Editor's Note: The following is the complete transcript
of remarks Eastern Michigan University President John Fallon
made to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher
Education March 3 at Kettering University in Flint.
Good morning, Chairman Goschka.
I consider it a high privilege to appear before this committee
this morning, and to update its members on the vital work
being done today — and everyday — by the nearly 27,000
students, faculty and staff working together about 60 miles
south of here at Eastern Michigan University.
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Fallon |
But I must admit that I am disappointed in that this presentation
is the last EMU will make before this committee, with you,
Senator Goschka, as chairman.
I first met you nearly 20 years ago, and have admired
your service and dedication ever since. Your leadership
and voice will be missed in Lansing. But we know your voice
will be a leading one in the weeks and months ahead as
the higher education budget gets shaped and passed by the
legislature.
But this committee has a deep bench when it comes to expertise
on and passion for higher education in Michigan, through
members like you Senator Prusi. It is particularly heartening
to see you, senator, since you represent my home district
and my mother remains one of your constituents to this
very day. I am a native of Gwinn, and received my master's
degree at Northern Michigan University. So, from one Yooper
to another, good morning.
The EMU community, those here today with me and the thousands
more back in Ypsilanti or serving at our seven regional
sites statewide, also extends a hearty greeting to Vice
Chairman Johnson as well as Senators Hardiman and Cherry.
Finally, let me thank our host Kettering University for
opening its doors and allowing the people of Michigan to
conduct this important public work here this morning.
Senators, let me cut to the chase. And let there be no
mistake, ambiguity or confusion about it: Eastern Michigan
University is:
· more dynamic
· more engaged
· more entrepreneurial
· more diverse
· more competitive
· and more efficient than ever before.
As a result, Eastern Michigan University is a greater
state resource — and asset — today than it was
just five years ago.
We are here, in some measure, to report to the shareholders
of Michigan on what their investments are yielding. I'm
proud to say we are creating value not only in the lives
of our students — 92 percent of whom come from Michigan
— but in the lives of our community partners. And, we continue
to contribute significantly to Michigan's social, cultural
and, most importantly, financial health. In fact, based
upon an economic impact study, Eastern Michigan University
generates $30 for the Michigan economy and $1.25 in tax
revenue for each dollar received from the state.
We have been good stewards of public money for 157 years.
We were, in fact, the first institution the state legislature
ever supported with tax money.
But we are also here to share with you the threats we
face in sustaining that value. Michigan's public universities
are one of the key economic engines driving the state economy.
You know this, the governor knows this, and everybody in
this room knows this. But do the people of Michigan — the
taxpayers — know and believe it?
I say ... they can't afford not to.
Today, you will get something of a backstage tour of
what makes EMU unique. Every university should — and
will — use this opportunity to showcase its strengths,
its distinctive business model, and its raison d'etre.
And we will be no different. But there are three qualities
in abundance at EMU, the blend of which makes us stand
apart. Those qualities are access, engagement and education.
ACCESS
Access to education is as important to Eastern Michigan
University today as it was in 1849, when we became the
first tax-supported college in Michigan open to women and
men alike.
While many of our students are in fact "traditional," a
growing number are not. These are the people who put off
school to raise a family, want a new career or found themselves
downsized or outsourced and needing new skills. For those
people, EMU is the right fit, and the way to a brighter
future. And the day will come, likely sooner rather than
later, when we refer to these people not as non-traditional
students, but as "new majority learners."
Our southeast Michigan location is a strategic advantage.
But so is our campus culture. It embraces and serves these
populations with unmatched enthusiasm, whether the individual
is a 52-year-old displaced autoworker, a 43-year-old professional
changing careers or a 21-year-old community college transfer.
To help the latter group, we have 61 articulation agreements
with 12 community colleges to help ensure a seamless, efficient
transfer between institutions.
Our commitment to access is most evident through our statewide
work on the Return to Learn, or as we like to call it,
the Return to Earn, initiative. EMU was one of the first
universities out of the gate to tout its services and success
stories like Gary Nicholls.
Mr. Nicholls thought he had left his dream of teaching
far behind. Then, he was shocked by a sudden layoff from
his career of 20 years. The layoff turned out to be one
of the best things that ever happened to him, as he refocused
on his original goal. Mr. Nicholls of Beverly Hills, Mich.,
will finally graduate from Eastern Michigan University
nearly 40 years after he first started college.
We are proud of our distinctive role in serving this growing
— and strategically important — population
of learners. It's comforting to know that others are affirming
this role. Ford Motor Co. has designated EMU as one of
its lead partners in helping to retrain workers — both
white and blue collar — affected by its announcement
this year to eliminate up to 30,000 jobs in the next six
years. Just yesterday, I was in a Ford plant in Saline,
Michigan, talking with employees about this program, which
I believe in many ways, is uniquely akin to the G.I. Bill
of the 1940s.
Ford chose EMU because of our long-standing work on their
behalf in workforce development. Through our Workforce
Education office, more than 10,000 workers in southeast
Michigan's automotive and related industries have been
trained in skills from reading and math to computer technology.
The office began with the EMU Reading Academy in the Ford/UAW-Ypsilanti
plant. Since 1993, Workforce Education has administered
more than $18 million in grants and contracts.
But access also means acceptance. We have, I believe,
the most ethnically and racially diverse campus in the
state. Thirty-one percent of the faces on campus don't
look anything like mine, and thankfully so. Students come
to study here from Albania to Zimbabwe. This year, we participated
in national efforts on the part of the Saudi Arabian government
to enhance ties with the United States through student
exchanges. Twelve Saudi students now call Ypsilanti home.
We expect to more than triple that number next year.
We were the first Michigan university with a freestanding
academic unit devoted to African American studies, and
the first to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in that
field. And we were the first to offer a master's degree-level
program in Women's and Gender Studies.
Once we get students here, we work just as hard to keep
them on track. The fall 2004 to winter 2005 first-time
freshman return rate was 86.9 percent, an astounding number
compared to peer urban-commuter institutions. Our innovative
approach to retention, through initiatives like the First-Year
Writing Program, is paying off. That program was one of
only three nationally to receive a certificate of excellence
this year from the Conference on College Composition and
Communication.
We have expanded the definition of access to include HOW
classes are made available as well. More than 300 courses
and nine full degree programs are now taught entirely online,
while nearly 900 others are Web-enhanced - making EMU a
true "click and brick" university. Our dual-enrollment
programs provide high school students the opportunity to
earn college credit and study topics such as Japanese,
calculus and chemistry that are not offered in their high
schools. We now have seven regional centers throughout
Michigan, removing yet another barrier to access to higher
education.
Still, one immutable fact in our flexible approach to
access and service is this — it costs EMU the same amount
of money to register and serve a part-time student as it
does a full-time student. This is a fact not often recognized
in funding models.
ENGAGEMENT
So, once our students get here, then what?
For starters, they learn very quickly that EMU is a place
that values service and engagement. So much so that our
new general education curriculum -- a re-engineering of
the undergraduate experience, if you will -- is called "Education
for Participation in the Global Community." And when it
takes effect in six months, it will require several classes
that explore issues related to our diverse world.
Another way that we transmit this value is through the
work of our centers and institutes. What's important to
remember is not that EMU has 15 centers and institutes,
but that they connect classrooms to communities and the
world beyond. Whether through internships or Academic-Service
Learning projects, EMU students do research and help agencies
with REAL problems by proposing REAL solutions. While we
are global in our general perspective and innovative in
our approach, our basic educational focus is applied.
Our VISION office provides nearly 1,000 volunteer opportunities
annually and more than 21,000 hours of service to community
agencies each year. Professors teach more than 100 courses
that have a service-learning component. These courses engage
about 2,200 students, who provide 33,000 hours of service
to area nonprofit agencies and school districts.
In this way, engagement with the community at EMU is not
a byproduct of the educational experience, but an integral
element. These examples illustrate how EMU is a positive
force for change:
· This year, we completed a $1.3 million federal grant
to curb youth violence, a program that Congressman John
Dingell came to campus to help kick-off. Through the grant,
our Center for Community Building and Civic Engagement
and 10 community agencies — from the Arab Community Center
for Economic and Social Services in Dearborn to Detroit's
Motor City Blight Busters — teamed to do research, create
programs and improve staff training.
· Our Center for Regional and National Security is using
a grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security
to train Michigan high school students to be first responders
in an emergency.
· Through our Institute for Geospatial Research and Education
(IGRE), EMU is leading the way in helping communities from
Detroit to Tianjin, China, to increase efficiency by using
the latest satellite and mapping technology to track the
movement of school buses and public-health related information
on the SARS virus.
· Our Center for Entrepreneurship, in conjunction with
our Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC),
is helping entrepreneurs write business plans, secure loans
and improve operations. And if you don't believe us, just
ask Vicente Vazquez, owner of Vicente's Cuban Cuisine two
blocks from Ford Field in downtown Detroit.
"I never understood
the word entrepreneur until I took the class at the SBTDC
and became one," Vazquez said.
· Our Center for Product Research and Development helps
inventors and business owners such as Janet Brown-Smith
of Canton Township. The center helped her make a better
product by redesigning its ergonomics. Her product became
one of just 100 selected from 5,000 entries to be featured
on the QVC shopping channel.
· The LINGUIST List, a Web site and e-mail list service,
is operated through the Department of English Language
and Literature and is the electronic nexus internationally
for the field of linguistics. Among its many grant-funded
projects is an effort to create a geospatial map of the
world's languages.
· Our Jumpstart Program, which helps improve readiness
for school for at-risk children, earned the highest evaluation
scores in the nation among 65 participating campuses.
Even today, as we sit here in this room, four EMU students
in our Historic Preservation master's degree program are
in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, VOLUNTEERING their time to
help with Katrina-related cleanup. More than 100 others
are foregoing traditional spring break activities to volunteer
at eight other locations throughout the country.
EDUCATION
When you think teacher training in Michigan, you invariably
think Eastern Michigan University. In fact, EMU is a leader
nationwide in producing education personnel. Twenty-six
of our graduates have won the prestigious national Milken
Educator Awards. No other University in the nation has
won more than 10.
Our alumni are the reigning art, history, accounting and
adaptive physical education teachers of the year in Michigan.
And nearly 18 percent of all public school superintendents
in Michigan have at least one degree from EMU. Our graduates
have grabbed top honors as Superintendent of the Year,
Teacher of the Year, Principal of the Year, Counselor of
the Year and National Teacher of the Year. And one, Michael
Flanagan, was recently tapped to be state superintendent
of public instruction right here in Michigan, joining alumna
Lisa Webb Sharpe, director of management and budget, as
part of the governor's leadership team.
And did I mention that in 1915, we became the first teachers'
college in the United States to establish training for
teachers of the disabled? And we are the only teacher-training
institution in Michigan — and have been for 75 years — preparing
auditory-oral teachers, who help students using residual
hearing through amplification or cochlear implants. It
is one of the few undergraduate programs of its kind in
the country.
When it comes to education, we have always been on the
leading and learning edge. Let me share just a few examples
of these efforts:
· EMU is working with a $1.2 million competitive grant
from the National Science Foundation to create curricula
that inspire students to pursue science, technology, engineering
and mathematics majors. The project — "Creative
Scientific Inquiry Experience" — will create models
not just for EMU students, but students at any university.
· Our Urban Teacher Certification Program is helping cities
like Detroit and Flint create a path for uncertified teachers
currently in their systems to become certified.
· The creation and development of our Office of Urban
Education and Educational Equity will allow EMU to leap
to the forefront of the national discussion on the shortage
of minority teachers, minority recruitment and retention,
the achievement gap and issues related to cultural competency.
· An exciting new initiative, "Project Success: Assisting
Students with Disabilities to Achieve in Mathematics," will
develop materials and deliver professional development
activities that enable math and special education teachers
to make mathematics more accessible to a wider range of
students, especially those with special needs. The program
is funded in part by a $200,000 grant from the Michigan
Department of Education.
· This spring, with the help of a grant from the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation, Eastern Michigan University will convene
an educational summit focusing on "The State of the African
American Male in Michigan: A Courageous Conversation."
· Through our College of Health and Human Services, we're
working to educate immigrant women from southeast and southern
Asia about breast cancer to help overcome cultural resistance
to preventative screening.
· Our College of Business and the MASCO Corporation collaborated
to develop an industry-specific MBA program through which
more than 100 MASCO employees worldwide have participated.
The program is a model for customizing an accredited MBA
degree to meet employer needs.
This is important work, work that is critical to the state.
But to sustain these initiatives and maintain our progress,
we as a state must — and you as our elected leaders must
show the way here — help address three core, intractable
problems we face. And let me be brutally brief.
Brutal Fact No. 1: Aging facilities. We have eight buildings
on our campus used daily by students and staff that were
built before the Great Depression. Three were built in
the 19th — yes, that's right — the 19th century.
Despite having one of the oldest campuses in Michigan,
EMU has not had a capital outlay project funded by the
state since 1996.
While EMU has enrolled more than 8 percent of students
attending a Michigan public university during the last
10 years, it has received less than 2 percent of the approved
capital outlay funding, and it ranks last in percentage
of capital outlay funding among the state universities.
With that said, we rejoiced, quite literally, to discover
that EMU's Pray-Harrold project has been recommended for
capital outlay funding in the governor's project budget.
When built by the state in 1969, it was among the largest
classroom buildings anywhere in the United States. 10,000
Michigan residents use this building each day. When it
opened, man had not yet walked on the moon. And the Detroit
Lions were still playing at Tiger Stadium.
Since that time, space travel has become not only more
common, but it's now available — for the right price —
to anyone. And since that time, our beloved Lions have...well,
never mind.
Brutal Fact No. 2: MPSERS. EMU is one of seven institutions
participating in the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement
System - an unfunded state mandate for retiree health care
benefits that is strangling us. Costs for MPSERS have more
than doubled since 1998. The cost to the University in
FY 2005 was $4,845,175, an increase of $252,723 over FY
2004. It is estimated that the FY 2006 composite benefit
cost will increase to $5,536,866 - an amount equal to a
5.5 percent tuition hike. It is clear that MPSERS places
an unfair burden on the seven institutions affected.
We join President Eisler of Ferris State University, who
spoke to you Feb. 24, in asking for relief from the burden
of this unfunded mandate. We support his request that you
deduct the cost of MPSERS when calculating and comparing
institutional costs among the 15 state universities. This,
at the very least, would provide a more objective cost
comparison. We also urge your support in seeking long-term
solutions to this fiscal challenge.
Brutal Fact No. 3: Funding. It's a little presumptuous
to hit this group over the head with this since you have
been the flag bearers supporting higher education among
your senate colleagues, but we must, we simply must, make
up the ground we have lost over the past few years if we
are to stay competitive.
One line from the Cherry Commission Report rings so very
true that it should be printed on a three-by-five card
and distributed to every member of the legislature when
budget discussions take place. That line is this: "Education
levels determine Michigan residents' income levels and
either limit or expand their opportunities for future economic
gains."
While the proposed 2 percent increase in the governor's
budget is welcome after the last two years of brutal cuts,
the proposed increase will only return our per-student
funding to 1996 levels. The increase isn't nearly enough
to sustain the greatness let alone make the kinds of quantum
leaps necessary to catch and pass our national peers.
It's not news that in the last two years, while Michigan
was increasing funding by a mere 1.7 percent, 22 states
— our competitors in the marketplace — increased
higher education funding by more than 10 percent. And of
those 22, nine increased it by more than 15 percent.
Creating jobs in Michigan — keeping talent in Michigan
— making Michigan a greater state — requires
a greater sustained investment in our educational engine.
We also have deep reservations about any rigid formulaic
approach to funding - not only whether it's good policy,
but whether the categories chosen are in fact the right
ones to use as benchmarks for effectiveness. For institutions
like EMU that serve a large population of part-time and
transfer students, the current formulas can be punitive.
We are also properly nervous about the rush to create
public policy at the ballot box instead of in the House
and Senate chambers. We pledge to work with you and your
colleagues to foster the rich debate and discourse necessary
to help reach educated conclusions and solutions to this
challenge.
Senators, let me conclude by saying Michigan was barely
a teenager when EMU, then known as Michigan State Normal
School, held its first class 153 years ago this month.
Today, more than 100,000 EMU graduates live in Michigan,
and comprise about 5 percent of all state residents with
a college degree.
Our state motto is "If you seek a pleasant peninsula,
look about you."
I say; if you seek a university that is remarkably accessible,
genuinely engaged and recognized internationally for its
preparation of educational personnel, look no further than
zip code 48197. EMU makes Michigan a greater state.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions
you have.
John Fallon
President
