Executive Summary: Provost's Talk at the State of the University

September 01, 2021
Faculty and Staff

The annual State of the University address included a summary of the overall academic enterprise of the University, including but not limited to enrollment, teaching, research and service. The presentation was a summary of what has been learned through listening and delving into the existing data. This summary is important as it highlighted our challenges and opportunities, outlined a path towards success and described what steps are already being taken. I will begin this summary with the same words that I shared in the presentation. I want to thank Dr. Heidi Blair, Michael Cahill, Kristi Gonsalves-McCabe, Dr. Nicki Gonzales, Sandy Wojciehoski, Dr. Chris Roberts and the UAR team. I also wanted to thank all of you for welcoming me into this community and for giving me the opportunity to work with you on our common goals.

The sharing of this data in this forum is an important form of transparency, which is necessary as we move forward together. The data presented was presented to the Board of Trustees in June. Although the data indicate some difficult and troubling trends, we have many of the necessary components to move forward. We as a community have been through several challenging years and are ready to move forward. I am very excited to work with all of you and am optimistic about what we can accomplish together. My hope is that my enthusiasm for our future will not be lost in the printed version of this presentation.

Enrollment

There has been a decline in overall application numbers for first-time traditional students. Since the Fall of 2019, our acceptance rate has gone from 71% to 81%.
The percentage of deposits we have received from among those accepted has stayed right around 11%.
While the number of students that have enrolled has remained relatively steady (475, 463, 469) in the last three years; lagging retention continues to be a challenge and is certainly an area of opportunity.
There has been an overall decline in enrollment by credit hours for the past 12 years.
There was an uptick from fiscal year 2011 to 2012, but an annual decline each year from 2012 to the present.
In the credit hour trajectory overall by individual college since 2017, we see a sharp decline (roughly 40%) in Anderson, an approximately 20% decline in Regis college, and a modest decline in RHCHP (under 3%).
As of August 10, 2021, Fall enrollment is at 93.5% of projection in Anderson, 91.1% in Regis College, and 102% in RHCHP. Combined, we were at 95.2% of budget projection at the time of the presentation. There has been some upward movement and we continue to employ efforts to decrease melt.

Persistence

Persistence is defined as the number of degree-seeking student academic program participation from any term in one year and returning or graduated to the same academic program participation in any term in the next year. Persistence rates for the last three cycles are as follows:

Anderson: 78%, 78.3%, 79%
Regis College: 83%, 80.9%, 82.2%
RHCHP: 91.9%, 93%, 92.6%
University overall: 83.1%, 83.1%, 84%

Retention

It is important to address our retention levels. Our retention rate for full-time, first-time bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduates has been going down from 80% since 2016, with a low of 73% from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020.

Graduation

Our graduation rate, which measures the percentage of degree seeking students who have graduated with a degree in designated number of years (6 years for undergraduate and doctorate level) from the student’s academic program start date. Our graduation rate is 56.3%.

Research, Scholarship and Creative Works

Research, scholarship and creative works are key to the success of any university. They drive institutional reputation, underlie faculty satisfaction, and provide growth opportunities for students.

Faculty have increased the total number of publications affiliated with Regis at over twice the rate compared to the averages of 4 major national databases for scholarship. This growth was achieved with the help of a small number of faculty who no longer affiliate with Regis. Approximately 1/5 of our publications since 2016 were from faculty who are no longer at Regis.
Our creative faculty have maintained a steady level of production, adding roughly 50 performances, gallery exhibits, prayers, songs, stories or poems a year from 2017 through 2020 when the pandemic closed many artistic venues nationwide.
In 2018, Regis’ Carnegie classification was changed to Research- Doctoral/Professional, making us comparable to USF, Santa Clara, Seattle U, Creighton, Gonzaga, Pepperdine, Valparaiso, and Liberty.

Teaching

Teaching remains at the core of what we do day to day. While the pandemic certainly made things more complicated, the connection between students and faculty in the classroom, whether synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid, in-person, online or Zoom, is the most transformational part of their education. The data support positive results from our students and our faculty continue to refine optimal pedagogical approaches to teaching across modalities.

Community Engagement

There are countless examples of service and community engagement at Regis. Dr. Riley highlighted our efforts in Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Justice:

We have a strong commitment to DEIJ and a great deal of work to do to realize our goals.

Since 2016, the percentage of non-white faculty at Regis has grown from 13.2% to 14.3%. This is extremely important work—even more so as our student body continues to diversify.

The office of DEI lead by Dr. Nicki Gonzales is instituting many programs to advance this important work including but not limited to; the Ambassador Program, First Generation Student Success Programming, Partnership with Counseling and Personal Development, Aligning the ODEIE team goals with the President's Council on Race and Justice, Conducting a Climate Survey, Continuing the Monthly Good Trouble conversations, implementing Antiracism training, and continuing support/collaboration with AJCU.

The data is important, but the key is what we do with the knowledge that we have. We have great opportunities to move forward as One Regis.

Challenges:

93% tuition dependent
Enrollment is decreasing
We have lost some talent
We are the best kept secret in Denver

Strengths:

We are nimble
We understand the market
We have a strong history of innovation
We have a dedicated and committed faculty and staff
We have many pockets of extreme excellence
We have great opportunities
We have a commitment to Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Justice
We have a strong foundation built upon our Jesuit Catholic mission and values

Essential Roles of the Provost

To create a shared vision
To serve as a thought partner
To set clear expectations
To decrease barriers to success
To provide scaffolding and support
To reinforce movement towards our goals

Currently we do not have a strategic plan, but we want to move forward in a strategic manner. The four current areas of strategic focus are:

Intentional Climate: We seek to increase collaboration across campus, manage and embrace a shifting approach to work, create a positive work environment and an inclusive, anti-racist university, and optimize efficiencies.

Jesuit Mission: We ought to lean into our social justice mission to share the true meaning and impact of Jesuit education. We must infuse the mission into all aspects of the university and articulate the impact of learning in a Jesuit institution for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Scholarly Excellence: We are adopting a continual improvement approach to teaching and mentoring, working to increase our scholarly impact, and building an organization in which all learners thrive.

Financial Diversification: We are working to secure gifts to advance the academic enterprise, increase grant submissions, create additional revenue streams and decrease tuition dependency.

Initiatives already underway toward achieving those goals include:

Scholarly Excellence:

The Regis Teaching Excellence Network is being launched
Increasing scholarship presence on the website and making sure all faculty CV's are posted
Setting new expectations for the hiring of new faculty
Working with Advancement on faculty excellence fund ideas
Developed a proposal for a fellowship program
Created the Student Thriving Task Force - looking at the stages of a student's journey at Regis
Sponsored research calendar of grants
Regular meetings with deans and Dr. Chris Roberts

Intentional Climate:

Implementing faculty and staff recognition program
Launched the Provost's Digest newsletter with regular communication cadence
Town halls set up with various times and locations, including students
Future of Work task force
Creating a DEIJ plan for the campus
Increased transparency

Diversified Revenue Stream:

Exploring partnerships with other organizations
Developed a proposal to raise money to seed grant activity
Exploring the use of the campus to generate revenue
New programs - stackables and PD

Jesuit Mission:

Exploring messaging with Fr. Burke
Bringing the voice of faculty and students to our marketing materials

We as a whole community need to come together to address our challenges and embrace our opportunities. It is also important to recognize that the climate of the university is very important. We will need to work together to sustain morale of faculty and staff alike while recognizing burnout and stress. Thank you all again for your dedication and hard work. We are so fortunate to have all of you as a part of this amazing community.