Welcome to academic year 2009-2010.  Last year, my remarks focused on the College name change, from Arts and Sciences to Liberal Arts and Sciences, drawing attention to the refocusing of our mission on the traditional liberal arts and sciences and emerging areas of knowledge.  I discussed the expansion of some areas of the college and its growing complexity, with new programs and centers, and the addition of the areas of development and communications in the Dean’s Office.

As I sat down to draft these remarks this year, I expected to tell a very different story, given the reversion of last spring and the budget cuts to the 2009-2010 budget.  Like the Chancellor and Provost, I want to thank all of you for your quiet fortitude and uncomplaining assistance in helping the College respond to this downturn.  Our days are filled with more work and less money, but as I have said to the chairs and directors numerous times, we have been able to maintain our strong academic community, and none of the 15 people who lost their jobs last month worked in this college.  However, while the hurt from the cut in resources is very real and has been felt by everyone in this room, it is also true that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences continues to teach students effectively, to train well our graduate students for professional and academic careers, to expand the boundaries of knowledge, and to work with the local and global community on a range of societal issues.  Consequently, I want to report that the state of the College remains vibrant, energetic, and forward-looking—albeit marked with a realistic awareness of the uncertainty of the economic future.

Some things remain the same:  the College teaches approximately 70% of the total student credit hours generated by the university, our majors comprise about one-third of the undergraduate majors, our graduate student population is about 16% of the total on campus, second behind the College of Education, and we employ 46% of all faculty at the university.

If 2007-2008 was a year characterized by the development of new programs and centers, 2008-2009 saw numerous departments take a hard look at their curriculum and make major revisions:

• The Department of Geography and Earth Sciences identified five focus areas—global change, sustainability, human environmental interaction, hazards, and geospatial perspective—and has revised its undergraduate curriculum accordingly.  It plans to undertake graduate curriculum development as well as a name change this year;
• Likewise, the Philosophy Department radically revamped its undergraduate curriculum, and the science departments collaborated to create a General Science major that would be attractive to students planning careers as high school science teachers;
• College faculty agreed to a revision of the language requirement, in the special case of joint degrees approved prior to the adoption of the new general education curriculum;
• And the Department of Criminal Justice changed its name to the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, to better reflect the expertise of the faculty and its curricular emphasis.

One of the most significant college discussions last year focused on the 13 stand-alone interdisciplinary programs housed in the College—these are minors, majors, certificates, and master’s programs.  These discussions did not include the interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs.  For several reasons, this structure was proving untenable:  the larger programs were not staffed at the level that they should be, and it was difficult to nurture the smaller programs.  After consultation with relevant faculty, several decisions were made:

• The Department of Global, International, and Area Studies will be established as an umbrella department for International Studies; Latin American Studies; Islamic Studies; Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies; and Judaic Studies  to further advance the college’s mission to enhance global, international and area studies education and research.  It will be formally implemented after consultation with the University Faculty Council in early fall;
• Several programs were pulled back into departments.  They will maintain their interdisciplinarity, but their direction will be part of the director’s department service responsibilities.  These programs are Cognitive Science, Urban Studies, Film Studies, and Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies.
• Other programs are still stand-alone, but conversations are continuing about how to better nurture their development.  These include American Studies; Gerontology; Humanities, Technology, and Society; Liberal Studies; and Women’s and Gender Studies.

The College continues its commitment to interdisciplinary programming and research and will continue to look for ways to enhance these programs and others, in this time of constricting resources.

Several new initiatives were launched last year.

• The Center for Global Public Relations, housed in Communication Studies, held its dedication in February. The center is a resource for practitioners, scholars/educators and students worldwide who want to increase their knowledge about global public relations through the Center’s on-site research and education opportunities, its continuing education programs and its partnerships worldwide
• The Ph.D. program in Organizational Science, with support from Development Dimensions International, developed a summer institute to provide minority undergraduate students from across the country with an opportunity to learn more about graduate studies in the field of organizational science and to foster interest in research and potential careers in the field.
• The Department of Africana Studies named T. J. Reddy as the inaugural Africana Studies Artist in Residence, an appointment the Department hopes to continue annually.
• The Department of Psychology, showing leadership in addressing the value of diversity in our college, received a Solutions Team Grant from the Advance Program to look at the climate within the department.  It is in the process of implementing recommendations it received from its consultant report.
• Not a brand new initiative, but an important continuing project is the Mt. Zion archaeological excavation in Jerusalem, which is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies.  It was the largest Study Abroad Program in the university this past summer, drawing 45 participants and was the choice for the Chancellor’s inaugural VIP trip abroad with a small group of university friends and donors.
• As Joan mentioned yesterday, the Charlotte Teachers Institute, a partnership among UNC Charlotte, Davidson College, and CMS and housed in our college, successfully launched its programming and will be offering four seminars to CMS teachers this fall.

While the College’s percentage of external funding, compared to the rest of the university, dropped last year from 35% to 26%, the College nevertheless brought in more dollars than any other college.  The Biology Department continues to lead the College with more than $2.8 million awarded, with Physics and Optical Science a close second, at nearly $2.6 million. The Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications finished as the highest ranking center on campus in terms of research funding, bringing in more than $3.1 million.  I especially want to acknowledge the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology which increased its funding more than 300%, from $130,265 in 2007-2008 to $410,959 in 2008-2009.

But these numbers do not articulate the individual successes of our faculty and students.  For the next few minutes, I would like to acknowledge some colleagues and students by name.  Several faculty were recognized for their contributions to their disciplines:

• Murray Webster, Professor of Sociology, was inducted into the Sociological Research Association, which limits its membership to about 425 sociologists around the world;
• Pinku Mukherjee, Irwin Belk Distinguished Scholar of Cancer Research and Associate Professor of Cancer Biology, won the Bioachievement in Research Award at the first annual BioNight celebration;
• Jennifer Hartman, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, was the 2009 Recipient of the Faculty Woman of the Year, Women's Leadership Conference;
• Thomas Rogers, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and History, was awarded both a Fulbright Fellowship and an American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grant in support of his new research project: Hunger and Environmental Destruction in Brazil’s Forgotten Ethanol Boom, 1971-1990.

Some faculty also received major appointments reflective of their accomplishments.

• Ken Bost, Irwin Belk Distinguished Professor of Biology, was selected to serve for a three-year term as the Chair of the standing NIH Study Section, Clinical Neuro-immunology and Brain Tumors, CNBT;
• Dan Rabinovich, Professor of Chemistry, received a two-year appointment with NSF;
• Ken Gonsalves, the Hoechst Celanese Distinguished Professor of Polymer Chemistry, received a two-year appointment as Associate Director for the Office of Naval Research Global.
• Steve Sabol, Associate Professor of History, has taken over as editor of the Journal of World War I Studies;
• Over 50% of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology holds or, in the past year, held governance roles in four different national scholarly organizations

Reflective of the leadership our faculty have in their national disciplines are the many conferences that come to Charlotte, with our faculty as the hosts.  The English Department brought two such international associations to Charlotte last year:  Alan Rauch was the organizer for the annual meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts in October 2008, and Mark West led the initiative to bring the Children’s Literature Association here in June.

Although recruitment was curtailed last year, we continue to recruit exceptionally strong faculty to our programs.  This year we welcomed 14 new faculty members to the College, including two lecturers and 12 assistant professors.  Several faculty members assumed new positions of responsibility:

• Craig Allan was appointed Chair of Geography and Earth Sciences;
• Jurgen Buchenau was appointed Chair of History; and
• Harry Chernotsky is the incoming and founding Chair of the Department of Global, International, and Area Studies.
• And we welcome Lt. Colonel Chris Rogers as the new Chair of Aerospace Studies.

Last year, several faculty members were presented with the most prestigious teaching awards our campus grants:

• Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau (Associate Professor of German) was awarded the Bonnie E. Cone Early-Career Professorship in Teaching at this year’s convocation;
• Currently three Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence finalists come from the College: Charlie Burnap (Mathematics and Statistics), Patrick Moyer (Physics and Optical Science), and Lori Van Wallendael (Psychology).
• The Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology was honored with the 15th Annual Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

And finally, we celebrate 14 faculty who were promoted and tenured, one faculty member who earned tenure, three faculty members who were promoted to full professor, and 17 faculty members who were reappointed.

Our students have achieved successes as well, some of whom Joan mentioned yesterday.  Let me just mention several others:

• Stacy Feldstein, Languages and Culture Studies, won a National Endowment for the Humanities scholarship and participated in a program in Leipzig, Germany;
• Michael Fairchild, Mathematics and Statistics, was one of six nationally selected Givens Associates and held a research position this past summer in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory;
• Jim Harris, History, received a prestigious DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to conduct research and take classes in Germany over the summer;
• Abid Khan, Biology, was awarded a Genetics Society of America grant to travel to the International Congress of Genetics meeting in Berlin, Germany;
• Seven students in ANTH 1101, taught by Dr. Catherine Fuentes, placed in the top 50 winners (out of 1304 students across the U.S. and Canada) in the Public Anthropology’s Community Action Website Project;
• Graduate and undergraduate students from the Geography, Earth Sciences, Geology and Meteorology programs authored approximately 60 presentations, posters and journal articles during the past year, several of which received recognition as outstanding student contributions.

• The Model United Nations team, ably led by Political Science Professor Cindy Combs, won a record total of 18 awards for both individual delegates, as well as outstanding delegations, competing with students from outstanding universities from all over the world.  A significant aspect of this program is that its participants in this program are students from colleges across the university.
• Graduate students in the public history program who participated in last year’s project on the CATS Lynx Line (“History at Light Speed: Discovering Charlotte’s Northeast Corridor”) won the 2009 Student Project Award from the National Council on Public History.

The CLAS Dean’s Students Advisory Council continued to expand its role in the college.  During the past academic year members of the council served as advisors on topics such as addressing plagiarism, the registration process, development of the college Web site, academic advising processes, orientation for incoming transfer students, and developing the college undergraduate culture.  A subcommittee of the student council helped select the winner of the CLAS Student Experiential Learning Grant and was heavily involved in the Senior Gift Initiative for the college.  Members of the CLAS Student Council helped organize and participated in a mentoring day with members of the CLAS Community Advisory Board and are currently helping to plan a graduate school information session for the college in fall, 2009.

Before moving on to some remarks about the coming year, I want to give you a brief synopsis of where this college is, in terms of the budget.  First, a little history.
In December, the College was asked to return $346,553, primarily through a reduction in operating money.  This was not an across-the-board cut, but all units gave a minimum of 10%.  At that time, we froze all recruitment in the College, as we prepared for a 2% cut for 2009-2010 (Academic Affairs was actually preparing for a 7% cut, but was handling 5% of that centrally).  The actual cut that occurred was a 10% cut, requiring the College to return $2.6 million.  We handled this by taking 20% from college operations and returning empty lines.  CLAS returned 25 lines.

Along with the Provost and the Chancellor, we have been anticipating a reversion at some point during this academic year.  Consequently, we have told the chairs to operate within an initial allocation no greater than 50% of their 2008-2009 budgets.  We’re holding additional monies, pending information about a reversion. It is our intention to release that money as soon as we get clarity about the reversion.  At this time, we do not know how Phil is planning to handle the 5% reversion he told us about yesterday.

At this time, I am not authorizing any recruitment.  I know that several departments have made negative RPT decisions in the last few years and are expecting to be able to recruit on these lines.  This is a contract between departments and the dean’s office and I am committed to honoring it, and I have said so publicly.  However, I cannot authorize even these lines yet.  My first commitment is to protect jobs.  I do not want to authorize recruitment if it means that I will have to send people home.  And frankly, given our instructional mission, if I do not hold some lines empty, the people I will be sending home will be SPA staff.

The Chancellor ended Convocation yesterday with the exhilarating announcement of the Levine Family’s transformational gift of a unique scholarship program that will utterly change the nature of our student body.  I would like to also end with good news.

In FY 2009, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences secured over $2 million in private gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations to support key College initiatives (compared to $1.1 million in FY 2008).  These gifts went to such diverse areas as the Botanical Gardens, the Ethics Center, support for Health Psychology graduate students, seed money to support a lecturer in Japanese, support for the Model UN and the Bertha Maxwell Roddey Distinguished Africana Lecture, in-kind gifts for the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics and Optical Science, as well as numerous student scholarships, at-large gifts, and operations support.  My thanks and congratulations to both Sharon Harrington and Mary Gaertner for their efforts last year in making real the “alternative revenue streams” I am always talking about.

I want to end these remarks by discussing the major college initiative of this academic year:  a comprehensive strategic planning exercise that will result in the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan.  This plan will guide the path of the College, including the distribution of resources, for this five-year period.  The process will involve all departments, programs, and centers.  We will begin with a retreat for chairs and directors on September 21, where the college mission will be refined and college goals will be articulated in concert with academic affairs goals.  The process will be iterative; that is, units will work internally but will also share information with the rest of the college, so that the end result will be a college plan and unit plans that are complementary.

It may seem counter-intuitive to be engaged in strategic planning in a time of budgetary constraints and programmatic contraction.  In fact, this is exactly the time to take stock of our priorities and to take measured steps to realize our goals.  But the path to this end must not be restrained and cautious, just because we happen to be in the middle of a recession. The College cannot realize its potential unless we give ourselves permission to think creatively, to imagine what does not yet exist.  I ask all the faculty and chairs to step out of your disciplinary comfort zone, to remove yourself from the everyday world you inhabit.

We must launch ourselves into 2015—and even beyond—and ask ourselves large, important questions:

• What is the role of a college of liberal arts and sciences in the world that we think 2015 will become?
• What experiences should our undergraduate majors have that will prepare them to address these challenges, to live full and satisfying lives, and to be fully franchised citizens of the world?
• How do we train our graduate students so that they not only master their area of study but have the flexibility of mind to create new knowledge?
• How do we as faculty bring our expertise to bear on the major issues in our local and global communities?

In imagining the world of 2015 and its needs, we will reinvent the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  By “reinvent” I do not mean that we will throw everything away and start over.  I do mean that we will imagine the structure and function of that College and we will chart our path to that identity, using where we are in 2009 as a starting place.  Some pieces are in place—for example, we have had two task forces think about diversity and internationalization over the past several years and their good work can help us all as we think about these forces in our curriculum and research.

I see this process as exhilarating.  The best part of being a faculty member in a college of liberal arts and sciences is that the life of the mind is central to our mission.  Strategic planning, while it certainly has its pedestrian aspects, has, as its beginning and end in this college, this value of lifelong learning and discovery.

If the focus last year was the College’s name change and the dissemination of this change, this next year, because of the strategic planning process, the focus will be on discovering what this name means.  “What’s in a name?” asks Juliet.  Well, a lot.  During this next year, we will collectively be defining who we are and putting a structure in place so that we can become that College.  Our economic outlook is uncertain, obviously.  But economics is not the whole picture and we must not let this temporary downturn constrain the natural evolution of the College.  The impressive accomplishments of students and faculty this past year are only the prologue to an even more exciting future of intellectual engagement and achievement.

August 19, 2009
Nancy A. Gutierrez, Dean