{"id":97422,"date":"2014-10-16T15:23:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T19:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=97422"},"modified":"2015-09-25T14:11:23","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T18:11:23","slug":"herbst-hails-uconns-progress-in-state-of-the-university-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/10\/herbst-hails-uconns-progress-in-state-of-the-university-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Herbst Hails UConn\u2019s Progress in State of the University Address"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
President Susan Herbst gives the State of the University address at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts on Oct. 16, 2014. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Read the full text of the State of the University address here<\/a>. Watch the President deliver the address here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The University of Connecticut has made remarkably rapid progress in areas ranging from new facilities to new faculty, President Susan Herbst said Thursday in her annual State of the University address.<\/p>\n

However, she warned those achievements can be quickly undone if University stakeholders don\u2019t commit to a sustained program of further growth and improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting here was hard,\u201d Herbst said in the roughly 40-minute address delivered at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. \u201cIt is much, much easier to slide backward.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her remarks, Herbst singled out a number of major initiatives that have made UConn a different university than it was even five years ago. The faculty hiring plan launched three years ago has reduced the student-to-instructor ratio from 18-to-1 to 15.9-to-1, she said, and also allows the University to expand its course offerings.<\/p>\n

Herbst also discussed the current freshman class, which is the most academically accomplished in UConn\u2019s 133-year history, and pointed out that this year, UConn will spend nearly $92 million on financial aid, a 183 percent increase from a decade ago, and a crucial metric when 8 out of 10 students receive some form of financial aid.<\/p>\n

Watch the video UConn: A Community of Champions here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the newest achievements Herbst discussed was the launch of a campus Master Plan<\/a>, the result of a process begun last year under the leadership of Master Planner and Chief University Architect Laura Cruickshank and Director of University Planning Beverly Wood.<\/p>\n

The plan will be an essential guide to the development of the University as UConn is poised for a period of remarkable growth both in new buildings and new students, thanks to Next Generation Connecticut and other initiatives.<\/p>\n

Some of those new facilities include the Innovation Partnership Building in the Tech Park, slated to open in 2017; a new residence hall for STEM living and learning communities, to be completed in 2016; a new Engineering and Science Building, to be finished in 2017; a new Honors Residence Hall; a new production facility for the School of Fine Arts; a new student recreation building; and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Master Plan will put an end to decades of treating construction and renovation projects as stand-alone undertakings, done without considering a building\u2019s place in the larger campus,\u201d Herbst said.<\/p>\n

A draft of the plan will be presented to the Board of Trustees for review at their December meeting. The board will vote on a final draft early next year, once environmental reviews of the plan are complete.<\/p>\n

Herbst also highlighted the major transformation happening to UConn Health in Farmington, where the Bioscience Connecticut initiative has already resulted in the construction of the new Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, which opened this month.<\/p>\n

Directly across from the center is a new Outpatient Pavilion, scheduled to open this winter, which will house the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center, all of the practices currently located in outdated buildings on the campus, and a new Women\u2019s Health Floor that will include OB\/GYN, mammography, and other services.<\/p>\n

In her remarks, Herbst also praised the work of the private UConn Foundation, which last year raised more than $81 million in philanthropic gifts and commitments, the highest amount in its 50-year history and a 23 percent increase over the previous year.<\/p>\n

The Foundation will now set a fundraising goal of $100 million, Herbst said, with a long-term strategy of eventually increasing UConn\u2019s endowment from $365 million to $1 billion.<\/p>\n

That will be essential to ensuring the University\u2019s continued success, Herbst said, as public funding for universities around the country continues to fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe era of states funding the majority of public universities\u2019 budgets has ended, and will likely never return,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons why all of UConn\u2019s recent successes \u2013 in attracting classes of record-setting distinction; in hiring world-class faculty members from other top universities; in building and retooling its campuses to meet 21st century needs \u2013 are in jeopardy without constant dedication, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuccessful universities are not created instantaneously as if by a lightning bolt and a clap of thunder,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are created with consistent, strategic investments made over decades, by many leaders and partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concluding her remarks on a note of determination, Herbst said it\u2019s within the power of the UConn community \u2013 not just on campus, but across the state and even the country \u2013 to ensure that kind of effort continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur future will not be secured by simply trumpeting past successes,\u201d she said. \u201cThe future is based on the work we do today, and the opportunities that lie ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But she warns that the gains can quickly be reversed, without sustained commitment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":97456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-97422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 04:06:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97422"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97470,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97422\/revisions\/97470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/97456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97422"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=97422"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=97422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}