Good afternoon and welcome to the fall convocation of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

It is customary for the dean to address the college community at the start of the academic years. I am delighted to do so.

It is important because at least once a year we should sit back and ask ourselves "Who are we?," What is it that pulls us together into an entity that shares a series of common goals and objectives?

We also should take stock of "What is our role in this large university?"

I'm going to try to do these things -  in part as a refresher course, because they are things we intrinsically and intuitive know. But it is important to repeat them out loud as if to see if we are all on the same page.

Let me begin by addressing these two questions and then talk about this coming year.

"Who are we?" 
We are a College of Liberal Arts & Sciences – an entity comprised of 22 academic departments and one professional school. One that offers almost 50 undergraduate majors and has several of the very best graduate programs in the country.

The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is the core home to the basic offerings in the "humanities," "social sciences," "biological and life sciences," "physical sciences," and the "mathematical & computational sciences."

We provide a practical education that is designed to educate students to live in an ever-changing world without borders.

As our student convocation speaker, Rohini Rathnath, so eloquently reminded us last spring ‘we teach students how to think … not what to think.'

We are the "university's college" because not only do we teach essential "breadth and depth courses" for every college on the campus, but in additional to teaching for our own majors, we teach required courses for curricula in every other college on the shores of Lake Laverne.

And we teach a lot - more than half of all the student credit hours and about 4.5 times the number of the second highest-ranked college. We teach almost three-quarters of all the student credit hours taken by first- and second-year students, regardless of major or college.

We also have two other very important roles.

First, we are a Carnegie I, Research Extensive University in which high-quality, cutting-edge research and discovery are essential defining characteristics of who we are.

Fundamental research and all of the excitement related to discovery and continually pushing the frontiers of knowledge are crucial components in how we define and identify ourselves.

By all of the measurable way, we are extremely successful in what we do.

LAS leads the university in NSF Early Career Awards and in Research & Discovery 100 Awards.
We are consistently one of the top two colleges in receiving external, competitive research funding.

Second, we are a Land Grant University where access to practical contributions of scientific discoveries is an important part of our mission.  In this we succeed with abundance whether it is:

• the social science research on families, the impact of change on small Iowa communities
• the work of a chemist who came up with a device used to detect feces on fresh meat
• the primary cause of meat contamination, the creation of biodegrables plastics from soybeans,
• or the improvement of foods through such things as developing corn with enhanced beta-carotene -- the substance that human bodies convert into vitamin A,
• or computer-assisted SmartHouses of the future ….

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is at the forefront in looking at the practical contributions coming from fundamental and basic science and research.
Our roles and impact are immeasurable. Without a strong and vibrant College of Liberal Arts & Sciences this university could not, and would not, be what it is.
And so that is who we are and what our roles are at this university.

Let's talk about this coming year - one in which we've already entered our third week. It is going to be a good one. But let me digress for a moment.

As many of you know, the past six or seven years have been financially challenging ones for the university.  Over this period of time we have seen our budgets nibbled away at an alarming pace. Last year the university experienced a 1% cut.  (The good news was that we were asked to prepare for a 1% or 2% cut and so the 1% cut was accompanied by a sigh of relief).

My point is that for the first time in years we are entering the academic year fully confident that in planning for the future. We can expect to do so with greater resources … instead of planning on how we should be moving forward with fewer resources.

Why?  Our state economy is healthy and we have a governor and a legislature who understand some of the consequences of whittling the budgets of the three state universities.  For the fiscal year that began on July 1 this university was treated very well.  We hope this is only the harbinger of things to come.

University enrollments are up and that is very good news.  Although the university's goal has been to slow the decline in enrollment this year's total enrollment could put us very close to the bin-busting years that took place at the beginning of the decade. 

The challenge quite frankly has been finding classes  and classroom space, particularly laboratories in the biological and physical sciences.

The extra tuition dollars will help. Because we are confident that we will have the resources to move forward, we are implementing a very aggressive hiring plan this year. Barring any unforeseen problems …. this year we have authorized hiring three times the number of faculty has we did last year. One of our pressing goals is to rebuild dwindling faculty ranks is being addressed with vigor.

As many of you know, resources for funding the university come from several different sources.  We have touched on two:

• state allocations, which are essential but are consistently making up a smaller piece of our overall revenue.  (We are not unique or alone. This phenomenon is happening across the country). 
• Tuition makes up most of our budget and puts a greater financial strain on students and families.  We have to be mindful how much we can increase, carefully monitoring neighboring states and our peer group to make sure we do not deviate from the norm.
• A third important piece of the funding picture comes from the indirect costs attached to many contracts and grants that our researchers bring to the university. Those dollars significantly help in more ways than more of us can imagine.
• But I want to talk for a moment about the fourth component of this funding operation - fund raising. The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has three full-time fund raisers. Working with them are a number of other individuals who often do not get recognition, but whose efforts on LAS' behalf are significant.

Last year was a banner year for our team.  Last year they raised $10 million.  This includes pledges, estate gifts, stock, cash but fortunately no properties to manage and sell. This is absolutely phenomenal. To put this in perspective, for fiscal year 2004 (which went from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2004) the LAS Foundation team raised $2.5 million. That was considered a good year. There is not a department in the college that has not directly benefited from these efforts. In addition to raising money, and perhaps more importantly, these individuals are making important friends for departments, for the college and for the university. This can only get better and it has to.  So, hug a Foundation officer.  They deserve it.

I have two other topics I would like to briefly talk about before closing.  Both of these subjects are intertwined and deserve much more time than I can afford right now but you will hear more about one and you have already heard a lot about the other.

For some time we in the college office have chuckled about the lack of an identity the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has.  Unlike the College of Engineering, or the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences and most certainly the former College of Home Economics, individuals (students and faculty) in LAS identify themselves first and foremost with their departments their academic homes.  Although I am exaggerating slightly in Engineering folks identify themselves as engineers and then after quizzing add they are civil, mechanical, electrical, or computer engineers almost as an afterthought.

We want, and must, raise the profile and identity of Liberal Arts & Sciences. And we do not want to do this at the expense of the department. Good marketing of the college will allow all ships to rise together. We are doing this right now by targeting students, faculty/staff, and alumni. We are doing this through more publications print and electronic and by putting our moniker on websites. This will benefit all of us.

But we are also doing this through student recruiting.  This summer the college hired a Director of Student Recruitment. Student recruitment will be the third leg of the Student Services operational stool we have in the college. This already consists of Student Academic Services (Advising) and Student Career Services. These three entities will work together.

The last I want to do before completely shifting gears is to talk very, very briefly about the new budget model that captured our attention last year and that we are moving toward implementing soon.

The new model could very well change the way units are funded at this university.  It offers the possibility of many exciting opportunities and a host of fascinating challenges. 

In a nutshell here are some of the things that are exciting:

• Colleges will have much, much better data on enrollments, grant activity and a host of other things and will also have tools that will allow them to generate models
• Monies can be carried across fiscal year.  Better decision making will take place and a better plan will result.
• Dollars will follow students, again, allowing for planning in a fashion not currently possible.
• Financial incentives will be provided for growth in enrollments
• Changes to indirect cost policies will occur, with more money returned to colleges and departments.

More unsettling are issues related to the costs that will accompany the revenues, how the base allocations to the college are established and maintained, and how increases in tuition dollars are distributed.

In closing let me come back to the communications issue.  It has been a continuing goal of mine to improve communications across the College. We have done some things and we will be doing lots more.  You will be hearing from me in a number of ways:

• Faculty workshops. Beginning later this month we will begin to take some of the mystery out of how we do things.
• I plan to take new faculty out to lunch.  I started that last year and it was a great experience.
• If necessary, we will have open fora to discuss issues. We'll see if the town hall approach can work in a College of this size. Promising food and beverages should help.
• I plan to drop you lines via email message or through an occasional column in "Around LAS". I hope not to pester – but to engage.

And that, my colleagues, is all that I can fit in the time that's been allotted for my remarks.  The beginning of the academic year is always so exciting.  With the arrival of new students, faculty and staff it's a time of renewal and reinvigoration.  This is an exciting time to be in higher education; this is an exciting time to be at Iowa State University. 

Let me close by thanking you for being here today and for being part of the family of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.  I wish all of you great success this year.