Dear Colleagues:

I hope this note finds you well as we approach a new year.  As indicated in my last correspondence, I wanted to provide an update on our budgeting process for the 2014-2015 academic year and beyond prior to the holiday break.  I have been working with the academic leadership team (i.e. deans, chairs and directors), as well as with the new budget working group.  I am now confident that we will be able to resolve our immediate budget challenge without any tenured or tenure-line faculty layoffs, something I wanted to communicate quickly and clearly.  This will be possible only because of the creative and thoughtful work of many of our colleagues. We will be able to close the budget gap with a combination of efforts, including currently open positions, retirements, and normal turnover and attrition over the next two academic years.  Combined with a range of efforts geared toward streamlined administration and improved efficiency across campus, this approach will not only help us move to the configuration and structure necessary to grow in coming years, these changes will allow us to respond in flexible and effective fashion to future opportunities.  As I recently shared with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, this budget working group will be a permanent fixture, one that will continue its work on a regular basis.  

I want to remind you that we have approached this problem in strategic fashion.  We continue to hire vigorously in targeted programs and we have insulated critical areas from reductions that would impair their ability to deliver our mission and grow in coming years.  In particular, we have taken special effort to protect and invest in our research mission.  The net result is not only protecting our core teaching and research missions, but strengthening our foundation for growth in the next five years. Despite enrollment declines over the past three years, I am increasingly confident that our broad-based enrollment and retention efforts will help us grow in coming years.  The support at the program, department and college levels has been nothing short of remarkable.

We have yet to make definitive decisions about several organizational and structural initiatives.  There is no doubt we need to improve our administrative efficiency, an effort that will require some organizational changes. Those efforts will continue to be studied, with updates in the near future.   Regardless, though, we will not experience tenure-line faculty layoffs, something that I know has been a concern of many.  This is only one piece of the challenge we face, one that is at the heart of our mission.  I will reach out quickly as decisions are made regarding our general configuration and structure, particularly on the administrative side.  I anticipate some of these decisions will be made in late January to mid-February. 

I wanted to share some good news prior to the holiday break.  Thank you for your hard work, dedication and commitment to the University of Memphis.  I wish you and yours the best for the holiday season and the coming new year.

 Best Regards,

David

Dear Colleagues:

 As all of you are aware, the vision President Martin offered at the beginning of this academic year not only emphasized our core missions of teaching and research, but also our great need to explore and identify measureable outcomes to monitor the success of our efforts. Without measureable outcomes, it’s impossible to gauge our progress, implement and modify effective strategies, and realize our full potential.  We owe it to our students, the taxpayers, and to ourselves to be able to communicate in clear and succinct fashion that we are thinking strategically, investing wisely, and effectively monitoring both our successes and challenges.  

 There is considerable debate across the higher education community about the utility and impact of outcomes and related metrics.  Some aspects of what we do translate directly and seamlessly to outcome measures, but others are not so easily captured with metrics.  Some disciplines line up nicely with this effort, others do not.  Hence, the need for us to be thoughtful and thorough, but without shying away from the challenge.  In response to the complexity of this effort, I have engaged the Faculty Senate, Deans, Chairs, and Program Directors in an ongoing conversation, one that has only just started.  Members of the Faculty Senate will play roles in three key areas. First, Senators will be part of the “budget working group” that will begin its work on Tuesday.  Second, the Faculty Senate’s Performance Committee is  charged with identifying outcome metrics to gauge progress and performance in both teaching and research.  Finally, members of the Senate serve on the research implementation teams charged with developing a strategic response to our recent research capacity analysis. Deans, chairs and program directors are also engaged as part of the University administrative and academic leadership team.

 Although the challenge of developing and implementing performance metrics is difficult, it is arguably one of the more critical tasks in our immediate future given their important role in strategic planning and budgeting.  An interesting question has quickly emerged about how we represent interdisciplinary activity, both across teaching and research.  A focus on interdisciplinary collaboration is essential.  Similar questions have emerged about innovation. We have some great minds on campus and I have unwavering confidence we’ll answer these questions in a creative and meaningful fashion, with consideration to the full range of nuances that emerge across a broad range of discipline-specific concerns at our comprehensive research university, where we are committed to broad exposure in the curriculum.     

 Recent discussions about some early figures released on costs per degree have been lively and productive.  Although only a crude measure of where and how we’ve invested past funds, it’s one that has started the conversation about outcomes and performance-based metrics, a conversation that will continue indefinitely as we explore a budget model that is more flexible and responsive to the rapidly changing higher education landscape. Not only do we need to be creative, innovative and interdisciplinary in our approach, we need to be nimble in structure and more localized in decision-making, empowering our programs and faculty to strategize, invest and implement in their particular areas of expertise. 

 This is an exciting time to be at the University of Memphis.  I am profoundly confident in our ability to be innovative and creative and to meet the needs of our students in an efficient and effective fashion.  As you read in a recent Commercial Appeal article, we’ve implemented a range of empirically informed strategies to improve our retention rates and facilitate degree completion, while holding costs down, maintaining rigor, and striving for excellence.  Similarly, I have no doubt that we will reach our goal of $100 million in research expenditures within the next five years.  Thank you for your energy, your ideas and commitment to moving the University of Memphis forward.

 Go Tigers!

M. David Rudd

Provost