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The State of the College, 2007

Delivered by Dean Linda Maxson at the CLAS Annual Faculty Meeting, September 10, 2007.

As faculty in the liberal arts and sciences, we work at the juncture of continuity and change. We are proud of the traditions that our disciplines represent and we are committed to innovating within those traditions. This moment is a fitting occasion to reflect on continuity and change in our academic community: this summer I completed a decade as Dean of this College, at the same time that the University began a new era under President Sally Mason. I will take this opportunity to give you a decade-long perspective on continuity and change within the College, focusing on advances that we have made and that we will continue to build upon.

As Dean, I have worked to make our College’s mission and identity better understood and appreciated on campus and in the State, to increase the visibility of our departments within the scholarly community, and to identify and increase the resources that support the distinguished teaching and scholarship of our faculty. In many ways, large and small, substantive and symbolic, we have made progress on all these goals over the past ten years.

Collegiate Identity and Visibility

In 2001, as we celebrated the centenary of our College, we changed our name from “ College of Liberal Arts” to “College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.” This change recognized and celebrated the full scope of our educational mission and the breadth that is integral to what we do as a College. Our name continues to emphasize our core purpose— to provide a liberal education for our students. As faculty members and administrators in the College, it is the duty of each of us to articulate for our students, our colleagues, and the people of Iowa the core values represented by the liberal arts.

The University has always acknowledged that the liberal arts and sciences are the heart of the institution, so much so that the College’s identity has sometimes been difficult to distinguish from the University’s at large. On the other hand, the College has sometimes been regarded as too diverse, a collection of departments rather than a comprehensive college. As Dean, I have sought recognition for the unique and powerful role we play within the institution and for the liberal arts and sciences as an intellectual community, not merely an administrative entity.

To define that role and establish our identity, we have articulated a shared vision for the College, adopted a Collegiate logo, developed our Collegiate website, redesigned our alumni magazine (called, fittingly, Arts & Sciences), and dramatically increased its circulation. We have established signature outreach programs, such as our popular “Saturday Scholars” series that gives our faculty the opportunity to talk about their scholarly passions to a general audience. We have used news releases to publish good news about our faculty and students and emphasize their membership in this College.

The stronger identity we have established has helped us advocate successfully for University resources, including support for faculty salaries, for student programs, and for new buildings and other critical infrastructure. We are the beneficiaries of a ten-year-long building program that has seen the construction of the new Biology Building East, a new and award-winning Art Building West, the new Adler Journalism Building, and a new wing for Dey House. Renovation of our Chemistry Building and the historic Art Building is now in progress. We are also the beneficiaries of new student computing fee revenues that will help us support a cutting-edge teaching and learning infrastructure far into the future.

A stronger identity has also helped us better connect to wider constituencies, including our alumni. For the Comprehensive Campaign completed in 2005, we formed our first-ever Campaign Committee and for the first time set our own fundraising goals. The campaign raised $77 million for the College and its departments, far exceeding the original expectations of the UI Foundation. As a result of the campaign, the College today has more than twice the private funding that it had in 1997 ($91.8 million vs. $42.6 million), and has increased its donor base by more than 50 percent.

Our fundraising has been particularly successful in supporting our new buildings and in creating new scholarships and other opportunities for students. More than 40 percent of CLAS funds in the UI Foundation are dedicated to funding student scholarships. In addition, s tudents’ ability to participate in faculty-mentored research is absolutely central to the education we offer as a research-intensive University. Funds raised by faculty in honor of Dewey Stuit, former Dean of the College, and funds contributed by UI head football coach Kirk Ferentz and Mary Ferentz in honor of Kirk’s parents benefit CLAS students working with faculty on research or creative projects.

In the past four years, the College has begun sponsoring alumni events across the country, in co-operation with the UI Alumni Association and with highly involved alumni. These included, for example, an event in New York for the School of Art and Art History; a presentation by Physics Professor Don Gurnett tied to the performance of “Sun Rings” by the Kronos Quartet at the Orange County [California] Performing Arts Center; and most recently a reception at the Tribeca Grill in New York featuring the Director of our Writers’ Workshop and alumni of that distinguished program.

Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Visibility

Among the College’s fundraising priorities has been a $1 million endowment for our Excellence and Innovation Funds, which stimulate projects aimed at increasing the national visibility of our departments. In the past five years, the College has made Excellence and Innovation awards to sixteen projects, primarily seed funds for new interdisciplinary research centers and support for national conferences and scholarly symposia held on our campus. In addition, we reorganized existing funding in the UI Foundation to create the Bond Fund for Interdisciplinary Interaction, which also supports scholarly distinction across our College.

One result of this new funding is that the College is much richer than it was ten years ago in opportunities for interdisciplinary research and the interdisciplinary preparation of students. In the past five years alone, six new research centers were supported by the College, in part through funding programs that grew out of private giving. These include

• our Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts, the first research center in the nation to focus solely on the creative expression of ethnic communities as an aspect of their cultural heritage;
• the Iowa Center for Developmental and Learning Sciences, which promotes connections between research programs in two of our core departments, Psychology and Speech Pathology & Audiology;
• the Social Science Research Center, established by faculty in the CLAS departments of Sociology and Political Science and in the Department of Economics in the Tippie College of Business, which creates important linkages among faculty and programs in these departments;
• the Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, which has established our Department of Biological Sciences as an international leader in studying the inter-relatedness of life forms;
• the Borges Center and its academic journal, Variaciones Borges, which have been relocated to our Department of Spanish & Portuguese and demonstrate our international visibility in the scholarship devoted to this important Argentinian writer; and
• the Institute for Inequality Studies, whose many affiliated faculty have appointments in CLAS departments of Anthropology, Geography, History, Social Work, and Sociology, and in departments in other colleges, are devoted to interdisciplinary exchange on the causes and consequences of social inequality.

Our departments have been recognized for their distinguished contributions. In 2004 our Department of Mathematics, which is the nation’s largest awarder of mathematics doctorates to minority students, received the US Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. In 2006, the Department received a prestigious grant, through the NSF VIGRE program, to support undergraduate traineeships, graduate research assistantships, and postdoctoral fellowships in partnership with 12 liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. In 2003, our Writers’ Workshop received a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities—the first medal awarded to a university, and only the second given to an institution rather than an individual.

The College has long been known for the distinction of its programs in the fine and performing arts. I am very proud of having helped seven years ago to bring into existence a new administrative structure, the Division of Performing Arts, to increase the visibility of our departments of Dance, Music, and Theatre Arts. The Division provides administrative leadership and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration among these departments, provides production support and advertising for the hundreds of performances they sponsor each year, and administers the Arts Share program that reaches out to schools and communities across the state and region.

Faculty Distinction

As Dean, I am committed to sustaining a faculty at the highest possible level of quality and distinction. The quality of our degree programs and our reputation as a scholarly institution are founded on the excellence of our faculty. On a day-to-day basis, much of my energy is expended in sustaining, promoting, and recognizing the accomplishments of our faculty, including identifying and raising funds for faculty development and for scholarly activities.

Our commitment to our faculty is repaid by the accomplishments and honors they receive. One is their increasing success in acquiring external research support and federal training grants. Over the past several years, our faculty in the humanities and social sciences have attracted fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Program, the Ford Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and other prestigious institutions. Seven of our junior faculty have been recent recipients of NSF CAREER awards. In each of the last three years, CLAS has attracted more external funding than any UI college except the Carver College of Medicine.

To recognize the accomplishments of our faculty, the College has created new honors:

• Nearly thirty of our mid-career faculty have held the honor of Dean’s Scholar over the past nine years, selected by the CLAS Committee on Faculty Promotion and Tenure from among candidates for tenure each year.
• Twenty-four senior faculty members now hold the title of Collegiate Fellow, in recognition of their exceptional contributions in teaching and scholarship and their leadership in service.
• The College has also created four endowed Faculty Fellow and Faculty Scholar positions to support the research of mid-career and senior faculty members.

All three awards—Dean’s Scholar, Collegiate Fellow, and Faculty Fellow—carry discretionary research funds, made possible by private fundraising, to support the continued achievement of these faculty members.

The College has also significantly expanded the number of our named chairs and professorships, again through private fundraising. In the last ten years we have inaugurated 10 new appointments, a 30 percent increase over the number available in 1997. These include the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professorship in the Arts, the Edwin B. Green Chair in Laser-Chemistry, the John C. Gerber Professorship in English, two Dewey B. and Velma P. Stuit Professorships in Psychology, the Daniel J. Krumm Family Chair in Reformation Studies, the Spriestersbach Professorship in Speech Pathology & Audiology, the Harlan E. McGregor Chair in Economic Theory, and the Ralph E. Wareham Professorship of Mathematical Sciences, as well as the UI Alumni Association Dean’s Chair in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. A search this year in cooperation with the Office of International Programs will fill another new named position, the Stanley Family/Hua Hsing Chair in Chinese Culture and Institutions.

Friendraising

Two important events last week demonstrated the commitment we have made over the past decade to engage alumni and friends in the life of the College. Last Thursday and Friday, I convened the ninth annual meeting of the CLAS Dean’s Advisory Board. The 22 highly accomplished alumni who serve on this Board participated in two days of strategic planning and advocacy on behalf of the College.

Last week was also our annual Alumni Fellows week, which brought five outstanding graduates of our College back to campus to meet our students, make public presentations, and be honored at a luncheon with the Dean’s Advisory Board. Since its inception eight years ago, this program has recognized more than 50 alumni who have pursued careers in fields as diverse as is our College: arts administration, film and television production, aerospace, professional theatre, biotechnology, oil exploration, studio art, professional journalism, public administration, computer technology development, information management, industrial marketing, non-profit administration, and University teaching and research. The Alumni Fellows Program continually demonstrates for our students the many ways in which a degree in the liberal arts and sciences prepares them for exciting and productive careers, professional leadership, and commitment to the wider community.

Among the friends with whom the College has developed a new and strong relationship is the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust. Long a supporter of The University of Iowa, the Carver Trust has in the past five years generously supported the CLAS infrastructure for science research, particularly in Biological Sciences and in Chemistry. In 2002, the Carver Trust provided the founding grant for the innovative Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, which provides researchers with sophisticated equipment for genotyping and for DNA extraction and sequencing. For the renovation now underway of the Chemistry Building, the Carver Trust has supplied a total of nearly $5 million to support laboratory remodeling, and these gifts have been matched by the University administration. Over the past five years, the Carver Trust has also supported individual faculty research programs in art education, music therapy, and speech pathology, as well as in biology and chemistry.

Faculty and Curricular Diversity

For the past quarter-century, our College has been known for its commitment to recruiting a faculty that reflects the increased diversity of the scholarly professions. Today, the most visible effect of that long-term commitment is the increase in women at the rank of professor. In fall 2007, one in four of our full professors is a woman, a proportion that has increased from one in seven since I became Dean ten years ago. This proportion will continue to increase as our highly talented associate professors, nearly half of whom are women, achieve the rank of professor. The changing composition of our faculty also reflects our success in fostering the professional development of all our faculty as they advance in their careers.

We continue to lead not only the University but our sister Big Ten colleges of arts and sciences in recruitment of women to our faculty. I am very proud that, of the 24 highly accomplished new faculty whose appointments began this fall, two-thirds are women. I am also proud of our success in recruiting new women faculty in many disciplines where women have been historically underrepresented. Farther along the career spectrum, I am proud that senior women now lead one-third of our units. These women faculty model for our students, 55 percent of whom are women, the accomplishment and achievement to which they can aspire.

We have also led the University in attracting minority faculty to campus. In fall 1997, 12.8 percent of CLAS faculty were from minority populations. Today, that figure is 17.5 percent. In fall 2007, we benefit from the effect of a two-year cluster hire initiative aimed at building strength in US cultural studies. This initiative has resulted in the appointment over the last two years of nine new faculty members who contribute courses in African American literature, culture, and playwriting; Latino literature and culture; borderlands history; and Latinos and women in politics. These and other recent appointments have greatly increased the course options in ethnic and cultural studies available to our students. In addition, twelve excellent young teacher-scholars, nearly all of whom had joined our faculty in the previous five years, reorganized the African American Studies curriculum last year and began recruiting students to this important major.

Over the past decade, the College has had real success in adding interdisciplinary majors that are now among those most sought after by our students.

• The Cinema major, first offered by our Department of Cinema & Comparative Literature in 2001, is founded on the College’s longstanding strengths across many humanities departments in the study of film as an important cultural artifact and in the production of film and audiovisual arts. This major now enrolls more than 300 undergraduate students.
• The International Studies major, organized under the leadership of the UI’s Office of International Studies in 2002, is founded on courses taught by more than one hundred CLAS faculty members in the history, language, arts, media, politics, social structure, religions, and cultures of regions outside the U.S. The international studies major now attracts more than 400 undergraduate students, many of whom are preparing for careers in business, law, government, international development, philanthropy, or the arts.
• Since last fall, changes in our BA Program in Interdepartmental Studies have attracted over 400 students to this major. New study plans in business studies, in health sciences, and in recreation management allow students to complete a program that reflects their career interests and to graduate in a timely fashion.
• The Informatics major, just approved by the Regents for fall 2007, focuses on applications of computing to other fields, with emphasis on issues of communication and human-computer interaction. We anticipate that this major will attract more than 250 undergraduate students interested in working at the interface of computing and other disciplines.

Moving Ahead

While we have been the beneficiaries of University and Regential support for major improvements to our facilities, these improvements have underlined the need for many more CLAS departments to be relocated to space designed for their current needs. Too many of our departments occupy space that is crowded or that serves their current academic functions poorly, with classrooms of inadequate size and problems due to deferred maintenance. Units essential to the College’s mission are housed in crowded space that offers a poor environment for teaching and learning due to a variety of problems, including poor ventilation and poor temperature control. The Stephen-Holl-designed Art Building West, which has garnered national and international acclaim for its beauty and functionality, has shown that we can create distinguished spaces in which our students can study, find inspiration, learn, create, and excel.

The College looks forward to the implementation of its comprehensive space plan, which we have developed over the past five years. This plan envisions physical spaces for the College’s departments, students, and faculty that reflect our visibility, reputation, and centrality to the University’s mission. In partnership with President Mason and the new provost whom she will recruit, the College is poised to continue its trajectory of facilities renewal, most importantly for Seashore Hall and our distinguished Department of Psychology, which for many years has also offered our largest undergraduate major.

As the College that enrolls two-thirds of all UI students in its undergraduate programs and departmental graduate programs, we also aspire to restore the size of our tenure-line faculty, which is smaller by 35 positions than it was just two years ago and smaller by 25 positions than our average over the past ten years. We also anticipate support from the new University administration for our continuing excellence in diversifying our faculty and curriculum.

We are proud that the UI Foundation will help develop the College’s enormous potential for friendraising and fundraising by supporting an additional officer to work on our behalf. We aspire to continue to increase the endowed funds that help ensure the excellence of our departments, our faculty, and our students, including support that will enable all students interested in faculty-mentored research experiences to have those opportunities.

We are committed to continue our efforts to raise the visibility of our departments and our faculty both within their disciplines and among peer departments at other institutions. When departmental reviewers or candidates for senior faculty positions visit campus, I continue to hear that the high quality of our faculty and programs is a “well-kept secret.” This is not a secret we want to keep! Among my first actions as Dean was to nearly double the amount of funding for professional travel available to our faculty. I have also increased internal funding programs that support faculty travel and other professional development needs.

I continue to set a very high priority on working with our new University administration to increase faculty travel allocations and to simplify the processes by which faculty apply for supplemental travel funds. I am also eager to work with the University administration to simplify the process by which departments apply to offices across the institution for funding to sponsor scholarly meetings on our campus, since these meetings make the excellence of our faculty and programs known to the broader scholarly community.

I see the next five to ten years as an exciting time for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, a period in which we will build on our many strengths and demonstrate that we are truly the “heart” of The University of Iowa, the college that most contributes to the University’s ability to grow, innovate, and excel.

linda-maxson@uiowa.edu