by Henry S. Bienen, President of Northwestern University
March 2, 2000
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to give my annual report on the state of the University. As some of you know, this year marks my fifth anniversary as president of Northwestern. The last five years have been exhilarating and interesting. Much of that, of course, is the result of working with those of you here today, as well as many other colleagues on Northwestern’s faculty and staff. I knew when I accepted the position as president that it would present many new challenges, and indeed it has. What I didn’t know was just how enjoyable I would find this experience.
Together, we have done a great deal in the past five years. We have focused on increasing the quality and stature of the University among the best higher education institutions in the world. We have been successful in many of those areas, but while much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. I would prefer to concentrate on the future rather than the past. Therefore, let me discuss briefly several areas that I think are critical to the future of Northwestern.
First, as was outlined in The Highest Order of Excellence, we plan to increase our efforts to attract the best faculty to Northwestern. We want to retain the outstanding teachers and researchers who are now here while also expanding our faculty selectively. In addition, we want to increase the diversity of our faculty.
We are making significant strides toward these goals. The Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences has embarked on a comprehensive, multi-year hiring plan that includes many new faculty; 11 active searches have already been authorized. We have also hired additional faculty in other schools, including major additions at the medical school, as well as created interdisciplinary positions for selected other colleges and schools. The General Faculty Committee and the administration have been engaged in discussions on the best way to accomplish this.
As part of that hiring, we also seek outstanding researchers. I am very pleased to report that outside research funding for the University totaled $236 million last year, the most in the University’s history. In addition, we now rank 33rd in the country in medical research funding from the National Institutes of Health, compared to 52nd in the country 10 years ago.
What this increased funding shows is that Northwestern faculty members are doing cutting-edge research in a variety of important fields. That research includes such things as searching for new treatments for cancer, efforts to build organs, such as kidneys, etc., from the patient’s own tissue, improved bioremediation of polluted land and water; and key policy issues in economics and government. I am very pleased that, through this important research, Northwestern is continuing to contribute to society in many significant ways.
We also continue to seek to attract the best students at all levels to Northwestern. Although the number of undergraduate applications for next fall is down slightly from last year, with our large and strong pool of applicants, we will once again have an entering class of remarkably bright students from all areas of the country. We are now in the second year of our Chicago Initiative, a program designed to bring more underrepresented minority students to the University.
At the graduate level, in the past year, we have provided additional resources for graduate student fellowships, including year-round funding for students in the humanities and social sciences where such funding has generally not been available. As a result, we are able to attract a stronger group of graduate students than we were in the past.
All of this would not be possible without the firm financial foundation that Northwestern enjoys. Through a combination of sound financial management, wise investment of our resources and the remarkable success of Campaign Northwestern ?although it is not completed -- the University is in a very strong financial position.
Campaign Northwestern has been tremendously successful. We announced the campaign, with a goal of raising $1 billion, less than two years ago. Today, gifts and pledges to the campaign total approximately $878 million. We hope to announce another, truly extraordinary gift in the very near future.
We also are considering whether to increase the overall goal of the Campaign, and if so, to what level. I am confident that we will reach the overall goal well in advance of the planned concluding date of 2003. I strongly believe, however, that it is critical to work towards the goals we established in the current phase, including funding for our new buildings and improving our annual operating support, so we do not create future financial problems for the University through operations and maintenance costs.
The most obvious manifestation of the Campaign’s success is the construction that is now under way on our campus. Last fall we opened Kemper Residence Hall and the Transportation Center on the Evanston campus, along with the Gleacher Indoor Golf Center. We also finished the fourth floor of Annenberg Hall for the School of Education and Social Policy, a major project that involved several state-of-the-art classrooms and a computer lab. The four buildings, with very different purposes, represent well the breadth of the campaign and our ambitions. Improved classrooms, better living and recreational facilities for our undergraduate students and graduate and professional education space ?all are important to Northwestern’s future.
We are making good progress on the many other planned facilities. Work is under way on a major addition to Andersen Hall for the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, with completion of that project early next year. The addition will provide faculty offices, classrooms and study areas for Kellogg and the Department of Economics.
Also progressing rapidly is the expansion of the Block Museum of Art. The new addition will provide significantly more gallery space for the Block’s growing collection as well as a high-tech auditorium that will be suitable for film screenings and lectures. When it opens this fall, the new Block will be a wonderful addition to our campus cultural attractions.
As many of you probably have noticed, Vogelback is no more. The first building constructed on the lakefill some 35 years ago is now being demolished. In its place, we will begin construction soon on a nanofabrication center, where chemistry and engineering will intersect in some of the most interesting areas of science today.
We also will begin work later this year on two very important research facilities. On the Chicago campus, we will construct what ultimately will be a $200 million facility located at the corner of North Fairbanks Court and East Superior Street. The 12-story building will have research laboratories in the fields of cancer research, genetics, biomedical engineering, neurosciences, aging and cardiovascular research. When complete, the building will house approximately 700 researchers, technicians, postdoctoral students and lab assistants. Although some of these will be current faculty and staff who are relocating, many of them will be new, which means we will be able to increase our medical research significantly. This building is critical to our plans for the medical school, so I am very pleased that we are moving ahead on it.
We recently received a $10 million gift from Arthur and Gladys Pancoe for the new life sciences building on the Evanston campus. This, coupled with approximately $14.5 million that we received toward the building from Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, will enable us to begin construction this fall. The new building will provide space for researchers in the areas of molecular biology, genomics, cell biology, neurobiology, developmental biology and reproductive biology.
We also will start this fall on the new broadcast journalism facility near Fisk Hall for the Medill School of Journalism funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, which will provide a sophisticated broadcast television facility and new media center.
We also plan to build a new tennis center and renovate the Henry Crown Sports and Athletic Center. The new tennis center will be named for the late Ivan Combe, a devoted Northwestern alumnus who passed away recently.
We also hope to expand the Norris University Center and identify funding sources for construction of either a new wing on Kresge Hall or a new social sciences building. Raising funds for those projects is at an early stage, however, so we do not have a definite timetable for either project.
Managing all this construction is an enormous task and I’m very pleased with the progress we have made to date. It is putting a tremendous load on our facilities staff and I want to thank them for their extraordinary efforts. I also appreciate everyone’s willingness to bear with the temporary inconvenience that such projects necessarily create. As we move into high gear on all these projects later this year, I hope you’ll continue to tolerate the inconvenience, as we simply cannot do all this construction during the summer. I assure you, the end result will be worth it.
I’m also pleased to note that the Campaign is resulting in an increase in both the percentage of alumni giving to Northwestern’s annual fund and in the actual dollars raised. This show of support from our alumni is very important, not only for the funds we raise, but because foundations and other groups look at those giving rates as an indicator of alumni satisfaction with the University.
Let me turn briefly to an area that has been in the news recently and undoubtedly will be in the coming weeks ?our relationship with the city of Evanston. As some of you know, there is a proposal to create a historic district in Evanston that would include almost all of Northwestern’s properties on the west side of Sheridan Road. Including those properties would essentially freeze them in their current state, meaning the University could not alter them in any way or replace them with new structures without getting specific permission of the city’s historic preservation commission. This obviously has a significant impact on our ability to use our property in that area, a fact that concerns us greatly. While we have made our objections known to the city, we do not know what ultimately will happen.
In addition, on the March 21st ballot in Evanston, there will be an advisory referendum asking voters whether the city should negotiate with Northwestern to receive payments for a "fair share" of the costs of community services. As we have stated on many occasions, we believe strongly that Northwestern does pay its fair share in city taxes and fees and contributes to the economy and welfare of the city and its residents in many ways. We pay millions of dollars in taxes and fees. It is not the job of the University to subsidize the recurring budget of the City.
A good example is our work on the effort to wire all of Evanston with broadband Internet access. Northwestern Information Technology personnel have been providing support, at times almost on a full-time basis, for the creation of "e-tropolis Evanston." Starting this month, e-tropolis is expected to provide high quality network services to Evanston businesses and residents, thereby helping make Evanston a more attractive location for businesses that rely on such high-speed Internet access, as well as better connecting the entire community.
We are always willing to meet with city officials to discuss areas of mutual concern. Northwestern and Evanston are partners. Regardless of what happens with the referendum, we are committed to continuing to find additional opportunities to advance the city, its schools and the University. In our discussions, we clearly hope community leaders will be willing to listen to our concerns as well.
Now I’d like to acknowledge a few members of our staff for their contributions. Would the top earners of the service excellence awards for 1999 please stand and be recognized:
Evanston campus
- Peggy Adamson, business administrator, Chemical Engineering
- Jaacke Brooks, senior office clerk, Kellogg Graduate School of Management
- Louise Gordon, secretary, Development and Alumni Relations
- Andrea Gurr, coordinator of faculty records, Provost’s office
Chicago campus
- Agatha Collins, assistant manager of printing and duplicating, University Services
- Rodney Greene, research technician, Surgery Department. Rodney received a special award for receiving four or more nominations every year since the program went into effect. He also was the employee of the year on the Chicago campus in 1996.
At this time I’d like to ask everyone to join me in giving these members of our staff a round of applause for their good work. Congratulations to you and thanks for your efforts.
I also want to acknowledge the work of the many faculty, staff and students involved in organizing this year’s Martin Luther King Day events. As you know, we cancelled classes for a period of time that day and had University-wide events on both campuses. I was very pleased by the participation in those events, as well as the others that occurred in conjunction with the King Day celebration.
I’d also particularly like to thank all the members of our faculty and staff who have been working so hard to get our new Student Enterprise System up and running. Everyone involved ? Information Technology, Registrar, Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Loans and Accounts, faculty and staff in all the dean’s offices and others I may have inadvertently left out ?have truly been doing more than could be asked in order to get the new database working. I know it isn’t completely there yet, but I also know that we would not be nearly as far along as we are without your hard work.
I’m also enormously appreciative of the efforts of all our staff who was involved in Y2K preparations during the past year and in the continuing work on our other computer systems, such as Human Resources Information System and BSR in Development. I’ve learned just how complex ?and expensive ?these systems can be, and I have developed a great respect for those who work on them daily.
Finally, I’d like to thank the staff in the colleges and schools who work directly with our students. You are the front line in providing support to our faculty and in dealing with our students. I very much appreciate your efforts.
Our work in information technology and in almost every other area has been hampered by the shortage of skilled workers available in the market. To address this problem, we are planning salary increases for this fall that will be more than the market averages for jobs where we face the greatest hiring challenge. By raising the salary levels that we pay in these jobs, we hope to make them more attractive to applicants for our vacant positions; and these increases should please many of you as well. We also continue to stress merit pay increases.
Next academic year we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Northwestern’s founding -- our Sesquicentennial. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunities this will provide to reflect on Northwestern’s unique history and mission. I also view it as an opportunity to reaffirm our strategic plans for the coming years. Let me quickly share some of our key initiatives.
Faculty hiring and retention are critical to our success, so we place a great deal of emphasis on these. As I mentioned earlier, we also need to increase the diversity of our faculty. While I understand the constraints we face given the small number of African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the pool of rising faculty members, I am not satisfied with the position in which we find ourselves.
There are some who say that our commitment to advance the overall quality of the University has resulted in a decreased emphasis on the pursuit of diversity, particularly with respect to underrepresented minorities. I want to be clear about our strategy and my personal commitment. I believe strongly that diversity and inclusion are key values undergirding the Highest Order of Excellence. I also believe that the stronger the University becomes, the more attractive will be for all faculty candidates and all students. We are not satisfied with the numbers of faculty who are African Americans and Hispanic Americans and are taking steps to address this situation.
The first of these is a thorough review of our policies and practices in faculty hiring and development in a recently formed subcommittee of the Committee on Educational Diversity. While I must caution that there is no quick fix, I will tell you that the Trustees and senior leadership of Northwestern are committed to the proposition that excellence and diversity must go together in the pursuit of the Highest Order of Excellence.
Another challenge we face is how to develop a stronger sense of community at Northwestern. This consistently is raised as an area of concern in our surveys of students, and I personally sense this. Northwestern is a place of many different schools and interests. While that makes us an intellectually stimulating institution, I think it also leads to a somewhat fragmented identity. Therefore, the question we will consider is what should we be doing to enhance our sense of community at Northwestern?
We also plan to make continued investments in undergraduate education, both in our academic programs and in student life. We will continue to enhance our use of on-campus academic technologies, increasing the number of smart classrooms and encouraging our faculty to use Web-based course software. At the same time, we will develop a University strategy for continuing education and distance learning. This is a critical area for our future and we must engage the issues it presents.
To be sure, this is an ambitious agenda. Any one of these issues by itself merits a great deal of attention; combining all of them may seem daunting. With your continued support, however, I am confident that we will succeed because Northwestern is open to new ideas.
Almost 150 years ago, Northwestern’s founders gathered in an office above a hardware store in Chicago to create a new university. Rather than create an institution simply for their city or state, they decreed that the new university should be named for and serve the entire Northwest Territory, a vast region that now includes the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. In addition, although firmly grounded in the Methodist faith that united them, the founders created an institution that would welcome students of all faiths in a variety of academic disciplines. Indeed, the resolution passed at one of the earliest board meetings, "...to make it a University of the highest order of excellence, complete in all of its parts...," was startling in its ambition, in part because the University at that time had no students, no faculty, and no money. Today our reach is global, not regional.
What Northwestern University had then, however, and continues to have today, is a determination to strive for greatness. As we reflect upon Northwestern’s remarkable heritage, we now enter the 21st century renewed in our purpose of making the University an institution of the highest order of excellence, not just for the Northwest Territory, but for the entire world. It is the world itself we want to reach, influence and contribute to with our vitality and creativity.
Thank you. I will now be glad to answer any questions you may have.