OSU President Ed Ray gave a State of the University speech in Portland on Jan. 31, 2013. (photo: David Baker)

President Ed Ray gave a “State of the University” address at the Portland Hilton Thursday afternoon, where he shared a long list of achievements with the crowd of nearly 500 people.

Ray announced two initiatives supported by private gifts – a $40 million engineering research facility leveraged by three gifts totaling $20 million; and a $5 million gift commitment to boost performing arts at OSU and throughout the state.

Ray outlined Oregon State’s role as a 21st-century Land Grant university that is “reinventing the workforce,” a notion that is appealing to top students within the state. The OSU president noted that more than 40 percent of the university’s incoming freshmen from Oregon had a high school grade point average of 3.75 or higher, and Oregon State attracts more valedictorians and salutatorians than any other institution in the state.

OSU’s enrollment has climbed every year and is near 26,000, and it has nearly doubled its international enrollment. To meet the demand, the university has hired more than 180 tenure track faculty in the last two years.

“I know of no other university in the nation that has hired this many new faculty,” Ray emphasized.

Despite the nationwide recession, Oregon State is on solid financial ground, Ray said, and praised his faculty for their research contributions and the Oregon State University Foundation for its successful Campaign for OSU.

Last year, Oregon State faculty brought in $281 million in research funding – despite federal cutbacks at the agency level. At the same time, the university signed a record 108 licensing agreements.

“Since 2006, we have spun off 17 companies that have attracted more than $180 million in capital investment,” Ray said. He added that earlier this month, OSU launched a new initiative – the Oregon State University Advantage – to serve business partners throughout the region in areas including innovative materials, advanced manufacturing, energy and clean technology, high tech, health care and innovation related to food, water and the environment.

The Campaign for OSU has raised some $888 million toward a goal of $1 billion and was bolstered by Ray’s announcement of new gifts.

The engineering initiative is being fueled by a $7 million gift from Peter and Rosalie Johnson, a $10 million gift from an anonymous donor, and $3 million in additional private funds and matching state funds. Peter Johnson, a 1955 engineering alumnus, ran Tekmax, Inc., in Tangent, Ore., a company that revolutionized battery manufacturing equipment.

The gifts will fund a new educational and research facility for the College of Engineering that will help accommodate a near-34 percent growth in student enrollment that has occurred over the past three years; will provide additional labs for collaborative research; and will expand Oregon State’s nationally recognized leadership in chemical, biological and environmental engineering.

“This new building will help to revolutionize how Oregon State approaches collaborative projects involving scientists and students in engineering and other colleges in essential areas of study and discovery,” Ray said.

Performing arts at OSU is getting a $5 million boost from an anonymous donor. (contributed photo)

A $5 million commitment from an anonymous donor – the largest gift the university has ever received for the arts – will advance performing arts at OSU and beyond. The anonymous gift establishes endowments for four faculty and staff positions, including support for the head of the School of Arts and Communication and two professors. The fourth endowment will support a new position at the university:  a director of the performing arts who will promote arts offerings at OSU and connect with arts programs in the area.

“This cornerstone investment in the arts is vital to our mission because great arts and sciences programs are at the core of every great research university,” said Ray. “The arts provide the context and inspiration – they drive the culture of creativity, innovation and diversity that is essential to a thriving research environment. Excellence in the arts supports OSU’s growing impact and influence in all arenas.”

A portion of the gift comes as a challenge, with $1 million of the commitment contingent upon the university securing an additional $1 million in private support for the School of Arts and Communication. Any gift or pledge of $25,000 or more to the school qualifies for this challenge.

Among other OSU accomplishments Ray pointed out:

• This week, the National Science Foundation announced that it has selected OSU as lead institution on a project to design and coordinate construction of as many as three research vessels – a 10-year project that could total $290 million;
• The state’s first branch campus, OSU-Cascades, is rapidly moving toward becoming a four-year institution. Since late April, the campus has raised $3.3 million of a $4 million private fundraising goal to help fund the expansion;
• This fall, the Fiske Guide to Colleges named OSU as one of the nation’s 41 “best buy schools” based on strong academics and reasonable cost. Only 20 public universities were so ranked.
• During the last year, OSU opened the Linus Pauling Science Center, the Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, the International Living Learning Center, and the Graduate Studies Center at OSU-Cascades, and renovated Furman Hall.

President Ray will discuss the enormous impact OSU is currently having on the state.

Oregon State University President Ed Ray will share some exciting stories about the university’s direct impact on Oregon and beyond when he addresses campus this week. Ray will speak Thursday, Jan. 19, from 3 to 5 p.m. in the LaSells Stewart Center.

From supporting Portland’s signature outdoor and athletic apparel industry and playing a key role in the state’s $4.3 billion agriculture industry, to producing alumni that work in eco-technology, microbrewing and event production, OSU makes a far greater impact on Oregon than many realize.

Ray will discuss a number of specific and measurable examples of the university’s impact, both personal and economic, that have come as a result of OSU’s cutting-edge research, entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to its land grant mission.

He will also talk about the commitment that faculty, students and alumni are making to promote economic growth, strengthen communities and improve the quality of life around the state.

To add this event to your calendar: http://oregonstate.edu/ua/events/sites/default/files/calapp/making_impact_that_counts.vcs

President Ed Ray

President Ed Ray outlined  a new vision for OSU’s future on Thursday when he gave his annual State of the University address to Faculty Senate. He described a university that in 2025 will be as much as 60 percent larger, focused on signature research areas, more international in scope and built upon goals of student success and faculty achievement.

To see the full text of Ray’s speech, go to http://oregonstate.edu/leadership/president/state_university_address2009.html

Ray announced that the university would adopt a new divisional structure to focus its resources and foster even more collaboration – not only among faculty at OSU, but with partners at other universities, agencies and organizations in Oregon and beyond.

“If we are successful in setting and sustaining a course toward greater excellence, I believe that Oregon State University can be among the top 15 land grant universities by 2025,” Ray said. “Consequently, we will be an international research university that attracts the very best students and faculty from around the world to our education and research programs.”

Ray noted that OSU is poised to build upon its success over the last few years, including a record $252 million in external research funding in 2008-09, and private giving of $82 million – the second highest total raised in an academic year.

The OSU president also noted that The Campaign for OSU has raised more than $534 million toward its goal of $625 million, with almost two years left. This kind of fund-raising success will have to become the norm not the exception, he said.

“As great as these efforts have been, we must more than double the value of our annual awards of research grants and contracts by the year 2025,” Ray said. “And we must more than double the annual fund-raising level achieved through our campaign, which will require at least one and perhaps two additional campaigns over the next 15 years.”

Ray said that the decision to align OSU’s academic programs into divisions – an outgrowth of a year-long transparent process – would help the university focus its resources, make strategic investments for the future and better serve students. These divisions will include:

•    Division of Earth Systems Science: College of Agricultural Sciences, College of Forestry, and College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences;
•    Division of Health Sciences: College of Health and Human Sciences, College of Pharmacy, and College of Veterinary Medicine;
•    Division of Business and Engineering: College of Engineering and College of Business;
•    Division of Arts and Sciences: College of Liberal Arts, College of Science, and College of Education.

An implementation plan for the division structure is forthcoming, and it will call on deans to collaborate on a new administrative structure that will bring the divisions to life.

By 2025, OSU must be prepared to educate as many as 30,000 to 35,000 students, Ray said, and the makeup of the university’s enrollment may shift significantly. The percentage of OSU’s international student enrollment will double, one out of every four students will be enrolled in a graduate or professional program, and the university should graduate as many as 6,000 students each year. To guarantee access, OSU will continue its signature Bridge to Success program, which paid tuition and fees for 3,200 students last year and is projected to support a similar number this year.

“To realize these aspirations for 2025, we must increase the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty from 783 to between 1,300 and 1,500 in the next 15 years,” Ray said, “and we must begin now.”

Sabah Randhawa, OSU’s provost and executive vice president, is leading an effort to identify resources over the next two years that would add 25 to 30 faculty members in arts and sciences to boost the university’s capacity in its core teaching areas. Over the next three years, OSU will look to also create 10-15 new faculty positions in each of the other three divisions.

Ray acknowledged that looking to increase faculty at a time when the university is eliminating as many as 300 positions may seem confusing to some, but it’s about allocating resources more effectively to focus the university toward its strategic goals. Many of the positions eliminated will be handled through retirements and other natural attrition from the university’s employee ranks.

“We have reworked our base budgets to provide additional resources to the colleges most centrally engaged in delivering undergraduate education,” Ray added.

Ray said OSU also must increase its collaborative in-state research programs, pointing to the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) and Oregon Built Environmental and Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST) as examples.

Ray also announced that the College of Education will move some of its programs to the OSU-Cascades Campus in Bend, while retaining the administrative structure on the OSU campus. Ray said his vision for OSU’s future growth includes the state’s first branch campus as an integral component of the university, and said it should seek an enrollment of 3,000 to 4,000 students by 2025.

“That level of success will require us to help colleagues there build signature programs that will make the Cascades Campus a destination of choice for students and faculty,” Ray said.