Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef delivered his 2007 State of the Campus address to the Academic Senate on Feb. 5. Here is the prepared text of his remarks:

In a little more than 18 months, we will mark our centennial. That's a rare and very special time in a university's evolution. Our centennial will provide us with the opportunity to not only celebrate the past century of what is truly remarkable achievement, but to communicate the full reach of today's campus and position UC Davis for the greatest possible future.

It is our intention that, in the process, this centennial celebration will help us to raise more voices and more resources in support of the campus. UC Davis' visibility will be greater, our ties to alumni and donors will be stronger, and more and more people will see how they are touched by UC Davis — touched by you and your work.

It's clear to me, in fact, looking back and looking ahead that we are indeed a "high touch" university. We are a university with an unusual dedication to building strong communities and solving real-world problems. Our first century, in fact, was built on that premise and our next will surely continue to fulfill that promise.

Indeed, we are committed to making the world a better place. And Washington Monthly magazine has noticed. It ranked us this year in the top 10 among all U.S. universities, public and private, because of our contributions to society. The magazine's editors asked what they believed were the right questions about what a university should be.

Examples of UC Davis' contributions abound — from our transportation policy experts who are drafting the groundbreaking greenhouse-gas standard for fuels recently announced by Gov. Schwarzenegger, and, along with that effort, the more than 100 researchers working to develop biofuels…

…to our stem cell researchers who are exploring new treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer, heart failure and spinal injuries…

…to our many faculty working across disciplines to improve California's P-12 educational system…

…to faculty all across the campus who are teaching their students to think critically about the world and to explore cultures that are different from their own…

…to our Foods for Health team of faculty drawn from three colleges, two schools and a regional federal research center, who are examining all aspects of food — from the farm to the table to the health of the individual, and including economic, legal, cultural and social perspectives…

…to the faculty who will be honored by the Senate later in this meeting for their own public service.

And I'm just scratching the surface. You all have — and are — your own examples of how this campus has committed itself to charting new paths, sharing what we've learned and bettering someone's circumstance.

I believe the reason we're so successful at it is because of how we do it. We collaborate on this campus extensively and well.

In that, we have a clear advantage that is the result of how UC Davis came to be, and of the values we've passed along from generation to generation.

Hands down, we do partnering better than any other university I know. I'm convinced of it, and it's something that has been noticed by UC Provost Rory Hume. He visited our campus about a month ago. He's leading a systemwide academic planning effort, and wishing he could replicate our culture and our approaches across the system because he believes that that's what's necessary to truly maximize the power and promise of UC's 10 campuses.

Research funding

There's no doubt that you have helped maximize UC Davis' power and promise.

For example, this past year the campus's research awards climbed another 8 percent to $544 million. That's a remarkable increase of 82 percent over the past five years. And, for the second year in a row, Davis' research totals were higher than Berkeley's.

This extraordinary funding success is a strong testament to the competitive quality of your scholarship at a time when research dollars are harder and harder to come by. The last few years have not been easy.

I know that federal funding is particularly uncertain right now and that the grant process will be extremely competitive over the next several years.

But I believe that, in the long term, you'll continue to be successful because of the strength of your proposals and because of your strong inclination to pursue interdisciplinary research. That inclination is a clear advantage at a time when rigorous interdisciplinary efforts are favored by granting agencies.

Our Office of Research will stand ready to help you in the grant application process, which certainly has been made more challenging, I might add, with the introduction of Grants.gov. To help, bridge funding may be a possibility if circumstances require.

In addition, our research office is taking a more integrated approach in support of tech transfer, research collaboration and entrepreneurship, and our reputation as a good research partner is growing. This approach has resulted, for example, in nearly 20 new start-up companies emerging from the campus in just the past two years — a dramatic increase over prior years and, again, the result of partnerships.

Undergraduates

In addition to the campus's research accomplishments, UC Davis' reputation for providing an attentive and research-enriched education to its undergraduates continues to grow.

That growing high regard has contributed substantially to our enrolling the largest freshman class in UC's history this year. In that class, we had hoped for about 80 Regents Scholars. That would have been more than twice as many as last year's 32. Hoping for 80 was a reach. But we ended up with 137. They would not be coming here if it weren't for the fact that you are providing the kind of education they want and need.

I was heartened, as well, to see that we made gains in diversity among our entering freshman and transfer students. We're still not where we need to be but we are headed in the right direction.

Applications for next fall are in now, and they are up 7.6 percent from last year — the largest percentage gain in freshman applications among all UC undergraduate campuses.

As you so well know, our attractiveness has also had its challenges. For example, last fall we underestimated the number who would choose to come to UC Davis. But collaboratively — and with special thanks to you — we were able to ensure that the campus had the courses, the programs and the facilities our new students needed when they arrived in September.

And, together, we'll see these students through to graduation — and in a timely way, thanks to the leadership of the Academic Senate and its work on "time to degree."

Next fall, we anticipate returning to a more modest level of enrollment growth, and reducing the size of our entering class by approximately 500 students.

Increasing graduate student enrollments and corresponding support, however, remains a high priority for the campus.

We've similarly attracted very strong candidates for faculty positions. They were drawn in so many cases by the campus's interdisciplinary environment and by the strength and potential of our programs. And many of them say they were attracted as well by our family-friendly policies that were recognized with a Sloan Award last fall.

We continued, also, to make progress in diversifying our ranks — this year 46 percent of our 121 Academic Senate hires were women and 29 percent were people of color.

As funding for new positions slows, as it will with slowing undergraduate enrollments, it will be retirements that will primarily make new hires possible. That fact is viewed as both an opportunity and a challenge. I know, for example, from my recent lunch conversation with a number of our Hispanic/Latino ladder faculty, that they are wanting to ensure that junior faculty are ready to step into leadership roles that will soon be vacated by a number of our senior professors. And they are wanting to ensure that diverse candidates are actively identified as we set about renewing our faculty ranks. These are concerns and goals I share and support.

Now, as we head into this new period of slower growth and tighter federal and state resources, it's an appropriate time for us to have a more deliberate conversation about our future, using, as it serves us, our campus strategic plan as a guide.

Here are some questions that are important for us to consider:

• How do we build on the excellence established during our first century?
• Are there particular areas that should grow or be enhanced or does the current array of academic programs meet our objectives?
• Are there state or national needs that require greater attention?
• Are there particular transformative areas that are essential to our future?
• Should it be enrollment growth or should it be reallocation that undergirds our planning strategy to provide additional resources and improve quality?
• If we grow, should it be equally dispersed or should there be areas of focus?
• What global trends in higher education will influence our future?

It is with questions like these in mind that we are beginning a campuswide conversation about our future.

These are issues that truly require the best of our collaborative efforts. While we each have our particular responsibilities — especially in the areas of academic planning and resource management — we can best help the campus achieve its full potential if we work together.

Toward that end, Provost Virginia Hinshaw has just begun conversations with the Academic Senate leadership and with the deans. Virginia and I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the months ahead.

On the more-immediate horizon, we have challenges, as well, that we must be working on together.

Faculty pay

For example, we have begun to address the nationwide problem of "salary compression." That is the inequity that results as new professors at all ranks are hired at market-rate salaries. Those salaries are often close to or even greater than the salaries of their senior departmental colleagues.

After discussions with the Senate, the Davis Professorial Salary Scale was implemented last July. It's not perfect, nor is it immutable — but it's a step forward as we try to deal with market-driven inequities.

We were one of three UC campuses, along with Berkeley and Irvine, to take initial action because the problem was just too urgent for us to wait for the UC system to take the lead. But we'll certainly — we have to — depend on the Office of the President and the regents to help find a longer-term solution to this complex and financially challenging problem.

I'm hopeful — hopeful because the regents have made it clear that UC's faculty salaries must get back to competitive levels and that they will aggressively seek greater support from Sacramento.

And I'm convinced that the governor understands the wisdom of investing in the University of California, even in financially tight times. His budget for 2007-08 proposes a modest 6.2 percent increase in UC's budget, but this increase comes when the state is still facing a $4 billion structural budget deficit — and when he has recommended only a 1 percent budget increase for other state programs. That is a clear indication of the importance he places on higher education.

Also, together, we have been able to get out ahead of what is an increasing national concern about the effectiveness of higher education.

A joint Senate-administrative task force on the campus initiated an examination of the undergraduate program review process. The work of that task force addresses concerns that were only later raised by the national Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education. This commission was appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and placed particular emphasis on reporting student-learning outcomes.

Our task force's work is aimed at creating a review process that is based on evidence, and ensures that we've met our obligations to our undergraduates.

Sustainability

And also, together, we can help the campus deal with some of our more practical problems, for example our dramatically higher energy costs. These numbers are scary. Electricity prices have doubled and gas prices have tripled over just the past seven years, but state funding for energy has only increased 23 percent in this same period. How do we deal with that?

Well, in response, the campus has cut costs through creative supply strategies, but we've also looked to innovative energy conservation programs, and we've partnered with faculty in our Lighting Technology Center and the Energy Efficiency Center.

The Office of Administration is also seeking faculty partners who are interested in involving their students in energy conservation and sustainability projects — perhaps studying what motivates people to respond to conservation measures, or perhaps inventorying the many classes that already teach sustainable practices, or whatever an instructor may envision.

And, as individuals, we can all do our part by reducing our own energy consumption. Your ideas, and your participation, are wanted and needed in this continuing campuswide effort.

It's clear that our partnering will help us to meet our challenges more effectively and enhance our future successes.

Fundraising

A prime example of success in the making is our first comprehensive campaign. We're now in the quiet leadership phase of this fundraising initiative. It's an initiative that will ensure an enhanced revenue stream and the margin of excellence that distinguishes the best universities.

This is the time, this quiet phase, when we seek inspirational "lead" gifts that will move us closer to our overall dollar goal and establish momentum when we announce our campaign publicly a few years from now. This quiet phase also will help us test how much money we're capable of raising and help us refine our plans as we consult further with you and others about our campaign priorities.

I am convinced that, with your help, that very important faculty voice, we'll be ready and we'll be able to announce an ambitious goal that reflects our level of maturity as a campus, and the strong appeal of the work that you do.

In many ways, you are our best fundraisers. It's your scholarship, your programs, your teaching and your patient care, all of those and more, that attract gifts. Many of you are generous donors yourselves. You help to provide critically important support and to leverage matching state funds.

With your engagement, our campaign will generate enhanced funding for very real campus needs — for example, for endowed professorships, for student support, for research and patient care, for facilities and interdisciplinary centers of excellence — and for those really big, transformational projects that will inspire multimillion-dollar gifts.

It will help us, as well, to build our endowment to a more competitive level. It's currently fourth-highest among UC campuses at $552 million — a respectable level, but it must grow. Berkeley's endowment, for example, totals $2.4 billion, UCLA's $1.9 billion and UCSF's $1.1 billion. And outside UC, the University of Michigan's endowment, at $5.6 billion, is the largest for a single public university. We are a peer of these universities in so many measures; a greater endowment will help secure UC Davis' standing among the world's stellar universities.

In this, and in virtually everything, the measure of our success will be determined by the extent to which we work together.

And so I end where I began. UC Davis truly has a competitive advantage when it comes to collaboration. Knowing that, being absolutely convinced of that, I have no doubt that our second century will be even more remarkable than our first.