Annual Report of the Provost, 2003–2004
03 November 2004
Dear Colleagues,
As friends encounter me on the quads, they often ask how the University is faring. I hesitate to answer because it is difficult to sum up the status of an institution with 1200 faculty and 13,000 students in an answer short enough to hold the attention of the questioner. Here are some of the main topics that have occupied the Provost’s Office over the past year. Overall, the future is bright as we maintain our tradition as the most intellectually focused university in the country.
Faculty
I believe that the most telling measure of the strength of the University is the comparison of faculty recruitments and retentions, on the one hand, and departures to peer institutions, on the other. By this standard, last year was on the whole a success, despite some disappointing decisions to leave. Seven senior faculty members made the decision to move (half the long-term average), but many more declined attractive offers in order to enjoy the unique intellectual atmosphere of Chicago that each of you helps to create. There is no higher priority than the preservation of that special climate that nourishes young faculty and invigorates senior colleagues.
Joining us in 2004–05 are the following tenured Associate and Full Professors:
John Birge (GSB), from Northwestern, an operations researcher whose research in stochastic programming and stochastic scheduling optimizes decision-making under conditions of uncertainty
Judith Farquhar (Anthropology), from North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an ethnographer of contemporary China whose recent book, Appetites: Food and Sex in Postsocialist China, examines current cultural developments through bodily experiences of health, healing, and sexuality
Frances Ferguson (English), from Johns Hopkins, distinguished scholar and theorist of English Romanticism, her current work theorizes the evolution of modern pornography in tandem with the rise of utilitarianism in the late eighteenth-century
T. Conrad Gilliam (Human Genetics), from Columbia, a biochemist researching the genetic basis for heritable diseases, including such complex conditions as autism, epilepsy, and schizophrenia; he joins us as Chair of the department
Steve Goldstein (Pediatrics), from Yale, whose seminal contributions to the ion channel field include determining the structure and function of minK proteins; he joins us as Chair of the department
Jeffrey Grogger (Harris School), from UCLA, an empirical economist known particularly for his work on the effect of arrest and incarceration on labor market outcomes and on the effects of recent welfare policy reforms
Sydney Hans (SSA), from Chicago, a psychologist, her research program focuses on the relational, biological, and environmental factors influencing the development of children of substance-abusing, schizophrenic, or adolescent parents
Jean-Luc Marion (Divinity), from Paris-Sorbonne, historian of philosophy and philosopher, his work on Descartes, on the phenomenology of religion, and in theology has profoundly altered the terms of debate across all these areas
Bruce Meyer (Harris School), from Northwestern, an empirical economist whose contributions to labor economics and social policy include foundational studies on unemployment insurance and related labor market phenomena
William Mieler (Ophthalmology), from Baylor, a vitreoretinal surgeon who has contributed important new knowledge and technical advances in the diagnosis and management of vitreoretinal diseases; he joins us as Chair of the department
Colm O’Muircheartaigh (Harris School), from NORC, a statistician whose work on survey designs has addressed questions ranging from response/measurement error to the cognitive aspects of survey methodology
Callum Ross (Organismal Biology), from SUNY-Stony Brook, who studies the functional design of primate skull morphology in relation to feeding, vision, and brain evolution
S. Murray Sherman (Neurobiology), from SUNY-Stony Brook, among whose contributions to the understanding of vision are pioneering work on the connections from retina to thalamus and on the functional organization of the thalamus; he joins us as Chair of the department
Michael Vannier (Radiology), from Iowa, a founder of the field of computational anatomy and leader in the development of three-dimensional imaging technology for study, diagnosis, and treatment.
We welcome them and also the new, untenured faculty. In addition, congratulations are due to the twenty-four faculty members who received tenure in 2003–04.
The senior leadership of the University, like the faculty, remained generally stable in 2003–04. We marked the retirements of Janel Mueller as the Dean of the Humanities Division and Martin Runkle as Director of the Library with grateful thanks for their dedicated work. I extend a warm welcome to Danielle Allen as Dean of the Humanities Division and Judith Nadler as Director of the Library. In the School of Social Service Administration Dean Edward Lawlor resigned to move to Washington University. A search is underway to find a new dean; in the meantime, Jeanne Marsh has graciously agreed to return to service as Acting Dean.
Faculty honors
Our faculty drew many awards and accolades this year. I offer here a short selection of some of the principal honors. Eugene Parker won the Kyoto Prize for lifetime achievement in the basic sciences. Elwood Jensen was honored with the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Jeffrey Harvey, and William Sewell were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Joseph Lykken and Russell Tuttle were selected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Rustem Ismagilov received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The recognition of our faculty’s scholarly achievement extended beyond our national borders: Charles Larmore won the Grand Prix de Philosophie of the Academie Francaise; Philippe Desan was awarded the Ordre National du Merite (Chevalier), and Thomas Pavel the Ordre du Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.
Planning and priorities
In 2003–04 many faculty, deans, and administrators participated in the process of extending the Campus Master Plan of 1999. The firm of Ayres Saint Gross (ASG) led the effort, which started with an inventory of current plans and needs of the College, Divisions and Schools in the wake of the completion of the projects under construction. Throughout the year ASG met with faculty groups, including the Council of the Senate, administrators at all levels, and the Trustees. The planning process is nearly finished, and the results will be presented in many fora in the coming quarter for feedback. It is in the nature of long-term plans, covering two decades, that they will not materialize exactly as drawn. Nevertheless, a vision is essential if we are to avoid mistakes of piecemeal decision-making.
The last Campus Master Plan was completed in 1999 under the leadership of Geof Stone and guided the siting and building of the Gerald Ratner Athletic Center (opened last October), the Palevsky Residential Commons, the Graduate School of Business campus (opening on time and on budget as I write), and the Interdivisional Research Building (scheduled to open in spring 2005 and nearly on schedule). These world-class facilities, together with the Comer Children’s Hospital (scheduled to open in November), will make great contributions to the research capacity and community life of the University.
One might think that with the completion of these buildings it would be a good moment to pause and take a deep breath before proceeding with a new phase of planning and construction. After all, this is a university that has emphasized its human talent, especially its faculty and students, over its physical plant. ASG metrics confirm this self-image, suggesting that we have 20% less space for the size of our student body and faculty than many of our peers. That characteristic is appropriate for a serious university that values ideas above all else, and it will continue, as is evident in the Chicago Initiative’s priorities, including named professorships, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate aid. Nevertheless, the University has added, on average, two million square feet per decade over the last half century. The planning by the academic units underlines the fact that future research and teaching will require additional building at roughly the same pace in the next two decades, as (for instance) the Library acquires an additional 150,000 volumes per year and lab groups in the sciences grow in size and number. The planning effort has addressed not only the need for new space, but also the need for major renovations of older buildings that no longer meet the requirements of research in the 21st century. As a part of the process of reaccreditation in the coming year, we will analyze the role of buildings as one aspect of the research infrastructure of the University.
Several general conclusions have emerged as the units’ plans have been drawn together by ASG. First, the current campus area with a few small additions can accommodate our projected needs over the next twenty years or so. The PSD, BSD, and the Hospitals will fit on the available land on the west campus in a way that will promote intellectual exchange through contiguities, but it will require the higher density of buildings typical of modern biomedical centers. Secondly, the campus south of the Midway will be transformed in the next twenty years, as surface parking lots (our version of a land bank) give way to new facilities for the Professional Schools, the College, and the Humanities Division, to name only a few. In place of surface parking-a luxury in an urban environment-it will be necessary to build parking structures and also to develop a broader transportation policy to encourage use of other modes of transportation. Thirdly, our decision-making must take into account the impact of campus changes on neighboring communities with respect to public amenities, architecture, parking, and open spaces.
Setting the order of priorities for building and renovation and interweaving those priorities with other priorities of the University will be complex and open-ended. Some facilities (e.g., the Library extension) will be centrally funded; others will be paid for from the revenues of the units (e.g., the New Research Building for the BSD); while others will require substantial gifts. The challenge for this and future administrations will be to follow through on these plans even as we continue to increase support for the faculty and students, graduate and undergraduate. It goes without saying that a new Library extension to house three million volumes or state-of-the-art laboratories will not be worth the investment unless they are filled with first-rate faculty and students.
Minority initiatives
Over the past year Professor Ken Warren and Vice President Steve Klass led the Provost’s Initiative on Minority Issues (PIMI) to collect data and assess the University’s position almost twenty years after the Norton Report. PIMI’s report (http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/education/pimi.pdf) suggests that some improvements have been realized but not nearly enough to meet our aspirations in this area. The President and I believe that the diversity of the faculty, students, and staff is central to the fulfillment of our central missions of research and education (see our letter, http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/education/diversity-statement04.html). A major step to provide better support to minority students was taken over the summer when the Office of Minority Student Affairs was reorganized, as recommended by an external review. We are now engaged in a national search for a strong leader of this office. In order to make further progress in the recruitment and retention of minority faculty, students, and staff, the Departments, Divisions, and Schools will have to join the administration in a focused effort. In the coming months, we will discuss the best practices for success, sound approaches to implementation, and the appropriate measures of progress.
Women’s and family issues
A working group of faculty and administrators met monthly over the last academic year to analyze issues affecting women faculty and, more broadly, families. A range of topics connected with equity and work environment were investigated, based on information on hiring, promotions, and workload gathered by the Provost’s Office. The data suggest that measurable progress has been made in the appointment of women to our faculty, but it has been very uneven across units, leaving much room for improvement. Once hired, women on the faculty have the same rate of success as men in tenure and promotion decisions. As a result of the group’s work, certain policies regarding parental leave and part-time effort for clinical faculty have been changed to allow greater flexibility (see http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/policies/provostoffice/maternity-other-policy.pdf). Furthermore, the need for child-care was highlighted, and the administration is exploring possible means of meeting the need. The working group will continue to advise me in the coming year on matters of particular concern to faculty women.
Financial condition of the University
This year it is possible to strike a more optimistic note than in the recent past. Progress in the Chicago Initiative passed the one billion dollar milestone early in 2004—a cause for celebration with our donors in April. At the halfway point, this campaign is nearly 50% more productive than the previous one. President Randel, Vice President Holgate, and all of the Development staff deserve c ongratulations, as they step up the pace in the remainder of the Initiative in order to reach the goal of two billion dollars.
Meanwhile, the annual returns on the endowment showed major gains in 2003–04 for the first time since 2000. The return on the investment was 16.6% over the four quarters ending June 2004; the value on June 30 was $3.6 billion. These improvements will be only gradually felt, because the payout from the endowment is based on an average over three years. Just as the averaging allowed the University to avoid real budget cuts and staff reductions during the years of declining market returns, so also we will not immediately realize the full impact of the improved returns. Overall, the financial health of the University is strong and improving. A handful of peer institutions are markedly wealthier, but many more are less well off. The University has a great tradition of focusing our resources on our core mission more effectively than most of our peers, and this tradition will continue to enable discovery and teaching at the highest level in the future.
Threats to open research and academic exchange
Last year’s Annual Letter mentioned the USA PATRIOT Act, noting that our university had not experienced any direct impact. Over the past year, it has been necessary to resist threats to restrict open research and discourse on several fronts, with success for the most part. The major foundations have sought to impose conditions on grantees, requiring some version of a guarantee that neither the University nor its constituent parts promote terrorism, violence, bigotry, or the overthrow of any state. The University of Chicago joined others in a protest to argue that the language was vague and could be construed in ways that would limit academic freedom. As a result, some foundations changed the language of the condition to restrict its scope to obeying the law on terrorism. The Ford Foundation added an explicit acknowledgement of the need for free speech for faculty and students.
More troubling, in my view, are the efforts of various federal agencies pursuing anti-terrorist and security agendas. The concern for national security is understandable, but some proposed measures would pose very serious obstacles to our twin missions of research and education. For example, the Departments of Defense and Commerce are considering a change of policy that would require the individual licensing of large numbers of those foreign-born faculty, students, and staff (even naturalized citizens) who have access on our campus to technology regarded as sensitive and hence subject to export controls. This would represent a massive, domestic extension of the current export controls that make it difficult or impossible for our archaeologists to take laptop computers to the field in Syria. At every step, the administration will advocate the virtues of open research and teaching and will seek to negotiate applications of rules that meet security concerns while protecting open discourse and research. The climate of anxiety over security has already led to a marked decline in applications from international students at our university and across the nation. We must hope that this trend is temporary and that the nation will not lose its enviable position as the global magnet for intellectual talent.
I wish you the very best in your teaching and research in the coming year,
Richard P. Saller
Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service
Professor of History and Classics, and Provost of the University