sex education in charlotte mecklenburg schools

good morning and welcome to the universityconvocation. i’m phil dubois and it is my pleasure toserve both as chancellor and as master of ceremonies for this morning’s program. forthose of you who are new to this convocation and have not seen me speak before i wouldsay that public speaking was one of my strengths and all humility. but i was brought down tosize this year when we had a business group

sex education in charlotte mecklenburg schools, come to campus and i gave my little threeminute welcome and it was pretty good, a guy came up to me right afterwards, i knew himand he said you are a tremendous public speaker. he said one on one you are pretty marginalbut … there you go. so this convocation goes back to 1992 wheni was provost and jim woodward was chancellor

it has been a great event and let me tellyou that you can find the text of my remarks in the chancellor’s outbox they are a littlebit more expansive than what i am going to talk about today if that is possible. alsoi hope you will stay around for the question and answer. let me give you a spoiler alertnot withstanding some work ahead as joan suggested and some challenges we find this institutionin a very good place. in today’s highly competitive world of highereducation, where students have lots of choices, it is heartening to know that interest inunc charlotte continues to grow. completed applications by freshman seeking entry intothis university reached 15,600, an 80% increase since 2005.as a result of increased interest among prospective

freshmen and transfers student, improved undergraduatestudent retention that joan highlighted, and only modest declines in our graduate enrollmentwhich are almost entirely due to state policy changes in the field of education, we expectour overall fall semester enrollment to creep over 27,000 students.to put our enrollment growth in some perspective, from the fall of 2008 to last fall of 2013,of all of the enrollment growth in the 17-campus system of the university of north carolina,unc charlotte was responsible for 48% of it. when the fall 2014 numbers are in, our marketshare may be even more impressive. as you may read several campuses are actually loosingenrollment. our goal with all of these students, of course,is to send degree recipients out into the

world of work as productive and engaged membersof the community. and we continue to do that very well, last year awarding 5,898 baccalaureate,master’s, and doctoral degrees. of course, as we educate these students, weseek to offer a gradually increasing array of programs to meet their needs and the demandsof our society for an educated workforce and productive citizens. with support from presidenttom ross and the board of governors, we were pleased this last year to secure approvalfor our 21st doctoral degree, the ph.d. in public health sciences.we also added two regionally important master’s degrees: the professional science master’sin data science and business analytics, and the master’s in applied energy and electromechanicalsystems.

two additional doctoral degree proposals havebeen submitted to the general administration for planning approval—a ph.d. in educationalresearch, measurement, and evaluation, and a doctor of business administration (d.b.a)degree. in addition to our work with students in theclassroom, the laboratory, and the studio, our faculty and research staff continue theimportant work of discovery and application—writing books, articles, and abstracts; securing externalfunding; and moving research discoveries into the commercial marketplace.we don’t keep campus-wide numbers, but i think you’ll get the idea when i tell youthat the faculty in our largest college, liberal arts and sciences, published more than 40books and hundreds of articles. faculty in

all of our colleges contributed to securingexternal awards of more than $36 million and advancing our technology transfer effortsby filing 58 patents, securing 11 more patent awards, and spinning off four companies.as we have gone about this important work, we have achieved an outstanding level of qualityand significant numbers of external recognitions for our faculty, staff, and students. theyare too numerous to mention here this morning, but let me hit a few:staff member steve clark was recognized with the governor’s award for excellence; whata great way to retire from his position as director of our office of classroom support!professor johan enslin, director of our energy production and infrastructure center, wasnamed an “energy leadership” award winner

by the charlotte business journal.athletic director judy rose was a national finalist for the athletic director of theyear by the sports business journal. even our trustees got into the act, as trusteetheresa drew was recognized by leadership charlotte as the newcomer of the year forher community engagement efforts. and we can’t forget our wonderful studentsolar decathlon team who captured the “people’s choice award” for their energy efficientmasterpiece in facility design, “urban eden,” andthe lee college of engineering students who won the first place award for “best vehicledesign” in nasa’s national aerospace competition. institutional recognitions have also helpedus fill the 49er trophy case a little more

crowded:the charlotte chamber awarded its belk innovation in diversity award to unc charlotte, the firsttime a non-profit organization has been so recognized.later this fall, representatives from unc charlotte will accept separate recognitionsby national organizations for excellence in facilities management in human resources bestpractices. in a true example of collaborative effortfrom across the campus, a team of students and staff will soon accept national recognitionfor the zero waste program that was initiated in our first football season at jerry richardsonstadium. and, again as a result of a campus-wide effort,we completed our first football year by being

ranked #1 in a nation of the quality of thegame day experience. these public recognitions of excellence areterrific. but, if i may, let me make note of some things that you might not know aboutunc charlotte and the things that have happened over the past year but which are very importantto the governance and health of our institution. our bond ratings were reaffirmed this yearby the two major bond rating houses. we had another year of squeaky-clean financial audits.we’ve established and will soon fill the university’s first compliance program spot.we established a new scholarship office so that we didn’t leave money that needy studentsneed left unawarded. on the fundraising front, we raised $26.4mfrom alumni and friends. we’ve established

the “niner choice” off-campus buildingcertification program so that students and parents can be assured that apartment complexesmeet standards in the safety and security standards.we have reviewed and revised a long list of university policies to make them more understandableand effective. we have offered orientation and training sessions on a variety of topics.the administrative staff members in all of these areas could easily go unrecognized andnot fully thanked for their work but it is very clear that what they do on a daily basishas made us a much stronger institution. our physical plant is also outstanding andexpanding. in just over a year, with leadership from dr. michele howard in academic affairsand a host of hustling staff from across campus

and especially in facilities management, wehave put together and will open the charlotte engineering early college school on the westside of campus in collaboration with charlotte mecklenburg schools. the first class of onehundred 9th graders will enter one of cms’s most popular district-wide magnet schoolsnext monday morning, with 165 students left on the waiting list.over the past year, we have also made progress on a number of important facilities. our industrypartnership building, portal, was dedicated in february. as joan mentioned, we have renovateda variety of other academic spaces in barnard, burson, colvard, fretwell, kennedy, and woodwardthey have all received needed updates and facelifts. and the long-awaited renovationof belk gym as steven mentioned which helps

not only our students who need some additionalstudent exercise space for our expanding kinesiology department. we have also added residential space to accommodatethe growing student body. governor jim hunt joined us last october to dedicate the attractivenew 436-bed residence facility for freshmen in the south village, replacing the old huntvillage in that area of campus. the new dining commons for south village,to be called south village crossing, will open in october. and, just last weekend, studentsoccupied the new 404-bed apartment complex on the north side of campus, called martinhall and we hope to have governor jim martin here later this fall to dedicate that building.besides the buildings, and more importantly,

we continue to be served by outstanding facultyand staff some of whom you have met today. on that front and as you may have heard, thegeneral assembly’s recently-enacted budget for the coming year includes a $1,000 across-the-boardincrease for staff employees subject to the state personnel act (spa).you should know that i do not consider that adequate, but it is better than what we havehad in the last several years which is nothing at all. unfortunately, in this current budgetsession no raises were voted for faculty or our epa employees not subject to the statepersonnel act. so, in consultation with my cabinet, and subjectto approval from unc general administration and president and the board of governors,i am hopeful that we will be able to match

the spa increase for all eligible facultyand epa employees in the not too distant future. we have requested that they be retroactiveto july 1st, it might take a few months to get them processed.additionally, we will implement a long-planned adjustment for epa non-faculty employees basedon considerations of market and equity. as you may recall, over the past several years,we have made four strategic salary adjustments for spa staff to ensure that career bandinghas had some tangible meaning and to make sure that we are paying market-based rate.similarly, last year we implemented a strategic salary adjustment for senior faculty whosesalaries had been most compressed by the years of recession.this year, we will implement a similar strategy

for our non-faculty epa which, at a practicallevel, means that some epa non-faculty employees whose current salaries are well below themarket averages for comparable positions will see salary adjustments of more than $1,000.in my view, simple fairness demands this approach it is their turn.in addition, the provost and i have agreed that we need to address the substandard stipendswe have been paying for our part-time faculty, particularly those who teach in the collegeof liberal arts and sciences. with leadership from betty doster, my specialassistant for constituent relations, we have broadened our base of political support withvisits to neighboring communities which both need our assistance and send us students.we have been host to statewide legislative

meetings and regional business organizations,such as the charlotte chamber and the charlotte regional partnership.we have entertained a constant stream of federal, state, and local elected officials, membersof the board of governors, local business and community leaders, and alumni with lunchesand campus tours. we don’t do this just because we enjoy theircompany, although in most cases fortunately for me we do. we do this to show what hashappened out here in our north east charlotte location and what still can happen here withtheir support. for those of you who see me riding aroundcampus in my golf cart version of the popemobile, i did about 35 of these lunch & tour meetingslast year. this is, of course, the reason

why my clothes don’t fit anymore. but allof this to say is we hope over time is to yield some tangible results.all of this is not to say that everything at unc charlotte is perfect. like any largeand growing organization we make mistakes. external events over which we have littleor no control can have adverse consequences for us.and, in light of the growth of the charlotte region and the reputation of this institution,we must plan for increasing demands from prospective and enrolled students, and increasing demandsfrom the regional community for the application of our intellectual capital to make charlottea better place to live, work, and play. we’ll start by completing our long rangeenrollment plan. last year you may recall,

we confirmed that the long-term perspectiveit is reasonable to believe of having 35,000 students enrolled at unc charlotte in thefuture, that is still very possible. and we think we have a handle on how we handle freshmanenrollment. we are still debating on how we are going to manage with respect to growthin the freshman class; we are still debating the question of how to manage transfer. and,most importantly, we need to assess our future with respect our graduate enrollments.as joan mentioned, last year, graduate dean tom reynolds launched a graduate enrollmentplanning process. the report of an external consultant hired to help with that processis now in the hands of tom and the provost and the deans. as soon as things get organizedthis fall, tom will also be sharing the report

with graduate program coordinators and thegraduate council. what i can say from reading that report andtalking both with tom and lorden is that we see ample opportunities for expanding thecapacity of our existing programs, particularly with investment in enhanced marketing to targetaudiences, the development of some on-line optionsit also appears that, in some instances, additional applications from graduate students may begenerated if we will think more critically about the role of the standardized graduateentrance exams and whether they constitute unnecessary barriers for some students, particularlythose who are in the working world and have demonstrated from their experience that theyhave the skills and background necessary for

challenging graduate work.as we examine expansion of our graduate programs, of course we need to remember that the samefaculty and the same staff supporting our graduate programs are also supporting ourundergraduates. candidly, however, what we see from course enrollment data is the needfor more attention to be devoted by our graduate programs to ensure that they achieve criticalmass in terms of their overall size, reduce the number of small classes that are not sustainableor justifiable in this era of limited resources, and address significant issues with respectto student retention and completion. we view the discussion of the consultant’sreport as just the starting point and as joan suggested, we will also use the academic planningprocess as the opportunity to explore expanded

areas for graduate study including programsat the doctoral level. this will part of that longer process of revisingthe institutional plan which take place in the 2015-2016 academic year because our currentinstitutional plan expires in 2016. the provost has already outlined for you thechallenges for academic affairs let me try to touch upon some of the other divisionsand their highlight activities this year. led by vice chancellor beth hardin, the divisionof business affairs will be strengthening our capacity to understand the utilizationof our physical space and the examination of options for addressing our most criticalspace needs. we are in fact in the process of hiring our very first space czar on thiscampus.

under the leadership of vice chancellor forstudent affairs, art jackson, student affairs has assumed responsibility for addressingthe needed development of a new office to investigate and resolve any complaints ofsexual assault that may come to our attention, and to implement a training program to makefaculty and staff aware of our obligations under title ix with respect to issues of sexualassault. this is as you have read in the newspapers a national trend and we are very pleased tobe in front of it and dawn floyd will head that new office.vice chancellor jackson also has new planned initiatives to address the needs of americanindian and asian american students to complement what we are already do quite extensively forafrican american students and other student

populations, including returning veterans,lgbtq students, and others. i’m also pleased to announce that the chancellor’sdiversity challenge grant program is being expanded this year by 50%, bringing the totalfunding available for enhancing diversity-related programming to $150,000.in university advancement, vice chancellor niles sorensen will be leading the effortto execute the first phase of a comprehensive fundraising campaign over the next five years.our executive director of university communications, stephen ward, will lead the work of the newuniversity communications council and its subordinate committees to develop a more unifiedset of messages to our internal and external constituents.and betty doster will continue a set of activities

to strengthen our legislative relation, includingthe execution of 3-4 additional county visitations in the region and an expanded set of presentationsi plan to deliver right here in mecklenburg county on the importance of the universityto the future of this community. athletics director judy rose and her staffin athletics will certainly use this year to gain additional experience in running afootball program, although it is hard to believe that we could do it any better and look forwardto our transition into conference usa in that sport in the fall of 2015.the installation of lights in jerry richardson stadium will begin after the conclusion ofour last game in november so we’ll be ready for evening play in 2015. athletics will alsoneed to work this year with faculty leadership

on how we will manage any week-night gameswe might be required to play after we join conference usa and its national televisionpackage. fortunately, we anticipate only one week-night game in any given season. but itwill be disruptive to the academic mission. in the chancellor’s office, which includeslegal affairs, we’ll move forward with the establishment of an institution-wide complianceprogram in collaboration with our board of trustees’. legal affairs will also be broadeningits program of education and training for faculty and staff so that we can prevent potentialproblems, including those relating to title ix. my chief of staff, krista newkirk, will leadour effort to implement new software designed

to make our institutional planning and assessmentprocess easier to manage, we will get to work with the new software program this year.krista will also work closely with me and the organizational science doctoral programto examine and re-engineer two to three administrative processes that most of us, including our students,can agree are overly bureaucratic and neither as efficient nor effective as we can possiblymake them. with support provided by staff in the chancellor’soffice and across the campus, the chief of staff will also oversee the organization ofan all-hands-on-deck effort in next february of 2015 when we will host a meeting of theunc system board of governors on our campus for the first time since 1972.

this is a really big deal which was broughtto fruition by the new board of governors chair, john fennebresque, who is the firstcharlottean to chair the board of governors since cliff cameron was elected to that positionin 1996. we went to john and said we want a meeting, we deserve a meeting and we willhave that meeting. we’re excited about this visit because thisgives us the chance to showcase this campus to people who can really who are in the positionto help us become stronger. in addition to all of this academic and administrativework, it should not surprise you to learn that this year will also involve additionalphysical development of the campus. construction will continue on phase xiii, which is a newresidence hall complex in south village. we’re

planning phase 14 another residence hall.this will be the future residential, academic, and administrative home of the levine scholarsprogram and the university honors program, and will occupy a prominent place that wecould fine which is the circle at the main entrance.planning has also been completed for the future home of our marching band. with funding supportthrough a generous gift from former board of trustees chair and alumnus gene johnsonand his wife, vickie, the johnson band center will be ready sometime in 2015 for the firstseason of fbs football competition in conference usa. and that facility is located right nextto the stores architecture building. we will also use this year to make final assessmentson additional campus construction opportunities,

including a potential hotel-conference centernear the future light rail stop on north tryon street (highway 29), a health and wellnesscenter for students, faculty, and staff, and a joint public-private venture to create acompetitive aquatic center that might serve as a home for a future women’s intercollegiateswimming team. some of the construction on campus this yearwill be messy. as you endure the traffic challenges, i hope you’ll remember that a new signalthat will go in on university city blvd. at the south entrance and will allow you to turnleft and go north on university city blvd. will be a good thing when it is done.so will a new southbound entrance on harris blvd. that will allow you to cut across harrisblvd. entering the campus at alumni way, that

will be a good thing. and so will a re-directedphillips road that will come from its current location and go between the baseball stadiumand the halton-wagner tennis facility to create a new intersection on the corner of cameronblvd. and craver road. for those of you who don’t remember streetnames around here, like me, phillips road is the road from hell that ascends from theathletic fields up to the top of cameron blvd. it is one of our worst choke points on campusit floods a couple of times a year and several people have burned out their clutches on thatroad. and finally, with respect to major trafficbefore i close, if you have traditionally entered the campus from north tryon street(highway 29), you might re-think your habit

of doing that as the construction of the lightrail proceeds over the next three years the expected completion in the summer of 2017.but it is going to be miserable until then. as you sit there in your car, remember thistemper-calming chant: “light rail will be a good thing; light rail will be a good thing...”i began my remarks this morning with a comment about the beginning of my tenth year as yourchancellor. looking back, let me quote from my convocation remarks from august 16, 2005: quote “i should say, i love being here.i’m amazed at the changes we’ve seen not only in the physical landscape of the campusbut also in the programmatic landscape. you should be very proud of what has happenedhere…. i hope also that you’ll be equally

excited about what can happen here and, withyour continued dedication, will happen here. lisa and i are thrilled to be back. we lovethe charlotte community. we love the ‘big house.’ that commute to get home at nightis a bear, but i’ll make it work.” end quote.well obviously i could make those same remarks today. looking forward, in 2015 we will celebrateour 50th anniversary of entrance into the consolidated university of north carolinasystem. charlotte college effectively became the fourth campus of the unc system on march2, 1965, by act of the north carolina general assembly, a change in status and a changein title to unc charlotte that became effective on july 1, 1965.in that first year, we awarded 85 degrees

in a dozen baccalaureate degree programs.since then, in a short 50 years, we have awarded nearly 123,000 degrees at the undergraduate,masters, and doctoral levels. that’s 123,000 lives changed for the better, with the supportof dedicated faculty and staff working in an institution that has to be considered oneof the great success stories of american higher education.