External funds up 40% from last year

Lombardi sets capital plans at $281 million

By Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he Oct. 31 Faculty Senate meeting was anything but scary. Good news abounded: external funding is on the rise, searches are underway for new faculty and there is money to fill at least $1 million in support staff positions, the campus is forging ahead with its capital plan, and the campus plans to do away with the student computing fee.

     Income from grants and contracts jumped significantly during the first quarter of FY03, interim Vice Chancellor for Research Fred Byron told the senate. The campus saw a 40 percent increase in external funding this year over the first quarter of FY02 - a jump from $25 million to $35 million.

     Byron called the performance "one of the largest and most dramatic increases in external funding in our history."

     "In terms of the faculty's ability to work hard and to generate external funding, which is going to be an important part of what the chancellor's trying to do, I think we can be very, very pleased at the fact that we have a very strong faculty," Byron said.

     Chancellor John Lombardi said capital projects, such as the desperately needed new heating and power plant and repairs to the roofs and windows of the Lincoln Campus Center, are sometimes both expensive and "invisible" but that the campus needs them and will continue to press forward to get them done. He noted the need for a new Nursing building, a retro-fitted Goessman Laboratory, studio space for Art students, the Integrated Science Building, and rehabilitation of the Student Union, as well as for critical safety enhancements, such as elevators and other accessibility tools for buildings.

     This capital plan is a lot of money," he said. "The whole list altogether is about $281 million of which about $116 million of it is 'new,' in the sense that we did not already have that on the list to be funded.

     "How do you fund this stuff? Well, you borrow money. You go out and you borrow money and then you pay debt service on that money.

     "Now, we're gonna take a risk," he said. "How much of this we can borrow is not entirely clear yet, but a significant hunk of this. But we're gonna take a risk, and it's important for everybody to understand what I mean when I say 'risk.'

     "That means it isn't easy. That means that we have to figure out various kinds of risks."

     Lombardi said the risks are that the state will under-fund the University in the future; that the faculty will perform at a high-enough level to support and maintain the research facilities that they occupy; that the programs and activities, such as use of art studio space will be strong performers and attract good students.

     "And that risk tells us that we have to take these other risks," he said, "that we have to go out there on a limb, we have to borrow the money, and we have to start the projects, 'cause if we wait until there's no risk we will not be able to do what we need to do and the problems we have with space and equipment and facilities will simply get worse.

     "To succeed, we're gonna have to be creative, we're gonna have to have a lot of commitment and we're gonna have to be flexible."

     Lombardi also said the campus would try "to raise close to half of the capital money that is associated with visible projects. It is tough to raise money for steam pipes, but we do have some significant naming opportunities. We believe that they are the kind of things that will mobilize our alumni and friends, and so we are going to be raising money against debt so we can match gifts with debt, put it together and build major facilities and recognize the donors that make it possible. Every dollar that we raise against a borrowed dollar releases a borrowed dollar for another project that's on our list."

     On the operational side, Lombardi said he expects to be able to put $3 million to $4 million into the permanent base budget for faculty recruitment to begin to rebuild the faculty. He said the current size of the faculty is insufficient to maintain its quality.

     Another priority will involve spending $1 million to $2 million to increase support staffing, and $1 million for the Libraries, with an additional investment to increase Library hours. Some monies will be needed to expand community safety initiatives, he added.

     "We have an obnoxious fee for students for computing," he said. "Eighty-five percent of students pay this fee by choice, but they all gotta stand in line to do it. So we're going to try to figure out a way to absorb that cost into the institution's budget. It might cost us as much as $800,000 or $900,000. In the end, every student will have computer access, every student will automatically get a computer account when they are registered in the University, and we all can communicate with our students directly and regularly, and we can require that every student keep that address."

     Lombardi said the campus also would try to substantially improve the recreation facilities in Boyden Gym while it waits to get a new athletic center built.

     "Now, can we do all of this stuff?" he asked. "The answer is I'm not entirely sure whether we can do it all. We think we can do it. We think the faculty are capable of driving this agenda. We think the alumni and friends of the University are going to be eager to participate in this campaign because it's moving and because it's so clearly addressing what this campus has talked about in its plans for a long time."

     Interim Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost Charlena Seymour said the campus is working to acquire excellent new faculty for next year.

     "We want the best," she said. "Because we all know that's how we build our reputation as a strong, competitive research institution.

     "We are fortunate that there will be a pool of money with which we plan to do a lot of hiring. Now a lot has not been assigned a number, yet, but last year we hired around 30 new faculty and we're hoping that we can exceed that number [this year]. I'm pretty sure that we will."

     Seymour said the campus is finding more effective ways to make connections with minority scholars to increase its chances of recruiting them and she hopes to see this come to fruition in future hires to the faculty.