Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the beginning of a new day at UA Little Rock!
Over the last five years of my administration, we’ve had a lot of hard work to do to right this ship and get it turned in the right direction. For a number of years prior, I would say that we were adrift, trying to find our place in a rapidly changing environment, unable to focus on the horizon, and often trying to do too much with too little. So, we needed to start the conversation about our core purpose as an institution of higher education, about our institutional priorities, and about how to meet the needs and expectations of our community. In a word, we needed focus. And we needed to infuse that into everything we did from there on.
Fast forward five years and now we can begin to see the results. Although there is still plenty of work to do and things to fix, I stand before you today to say that this ship HAS turned around and is sailing forward with a strong hull, an experienced crew, and a clear destination. There are several key indicators that should give us cause for optimism.
First, and foremost, we have demonstrated that in spite of strong headwinds, we CAN increase enrollment, we CAN bring people back to campus, and there is still a significant number of people in the State of Arkansas who believe in the value proposition of a college education. When we make it affordable, and reduce other barriers to entry, they will make this investment in their future. We are seeing that now with a 29% increase in new first-time freshmen this fall, an 18% increase in new transfer students, a 1% increase in undergraduate retention, and a 9.3% increase in residence hall occupancy. Residence hall occupancy is at its highest level in years.
A second key indicator is that we have demonstrated that we can live within our means and end each year in the black by a comfortable margin. While we still have to be prudent, we still have to budget carefully and be prepared for setbacks, I can reassure you that we are financially stable and will remain so as long as we maintain our current approach.
A third indicator supporting a positive outlook is the increasing level of investment that external entities have made in this institution. Over the last four years, our revenue from grants and contracts has increased by 45%. We’ve gone from an annual award level of around $30M to a level of around $45M. This fiscal year, just three months in, we’re already at $13M and projected to top $40M. This is a testimony to the exceptional work of our research faculty and public service personnel. It is also reflective of our growing reputation as an institution of excellence. Word is getting out and our grant revenue is growing.
Our revenue from private donations has been equally impressive. Five years ago, we had a fledgling unfocused capital campaign with loosely defined objectives. We threw out the old campaign and started over by rebranding the new campaign as this institution’s Centennial Campaign for a new generation, and we made sure our donors understood that we were raising money for institutional priorities like access and affordability, program excellence and experiential learning opportunities, improving the living and learning environment, research support, and community engagement. Our donors connected with these priorities and we’ve seen the results.
Today, we’ve raised record levels of funding. As many of you know, our current capital campaign has a goal of $250M. Christian is planning a big milestone announcement very soon, so I won’t steal his thunder, but I can tell you that we are very confident that we will reach our goal and then some. The endowment portion of our foundation funds has grown from $84M five years ago to over $141M today. That’s an increase of nearly 68%. Today we average well over 7,000 unique donors each year with corporate investment (which we had very little of before) now at a level of $13M.
All of this investment in UA Little Rock, both in grants and private giving, shows that we have earned the confidence and trust of our community. People are now asking us; how can we help.
And now, after years of cutting, we’ve been able to invest these new dollars into improving our infrastructure, expanding our scholarship base, supporting student success, and supporting faculty excellence. These investments have helped us turn around enrollment and reinvigorate the campus experience. In addition to the beautiful new Trojan Way and the Library Learning Commons, we have refurbished 20 classrooms through corporate donor contributions and the Provost has upgraded labs and other academic spaces with a combination of different university resources. As our annual grant fund revenue has increased, we’ve been able to commit an additional $500K to the research office to better support our research enterprise.
As heartening as this has been, we have struggled to make progress on one of our most important challenges—employee salaries. Individual units and divisions have reorganized and restructured their operations in order to raise salaries for positions that were no longer attracting applicants and to address internal equity issues. We did a faculty salary study a few years ago, and were able to raise below median salaries to the median by rank and discipline using salary savings in the instructional reserve. We have a salary committee working on an equity analysis for staff. And finally, this year, using last year’s increase in student semester credit hours, we took the first step in raising salaries across the board with a $1,000 raise for all full-time employees.
We’re not done.
With this fall’s enrollment increase and the projected enrollment for the rest of the year, I am pleased to announce that we will implement an additional raise of $2000 for all eligible full-time employees effective November 1st of this year.
And we will keep working on this. That is my commitment to you.
I hope you are as encouraged by our progress as I am. I think we’ve come a long way in five years. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that it’s not magic, and it’s not just hard work, although there’s plenty of that. It’s a matter of understanding who we are, what we have to offer, and what the world needs from us. If we can stay focused on our priorities, and if we can keep telling our story, tell people about what we do really well, to everyone who needs to hear it, we can keep sailing forward, getting stronger and getting better every year. We can do this, we are doing it, and I am deeply grateful to each and every one of you for your commitment to this journey. Thank you.
