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Among UA President Robert N. Shelton's priorities are improving need-based aid for students and improving faculty diversity and pay.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
November 6, 2007

The University of Arizona is ripe with activity that will fortify its trajectory in the years to come.

That was UA President Robert N. Shelton’s message during his first State of the University Address, which was held Tuesday afternoon at the Student Union Memorial Center.

“Never in my career have I felt such excitement as I do now, looking at where this great university is going,” said Shelton, who took over the post in July 2006. “The state of The University of Arizona has never been better, our future never brighter.”

Alumni, donors, policymakers, government employees, former University administrators and various other members of both the UA and Arizona communities had greeted Shelton with a standing ovation before he began his speech, which was interrupted several times by applause.

Two of his chief priorities in the coming year are to improve faculty diversity and financial support for students.

One new initiative, called “Arizona Assurance,” will enable students most in need to attend the UA free of tuition and fees.

Shelton has already charged the UA’s Office of Student Financial Aid with implementing the program that he said would empower the work force with an educated citizenry. But Arizona Assurance, he added, will need support from both the state and private industry.

The “UA Faculty Competitiveness Initiative” is another new effort, one that will help improve pay for full professors by distributing funds based on “merit, market and equity,” Shelton said.

This will enable the University to reduce the pay gap, he said, adding that the UA’s budget proposal, which will be submitted to the Arizona Legislature later this year, includes a request of $13.6 million to increase faculty salaries.

Shelton has also charged the provost and others with improving faculty recruitment efforts to further diversify the faculty ranks.

Such efforts are necessary to strengthen the University, which Shelton said is destined to “be among the small handful of truly great public research universities that will flourish and prosper in the decades ahead.”

The last year was a textbook example of how the UA is beginning to clearly fit that description.

Shelton pointed to the larger student enrollment, increased numbers of National Hispanic Scholars, improved National Science Foundation rankings and increases in research expenditures. He also thanked donors and state representatives for their financial support in the last year.

He also mentioned the UA’s greatest feats and achievements of the past year: acquiring Biosphere 2, the Phoenix Mars Mission send-off, opening the College of Medicine campus in Phoenix, establishing the McKnight Brain Institute, the development of the "cardiocerebral resuscitation" method and participating in critical international discussions about global climate change among many, many other things.

“In every college and every department it’s the same story: groundbreaking work that is rewriting what we know and how we live,” Shelton said, adding that “the University is improving the human condition for the people of Arizona.”

Shelton also spoke about the challenges ahead, emphasizing the need to solidify state support, bring in more private donations and enlarge the endowment.

That is why he has been lobbying for a state-level shift in the funding structure of higher education in Arizona that would reward quality and not simply size, which is the practice today.

Shelton also is encouraging legislators to create a “competitive investment fund” that would allow the state's public universities to compete for state-level financial rewards upon receiving large federal and external grants.

“This university is about quality, discovery and opportunity. Those three words define us,” he said. “They underpin all that we do and all that we are.”

Toward the end of his address, Shelton affirmed: “We will be one of the 10 best public research universities in America. We will improve the human condition for Arizonans. We will put people first and quality will be our hallmark.”