Harreld says fundraising a key to UI's future success

The president of the University of Iowa promised to keep on message Thursday as he told members of Iowa City area service clubs that the main challenges facing the university are government funding levels, how the university uses its resources and a culture that risks keeping the university from owning its own destiny.

UI President Bruce Harreld began his first "State of the University” address Thursday by apologizing to an audience full of largely familiar faces that they were going to hear him talk about topics he has brought up often before. That list includes:

• The need to find alternative funding sources for the university teaching and research missions.
• The need to increase incentives to retain top-notch faculty.
• And the need to move beyond a “culture of dependency” when it comes to federal and state money.

“I teach leadership classes and have been doing that for quite a while in various groups,” Harreld said. “And one of the things I always say to them is, ‘You will get tired of your message long before people fully understand it. And it is absolutely OK to not change the message and to be relentless, boring and redundant to help people catch up to what you’re trying to get done.'”

The various services clubs in the Iowa City area have been gathering for an annual joint luncheon for the past six decades. The event traditionally features an update from the UI president. Because Harreld didn't begin as UI president until November 2015, Jean Robillard, UI's vice president for medical affairs, gave the address last year in his capacity as interim president.

Harreld’s message for UI in one word, he said, is “excellence.”

“We have a lot of excellence here; we also have some gaps,” he said. “And the simple message is, ‘We need to get going and we can’t use others as the excuse.”

Harreld pointed to data from the past decade that show UI’s overall rankings have been dropping on the annual lists provided by U.S. News and World Report as well as among the institutions who are members of the Association of American Universities. Reversing that slide, he said, will involve a number of corrective actions.

“The beginning part of the story has to be funding,” he said. “And I’m not complaining, but I think it’s a fact that the state and federal institutions that fund public institutions of higher education have been actually backing off their funding, in their percent.”

Because of the shrinking percentages from state and federal source, tuition is going up at institutions across the nation. Among Iowa’s public universities, he said, the bulk of those increases in recent years have gone to out-of-state, graduate and professional students.

“This has created an environment where we are fighting for every nickel we can get,” he said. “I must also say, however, that the cost of educating a student — even though tuition has gone up so dramatically — the cost of educating a student over the last 15 years (when adjusted for inflation) is right around $7,000 a student.”

Reaction was primarily positive from service group members who gathered Thursday in the University Athletic Club in University Heights.

One audience member raised concerns about the price per square foot for all the “dazzling” new buildings on the campus. The university recently opened brand new replacement facilities for the Visual Arts Building, Hancher Auditorium and Voxman School of Music facilities that were damaged beyond repair in the flood of 2008. The university also is scheduled to open the new $360 million Stead Family Children's Hospital later this year.

"To say that we're not going to do things like that because we don't have enough resources or it 'dazzles' you, I think is a problematic thought for me," Harreld answered. "I think this is progress; I think this is innovation — now at the same time, we need to do it judiciously."

Others audience members praised the tone Harreld has set while addressing the university’s challenges.

“I was very impressed,” said Tom Cilek, senior vice president at West Bank. “First, he reminds us that we have some challenges financially, but he doesn’t moan. It’s something that we have to accept — it’s challenge, but we move forward. In a way, it’s very inspiring.

State Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, said she heard Harreld issuing a challenge for local leaders to think about what the university and community will look like over the next 20 years, 50 years.

Mascher said she did take issue, however, with Harreld’s discussion of trying to change UI’s “culture of dependency” when it comes to state funding.

“I would like to see a cultural shift in the state of Iowa in terms of having higher ed and education in general be higher priorities,” she said.

After the address, Harreld said he will continue to lobby the lawmakers and the governor for more state funding for the university, but he will be encouraging faculty, staff and researchers to actively seek out other funding as well.

"I want more than my fair share from the state, at the same time, that won’t be enough. So we’ve got to do both," he said.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffCharis.