Albrecht wraps up legislative session for faculty
To wrap up the latest Utah legislative session, USU President Stan Albrecht gave his annual Report to the Colleges on Thursday, in which he gave the concise version of accomplished goals and missions for the upcoming year.
Albrecht said he, director of government relations Neil Abercrombie and Dave Cowley, vice president for business and finance, gave a similar presentation to members of the Legislature earlier this year.
“It was really helpful in accomplishing a number of things this year,” Cowley said.
Albrecht said the recent goals and accomplishments are based on the “three-legged stool” of the university – discovery, engagement and learning. “These are such an important part of who we are historically and who we are as we move forward,” Albrecht said.
In hopes of innovating and creating a bigger impact in teaching, Albrecht said USU is working to provide more classes through the Internet and interactive video conferencing (IVC).
“These are all becoming an increasing part of the way we deliver education here at Utah State University,” he said.
There are currently 385 courses taught online and 380 done through video. He said there were 21 alternative degree programs offered in 2006, but that number has increased to 72.
He said more than 5,000 students are enrolled in IVC classes. Along with that, he said there are students from all 50 states, as well as 50 countries around the world, who participate in USU classes in some form or another.
“We wanted the Legislature to understand that not only are we doing this but that we encourage it,” he said.
Albrecht said he is working closely with the Regional Campuses to have all the pre-engineering classes taught there, after which students can have a smoother transition to the main campus to complete their education.
The new Regional Campus and Distance Education Building going in on campus is currently at 72 percent completion and will be ready for occupation July 15. The new facility will provide opportunities for the university to even further increase the potential for alternative teaching methods, Albrecht said.
Along with a different age distribution, different from that of the typical 18- to 24-year-old college student, Albrecht said Distance Education reaches out to a different gender demographic. While the main USU campus is split close to 50-50, distance education averages 62 percent female and 38 percent male population.
Moving on to the research leg of the university stool, Albrecht said in the last year there has been a total of $213 million collected in grant money. That amount exceeds the $200 million goal.
“What a great compliment this is to our faculty and the work they are doing,” Albrecht said.
USU currently has 12 National Science Foundation award winners as a part of the faculty, which Albrecht said is abnormal for institutions this size.
“We should maybe have three or four, but we have a dozen,” Albrecht said. “We have significantly more than our peer institutions – a good few more than institutions much larger than we are.”
Cowley took time to inform faculty of changes to their salary in the upcoming year.
He said at the beginning of the legislative session, Gov. Gary Herbert determined that state employees would be getting a 1 percent cost-of-living increase in their salaries. However, higher education employees were left out of that.
Albrecht, Abercrombie and other higher education administrators convinced him to include all state employees in the raise.
“This was the first session after three sessions of no salary increases as well as budget cuts that we do actually have some new funding coming to the university,” Cowley said.
Albrecht closed the meeting, reminding the audience of the approved increases in both tiers of tuition that will be instated this fall.
– megan.allen@aggiemail.usu.edu