Provost sticks to administration talking points in campus address

IU Provost Karen Hanson delivered her second “State of the Campus” speech Tuesday in front of members of the Bloomington Faculty Council at the Indiana Memorial Union.

Hanson stuck with the current administration’s talking points – research, enrollment and the hiring of top-level faculty – and put forward the idea of making 10th Street a “research corridor” that would centralize research space.

“The idea is that if we co-locate a number of the centers that come under our vice provost for research,” she said, “we can have some shared staff, some prospects for interesting discussion, because people won’t have to walk a mile to see a colleague that’s working on a problem adjacent to theirs.”

Hanson said 10th Street is the best place for research expansion because of its location and the availability of space.

Dean of Students Dick McKaig said expanded research programs help IU improve the quality of professors on campus.

“The quality of research ends up affecting the quality of faculty brought in, and so even though it’s a second or third step away from students,” he said, “we have to have our faculty engaged in research that’s productive, that is cutting-edge, and the students in the classroom will then have the advantage of getting the latest research and the best professors.”

Hanson also addressed some of the financial problems facing the University. In a question-and-answer session after the speech, one faculty member said IU’s budgeting is dependent on a large freshman class and suggested reworking budgets to lower the number of undergraduates and increase the graduate and professional student population.

She also spoke on student loans, an issue affecting students and the University alike.

“The value of our endowment has fallen. We do know that the student loan situation is very difficult, and the savings that people put into various vehicles to help fund their children’s educations are hurting,” Hanson said. “We do try our best to help students through their degrees, but if they’re losing their resources at the same time we’re losing our resources, we may hit some very rough patches.”

Former BFC president Ted Miller said after the speech the University “needs a new funding model” because IU relies on tuition revenue from large undergraduate classes.

“I really think that for the campus to develop in the way it has to develop, to best serve the interests of the state of Indiana, we’re going to have to have a larger graduate program on the Bloomington campus,” Miller said. “We are also going to have to have a greater emphasis on transfer students, and that is going to imply that we’re going to have fewer freshman students. Right now, we just can’t do that because of this funding model.”

Hanson said there is much progress to be made in the next year. Asked about what she hopes to be able to say in her next State of the Campus speech, Hanson said she hopes to report on new administrative faculty, a new Dean of Students – because McKaig is retiring this year – and improved research spaces.