Jim Begany, vice provost for Strategic Enrollment Management and Student Success, provided updates on current student enrollment and graduation rates. The student graduation rate at UofL has reported steady growth over the past six years, increasing from 52.9% in 2015 to 61.6% in 2021.

“Our graduation rate is the real highlight of this presentation. Last year we eclipsed 60% for the first time in the history of the university, and now we have surpassed it and we’ll continue to improve that number,” Begany said.

Total enrollment for fall 2021 was 21,754 students, a decrease of 227 from last year’s fall semester; these figures reflect the national downward trend in undergraduate enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment figures nationwide are projected to decline significantly over the next five to 10 years. This is due to falling birthrates and a decrease in the population of high school students known as the demographic cliff.

According to Begany, Kentucky’s estimated drop is around 15-16%, which, he said, will be a significant challenge in our regional markets.

Begany informed senators that the Office of the Provost is exploring possible solutions to address this future obstacle, including the formation of the Demographic 25 Committee. This committee will confront the challenge of the projected 2025 demographic cliff by focusing institutional efforts in six areas: academic quality, institutional aid strategies, retention and graduation, academic programs, recruitment and partnerships.

Senators were also joined by M. Rehan Khan, vice president of Information Technology Services and chief information officer, and Katherine Stevenson, executive director of Enterprise Technology Services. Stevenson informed senators that Information Technology Services will start using , a form of multifactor authentication for Microsoft O365 software. Authorization will be a combination user and device identity, location signaling and if necessary, two-factor user verification.

“When we turn this on, what we’re doing is checking the reputation of the IP address that you’re logging on from and your normal login behavior. If we rank that as a high-risk login, we’re simply not going to allow that login to continue. If you were a medium risk login, you would be prompted to do two-factor verification,” Stevenson said.

Conditional Access for Microsoft O365 systems will provide increased security for the university, as well as improving the security of employees’ data and personal information. Conditional Access will go into effect for all staff and faculty Jan. 10, 2022, and will apply to all applications that utilize the Microsoft Single Sign-On system, such as Outlook and SharePoint.

Committee reports and a of the virtual meeting can be found on the . The next Staff Senate meeting will be held on Dec. 13 via Microsoft Teams.

Jim Begany, vice provost for enrollment management and student success, presented updated enrollment figures. As of June 1, overall enrollment was down by 636 students. Begany reported a 710 decrease in undergraduate enrollment, a decrease of 17 in professional enrollment, as well as an increase of 91 for graduate enrollment. No change was reported for the total of incoming freshmen students.

In order to address these declines, the Enrollment Lightning Response Team was formed to assist with student registration. The ELRT is currently reaching out to non-registered students through multiple channels, including email and one-on-one meetings. In addition to the efforts made by members of the ELRT, faculty were encouraged to reach out to non-returning students.

“We have lists of these (non-registered) students that we can break down by major. A student’s connection with faculty is extremely important, and we encourage faculty to reach out to these students,” Begany said.��

Executive Vice President and University Provost Lori Gonzalez reported that email notices were sent to faculty members concerning tenure and promotions. Gonzalez informed senators of plans to compile past tenure and promotion decisions in order to provide interested faculty members with transparent and useful data. Past decisions will be organized by college and the names of the faculty members will be omitted.

“My approach to tenure and promotion is that there should be no secrets for anyone. You should know at every step what is happening,” Gonzalez stated.  

Gonzalez also announced two recent staff appointments in the Office of the Executive Vice President and University Provost. Douglas Craddock Jr. from the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development will serve as chief of staff, and Sarah Lopez from the Office of Communication and Marketing will serve as deputy chief of staff. Gonzalez stated that the appointment of Craddock and Lopez will increase the responsiveness of the Office of the Provost.

Executive Vice President of Research & Innovation Kevin Gardner informed senators that new awards for fiscal year 2021 are at an all-time high. Gardner reported 60 research disclosures to date and an all-time high in sponsored research agreements.

“Through March, our awards are higher than they were all of last year. Between the record levels of awards and an anticipated increase in endowment spending, that should see us in good stead for our research expenditures, which is how we get measured as a research university,” Gardner said.

Senators were presented with three proposed program closures by the Academic Programs Committee. The programs included a bachelor of science in atmospheric sciences through the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as a master of education in instructional technology and a master of education in literacy education both through the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development. All three proposed program closures received unanimous approval by the Faculty Senate.  

Committee reports and a of the virtual meeting can be accessed on the . The next Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for July 7 via Microsoft Teams.

Begany said Fall 2018 yielded our highest new student enrollment numbers, as well as our most academically prepared (measured by ACT scores) and the highest number of out-of-state students. These results come on the heels of three years of declining numbers.

Still, many challenges persist. The biggest challenge is the projected changes in population. The number of Kentucky residents between the ages of 15 to 19 is expected to decline significantly through 2023.

The strategic enrollment management and student success office is in the middle of a six-month planning process that includes adding St. Louis as a targeted regional market. .��

Provost Beth Boehm also provided an update from her office, noting that 42 new proposals were received on how to best user leftover cash from the recruitment and retention fund. There is about $800,000 to $1 million left from that fund, and the proposals totaled about $3 million. Projects will be chosen based on how well they can be sustained.

Boehm said the administration is anticipating some changes coming from the CPE’s program review process, but doesn’t know what that looks like yet.

There will be a push to do more 4+1 programming on campus. Right now, Boehm said UofL’s approach to 4+1 (achieving a master’s degree in five years) is one of the most successful programs in the region and we would like to build on that.

Rehan Khan has been named as the new vice provost and chief information officer. Khan comes to UofL from Massachusetts, where he worked as a technology adviser with a specialty in higher education for a large technology firm. He has 27 years of experience working in higher education, having held information technology positions at Northeastern, West Virginia University, the University of Georgia, and at the medical campuses at Emory and Dartmouth.��Khan’s appointment is effective Feb. 15, contingent upon approval by the Board of Trustees.

Katherine Stevenson, who has directed IT since August, will return to her permanent position upon Khan’s arrival. Stevenson offered an update from IT for the group. Major initiatives underway include a People Soft Campus Solutions upgrade scheduled for March 8-16. Also, UofL is onboarding with Eduroam, an international coalition of academic institutions that allow for visitors to use their university’s credentials on other campuses. The full roll out is expected to take place in the fall of 2019.

President Neeli Bendapudi called into the meeting from a CPE meeting in Frankfort. She provided a quick update on the strategic planning process, noting that there has been an overwhelming response from the campus community to participate – over 1,200 unique names were nominated or self-nominated for committee work.

Other reports

The Student Government Association provided an update on its initiatives, which are largely focused on safety. The association is adding lighting to Greek Row, and spending another $40,000 to add lighting and crosswalks in other areas of campus.

Krista Wallace-Boaz provided the Faculty Senate chair’s report. Revenue for FY 19 as of December are up to about $22 million, while expenses are down to about $12 million. Institutional research is currently reviewing and updating our benchmarks. The last CPE-approved list of benchmark institutions was approved in 2005. Key areas of this review include:

• Defining pool of peer institutions
• Determining key metrics for comparison process
• Assessing and compiling data for those metrics
• Developing a flexible benchmarking tool to asses UofL and peer institutions based on updated institutional priorities and associated goals

The university’s strategic planning process was formally launched on Jan. 24. Workgroups will focus on three main goals – making sure UofL is a great place to learn, work and invest.

Wallace-Boaz noted that she, Staff Senate Chair John Smith and SGA President Jonathan Fuller will hold monthly open houses on Feb. 18, March 18 and April 15 on the HSC Campus. .��

The Commission on Diversity and Racial Equality (CODRE) is accepting nominations for the 2019 Presidential Exemplary Multicultural Teaching Award. The deadline is March 21. .��

. The next Faculty Senate meeting is March 6 in Chao Auditorium.

When the Belknap Academic Classroom Building opens in August, employees from the strategic enrollment management and student success office will be running the welcome desk.

That set up is purposeful, as the building itself is dedicated entirely student success. Granted, the definition of “student success” can be arbitrary, but for Jim Begany, vice provost for strategic enrollment management and student success, and Joe Dablow, executive director of student success, it comes down to:

• Graduation rates
• Retention rates

En route to that college degree, the enrollment management and student success team helps students adapt to college life and enhances their academic skills for a better college experience.

“We can define (student success) in other ways, such as the experience students have while they’re here, if they get the services they need, if they get jobs after graduation or go onto grad school,” Begany said. “But the graduation rate and the retention rate is ultimately the end result of most of the work we do.”

To support these objectives, the building will feature classrooms and labs that facilitate active learning, as well as a student success center that offers academic support and advising all in one spot. This proximity should better enable the work Begany, Dablow and team are doing to reach UofL’s goals.

“Now, we have staff all around campus and I am looking forward to being in one place. The building can be a starting point for us to make sure we’re efficient in making enhancements and providing the services our students need,” Dablow said.

Although we’re months away from the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, it is important to note that UofL is already on track to hit its 6-year graduation goal of 60 percent by 2020. This is up from the 48 percent graduation rate from 15 years ago.

“We’ve been doing this great work already and have made significant progress already. What we’re excited about when this building opens is to better create a synergy amongst these different areas,” Begany said. “It won’t make this job any easier, but having these folks in the same space will provide a better opportunity to engage our students.”

Exploratory students

Dablow oversees the Student Success Center, which includes first-year programming efforts to promote retention; advising and support to about 1,500 “exploratory students;” and student success coordinators, who are available to help students overcome obstacles and complete the path to graduation.

The exploratory students fall into two main groups: pre-unit students, which include those who know what path they want to be on but haven’t gotten there yet, e.g. a student who wants to be an engineer but hasn’t yet been accepted to Speed; and students who are undecided majors.

“We have students come in and they say they want to do something, but they don’t really know how and we’re helping them get to where they need to be,” Dablow said.

REACH

Resources for academic achievement – more commonly known as REACH – will also be located in the new building. The primary goals of REACH, overseen by Geoffrey Bailey, are to enhance or improve students’ academic performance, help students transition to college life and support retention rates.

Bailey noted that the transition to the BACB will provide more immediate access to the entire team as UofL works to expand its services for the largest (predicted) incoming class in school history.

The unification of services, coupled with other student success-driven services and programs, will enhance the ability to provide immediate assistance to students and foster a high-touch, high-tech approach to academic support, Bailey adds.

“Students will be able to travel from many of their classes directly to our centers and staff, which helps reduce physical and other perceived barriers for access,” he said. “Further, given our close proximity to our partners, we’ll also see enhanced collaborations and referrals that will directly benefit students.”

Bailey anticipates this ability to facilitate high-impact practices and provide personalized attention to set the bar for learning centers nationwide.

“Although student success has always been an essential part of REACH’s mission, the new space and proximity of our partners will foster additional opportunities for us to collaborate and have an integrated approach to supporting student learning,” he said.

Additionally, the new space will provide opportunities to expand the use of innovative academic support models such as peer-assisted learning (PAL). PAL provides academic support in historically difficult, introductory college courses.

“Given the nature and design of the active learning classroom spaces and support services in BACB, it offers the possibility of an additional tool in our arsenal of academic support mechanisms for UofL students. This is absolutely essential for all students, but it is especially true for serving student populations who have been historically disenfranchised or marginalized and for first-generation students,” Bailey said.

“When a student is engaged, they’re more likely to stay. We want to create that for them prior to getting here, when they get here and while they’re here. That will give us a better opportunity of keeping them here,” Begany added.

Recruitment tool

In addition to streamlining student success and engagement efforts, the team is excited about the recruitment possibilities the new building brings. The nearly 170,000-square-foot structure boasts a number of state-of-the-art features from active learning classrooms to technology-rich lab spaces.

“You can’t not get excited when you look at the building and I’m excited about what that means for us in terms of recruitment,” Begany said. “There is a real energy there.”

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” Dablow added. “We can take a prospective student on a walk-through tour and we don’t even have to say anything.”

The “topping off” event was celebrated by the campus community and dozens of people signed the beam before it was hoisted into place.

The four-story,150,000-square-foot is on track to open fall 2018 and will enhance learning and provide academic and career services to students. It will primarily serve undergraduate students on the Belknap Campus and will feature more than two dozen classrooms, as well as science labs and group study areas, gathering spaces and food service options.

“This building is vital for many reasons,” said Greg Postel, interim president. “It will provide the learning environment and the related services that will help drive our students’ success, both while they are undergraduates and after they have moved on to careers, families and positions of leadership in the community.”

A major part of the new structure will be a program that helps students align their abilities, academic degree and possibilities for future employment as part of their college success. The Career Development Center, open to all university students and housed in a building nearby, will be a partner in the programming for the new building.��

Jim Begany, Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management and Student Success, lauded the planned focus for the building said it will help students “navigate any roadblock on their path to graduation.”

Student Government Association President Vishnu Tirumala said the building is “nothing short of transformative” for students, who want to see more innovative classrooms and labs.��

The Kentucky Legislature approved funding for the building in 2014 to address a significant lack of classroom space at UofL. According to a Kentucky Council on Postsecondary ����ֱ�� study, UofL had the most significant shortage of classroom space among all Kentucky’s public universities.

The new facility is being built on the site that previously housed the Crawford Gym. Built in the 1960s, Crawford once served as the practice facility for the UofL basketball and swimming programs and, later, as home to the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development’s Department of Health and Sport Sciences.��

Postel thanked employees who have had an especially large role in the ongoing construction of the building including Physical Plant and Planning, Design and Construction.

Video from the ceremony is below: