Good afternoon.    

I am happy to be with you this afternoon to share my thoughts. Thank you for this opportunity. 

Accreditation 

We just had our accreditation visit of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. During their visit, they met with university leadership, including some members of the senate and ASUO, and hosted forums for faculty, students, and staff to hear feedback about life at the UO.   

This visit was successful. The accreditors commended the UO for:    

1. The Institutional Data Experts and Analysts (IDEA) collaborative for developing improved data systems to better understand the institution and break down barriers for campus constituents to use data in decision making. 
2. The strong sense of tradition and pride in being a Duck among students, employees, and alumni. 
3. Our strong philanthropic programs that have led to innovation. 
4. The inclusion of faculty, staff, and students in this very body, the University Senate.  

   The accreditors provided only three recommendations. And in my time in higher ed, I have never seen fewer than three recommendations. They recommended we:    

1. Build upon our success in reformulating the general education program by constructing and executing a rigorous and comprehensive Core Education assessment plan that uses results to improve student learning outcomes. Thanks to a provost with significant experience evaluating core ed and to the senate’s core ed council, we are well-positioned to make progress on this one.
2. Systematically evaluate the effectiveness of academic advising to ensure that all students have knowledge of and access to appropriate programs and services that support their success. 
3. Develop a process to assess the sufficiency of faculty, administrators, and staff to ensure that schools, colleges, and administrative units meet and maintain necessary functions.  

I am confident we will make substantial progress on these recommendations as we implement the Oregon Rising strategic plan, which I will speak more about momentarily.   

Strategic Plan 

I am excited about our strategic planning efforts, which we’ve named Oregon Rising.   

Our plan articulates four goals, each of which is grounded in our commitment to serve key stakeholders: our students, Oregon, our faculty and staff, and broader society through knowledge creation.  Great people, focus, and alignment will drive us forward for the next decade.   

I am pleased that we have essentially put a full team together.  

• You heard from Provost Chris Long in your last meeting. His leadership will be particularly critical to our success in elevating our scholarship through the strategic plan. 
• Vice President for Student Life Angela Chong has joined us from Florida State. She is an experienced leader who is a champion of student success and a leader in building inclusive campus communities.  
• University Secretary and Advisor to the President Kody Kelleher joined us from the University of Arizona. Kody keeps our Board of Trustees connected and involved in the life of the university, and I am thankful he’s here. 
• Chief Auditor Anta Coulibaly joined us after spending five and a half years as the director of Internal Audit and Enterprise Risk at the University of Montana. Over the course of her first year with us, one area of focus for her will be rebuilding the internal audit team.   
• I’d also like to acknowledge Jim Brooks for graciously agreeing to serve as interim VP for enrollment management. We will be opening a search shortly and, in the meantime, I know we are benefiting from Jim’s steady leadership and stewardship.   

Carol Keese, our Vice President for University Communications, and her team are doing a great job.  Among other things they have launched Oregon News, a new weekly digital publication focused especially on stories that reflect our people, our scholarship, and our larger aspirations.   

Thanks in part to the UO Foundation’s investment in securing Salesforce/Marketing Cloud, this publication will reach a quarter million faculty, staff, students, civic leaders, alumni, and parents weekly.     

This represents nearly a six-fold increase in distribution and is the first significant effort to go beyond campus to reach key stakeholders. I hope you all are enjoying the storytelling already.  So, that is an update on our people.  What is in our plans – Oregon Rising? It’s anchored around four goals that I will briefly go over.   

• First—We must continue to enhance pathways to timely graduation. This requires us to focus on everything that hinders a student’s success, whether that be financial struggles, advising breakdowns, or curriculum complexity, while working to eliminate equity gaps.
• Second—To serve our students, I want the UO to be a leader in career preparation, so the UO is the go-to talent source for businesses, governments, nonprofits, and others. We will strengthen the connection between academic pursuits and career preparation and our remarkable alumni, bringing opportunities for our state, our economy, and our world through the aspirations and talents of our students.
• Third —The UO is so special because of our people. This makes it critical to nurture a flourishing community. This requires us to be even more attentive to creating opportunities for wellness, growth, fostering resilience, creating connection and community, and finding our sense of purpose.
• Our fourth goal is to accelerate the University of Oregon’s impact on the world. Over the next decade, we will leverage our scholarship and creative work that amplifies world-class strengths.  
• We will seek preeminence in environmental resilience, amplifying our work in environmental humanities at the UO’s Center for Environmental Futures and Environmental Law Center; through our work in mass timber through the Tallwood Institute; through our work at the Oregon Hazards Lab and the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake center.
• We will amplify our strengths in youth behavioral and mental health through the work at the Ballmer Institute, Prevention Science, and Psychology.
• We will lead in the study of human performance and sport through the Warsaw Center in Sports Business, Sports Product Design and Sports Product Management, Dance, Human Physiology, and the Wu Tsai Initiative in human performance.
• And we will accelerate the impact of our science on society through the remarkable work occurring at the Knight Campus, curiosity-driven research in biology, chemistry, and physics, boosted by the outstanding entrepreneurship efforts at the Lundquist College of Business and elsewhere.  

We had a positive launch to the public announcement of the plan over the last few weeks, first in remarks I gave to the Board of Trustees in September and then with the unveiling of a new website and collateral on October 4. You can find the plan and updates at oregonrising.uoregon.edu.  

In the plan you’ll see that we acknowledge our need for focus and alignment across the university among staff and faculty. We have a lot of work ahead of us around defining strategies and tactics to realize our goals. What is the sequencing of implementation? How will we know when things are working?      

There is a lot of work to do, but I am very excited about the work done to date and seeing what lies ahead.    

This moment 

A series of things this fall term have added to this feeling of being in a special moment.   

We just received Fall 2024 enrollment numbers last week, and I am pleased to say we have the largest number of Oregon students in our first-year class that we’ve ever had. We also saw a huge increase in Latinx students—from 16.8% last year to 19.6% this year—which contributed to this being our most diverse class in the history of the university, as measured by race and ethnicity.  

Then we had the board summit—our first time gathering members of all of our school and college advisory boards—in a few years. The energy in the room was great. Having everyone together was important because they’re a critical part of our efforts to develop focused volunteers with a shared mission.   

To close, I wanted to say a bit about Oregon athletics.  

Our women’s volleyball team is ranked #11 in the country.  Our football team is ranked #1.   

When I’m out representing the university, I get asked about athletics a lot.  

I am very proud of the fact that Oregon is one of the very few Division 1 athletic programs in the country that is financially self-sustaining.  

Specifically, the Athletic Department receives no tuition revenue or general state appropriation. In fact, we actually charge the Athletic Department administrative overhead.  Last year (FY24) Athletics paid over $4 million to the university’s Education & General fund while also paying the full cost of all athletic scholarships. I am proud of our Athletic Department under the leadership of Rob Mullens. And most importantly, I am proud of our student-athletes and the discipline and enthusiasm they demonstrate every day that engenders such pride throughout the Mighty Oregon community.  

We have a record and history of athletics at Oregon that almost every university in the country would love to have.  So I am thinking a lot about how I and we might do even more to use athletics to further raise the academic and overall profile of the university.  An average of 10.4 million people watched the Oregon – Ohio State game.  

13.4 million watched the end of the game. We had over 36 million impressions on social media that weekend. In short, millions saw the stunning surroundings and enthusiasm for the University of Oregon.  Even the Eugene airport broke a record; the day after the game, more passengers departed out of the Eugene airport than any single day on record.   

Athletics has a positive impact on awareness of universities, particularly for prospective students who live outside of the state. As our Director of Admissions, Erin Hays, tells her team, “When the sports spotlight shines, be ready to showcase the entire university while people are looking.”  

We are working to do the same with Oregon News and with our philanthropic efforts.      

In closing, let me say thank you. Our joint vision will take all of us, especially your partnership.   

It is hard work, and I am so appreciative of it and how you advance the UO forward.   

Thank you.