Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi saved the best for last in her 2015 State of the Campus presentation to the Academic Senate last week.

CAPITAL PROJECTS

More from Chancellor Katehi's State of the Campus presentation: Nearly 60 capital projects worth $790 million are in the works — in the planning, design, bidding and construction stages.

The projects include:

• Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art
• Ann E. Pitzer Center (including a recital hall and classroom space)
• Large lecture hall (California Avenue)
• Memorial Union renewal
• Tercero Phase 4 (student housing)
• Betty Irene Moore Hall (on the Sacramento campus)
• International Center

A groundbreaking ceremony was held last Friday (Feb. 27). for the International Center. See slideshow above and a Vine video here.

The two-story building will have about 40,000 square feet of assignable space for Services for International Students and Scholars, Study Abroad, the Global Affairs Office of the Vice Provost, and UC Davis Extension’s Center for International Education. The design can accommodate a possible expansion of 30,000 to 40,000 square feet.

The first phase only is priced at $29.9 million, with funding from UC Davis Extension reserves and external financing repaid from both UC Davis Extension revenue and campus funds (campus funds do not include student tuition, student fees or state funds).

Completion is expected in the fall of 2016.

She announced the UC Davis Endowed Faculty Leadership Initiative to add 25 chairs and professorships with gifts from donors and matching funds from the UC Office of the President, the UC Davis Foundation Board and the Office of the Chancellor.

And she outlined the new Financial Sustainability Action Plan, under which the university is setting aside new, annual recurring funds — through savings and new revenue — for reinvestment in the academic enterprise.

Endowed Faculty Leadership Initiative

This initiative builds on great progress made during The Campaign for UC Davis, which concluded in May 2014 with a fundraising total of $1.13 billion, including gifts that provided for a near doubling of the university’s endowed chairs and professorships to a total of 163.

Under the Endowed Faculty Leadership Initiative, the chancellor and provost would decide where to allocate the new professorship and chair positions  — for retention or new hires, for example — in alignment with the university’s strategic priorities and long-term vision for addressing society’s great challenges.

When professorship or chair positions became vacant, the funding would revert to the chancellor and provost for reallocation, again giving them maximum flexibility to put resources where they are needed the most. 

The Campaign for UC Davis may be over, but fundraising continues as strong as ever, the chancellor said.

“We are doing extremely well. We’ve raised $135 million to date in fiscal year 2014-15. These funds will help ensure UC Davis can keep advancing as we work toward the next campaign,” she said.

Katehi offered her remarks while presenting a slideshow with charts and graphs and photos. Her audience numbered about 75 at the Feb. 24 meeting of the Academic Senate’s Representative Assembly, comprising delegates from across the university.

Financial Sustainability Action Plan

“I am pleased to report that several of the initiatives we launched in recent years are beginning to yield excellent dividends,” Katehi said.

So much so that Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Dave Lawlor has developed the Financial Sustainability Action Plan with a goal of providing an additional $200 million in recurring annual funds for academic programs, research, faculty and staff, technology and capital infrastructure.

Sources of the “new” money include enrollment growth associated with the 2020 Initiative, administrative efficiencies (not related to position cuts), growth in endowment payout and increased indirect cost recovery.

Other highlights

Here are some of the other highlights from the chancellor’s hourlong presentation:

Education for the future — She described the fall 2014 entering class as the largest and most diverse in UC Davis history. Her slideshow included a graph showing an upward trend in the percentage of underrepresented minorities among California and national undergraduates, from 19.2 percent in 2010 to 24.8 percent in 2014.

Rankings — The chancellor proudly displayed these rankings: 9th in the U.S. News & World Report ranking of the top-10 public research rankings (our fifth consecutive year in the top 10), first for teaching an agriculture and forestry in the QS World Rankings, and 11th nationally for writing in the disciplines (with UC Davis as the only California institution to make the list). “We are showing steady improvement for rankings in the disciplines,” she said.

And we are the fourth “greenest” university in the world (and No. 1 in the United States) in the Green Metric rankings. “We deserve that recognition,” the chancellor said.

Access — “These are amazing numbers,” Katehi said:

• 74 percent of undergraduates received financial aid during 2013-14, with an average award of $19,486.
• 43 percent of undergraduates received Pell Grants in 2013-14. UC Davis enrolled more Pell Grant recipients than the entire Ivy League combined.
• 54 percent of California resident undergraduates received enough gift aid to have systemwide tuition and fees completely covered in 2013-14.
• 42 percent of undergraduates completing degrees in 2012-13 accrued no debt while at UC Davis. For those who graduated with debt. The average was $19.970, compared with the national average of $28,400.

2020 Initiative — Undergraduate enrollment has gone up 2,250 since 2011 (toward the initiative’s goal of 5,000 more undergraduates by 2020). Among all 26,086 undergraduates in 2014-15, 90 percent are California residents, 10 percent are national and international.

Faculty hiring — “We must narrow the gap between recruitments and hires,” the chancellor said. A graph showed 538 recruitments and 257 hires the last five years. Later, in response to a question, the chancellor acknowledged UC Davis faculty pay is the lowest in the UC system, and she is working with the Academic Senate to address the gap.

Building our campus community — Katehi noted the university’s ongoing efforts in support of diversity and inclusion. They include her Human Equity Initiative, the ADVANCE program (to diversify the faculty ranks in science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and a strategic planning committee that she appointed last year. Recent events, she said, “have shown that our community is not as strong as we want it to be.”

State funding — Restating the fact that California spends more on prisons than it does on higher education, Katehi commented, “This is not the future the state of California deserves to have.”

“There are a lot of things we should be criticized for, but not for trying to provide an excellent education.”

“University of the 21st Century” — The chancellor sees this era as one of change and opportunity, with UC Davis as a global leader in food, health sustainability and more.

“We need to stop thinking incrementally,” and instead lay the groundwork for the next 20 to 30 to 40 years, the chancellor said. A universitywide dialogue has begun — and includes a forum with the chancellor and faculty members next week.

Read more about the “University of the 21st Century.”

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.