{"id":807,"date":"2016-04-28T21:15:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T21:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/?p=807"},"modified":"2016-04-28T21:15:14","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T21:15:14","slug":"a-state-of-the-university-message-to-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/a-state-of-the-university-message-to-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"A State of the University message to campus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of each academic year, there\u2019s a natural tendency to reflect on the health and well being of the institution.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sharing a State of the University message with you to capture the accomplishments of faculty, staff and students as we conclude the semester.\u00a0 I am happy to report that Tennessee Tech University is exceptionally healthy and secure in all areas of operations.<\/p>\n<p>About four years ago, we collectively envisioned where we could take the university. We established leadership teams made up of faculty, staff and students.<\/p>\n<p>Initially more than 50 members of the campus community came together in the Flight Plan process to address: What will Tennessee Tech become?<\/p>\n<p>The major changes and successes we see today were born from the broad-based, data-driven, coherent process of setting goals and working together with discipline, persistence and intentionality as an entire campus community.<\/p>\n<p>As we near commencement for our last graduating class of the Centennial Celebration, here are the ways we\u2019ve improved and excelled in an effort to serve students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Invested in Faculty and Programs<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Five consecutive years of faculty\/staff salary raises (average faculty salary has gone up 11 percent since 2012)<\/li>\n<li>Increased full-time permanent faculty by 15 percent (55 faculty members) over five years<\/li>\n<li>Reduced student-faculty ratio from 22:1 to 19:1<\/li>\n<li>Added over four dozen new academic programs and concentrations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Improved Student Success Initiatives<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Improved first-year retention rate to 75-76 percent, an increase of 5-6 percentage points<\/li>\n<li>Improved six-year graduation rate to 53 percent<\/li>\n<li>Saved and enhanced ROTC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Established best practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Received exemplary on-site review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, our accrediting agency<\/li>\n<li>Earned near perfect accreditation visit last year from ABET, the College of Engineering\u2019s accrediting agency<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Increased Research, Economic Development and Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Improved Carnegie classification to Doctoral\/Research\u00a0University<\/li>\n<li>Received 13 Intellectual Property disclosures this year, a record number compared to the last 10 years<\/li>\n<li>Received largest competitive grant ever awarded to Tennessee Tech (~$4 million)<\/li>\n<li>Announced total research monetary awards for fiscal year 2016 already surpasses all of last year, even without two large recent announcements<\/li>\n<li>Significantly increased research proposal submissions<\/li>\n<li>Partnered with local community and state to recruit approximately 2,500 new jobs to Putnam County<\/li>\n<li>Created the most dynamic student\/faculty entrepreneurial ecosystem in the\u00a0Southeast<\/li>\n<li>Posted the largest private fund raising year in history, $22 million to date compared to previous high of $8.7 million<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Expanded and Improved\u00a0Facilities\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Approved funding for $90 million laboratory science building<\/li>\n<li>Launched $45 million student fitness center project<\/li>\n<li>Renovated and renamed Oakley Hall<\/li>\n<li>Began renovation of\u00a0Jere\u00a0Whitson Building as a one-stop Welcome and Enrollment Center<\/li>\n<li>Completed Centennial Plaza<\/li>\n<li>Expanded and improved food service options<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As we move toward a new governance structure, we welcome the opportunity to increase campus participation.<\/p>\n<p>We are forming an eight-member transition taskforce to help act as a steering committee as we stand up an independent board. The taskforce will be made up of four faculty members and former Faculty Senate presidents, and four senior administrators.<\/p>\n<p>The charge will include reviewing bylaws, overseeing progress and prioritization of policy changes, and reviewing infrastructure, staffing and data handling.<\/p>\n<p>We have a lot of work to do, but there\u2019s still a need for long-range, purposeful planning while we continue working.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m looking forward to doing this together. I welcome your continued conversation about the future.<\/p>\n<p>Have a great summer. Wings Up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of each academic year, there\u2019s a natural tendency to reflect on the health and well being of the institution. I\u2019m sharing a State of the University message with you to capture the accomplishments of faculty, staff and students as we conclude the semester.\u00a0 I am happy to report that Tennessee Tech University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[281,282,283],"class_list":{"0":"post-807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-messages","7":"tag-improvement","8":"tag-progress","9":"tag-update"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}