By Northwestern University President
Henry S. Bienen
February 27, 2002
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity provided by NUSAC and GFC to provide my thoughts on the state of the University. I'd like to thank the members of both of those groups for organizing this event.
This is the first year that I will give the speech only one time instead of on each campus in Evanston and Chicago. The speech is being Webcast so members of the Northwestern community may watch. Apparently our software license limits us to 200 viewers using the Web site at one time. I'd like to think there will be so much demand that we'll have to renegotiate the license to satisfy all the viewers for this speech, but somehow I doubt that is going to be a problem.
Let me first of all say that the state of the University is very good, thanks mainly to the dedicated efforts of our faculty and staff. While we face several challenges, I am confident that Northwestern will not only succeed, but will excel in its important missions of teaching and research. The Board of Trustees, my fellow administrators and I can provide leadership, but ultimately it is the outstanding work of everyone at the University that will enable Northwestern to reach new levels of distinction.
One of the challenges we now face is that although the events of September 11 are now receding in time, their impact clearly remains. Six members of Northwestern's alumni community perished in the terrorist attacks. Along with their families and friends, we continue to mourn their loss.
Northwestern may not have incurred any physical damage as a result of the attacks or the subsequent economic downturn. However, we are not impervious to the reality that the world has changed in many ways. We now face increased concerns on the part of our Muslim students, additional government scrutiny of international students wanting to come here, the understandable qualms of parents in regard to overseas travel and even questions about our curriculum in the wake of the attacks. Indeed, it's a good time to reassess what we are doing in our international relations and related areas. In addition, the events of the past six months have created a time of heightened emotions, as is evident by the increase in demand for student counseling services.
The economic uncertainty also affects us directly. Northwestern's strong financial controls ensure that the University budget remains in sound shape. Nevertheless, we are seeing a slowdown in new gifts and pledges to Campaign Northwestern and our endowment earnings are less robust than they have been in previous years. This does not mean that we are in any type of financial peril, but it does mean that we must be more selective in undertaking new initiatives.
Another reason we need to be judicious in regard to any new programs is simply the fact that Northwestern has been very ambitious in recent years. We've made many major commitments, the most noticeable of which are the new buildings now under construction on both campuses. The operating and maintenance costs of these facilities will add between $10 million to $12 million to our operating budget, exclusive of the personnel costs for the faculty and staff who will occupy them.
Despite the additional expenses, however, I believe strongly these facilities are necessary to take Northwestern to the next level of higher education. Without improved science and medical facilities, we could not recruit and retain outstanding researchers. Without new offices, we could not increase the number of faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences. And without new residence halls, we could not provide an adequate amount of housing for our undergraduate students.
So I'm very pleased that we've been making such good progress ?aided by the mild winter -- on all of these important building projects. Here on the Chicago campus, the site preparation for the Lurie Medical Research Center is going very well and construction will begin this spring.
On the Evanston campus, the new Combe Tennis Center and renovated Henry Crown Sports Center opened last month. It's a wonderful facility.
Another important facility for undergraduate students, Slivka Residence Hall, will open next fall, providing room for 140 students in campus housing and a new home for the Science and Engineering Residential College.
Two other key facilities are scheduled to open next fall as well. The McCormick Tribune Foundation Broadcast Journalism building will give students access to outstanding new facilities for broadcast journalism and new media. The Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly will provide state-of-the-art research laboratories and help solidify our leadership in this important emerging field.
The following spring we will complete work on the Pancoe-Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Pavilion for our biomedical research efforts here in Evanston and the addition to Kresge Hall. The final building project, the Ford Engineering Design Center, which will bring the computer science department back to campus from the research park and provide for expansion in that department, should be done in 2004.
As was announced earlier this month, we also are building for the future by creating additional land on the Evanston campus. We plan to fill in approximately four acres of the lagoon, which will give the University space for at least four new buildings at some point in the future. I know that there has been some unhappiness on the part of some of our undergraduate students in regard to this proposal, but I strongly believe that if we are to provide the University room to grow in the future, this plan presents the best course of action. The reality is that the Evanston City Council almost certainly would not approve building new facilities on our land on the west side of Sheridan Road. In addition, once we complete the buildings now under construction, there will be very little buildable space left on the main campus.
I very much would like to thank the members of the faculty and staff on both campuses who have been involved in the planning and construction of these facilities and even the raising of funds for them, although there is more to do here. We knew going in that our construction plans were extremely ambitious. We have been remarkably successful to date, and with your continued good work, I am confident that will continue. These buildings will benefit our students and our research for years to come.
Obviously, we are able to move forward with these projects because of the success of Campaign Northwestern, which now stands at nearly $1.3 billion. But I want to emphasize that the campaign means more than just new buildings. As you know, we recently received a truly magnificent gift of $75 million from the Feinberg Foundation to endow the medical school, the largest single gift to the University in its history. This gift will significantly enhance our teaching and research efforts in the medical school for years to come. We are deeply appreciative of the generosity of Reuben Feinberg, the president of the Foundation, and the board members of the Foundation.
In addition, we've been very successful in raising funds to help support our faculty and students. To date, the campaign has brought in $60 million for undergraduate scholarships; $25 million for graduate fellowships; $33 million for professional school scholarships; and more than $100 million for endowed professorships. These funds enable us to attract some of the best students and scholars in the world, thereby making Northwestern a more diverse and intellectually exciting place.
I'm also pleased to report that the amount of sponsored research last year increased by 10 percent from the previous year, reaching a total of approximately $281 million. Even more encouraging is the fact that total research volume for the first four months of this fiscal year is $78 million, a 40 percent increase from a year ago. Nevertheless, I believe that as our new buildings come on line, we have the potential for significantly more research activity, and I look forward to our faculty garnering additional research awards. Some recent research highlights include:
- An $11 million grant from the National Science Foundation to Professor Chad Mirkin, director of the Institute for Nanotechnology. The grant, along with a $5 million matching commitment from the state, will help create the Northwestern Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.
- A $3.8 million award from the Army Research Office to Professor Samuel Stupp, director of the Institute for Bioengineering and Advanced Medicine for new facilities. The research laboratories and support facilities will be located in the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center.
There are several other proposals pending that we should know more about shortly. One of the most exciting is that we are a finalist for $50 million award to establish a National Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology. There originally were 30 institutions competing for this project, so to be one of the final three is a tribute to everyone involved on the part of the University.
We are also pursuing technology transfer actively, as it aids us in faculty recruitment and retention and for bringing our technologies to the market. We have a number of discoveries by our faculty in advanced stages of development with various companies, including four drug candidates in clinical trials. Some of these are expected to launch products in the near future and ?we hope ?provide significant revenue for the University. We also want our research to make an impact on the health and well-being of many people.
Our students also continue to earn many honors. Earlier this year, Matt Harsh, who graduated last year, has been awarded a Marshall scholarship for 2002. This marks the fourth year in a row that we have had a Marshall scholarship winner and the sixth Northwestern student selected in that time.
In addition, it was announced this morning that we have three undergraduate students on the USA Today All-Academic team. Earning first-team honors was John Broach, a senior in the School of Speech who is in the Honors Program in Medical Education. On the second team was Puneet Singh, a Weinberg senior who is an American Studies major and also in the HPME program. And on the third team was Melissa Harris, a Medill senior. Congratulations to all of them.
We also had two doctoral students in our history department, Sean Field and Mark Jurdjevic, receive Newcombe Fellowships for outstanding dissertations. This is the first year that two Northwestern students have received the award.
Turning to undergraduate admissions, the number of applications has increased by approximately 3 percent from a year ago. Early decision applicants increased by 22 percent to nearly 1,000, and we accepted 515 of those applicants. The early-admit portion of our class has grown to 27 percent this year from 18 percent just four years ago. This is still less than many of our peer institutions, but it means that for an increasing number of our students, Northwestern is their strong first choice. At this point, our class profile in terms of SAT scores and class rank looks very similar to last year's ?in other words, one of the best group of undergraduates in the country.
Applications for both the law school and Kellogg also are up significantly. Although this may be attributed in part to the slumping economy, I think it also reflects the continued strong reputation of both schools and the value that is placed on a degree from them.
We are continuing our efforts to increase our diversity both among our students and our faculty. I believe this is an important issue in higher education, as well as society in general, and one that requires consistent efforts. The faculty diversity committee has brought new energy to this important initiative. The committee has advised the provost on several proposals to bring more underrepresented faculty to Northwestern. We have responded enthusiastically to several of those proposals. In addition, although it's early in the faculty hiring season, I am encouraged that several of the searches now under way have been successful in identifying strong minority candidates.
On another issue, one of our key initiatives in the past year has been improving Northwestern's Web presence. I think we have made significant progress on this, but I also know that much remains to be done. The new search engine and the revised top-level pages make it much easier to find information on the University's Web pages, but we now must make sure that information is accurate and up-to-date. That's a challenge, but given the increasing use of this communications channel by all of our audiences, it's important that we do so. For example, this year, 80 percent of the applications to the graduate school were done on-line.
Also on the technology front, our Information Technology division is partnering with the University of Illinois-Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory to develop StarLight, an international high-speed optical fiber network connection point that will link research computers worldwide through a central hub on our Chicago campus. Abbott Hall, which is directly across the street from where we are today, will become the hub of the next generation of super-broadband communications.
The technology improvements also benefit our teaching and research efforts. The Course Management System has been used by more than 2,500 classes and last fall, more than 70 special Web sites for WCAS freshman seminars were created. Each site allows students to preview the seminars in which they are enrolled and to communicate with classmates via e-mail and bulletin boards even before they arrive on campus. This program was so successful that it's being expanded to other schools for next fall.
Turning to a less pleasant topic, we expect an important ruling soon in the lawsuit that the University filed over the creation of the Northeast Evanston historic district. We obviously hope we will prevail in the issue. I understand that the legal costs of that lawsuit ?and several others the city has gotten itself embroiled in ?are causing some financial stresses on the city budget. I assure you I'm not happy about spending the University's money on lawsuits either.
But I also feel very strongly that we must protect the legal rights of the University and we feel the city council abrogated those rights when it voted to create the historic district last year. That district allegedly was created to recognize the development of single-family homes in northeast Evanston in the late 19th and early 20th century. But when hundreds of homeowners protested because of the regulatory burdens being imposed on them, the city council redrew the boundaries and excluded most of them. When Northwestern protested the inclusion of its properties ?which include Foster-Walker, Blomquist and the Transportation Center ?for the same reason, the city council ignored us. That strikes us as discriminatory treatment, so we've asked the court to rule on that question.
We have been successful in Evanston by building bridges with the schools, with community organizations and even with city staff with whom we work on a day-to-day basis. I hope at some point we can be with the council as well.
In regard to appointments we recently made an important decanal appointment, naming Dan Linzer to become the next dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. I may have personal some concerns about the life sciences department staging a coup d'etat now that we have the provost, the dean of the graduate school and soon the dean of Weinberg from that department. But I'm absolutely thrilled to have Dan, who has been associate dean for sciences, take the reins next summer. I'd also like to acknowledge the excellent work by Eric Sundquist in his five years as dean of WCAS. He has been a thoughtful and inspirational leader, and we wish him well.
I also think the appointment of another associate dean, Dipak Jain in Kellogg, to the dean of that school was a splendid choice. Dipak has a keen understanding of both Kellogg's unique culture and its place in a global society, and he has hit the ground running there.
We've added three new vice presidents in the past year, Tom Cline as general counsel, Bill Banis in student affairs, and most recently Will McLean in investments. All three bring impressive credentials and I've benefited already from the advice of both Bill and Tom in many ways, and I anticipate that the entire University will benefit from Will's counsel.
The search for a new dean of the School of Continuing Studies is underway. A strong pool of prospects has been identified, and the search committee, chaired by Professor Gregory Ward, hopes to have a slate of nominees to the Provost by the end of the winter quarter. In this important search, as in other searches for deans and vice presidents, Provost Dumas and I have appointed search committees including a member of the staff in addition to student, faculty, and alumni representation.
These are key leaders, obviously, but equally important are the many members of our faculty and staff who do so much for Northwestern. As is the case each year, I'd like to recognize our staff members who were the top earners of the service excellence awards for the past year. They are:
Rodney Greene, Cardio-thoracic Surgery
Howard Ventura, ORSP Accounting Services
Ann Clements, Human Resources Payroll
Mark Seniw, Materials Science & Engineering
Daniel Terket, Facilities Managment
Bruce Tripple, Facilities Management
Carlton Horne, Mailroom
James Jaeger, Instrument Shop
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. Thanks for your continued good work.
I have cited many people in my speech today, but I clearly could have added many, many more. We are fortunate to have here at Northwestern a remarkably dedicated group of faculty and staff, as well as some of the brightest students in the world. I am proud to be one of your colleagues.
In closing, I want to reiterate my belief that this University, already among the best in the country, has an even brighter future ahead. Napoleon once said that a leader is a person who deals in hope. I not only have hope, but I have confidence that with your assistance, Northwestern is well on its way to becoming one of the pre-eminent institutions of higher learning in the country.
Thank you.