Regents Hear UA's Update on Never Settle
With an eye toward the future, UA leadership focuses on the University's student experience, its research and health care objectives, and its financial strength and stability.

University Communications
Nov. 21, 2016

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(Photo: Paul O'Mara)


The University of Arizona's Never Settle strategic academic and business plan, set in motion four years ago, has positioned the University to fine-tune its priorities for the future, according to the 2016 Operational and Financial Review presented to the Arizona Board of Regents.

The regents heard Friday from UA President Ann Weaver Hart and other senior leaders, who focused on the University's highly differentiated student experience, its research and health care objectives, and its financial strength and stability.

"Seven years ago, there wasn't a strategy. Four years ago, there was Never Settle," regent Rick Myers said at the conclusion of presentations on the UA campus. "The evidence of what you've done to put real plans in place is spectacular."

"Our senior leadership team and the entire University have been laser-focused on improving the student experience and broadening the research portfolio," Hart said.

Andrew Comrie, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, spoke about the refinement of a "distinctive student experience" that is dedicated to increasing active-learning opportunities and encouraging faculty innovation across new frontiers such as computational media and ecosystem genomics.

The UA Honors College is being reimagined as a "maker" culture that will focus on nurturing student-faculty-staff connections. The goal is to create a unique experience that challenges students to design and implement solutions to some of the most pressing needs locally, nationally and globally.

The UA's efforts in student engagement, exemplified by the 100% Engagement initiative that notes real-world experience on a student's transcript, have become "a national model," said Melissa Vito, senior vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management and senior vice provost for Academic Initiatives and Student Success.

More than nine in 10 employers rate UA graduates as having the skills needed to succeed on the job, Vito said, adding that "the engagement piece is starting to be seen as a differentiator for the University of Arizona."

Student retention stands to be enhanced by the introduction of the Bear Down Student Success District, an area of campus that encompasses the Main Library, Bear Down Gym, the Science-Engineering Library and the Integrated Learning Center. The District will create a campus core that fuses academic, career and wellness resources.

In research, the UA has been building capacity in emerging fields such as space object behavioral sciences, cybersecurity and big data. The University had total research and development expenditures of $606 million for fiscal year 2015, exceeding the regents' target of $592.8 million.

An initiative in space object behavioral sciences under the new Defense & Security Research Institute aims to develop ways to detect, identify, catalog and predict objects in space. The institute's second investment area of focus is cybersecurity, which includes the launch of an undergraduate cyber operations degree program at UA South in Sierra Vista. 

The UA is working to enhance health care outcomes for Arizonans through its academic affiliation agreement with Banner Health and by educating more doctors, nurses and health care professionals for underserved areas of the state.

The agreement with Banner Health, a $1 billion partnership that helped upgrade the University's credit rating and stabilize its financial outlook when it was signed in early 2015, provides a health delivery system that connects faculty and students of the College of Medicine – Tucson and the College of Medicine – Phoenix to patient care. The new model also enables strategic investments such as nearly $250 million in expanded capital facilities on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

Four areas of medical research identified as priorities by the University are precision medicine, neuroscience, health disparities and population health. The UA recently received a five-year, $43 million precision medicine award from the National Institutes of Health that was "predicated on the Banner partnership," said Kimberly Andrews Espy, senior vice president for research.

A financially sound and strong UA is ready for the future for several reasons, according to Gregg Goldman, senior vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer.

Under the fiscal discipline of Never Settle, the number of days of cash on hand has more than doubled. A new budget model based on accountability and incentives, called Responsibility Centered Management, has enabled strategic investments, allowed the redeployment of resources to strategic priorities and promoted thoughtful planning. The UA's improved credit rating creates the potential for greater investment in instruction and research. 

Fundraising capabilities have been enhanced by a new Administrative Services Agreement with the UA Foundation that integrates missions and activities and invests in a newly designed University Development Program. In the next decade, the UA expects to double annual fundraising from approximately $150 million to $300 million in cash and cash-equivalent gifts. The UA Foundation recently exceeded its goal of $1.5 billion for the Arizona NOW campaign two years ahead of schedule.

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Chris Sigurdson

UA Communications

765-404-5959

sig@arizona.edu