV degree for a residential student is an incredible investment
>> in their future and will pay itself off many fold over their life. 

>> Thank you. 

>> Hi, Neal. 

>> Hi, Lindy. 

>> I'll try and keep my question toned down. You mentioned in your speech that you fought
>> tirelessly to keep many UNLV students money at UNLV and we didn't win that one. It is
>> something I've spoken very loudly about. And if you were to ask me, as a student of UNLV for
>> 13 more percent, I would say you could have your 13 more percent but it needs to stay here.
>> If it's going to go to a general fund and come back at four or five percent, then I'm going
>> to go elsewhere. We are not wasting about economy. We're fighting dearly at one of the
>> toughest times. But as we watch UNLV rise from the problems of the past into a future, I want
>> to hear the president of my university say that he will never stop fighting to keep UNLV
>> dollars at UNLV. 

>> I will tell you that it will certainly be our top legislative priority. And I don't believe
>> I'm putting words in the chancellor or the board of regents mouth when I say that the first
>> step in a fair funding formula is to separate the tuition to allow us to retain and be
>> restored our non residential tuition and to keep the money that we raise here on campus. So
>> you have my pledge to that. 

>> Thank you. 

[ Applause ]

>> Hi. Good morning. How do you expect that customer services will be improved for students? 

>> We've already made some strides in the four years that we've been here. I want to point to a
>> few different things that we've done. First, we've created an academic success center in
>> which students can get very, very inexpensive tutoring, peer counseling, peer tutoring, as
>> well as advising and some limited career advising. We know we're going to have to rebuild our
>> career advising efforts. And those are all strong supports for our students. We also know
>> that students who visit that center graduate at much higher levels than students who don't.
>> And so we want to make sure that students are aware of this. We've put into place something
>> we call the class concierge, let by Gil Juno, so that when students who are nearing
>> graduation experience some bumps and can't get the critically needed classes that they have
>> to have to graduate in a timely fashion that we knock down the barriers for them. We appeal
>> to instructors and to deans and to associate deans and chairs so that we can place them in
>> the class. We've built a student one stop and you've probably been over there in that student
>> services area, it's right across the path from the academic success center, to try to
>> simplify your ability to engage. And finally, to our new student information system, the
>> integrate system, which has created a new My UNLV portal, we seek to continuously expand
>> online services to students and online counseling and online services that we think will help
>> them to manage their academic careers better. So we're continuously improving things like
>> degree audits and other kinds of things that will allow you to track your progress, make
>> fewer errors and graduate in a timely fashion. I'll tell you I believe that extends to our
>> orientation activities, that extends to our recruiting activities, and that needs to extend
>> to our commitment to you to deliver learning outcomes that will serve you all of your life to
>> help give you a solid and strong career and make your employers proud that they hired you. 

>> Thank you. 

>> Do you foresee a tobacco free policy being implemented on the campus within the next few
>> months here? 

>> Would you, a tobacco? 

>> A tobacco free policy. 

>> Oh, okay. I don't know. 

[ Laughter ]

>> I have been told these are difficult to implement. I've also been told that they're easy to
>> implement. We know there's pros and cons from a mechanical perspective. Certainly from a
>> philosophical perspective we would like to see a tobacco free environment and workplace here
>> on our campus. But I'll tell you you're not talking to the most highly qualified person about
>> this discussion. Several folks in student affairs, our chief business office and others have
>> been discussing it. And I know that nursing and Suzanne have been working hard on this issue.
>> And I am basically awaiting the results of their reports so that we can, I can begin to
>> understand the details of it. So I'm sorry to say I don't know yet, but I don't know yet. 

>> And what would you say to the nearly 6,000 students who consider themselves smokers when they
>> have to go off campus to have a cigarette? 

>> Well, I think that's one of the challenges we face. If you're a faculty member, a student, a
>> staff member who smokes and you actually have to vacate the campus in order to smoke, what
>> does that do to our ability to serve our students, to make sure we're staffed and to support
>> them? On the other hand, how are non smokers impacted by folks who are creating an
>> environment that has smoke in it? Again, there's balanced issues around it and I'll tell you
>> that I don't have a resolution to it at this time. It has been an ongoing topic of
>> conversation. I look to continue the conversation in the dialogue. 

>> Thank you. 

[ Silence ]

>> Hi. My question is how will creating a more selective process for new freshmen expand
>> education in Nevada overall? 

>> Well, we have a three tiered system of education here and one of the things that we've
>> learned is that when we bring in students who aren't highly qualified for a research
>> university environment that they are challenged because they're not necessarily ready. It
>> requires remediation, which is expensive, and doesn't apply to graduation. And in some cases
>> it is frustration to the students because they're placed into classes in which their chances
>> to succeed are not as good as they should be. So one of the issues that we have to deal with
>> is where, how do you appropriately understand a student's readiness to attend college? And
>> that we need to work out with our K12 partners because we need better information, and we
>> don't have it yet, to be honest. The second thing we need to understand is that we have this
>> three tired system of education. We have community colleges. We have Nevada State and we have
>> UNLV. And for those who aren't ready for a research university experience, a good start at a
>> community college or a degree from Nevada State is something that everyone can still be proud
>> of and give people a chance to get their legs under them. And then if they choose to they can
>> pursue their degrees here. 

>> Okay. I just have one more question, please. According, I don't really have any numbers, but
>> according to the stories in UNLV Journal, at the beginning of every semester students can
>> hardly get into CSN or other community colleges. So do you think the students who are not
>> accepted at UNLV will have the opportunity to expand their education in the future? 

>> I think a lot of changes are going on in the Nevada system of higher education. I could
>> invite the chancellor up here, but I'm going to try to paraphrase an answer for you. 

[ Laughter ]

>> There's no such thing as a free lunch. Our budget's been severely cut. It's difficult to
>> maintain service levels in the face of the cuts we've received. And if our mission is to
>> build a quality future as opposed to a quantity future, then we have to make sure that we're
>> providing a quality education to our students with the resources we have. Part of the
>> exercise that we are going through now is that in the face of very large reductions of our
>> state face, we are attempting to hold the line around the number of students that we
>> currently have. In fact, we're a little down in enrollment this year and that's partly, I'm
>> sure there's contributing circumstances that are partly because of tuition, partly because of
>> other factors. So if that's true at UNLV, it's true at Nevada State and it's true at CSN. I
>> believe you'll see fairly significant changes in admission policies in all thereof those
>> areas in the near future. And what they'll mean is that the Clark County School District will
>> have to step up to produce more college ready students at a higher level. 

>> Thank you. 

>> I have a question. The athletic department is a key component to the success of the
>> university. So maybe you can explain maybe what's being done with academics to help the
>> success of the academic program, which of course would make the university more successful? 

>> Well I think you saw a lot of those plans roll out today. Let me first just say, wasn't that
>> a great football game against Hawaii Saturday? What, what? 

[ Applause ]

>> One of the parts of a complete campus experience is the ability to participate as a spectator
>> or as a student athlete in college athletics. I know it builds community, it's family, it
>> creates a family feel. And you've heard me refer to athletics as the front porch. People from
>> the community come in to our athletic events, they look around and maybe if they like us
>> they'll come into the rest of the campus and they'll participate. Many of our donors are
>> drawn into our campus through athletics and then ultimately become very significant donors
>> who improve the student experience. One of the things that we've learned from athletics is
>> that if we provide a high touch environment for helping to support our student athletes
>> academically that they are very, very successful. We know the academic success center, the
>> general education program we're proposing and first year experiences are an attempt to take
>> some of the lessons that we've learned from athletics and other areas and extend them to all
>> of our freshmen population so that they, too, have the same opportunities to succeed. And I
>> think there's your most potent example of a little bit of crosstalk between what we've
>> learned in athletics and what we've learned about the main campus and how we're going to try
>> to infuse those values into support for all of our students. 

>> Thank you. 

>> Okay. I'm hearing that it's about time. So I think we can field one final question and then
>> I'm going to invite all of you to a very important dedication. 

>> Good morning. You said we were on stable grounds right now with the budget cuts. How long can
>> we expect to stay on those stable grounds? 

>> I would like to, well, I think anybody who knows me knows I'm hopeful. And I can't live in a
>> world where I constantly look down. I believe that our budget is stable, that our state base
>> will be stable. I believe that the efforts of the state to build a diversified economy will,
>> in fact, help to enrich funding at UNR, UNLV and the Desert Research Institution. And so I
>> believe we're at rock bottom. I believe that a tuition increment will help us to build and
>> stabilize further and I don't see, again, and you know, you always have to say short of
>> utterly unpredictable global issues, and in that case we'll be in a lot of good company with
>> everyone else and every other higher ed institution in the country. Short of that, I don't
>> believe you'll see a further erosion or a significant erosion in our funding. So we're
>> stable, we don't plan to lose anymore faculty or staff, we don't plan to lose anymore
>> programs or degree programs other than in the ordinary kind of inspection that we give
>> programs to make sure they're producing. And I am confident that all of us who are here today
>> to expect the programs that we need and the core programs of this university to persist. 

>> That's good news. Thank you, very much. 

>> You're welcome. Now I thank all of you for your patience. I thank the students for asking
>> great questions. And I want to now ask all of you to join us for our science and engineering
>> building dedication. And just a couple of words, part of the great models that we've seen
>> going forward from different states to produce a more diversified economy has been a
>> commitment to build research capacity and bringing in faculty who attract new businesses and
>> high tech companies because of the research that they do and they support that they can give
>> them. We already have some interactions on our campus like that. We need to grow them. One of
>> the finest facilities I have ever seen is about to be dedicated. It's the science and
>> engineering building. It's a building that encourages interdisciplinary research. It's a
>> building that's built with flexible space so research teams can move into it, adapt to it,
>> change it with minimum cost and to deliver products in a way that matches grant cycles and
>> matches their productivity. It is, in short, a tangible symbol of our commitment to building
>> a strong and robust economy and, I believe, it will become the heartbeat in this state for
>> economic diversification. And on that great note, I conclude today's address and invite you
>> to the science and engineering building dedication. Thank you all, so much. 

[ Applause ]

[ Silence ]