ONE-ON-ONE
- August 2001
by Ed G. Lane 'Kentucky Needs
Education at All Levels'
'One of my goals is to have the best minds at this
institution working on some of our state's worst
problems,' says UK President Dr. Lee Todd
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Dr.
Lee T. Todd
Dr. Lee T. Todd, an Earlington, Kentucky native
and UK graduate, returned to UK in 1974 to join
the electrical engineering department, where he
taught for nine years, earning the UK Alumni
Association’s Great Teacher Award during
that period.Dr. Todd
founded Projectron, Inc. and DataBeam Corporation
in Lexington, selling Projectron, a flight
simulation company, in 1990 to Hughes Aircraft
Company. Hughes’ $13 million facility was
among the first to locate at UK’s Coldstream
Research Campus, which Todd was instrumental in
establishing.
Todd
later went to work for Lotus Development in
Boston, yet still continued to push for New
Economy opportunities in his home state.
Recently, he came full circle, elected as
university president by the UK Board of Trustees
in part because of the same entrepreneurial zest
that drove him to part ways with the school some
20 years ago.
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Ed Lane: As we conduct this interview, you’ve
officially been president of the University of Kentucky
for a week and a few days. How time consuming are your
efforts to evaluate and formulate a plan for UK’s
future?
Lee Todd:
Last week, I actually implemented a reorganizational
plan. Because I had three months between jobs, I met
with a lot of the deans, faculty and administrators
and was able to give a lot of thought to UK’s
administrative structure. One of my goals was to make
that change at the very beginning of my
administration, and putting in a Provost model was
something I said I would do in my job interview.
EL: Last week
you announced plans to modify and streamline UK’s
management. How do Mike Nietzel, the new acting provost;
Jack Blanton, the acting senior vice-president for
administration; and James Holsinger, senior
vice-president and chancellor of the medical school fit
into your plans?
LT: Those
are my first level “go to” people. What I
really wanted to have was a strong academic officer,
a strong budget business finance operations person,
and to continue the strong leadership we’ve had
at the medical center. Part of my goal was to try to
squeeze more operations under individuals to make the
administrative organization smaller and to have the
number of people who report directly to me be as
small as possible, so that I can be flexible to go
out, spend more time in Washington and around the
state.
EL: The
position of provost is new at UK. Is the creation of this
position indicative of a major change in management
style?
LT: It
is. Instead of having two chancellors, where you
almost had two vertical companies, if you will, we
now have a provost who has almost all the academic
functions reporting to him. We’ve also added the
graduate school, the libraries and University Press
under the provost’s direction. We’ve also
formed a provost council – made up of all deans
– that will be chaired by the provost. Any new
programs for undergraduate education and all
promotion, tenure and senior appointments will go
through the provost. The only thing that keeps
academic function from being a more pure provost
model is that the five deans in the medical center
still report to Jim Holsinger. Since the medical
center is doing very well, I didn’t want to
change that.
EL: How has
your initial perception of UK changed since you started
evaluating budgets, issues and personnel matters?
LT: It is
a bit like I expected. I’m interested in having
access to all the information, so I can really
challenge how UK is spending every dollar. I would
like to find monies we can reallocate toward
improving salaries and putting it toward some of the
initiatives I’ve been talking about.
EL: Have you
considered using zero-based budgeting at UK?
LT: I
haven’t considered zero-base. I’m going to
take the first shot at asking our leaders to reassess
how they’re spending their monies with the
possibility they can earmark some savings.
EL: Does the
university have good cost accounting on a departmental
basis?
LT: UK
needs to be a lot more sophisticated in budget
analysis. The university was looking at changing its
administrative computing system, but that
determination was put on hold until I came on board
because I have a computing background. We start next
week getting back on top of that, because I think we
need it.
EL: Governor
Patton has indicated that sales tax revenues in Kentucky
are below forecast and the state’s budget will be
trimmed. How would lower allocations impact UK’s
day-to-day operations and where would you look to either
reduce costs or increase income?
LT:
Gordon Davies (head of the Council on Postsecondary
Education) has indicated to the (college and
university) presidents that we need to be looking at
cuts from one to five percent. I certainly hope the
cuts are not at the high end. I would not anticipate,
at least for the first year of reductions, for cuts
to touch salaries. We’d look at reducing some of
our non-recurring expenses for this first year. The
challenge may come in the second budget year, if
things don’t pick up. But the process at UK is
going to be for the deans to be looking inside their
own areas. I’m trying to show some leadership in
this situation. UK will save $1.25 million, on a
recurring basis, with the administrative changes I
announced last week.
EL: Gordon
Davies is developing a campaign to boost the educational
levels of all Kentuckians. How important is this effort
to Kentucky’s future?
LT: Well,
if we’re going to move the state forward,
it’s absolutely critical. I was on CPE when we
adopted that approach. I’m well aware of it.
Kentucky needs education at all levels. It’s
what has held Kentucky back as we try to compete for
the new economy dollar. We need to look at how we can
encourage more and more people – not just young
students, but adults and mid-career people – to
get education so that they can help improve the
economy and their standard of living. It’s
vital.
EL: The
stated mission is for UK to become a “top 20
research university.” What does this mean to
UK’s management, professors, students and the
general public?
LT:
It’s a great challenge and a charge that makes
the job very interesting for me. I formed a top 20
task force last Thursday, and asked them to start
defining the parameters that will specify UK’s
goals. I’ve asked them to divide the goals into
two measures. One would be a measure that’s
independently taken every year by some third party to
look at parameters for all national universities.
I’ve
asked them also to come up with a second “higher
purpose” list. This list will itemize some of
the ugly problems in Kentucky – in healthcare,
economic development, education – that have held
us back for many years. If UK is a top land grant
university doing what our state wants us to do, we
should be helping solve those problems.
One of my
goals is to have the best minds at this institution
working on some of our state’s worst problems.
EL: How well
received is UK’s current advertising campaign,
“American’s next great university”?
LT: It no
longer exists. As I go around this campus, I see
greatness in many places – already. As I look at
some of our graduates, some of them are already
great. And with that campaign, I think UK was
offending its alumni, faculty and students. Our next
marketing campaign will talk about UK’s
successes and the successes of its alumni –
factual data about what we’ve done. For example,
I’m very proud of UK’s number three ranking
in pharmacy and that some of our alumni are Nobel
Prize winners.
EL: In what
other areas do you feel UK is achieving success?
LT: The
Center on Aging, UK Medical Center, Patterson School
of Diplomacy, Pharmacy, Spanish, Martin School of
Public Policy and Administration, those are things
that jump out at me initially in which UK has
excelled.
EL: What do
you see as areas of significant opportunity?
LT:
There’s one in particular. I just got back from
the Bio-2001 conference, out west. I attended that
with the governor and several of our researchers. And
when you look at the natural products area, the
ability to genetically engineer plants, so that you
can grow plants not just for food but for medical
applications, I think that’s an outstanding
opportunity we have in this state. UK’s strength
in agriculture, biology and pharmacy creates an area
where UK can tie agriculture into pharmaceuticals.
EL: How will
UK’s efforts to become a top research university
benefit central Kentucky and the state in general?
LT: As we
move forward, stronger arts and humanities will raise
the cultural environment, around Lexington in
particular. As we look at the intellectual property
that would be a result of our research, I would hope
that we can cause companies to locate here. So that
would bring jobs. Joe Fink, UK’s VP of corporate
relations and economic outreach, will be involved by
going out into the regions of Kentucky and looking at
ways UK can help generate new economic activity.
EL: How
directly will your efforts be focused on developing
opportunities for UK to obtain research grants?
LT: I was
recently in Washington – before I was president
– to meet with Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim
Bunning, as well as Congressmen Hal Rogers and Ed
Whitfield. I’ve made a commitment for UK to have
a stronger Washington presence. I had breakfast this
week with Congressman Ernie Fletcher. What I find is
that while UK has people that are dedicated to
helping us find research dollars from Washington,
that from my position, I can get in to see the
congressmen, congresswomen, and senators easier than
they can. I would expect probably 10-15 percent of my
time will be spent trying to make those ties to
Kentucky’s delegation.
EL: Do you
envision a closer working relationship with the
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government?
LT: It
will be far superior to anything before. I had lunch
in Mayor Pam Miller’s office about a week before
I started this position. As we begin to look at the
development of where the campus ends and downtown
begins we should certainly be talking to each other
as we go through that process. And I commit to doing
that. We’ve got the Rupp Arena negotiation going
on. We’ve got some discussion about LCC being
downtown. I’ve got strong interest in the
Woolworth’s building and putting a few
university functions down there. I’ve got quite
a list of things and the communication line is wide
open with Mayor Miller.
EL: What are
some of the key issues of concern to women at UK?
LT: If we
look at UK’s statistics in both status of women
and diversity, we’re not where I’d like to
see us. UK may be meeting some expectations, but
we’re not exceeding them. And I think we need to
be gathering data more aggressively in these two
areas than we have in the past.
EL: Have
students and professors openly voiced their concerns,
ideas and suggestions to you, and has their input been an
insightful and valuable source of information about UK?
LT: They
have. I learned a lot about things I did not know.
What I did was ask each of the deans and their
faculty what their needs and dreams were. They were
very candid. I think you find at an academic
institution that freedom of speech works. I got a lot
of good suggestions. It was invaluable for me.
EL: How much
growth do you anticipate in student enrollment over the
next ten years?
LT:
That’s an extremely good question, because it’s
a choice that we have to make. You can’t just
arbitrarily say UK is going to grow by 5000 students. You
have to take into consideration the impact on faculty, on
dormitories. So I’ve set about the process to really
look at that. One thing I don’t want to do is
sacrifice student quality. And it’s a critical
question because we could say that we’re going to
hold our undergraduate level at 17,000 and just drive
quality. Part of me says that could make UK look elitist,
which is not what we want to do.
EL: What new
facilities will be needed at UK in the near future?
LT: The
two top items on the capital list that I inherited
are expansion of Lexington Community College and the
pharmacy building. There’s also strong interest
in a new business college campus which would be
ideally located over by Memorial Coliseum. In
addition, the law school would like to have some
facilities. UK submits its capital list for approval
by October 15th.
EL: What are
key factors relating to attracting the best and brightest
students and teachers to UK?
LT:
Recently, I have talked to over 3500 students in
Louisville, Owensboro, Paducah, here on campus, and
then down at the Governor’s Scholars Conference
in Danville. I wanted to go out and talk to students
who might not be considering any Kentucky university;
they may be thinking they need to go out-of-state.
And I want them to know they have a good deal here in
Kentucky.
I’m
also going to work with the deans to see what kind of
faculty they need; we’re going to go after
stars. We have the Bucks for Brains program, so we
have the ability to create endowed professorships.
Another
key is UK has to retain its best faculty. UK salaries
aren’t as high as they should be and we’ve
been losing a lot of faculty.
EL:
Coldstream Research Park has great but yet unrealized
potential to boost Kentucky’s economy and to provide
a synergistic business location for research and
technology companies working with UK. How big a priority
is Coldstream?
LT: The
reporting structure for Coldstream has also been
assigned to Joe Fink. Joe will report directly to me.
I’ve got a long history with Coldstream and am
very interested in making sure that we expose our
intellectual property capabilities. UK needs to be
looking at how we actually do licensing and try to
get as aggressive as it can to attract companies to
Coldstream.
EL: How
important is Blue Grass Airport to the University?
LT: I was
told today that 25 percent of the activity at Blue
Grass Airport is UK traffic. That’s not
scientific data but that was mentioned to me this
morning in a meeting. The airport is also crucial to
the businesses that UK would attract to central
Kentucky.
EL: Your long
term dream has been to create quality jobs for top
graduates from Kentucky’s colleges and universities.
If you succeed in making UK a top research university,
will the demand for talent be so great that
Kentucky’s brain drain will be ended and many of the
state’s expatriates will return?
LT: That
would be my goal. In parallel with UK growing toward
top 20 status, we are going to have to be looking at
creating the absorbers of our graduates and creating
an opportunity for our alumni, who did leave the
state, to come back. That’s clearly high on my
mind and something I’ve talked about for years.
Now, I’ve got a chance to operate against that
dream.
Ed G. Lane is
chief executive of Lane Consultants Inc. and publisher of
The Lane Report.
edlane@lanereport.com
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