Just as the president of the United States delivers the State of the Union Address every year, President Renu Khator does something similar.
Khator and the administration have been busy preparing to discuss a broad range of topics, such as the University’s 2012-13 Progress Card — a document that reveals a generalized overview of how the University has been advancing since Khator took office in January 2008 — at the Fall Address. The Card outlines six strategic goals: National Competitiveness, Student Success, Community Advancement, Athletic Competitiveness, National and Local Recognition and Resource Competitiveness.
“A progress card is a dashboard that can illustrate quickly if the institution is on the right track. Comparing the base year with the most current year, our overall progress is evident,” Khator said. “We have faced many obstacles — budget cuts, federal sequestration, economic recession, stock market decline — but we have continued moving forward. It takes a strong commitment and a strong team of faculty and staff to continue to making progress under unfavorable conditions.”
Based on the UH Progress Card, the total number of research expenditures has increased by about $42.6 million since the 2007-08 base year. The University’s emphasis on energy and health sciences has helped support the additional research funding.
“The University’s research strategy is to support programs that represent both institutional strengths and significant opportunities for external research funding, particularly from the federal government,” said Chris Stanich, associate vice chancellor and associate provost of Institutional Planning & Analysis. “In addition, UH recently qualified for state research funding through the National Research University Fund, (providing) an additional annual appropriation of $7.9 million.”
The number of nationally ranked UH graduate programs has doubled and there has been a steady increase in doctorates awarded and post-doctoral appointees since the base year. Through the Graduate Assistant Tuition Fellowship and Doctoral Student Tuition Fellowship at UH, students who serve as graduate assistants while obtaining their degrees have their designated tuition and fees paid for by the University.
“Addressing the financial needs of doctoral students enables the University to better compete for top doctoral students and facilitates timely graduation,” Stanich said. “The number of post-doctoral researchers employed at a university tends to be positively associated with the amount of research dollars the university expends.”
In regards to student success, there has been little to no increase in first-time in college retention rate, FTIC graduation rate, the percentage of graduate or professional students and course completion rates, based on UH’s Progress Card.
US News & World Report disclosed that the median retention rate for national universities is 83 percent. With the University’s 5 percent increase to 82 from 77 for first-year students, it’s a mere 1 percent less than the national average.
“The six-year graduation rate is a difficult measure to move on an annual basis, as it can take several years for program/policy changes to be reflected in performance on this measure,” Stanich said. “For example, changes we make today will likely not have a major impact on the cohort of students that will be used to measure the graduation rate for next year. Since these students began at UH five years ago, their ability to graduate in six years is difficult to impact at this point.”
From the base year to 2012-13, there has been a decrease in freshman acceptance rates, which Stanich said is a result of a more competitive pool of freshman applicants, and this decrease won’t be changing anytime soon. The University will be creating higher admission standards for incoming freshman next year.
“In general, we have accomplished a lot, but a lot more needs to be accomplished. The most important goal is helping students achieve their objectives and complete college. I am confident that we can continue moving steadily toward that goal,” Khator said.
The Fall Address is scheduled for Oct. 2.
