Howard Gillman, UC Irvine Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, spoke at the UCI Emeriti and Retirees Annual Reception on April 22, 2014.
He is a new Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor who has been here 10 months.
He is also a Professor of history, political science, and law.
He began pointing out that for universities under 50 years old, we were rated fifth in the world. Looking at the top four which are more technical schools, we are really the top research university. (He forgot to note that we were first in the US in the category under 50. We are about to turn 50, and will emerge from that category.)
We are about to undergo a leadership transition with Chancellor Michael Drake leaving to head the Ohio State University system. Howard Gillman will be the interim Chancellor (beginning July 1, 2014).
We are looking for the highest level leader who will lead us to the future. (This is a good time to give my usual apology that I am slowly taking notes on my iPhone and won’t give totally accurate verbatum quotes.) UC President Neapolitano would like the new Chancellor selected by the September Regents meeting. They may be looking for someone familiar with the campus.
Prof. Frank LaFerla is appointed the new Dean of the newly renamed Francisco J Ayala School of Biological Sciences. The Merage School of Business also has a new Dean, Eric Spangenberg. There is a search for the Vice Chancellor of health affairs and the School of Medicine.
President Obama will likely be our Commencement speaker this year. This is the 50th anniversary of our ground breaking where President Lyndon Johnson participated just a day after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The joint commencement ceremony will be celebrated in Angel Stadium, and smaller school commencements will take place on the campus. The joint ceremony will show OC how large our campus is, with 45,000 able to attend the commencement.
This year we have a new High Impact Hiring Initiative. The purpose of this is to hire those who will both contribute to knowledge and to human well being. The program is to find leaders who will have a decades long impact on our campus. The Professors or clusters hired should have a catalytic impact. They should also draw together campus units. They will help give us a world reputation and be transformative. The evaluation committee is considering 40 proposals.
There are now three Interschool Academic Initiatives. For example, Psychology is spread across four schools with shared interests. The purpose is to “accelerate our ascendency across pre-eminent institutions”. There is a multi-area program including computer sciences analyzing social networking. (It is called Data Science across the University.) The program in Medical Humanities will combine history, humanities, the arts and genomics.
There is a new Institute for Innovation funded by the Beall Foundation with five million dollars for a start up. The purpose is to provide technology transfer and commercialization, using the resources of the Research park next to our campus.
University Advancement has been more transfered into the Schools. Dean’s will now advocate more for fund raising, givine 50% of their time to this. We now receive $75 to $80 million a year in fund raising.
This year we received a record 82,450 applications. Our acceptance rate was 35%(?).
We have a large number of Hispanic students graduating. We have the number one graduation rate for Pell Grants students and for minorities (I didn’t catch the data here).
While there are several rating sources for research University reputations, an accurate way is provided by the Academic Analytics Company. They evaluate scholarly activity and who is reading and citing our research. We are eighth in the US among 62 universities in the Association of American Universities (AAU). The AAU universities award over half of American doctorates.
We are moving forward with new leaders and new programs. We are taking new paths in entrepreneurial efforts.
In response to questions, the following topics were covered.
Q. Since out of state students are increasing, does this lower the number of in-state students that we take?
A. It doesn’t lower the numbers of in-state students. Out of state students pay the true cost of their education (and help us to have more faculty members). We want state to return to funding more in-state students, and this helps us keep the class sizes of the past. (The current number of high school graduates UC takes is the top 9% of each graduating class and any others in the top 9% statewide.)
Q. Are we investing in MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) to lower the cost of education?
A. We put on one of the most followed MOOCs based on the TV show “The Walking Dead”. This involved commenatries from Professors from Health. Political Science, and Physics. MOOCs won’t transform the campus. But we are a leader in using them among UC campuses. The first years of Chemisty are available. Also Math courses are available using a “Flipped Classroom” (where students watch the lectures on their own, and the interaction sessions are focused on problem solving and questions). We also have them in Social Sciences. This is under the leadership of Gary Matkin (Dean of Continuing Education).
Q. What about Hispanic students? We now have 24% Hispanic students. The admitted class is 28% Hispanic. To become an “Hispanic Serving” university we have to have 25% Hispanic students, and we may achieve that before any other in the AAU. No other AAU university is yet Hispanic serving. UCSB is also close to this, and it reflects California’s demographics.
We want to increasingly be considered a number one school in the State. We want to be a university that great faculty and great students will want to come to.
