Chancellor’s Fall Address Sets Out Five Projects for the Next Two Years

Chancellor Dr. Elaine Vandehey used her sixth fall address, delivered Wednesday afternoon to about 600 faculty, staff and students in the Founders Union ballroom, to list five projects she said the university would finish or decide on within two years. The address ran 34 minutes, which several people in the room noted was four minutes shorter than last year’s.

She opened with the census: 7,702 students, the second consecutive increase, and first-to-second-year retention of 81 percent. “Two good years is not a trend,” she said. “Three is a trend. Let’s go get three.”

The five projects:

1. A simulation hospital. A full floor of the Health Sciences Center converted into simulated patient rooms, with construction to start this academic year if the remaining private money is raised.
2. An M.S. in Cybersecurity. The proposal, first drafted in 2023, goes to the Board of Regents this spring.
3. Geothermal heat for North Campus. Facilities will finish a feasibility study this winter on replacing the gas boilers that heat four residence halls. Heating is now the largest source of campus emissions.
4. A conference review. Athletics will study whether a nearer conference would cut travel and missed class time. “Our volleyball team spent 61 hours on a bus last season,” she said. “That is a full-time job for a week and a half.”
5. A second Ironclad Giving Day in April, after the first raised $611,200 last spring.

“None of these is a slogan. Each one has a budget, an owner and a date, and if one of them slips I will stand up here next year and tell you why.”

— Chancellor Dr. Elaine Vandehey

She also thanked Facilities for the August repair of a water main under Founders Drive, which flooded a parking lot two days before move-in and was fixed, she said, “by people who did not go home.”

Faculty Senate chair Dr. Arlen Mikkelson responded on behalf of the faculty. He welcomed the list and asked that the conference review include faculty who teach the labs athletes most often miss. The chancellor agreed on the spot.

Video of the address and the slides are posted on the Office of the Chancellor page. The strategic plan that frames the projects is updated each fall.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu