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Let’s see here. Where are my notes? Connie, do you have them?

Rose, have you seen them?

[Phoenix enters from stage right while clenching script.]

Hey look, it’s Phoenix – the Mars rover created by one of our

student design teams. And that’s my speech! Thanks, Phoenix!

[Take script from machine.]

Would the students who worked on Phoenix please come on

stage? I’d also like to recognize Dr. Melanie Mormile, who serves

as advisor to this talented crew. Dr. Mormile, will you also join me

on stage?

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At the end of May, our Mars Rover Design Team was named first

in North America and second in the world at the University Rover

Challenge in Utah. Congratulations! And in only the second year

of competition! These are exactly the types of experiences we’re

trying to foster here at Missouri S&T, and we couldn’t be more

proud of your accomplishments!

[Phoenix and team exits stage right.]

Good afternoon, and thank you for taking time to learn about your

university. Let me give you the one-sentence version of the State

of the University: Our university is very strong, and it’s poised to

become even stronger in the years ahead. Now let me expand on

that a bit.

Two years ago, on this very stage, I shared with you that our

strategic planning process was going to affect all aspects of our

operation. We discussed that we would be making difficult

decisions about what we would do, and what we wouldn’t do. I

said the plan would require input from each and every one of you.

Your efforts have not gone unnoticed, and our strategic plan is

fundamentally changing how we do business at Missouri S&T. I

am here today to share that your investment of time, commitment

and focus is paying off in very real, tangible ways.

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The theme for my remarks today is the return on your investment in the strategic plan. This image is courtesy of

Business Insider, which recognized us for the top ROI we provide

earlier this year.

Let me begin with a message from President Tim Wolfe of the

University of Missouri System. Let’s roll the video.

[Video from President Wolfe plays – approx. 2 minutes]

As you can see, President Wolfe is very much behind what’s

happening here at Missouri S&T.

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We have begun to see unprecedented returns on your investment of time in the plan. As you may recall, last year we

secured 2.5 times our historic level of funding from the University

of Missouri System. A total of $3.2 million was invested in us,

based on the strength of our strategic plan and our extensive

progress in implementing that plan. That funding, with matching

commitments from our campus, catalyzed our efforts to shape the

future of Missouri S&T. It led to the expanded use of technology in

our classrooms and to improvements to our instructional labs.

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Most dramatically, this funding meant that this fall we’ve been

able to add 17 faculty representing departments from across

campus, from physics to education; and from civil engineering to

electrical and computer engineering. And this is just the beginning

of our ambitious plan to hire at least 100 additional faculty by

2020!

You can see here the full page ad that just ran in the Chronicle

about our Signature Area openings for the coming year.

In addition to these 17 individuals, we welcomed 19 faculty into

existing positions. That’s a total of 36 faculty new to campus, half

of whom I might note are women!

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Would our new faculty please stand and be recognized?

Look around the room.

If you want to see results from your work, look no further. By next

fall, we should be more one-third of our way to our goal of 100

additional faculty by 2020.

[Lead applause.]

You may be seated.

Now, if you had a hand in bringing in one of these faculty

members, please stand. I’m looking for individuals who served on

search committees; staff members who helped get them settled at

the department level; and, of course, our dedicated HR

professionals. Thank you! Here is proof that it truly takes a village!

[Lead applause.]

You may be seated.

I know that you are anxious to hear the results of this year’s

strategic funding initiatives, and I promise I will share this news

today. But first let me set the stage on where we are, and where

we’re headed.

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Now I am well aware that strategic plans do not have the best

reputation. You may remember the Dilbert cartoon I shared at last

year’s State of the University Address. Here it is:

[Refer to slide.]

You can see Dilbert’s boss tells him that he’s been assigned to

the strategic planning team. The pointy haired boss says, “It’s like

work without the satisfaction of accomplishing anything.”

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At Missouri S&T, we’ve changed the strategic planning paradigm.

So here is a revised cartoon with Dr. Wray and me:

[Revised Dilbert cartoon]

“At Missouri S&T, strategic planning is ALL ABOUT the

satisfaction of accomplishing your goals.”

If you are looking for proof positive that this isn’t the type of plan

that goes on a shelf and collects dust, I would like to humbly

introduce you to these two people.

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In the past year, we have changed our university’s very structure

to create a College of Arts, Sciences, and Business; and a

College of Engineering and Computing.

Ian Ferguson is the vice provost and dean for engineering and

computing. And Stephen Roberts is leading the College of Arts,

Sciences, and Business.

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In addition, Robert Marley joined us as provost and executive

vice chancellor and has already hit the ground running.

And finally, Kent Wray began a new role as vice chancellor for

global and strategic partnerships in July. Let’s welcome our

university leaders into their new roles.

[Lead applause.]

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For my many quantitative people out there, let me share another

slide with you that demonstrates the positive change happening

on this campus. The first bar shows our state appropriation from

fiscal year 2013, which began shortly after I arrived here, and you

can see where our budget is today. You’ll notice there is a large

bump between fiscal years 14 and 15 — we’ll get to that shortly.

These shifts do not happen by accident. We’ve been to Jefferson

City and Washington, D.C., to confer with our local and federal

delegations and build relationships. What I hear over and over –

and this is very much to your credit – is that Missouri S&T is

considered a jewel in this state and nation.

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In the past several months alone, we’ve had legislators and their

staffers on campus on a number of occasions. We’ve hosted state

dignitaries like Sen. Dan Brown, Sen. Mike Kehoe, Attorney

General Chris Koster and State Treasurer Clint Zweifel, and I’ve

met with Sen. Claire McCaskill, Sen. Roy Blunt, Congresswoman

Vicky Hartzler, and Congressman Jason Smith.

I truly believe our representatives want to be able to fund us at a

higher level. The problem is money – our state’s economic growth

continues to be volatile and resources are extremely tight. That’s

why it remains incumbent on us to make sure our resources are

used as effectively and strategically as possible.

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You can also see a shift taking place when you look at enrollment.

Our student population continues to grow at a time when many

universities are struggling. This fall, we have a record 8,642

students enrolled — that’s a 6.3 percent increase from last fall

and nearly double our student population in 2000.

These students represent all 50 states and 61 countries.

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Our students are continuing the university’s tradition of

impeccable academics. Our incoming freshmen, for example, had

an average ACT score of 28.3 and an average high school GPA

of 3.86 — that puts them among the best in the nation.

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In addition, looking at overall enrollment, we have record numbers

of women, graduate students, Hispanic Americans, international

students and under-represented minorities. We continue to shape

the student body as set forth in our strategic plan. And we are

forging strong relationships with three of our six key customer

groups:

Undergraduate students

Research-based graduate students

Distance and online students

Many of our enrollment management team aren’t able to join us

today because they are hosting an open house for prospective

students. However, let’s give them a round of applause anyway.

What this team has achieved is nothing short of remarkable.

[Lead applause.]

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I want to also give a shout out to our advancement division.

Perhaps you’ve noticed we’ve had some construction on campus

lately! Bertelsmeyer Hall. The Hasselmann Alumni House.

Artificial turf at Allgood-Bailey Stadium and on the intramural field.

None of these things would have happened without our generous

donors, one of our six key customer groups, and the efforts of the

advancement team.

Through your due diligence, total gift commitments were $13.8

million last year compared to $10.1 million in FY13 — a 37

percent increase. And alumni participation increased for the first

time since 2008.

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And I’m pleased to report that the word is out on the street about

the good things happening here in Rolla. Our development

officers are hearing extremely positive feedback about the

direction of the university and our bold strategic plan from alumni

scattered across the country and throughout the globe. The Rolla

community is abuzz about our tremendous accomplishments and

potential. Indeed, it is a great time to be a Miner.

As you know, a comprehensive campaign is on the horizon for

this university. Be on the lookout for a series of dialogues during

the fall semester to seek your input on prioritizing fundraising

projects for the upcoming comprehensive campaign. Remember,

this is your opportunity to help shape Missouri S&T’s future.

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Next, I would also like to draw your attention to our growth in

research and technology transfer. Despite a soft economy and a

continued drawback of federal funding for research, we have

managed to grow our research over the past two years. We had

$37 million in net contract and grant expenditures last year — a 7

percent increase from two years ago. We were the only campus

in the University of Missouri System to record an increase in

research this year over last, and universities across the country

are seeing precipitous drops in funding.

In addition, the number of U.S. Patents our researchers have

obtained has increased as well as the number of license and

option agreements.

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You may recall that research partners are one of six key customer

groups we’ve identified in the strategic plan. Our goal through the

planning process has been to adopt a customer perspective and

see how we can make it easier for companies and organizations

to do business with us.

To that end, we have restructured the university to add an

executive director of corporate relations. This office, in the division

of global and strategic partnerships, will provide a one-stop shop

for corporate entities wanting to engage the university’s research

strengths, employment opportunities, career development,

outreach and philanthropy. Let me share another way we’re

making our mark.

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Earlier this year, we selected four multidisciplinary signature

areas. These are focus areas where we already excel and with

investment, can become eminent, world-class leaders

The areas are:

Advanced Manufacturing Advanced Materials for Sustainable Infrastructure Enabling Materials for Extreme Environments Smart Living

These four signature areas align well with many state and

national priorities and are an example of how this university is

moving forward with focus and intention. I might point out that

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these focus areas by their very nature are multidisciplinary, and

we fully expect them to engage people across the campus.

Let me give you an example of how these areas are leading to a

paradigm shift at Missouri S&T.

A distinguished representative from one of our very strong

corporate partners, whom I will not name, has told us that this

strategic plan is compelling and unlike any this person has ever

seen.

And while we already had a relationship with this company, they

are now interested in expanding our partnership in many ways.

Again, the credit is due to you, our faculty, our staff, our students,

our alumni and our partners.

Let me say this for the record: I did not create this plan — the

plan came from your hard work. And these signature areas were

not hatched in the chancellor’s office — they were the result of

your ideas and proposals and the work put in by the committees

that reviewed them. This plan represents the best of who we are

as a university and what we can become.

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Let me spend a few minutes discussing reputation and visibility.

Missouri S&T continues to receive positive rankings in the media,

helping to enhance our reputation and increase our visibility — a

key aspect of our strategic plan. In August, USA Today reported

that College Factual named us the third best engineering school

in the nation — just behind Georgia Tech and one above MIT.

This is certainly good company to be in! That news was posted to

the university’s Facebook page and was shared more than 1,000

times and reached more than 218,000 people.

Ensuring a high return on investment continues to be a focus for

us, and this spring PayScale said Missouri S&T offers the fifth

best ROI in the nation among public universities. Independent of

third-party endorsers, the proof for our students is in the

outcomes they have — not only do they find jobs, but the average

starting salary for our undergraduates is now $61,400.

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Just two weeks ago, at Gale-Bullman, you could witness just how

in-demand our students are. 304 employers attended this year’s

job fair — that’s an all-time record. And 17 of those employers

were hiring for all majors at Missouri S&T!

That is thanks to many of you in this room who have taken time to

mentor our students and build relationships with our employers,

one of our six key customer groups.

It is also important to note that this career fair marks the first one

ever held in climate-controlled comfort due to the fourth

geothermal plant we added on to the original three-plant design.

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Speaking of salaries, this year my leadership team and I

scrutinized every dollar in our budget and looked for ways to fund

critical salary improvements. As a result, we were able to invest in

salaries and wages this year on the average two times more than

the Consumer Price Index.

We did it with a merit pool for outstanding faculty and staff; we did

it by offering larger promotional bumps for faculty; and we did it by

raising the floor for staff to make our compensation ranges

consistent with the duties and responsibilities assigned.

We will continue to focus on this issue. While we’re not going to

solve everything at once, we will keep making advances as we

have over the past two years. 26 | P a g e

A key theme of our strategic plan is to “achieve sustainable

growth to ensure best return on investment.” It is my strong belief

that sustainable growth is not possible if our most valuable asset

— our people — are not appropriately recognized and rewarded

for excellence.

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This year we also made significant progress in controlling our own

destiny by completing a comprehensive master plan that is

designed to provide a blueprint on how our campus might grow

over the next 20 to 25 years. It has been guided by the Missouri

S&T strategic plan and is the result of much discussion and input

from our students, faculty, staff, alumni, the city and county, and

the state.

As part of the planning process, we conducted a comprehensive

study of our existing space and how well it will meet our needs

moving forward. Through this space utilization study, we’ve

determined – not surprisingly – that we have a significant deficit in

research labs, instructional labs and student facilities.

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The plan addresses many of the issues related to our educational

space, including expansion and addition to some of our important

research and academic buildings. Because of this plan, we have

already begun addressing the number one priority identified

through this process — our lack of an arrival district. That’s a

problem we’re beginning to address with the new Havener

Promenade, the area on campus you all identified as most in

need of improvement!

Let me share a telling story with you.

Over the summer, the Joint Committee on Transportation

Oversight held a public meeting on campus and spent some time

touring the university and learning about our considerable

transportation-related research. Over lunch, I presented an

introduction to the strategic plan and Ted Ruth presented on the

master plan and some of our serious concerns about pedestrian

safety along Highway 63.

Our state senators and representatives were truly impressed with

our enterprise, and the strength of our strategic and master plans.

As a result of these conversations, rerouting Highway 63 away

from campus is now very much a part of the discussion not only

for our elected officials but MoDOT as well. This, my fellow

Miners, is the power of our plan!29 | P a g e

There are many more exciting pieces of news I could share with

you. Completion of the geothermal project, which reduced our

energy use by half over the summer and is saving us $1.1 million

annually. Progress on making experiential learning a requirement

for all undergraduates. Inroads on creating a Learning Commons.

Course redesigns and new academic programs like a credential in

elementary STEM education.

However, I know our time is limited, so I will begin wrapping up. I’ll

note, though, that you can see some of our progress outlined in

the Progress At-A-Glance Strategic Plan handouts going around

the room. You can also read in detail about the plan and our

progress at strategicplan.mst.edu.

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Finally, I invite all of you to a two-day Strategic Planning Summit,

which will be held over the lunch hours of Nov. 6-7. Here you can

see a detailed overview of the plan and meet some of the people

behind the themes, levers and actions. You can also learn about

the first project that’s been funded by our Innovation Team!

[Pause.]

So, I promised I would share with you our strategic initiative

funding results for this year. And I will end with that good news.

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It is my pleasure to announce that proposals to boost the number

and quality of our doctoral students and invest in two of Missouri

S&T’s four best-in-class or “signature” areas will receive state

funding of over $4.5 million. This represents nearly a 10 percent

increase to our state appropriations in one year!

Once again, the university has received more than double the

traditional allocation from the University of Missouri System. In

fact, this year it is 2.5 times more than our historical allocation.

This investment will provide competitive funding (stipends and

tuition) to create 70 new Ph.D. research assistant, teaching

assistant and fellowship positions — a 20 percent increase in

funded doctoral students.

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But that is not all! This proposal also provides competitive funding

for the equivalent of 350 existing graduate research and teaching

assistant positions, and greatly improves our graduate

recruitment, retention and placement processes.

Complementing this effort to recruit more doctoral students is the

second proposal, which provides much needed technical and

professional staff such as grant writers, technical and

entrepreneurial specialists, as well as funding for National

Academy-stature leaders and visiting faculty for the two signature

areas of Advanced Manufacturing and Advanced Materials for

Sustainable Infrastructure.

This is tremendous news for our university, and I am so proud of

your work to make this happen.

[Pause.]As you can see, the State of the University is very strong and

through your investment, and investment of our partners, it is

getting stronger by the day.

When I walk around this campus, and when I meet with our

faculty, staff, students, alumni and other partners, I feel as if a

culture shift is happening. Gone are the days when we did things

simply because “it was the way we had always done them.”

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We are actively seeking improvements that will help us provide

the best ROI to our key customers.

Our strategic plan guides our every decision and the investment

of our resources.

For example, earlier this year we took a close look at our

scholarship process, determined a way we could improve it ….

and did! Not over the course of several years. Not even in a

year’s time. In less than one year, we will remove the

administrative burden of allocating scholarships from departments

while ensuring they retain control of their awarding; we have

created a timeline for awards that leverages all our existing

resources, and increases our donor satisfaction with their

Missouri S&T giving experience; we have invited students to

thank their donors, and this fall thousands of students embraced

this opportunity and wrote thank yous, a five-fold increase of

notes to our donors.

Thank you. It’s a simple gesture, but it’s something we don’t do

enough of.

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So today, one more time, let me say it to all of you: thank you.

Thank you for your investment in this plan; thank you for your

trust in me.

As your chancellor, I will continue to advocate for you, our

students, faculty and staff. I will continue to help our

congressional delegation and others understand why it’s crucial to

invest in technological research universities like ours. I will

continue to ensure that Missouri S&T is a valued partner in the

University of Missouri System, and I will continue to rely on you

for help and advice as we move forward.

It is an honor to be your chancellor, and I truly appreciate your

support as we continue this unparalleled trajectory of strength and

vitality.

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