2024 Institute Address

awesome awesome preparation and okay just letting our last couple people get to their seats hello everyone I'm Abigail tumpy I'm vice president of Institute Communications here at Georgia Tech we are so excited to have a packed house here today so thank you for being here um I actually want to start by telling you how we're going to take questions today so this you pull out your handy dandy phone uh take a picture of this QR code we are going to um take questions uh for president Cabrera at the end so you can go ahead and um take a screenshot of that right now I'll give you guys a second to pull your phones out and um make that happen um and with that please welcome president anhel Cabrera thank you so much thank you thank you thank you I I joined my appreciation for all of you to make time uh this morning to review all the amazing work that is happening at at Georgia Tech so good morning to all yellow jackets whether you're here or following online um and uh this this is my sixth uh Institute address in fact this very week I received my um a very nice message from HR congratulating me on my fifth year uh which is awesome I I would be remiss if I didn't point out that I share that uh momentous anniversary with Jim hodgin our head of uh GT and Susan loer ardin of sign so congrats to you too um of course the new Academic Year is in full swing and with it comes uh an undergraduate class an amazing class of more than 5,300 first year and transfer students it brings also new faculty and staff and a few changes to the administration so uh special word for all new yellow jackets thank you and thank you for choosing Georgia Tech we're thrilled to have you here in honor that you have Cho CH chosen Georgia Tech to uh to follow and and grow in your career let me start by um acknowledging new members of our leadership team including jarm desadier name vice president of office of equal opportunity compliance and conflict management he started on H January 1st Jimmy Fernandez who's now our interim vice president for finance and planning and CFO uh she started on June 1st Jason Freeman who's been our long uh time chair and professor in the school of uh music and he was appointed to a newly created position by the Provost as the interim associate Vice Provost for the Arts and he's been working in that capacity since March um Jason is um uh promoting and integrating the Arts across our curriculum research campus life and Community also after uh serving as our interim vice president for information technology and CIO since uh the 1st of January Leo Howell was selected for the permanent position uh following a national search and he started in that Perman permanent capacity on July 1st uh Ron Johnson uh formerly a professor now actually still a professor in the uh Stuart School of industrial and systems engineering was appointed senior vice president for strategic initiatives and chief of staff and he started in that capacity on June 1st uh we have a new uh dean of uh of sheller although he's been so active and out there that uh he feels like he's been with us for much longer uh but an motra started on January 1st uh Vic sarar uh who's a former chair of the school of computer science was appointed Dean and John P IML Junior chair of the College of computing also in June 1st Jim Stevens was named vice president of infrastructure and sustainability last month after serving in an interim role since March 1st and was immediately tested with a massive uh uh Chiller out AG he passed um and Richards former senior associate Dean in the aan Allen College of liberal arts was named inm Dean on April 20th and I really really appreciate his agreeing to to step up so um so thanks to all of them for joining our our leadership uh Team I also um want to welcome some leaders and of student government uh Association undergraduate president Shivani verani I hope think she's here um say hi if you are if not noted um gr that was a joke uh graduate president k kran um red mayor who's the Secretary of the faculty is with us today uh sitting next to uh the chair of the faculty executive board dimma nazal uh shamisha Powers is the chair of this of the staff Council also here Dean shien uh president of the joria tech alumna Association thank you for joining us today and altero president of the georia tech Foundation please be nice to him because he has all of our money um I also of course the remiss if I didn't acknowledge my uh colleague and friend shawi abdalah our Executive Vice President for research since 2018 who as you know was recently appointed president of Lebanese American University in uh his home country and on behalf of the Institute I want to where are you shall we I'm looking there you go I want to make ion contact and express to you uh my sincere gratitude and admiration for your leadership and the extraordinary growth that you've led us through uh in in in our research Enterprise which is of course as you leave it bigger and and and more impactful than at any point in um in in Institute history thank you so much shall we uh sitting next to him is uh the person who agreed to step in and uh they've been spending a lot of time together which is a good sign Tim Luen who's a region professor and the Davis Lewis Junior chair in the Guggenheim School of aerospace engineering who as you know has agreed to serve as our interim uh Executive Vice President of research thank you Tim for stepping up to support our alma mater we're training one uh George proud Geor teal for another um so I I want to start with a word of TR heartfelt gratitude to all the members of our faculty staff and administration but also to our students to our alumni to our volunteers to our donors because you have delivered another banner year uh for Georgia Tech together we have found ways to serve more students to provide them with one of the best value propositions in the nation uh We've managed to conduct more research more groundbreaking work in in all search of disciplines and to have more impact on our city our state and uh the world than at any point uh before when we began the current strategic cycle 5 years ago we pledged to amplify our impact and I'm proud to say that today Georgia Tech is making a bigger difference than ever before here are some highlights Georgia Tech has been the nation's fastest growing Public University over the past decade this past spring we set a record for the most degrees ever conferred during a single Academic Year and our enrollment briefly became the largest in our state as of this fall we've returned to be Georgia's uh second largest university right under Georgia State um our students recently produced one of the nation's highest six-year um uh graduation rates and our graduates are benefiting from some of the nation's best career outcomes we received a record number of applicants but despite our growth still remain among the four most selective public universities in the nation the national uh Science Foundation ranked our research Enterprise the 17th largest in the nation which for the first year in a row made us number one among universities without a medical school all this activity is having a noticeable effect in our state according to the most recent economic impact report that was commissioned by the board of regions jch contributed a record $5.3 billion to our economy during the last fiscal year that's the largest share in the entire University system of Georgia it is 18% um higher uh it's 18% higher than last year we account for 24% of all the the combined impact of all USG institutions and we account for 42% of the growth in in economic impact and remember these numbers do not include all the value of the uh the startups that we've incubated the jobs created by our alumni the assistance that we provide to uh Georgia companies through e Square to help them grow the companies we help attract to our state all of which create even greater and longer uh lasting impact all these outcomes belong to our entire Community uh students faculty Administration staff service Personnel everyone who invests in our work tuition paying families state and federal governments donors and volunteers without our entire community's Collective commitment to progress and service I wouldn't be able to report any of these successes nor would I have the confidence to commit to the ambitious goals I'm going to share with you today and for that I thank each one of you our growth in scale and impact hasn't just happened on its own on the contrary it is the result of intentional work and decisions that we have made 5 years ago we brought our community together and crafted a strategic plan which stated that over this decade Georgia Tech will achieve unmatched scale and impact Champion innovation in our city and state grow as a hub of global collaboration expand access to talented people from of all backgrounds call cultivate the well-being of our community and lead by example in how we conduct our business I'm delighted to report that we are delivering on each of those goals now as proud as I am for all the progress we have made I'm also aware that our growth has put pressure on several areas of the Institute resources haven't always kept up with our growth and the large number of strategic initiatives we're pursuing may be over straining our bandwidth for all those reasons I wanted us to engage this summer in what we call the refresh of our strategic plan the goal was not to change the Strategic plan but to assess the progress we have made to consider how the world around us has changed and to clarify goals to sharpen our focus on a narrower set of strategic priorities so I convened a committee this past May to guide us down this path and uh I want to serve every I want to thank every one who served on that uh on that committee and also the Strategic Consulting Group that led the the charge then I took the recommendations from the committee and distill them into what we've called uh for big bets uh these are Target specific outcomes in support of our mission and strategic priorities which remain unchanged so these big bets are not when I share them with you they're not new they're not adding more stuff to the Strategic plan they're intended to help us better focus on our efforts to realize the plan uh successfully so here are the big bets number one is to be a national leader in outcomes and value for all students number two is to double the number of degrees granted and non-degree Learners served over this decade number three is to double the scale and amplify the impact of our research also over over the decade and number four is to build a national hub for Innovation creativity and Entrepreneurship around our campus so let me walk through what each of these mean let me start with the top priority to be a national leader in outcomes and value for all students over the last five years and and I want to thank the very generous State Appropriations and also the very good fiscal management throughout the Institute we have bucked the in inflationary trends that have plagued higher education and we have kept tuition well below our peers and for some groups of students actually we've brought that tuition and fees down let me be more specific undergraduate tuition and fees today are 6.2% lower than they were 5 years ago for Georgia residents they're 1.5% again in 5 years 1.5% higher for out of state domestic

students and 3.4% higher again in 5 years for international students when you annualize these increases even for the largest category be the the the highest increase which is the the international students the the annualized rate of increase of tuition and fees over the last five years is 0 6 7% if you adjust these numbers for inflation uh the outcomes are are striking tuition and fees are 23% lower for instate students 17 % lower for out ofate students and 16% lower for international students I am not aware of a single case outside of of our state that can make these these claims it hasn't been easy for sure to operate we do face higher prices in virtually everything that we use and it's been very hard to do that and not pass those those costs to to our students but that's exactly what we have done now in addition to tuition and fees paid by students time to degree is also key uh to the value proposition that we offer students obviously every year that every additional year that it takes you to get your degree adds at least 25% of cost to your degree and it defers your earnings so there too we have delivered right now 94% of our students graduate within 6 years and 67% GR graduate uh within four these are the highest graduation rates in Institute history our six-year rate is actually one of the highest among public universities in the nation and our fouryear rate ranks well above National norms and is trending higher so when you combine low tuition and High graduation rates and factoring the high paying jobs that our graduates our alumni uh tend to secure the result truly is a smoking deal that the national media I'm happy to report is increasingly recognizing so Princeton Review niche.com named as the number one best value college in the US among public universities Bloomberg named as number two Forbes named Georgia Tech among its list of uh new IV in Money Magazine awarded us five star rating for Quality affordability and outcomes 2 years in a row and my phone I hope yours too was on fire this morning I don't know if we had a time to put it on on a slide because the Wall Street Journal came up with the rankings this morning and listed Georgia Tech as number two Public University in the country which is an awesome recognition and and that's just publ but if you look at the overall I mean that's pretty nice company to be in only only two publics make the the top 10 in uh just Berkeley and in in in Georgia Tech so hey um see people some people don't like rankings I think they're more the merrier uh they help us they help us tell uh tell the the the our story so so now our goal now why why is this big bet if we're already doing it then what is the big bet well the big bet is that we need to be national leaders not just in value for students not just in general but for all students including those who come from lower income families now one of the most direct things we can do in this regard is to continue to keep tuition low why some increases are going to be necessary there's no way we can continue to face this High inflation and not have some increase in in tuition and fees uh but our commitment is to remain an example of of affordability and to make sure that whatever we need to do that we are way uh well below inflation over this this current decade second we need to increase Student Financial Aid even uh at this relatively low level of tuition and fees and even when you factor in uh the Hope Scholarship that most of our uh uh instate students receive in in in in the pel grant a Georgia Tech education still remains Out Of Reach For Students on the lowest income tiers here's what we need to be committed to no talented student uh should have to give up on their dream of a Jord Tech degree for lack of a few thousand do but the reality is that some of those students in the lower income tiers they don't even bother applying they don't think that there's a way they can they can come to J Tech so we need to first to keep working to convince those talented students that J Tech is for them that's why we're expanding our reach in rural areas in our state Why We join the small town in rural students College network that is helping us in this regard our admission counselors have increased travel around Georgia by 270% they're out there they're going to all the corners of our state to tell students yes if you're talented you belong a Georgia Tech and we're seeing some results applications from rural areas are up as we Rec ly even admitted the first two students from tux County since 2000 so we're good good signs we're also working to create new transfer Pathways in partnership with institutions that serve a high number of lwi income income students now once those students apply and get in we need to make sure they have the resources to study here about a third of our undergraduate students require financial aid but we can currently meet only about 40% of that need we are in round numbers about $65 million short for closing that entire Gap in financial need in Georgia more than 40% of students are um estimated to qualify for uh pale grants yet P eligible students make up only 15% of our undergraduate class we have made progress 5 years ago we were at below 14% 13.7 um but it's still below our Target we have a commitment with the American talent initiative to reach 20% by the end of this decade so that's part of this big bad we're making some progress in providing this additional um financial aid this past year we increased the annual funding for institutional scholarships from 6 to 8 million we expanded the uh Wayne CL promise scholarship that provides a debt-free education now covering 75 qualified Georgia students from low-income families we expanded the stamps scholarship from from cohorts of 40 to of 50 and we have made very importantly financial aid Student Financial Aid the number one priority in our transforming tomorrow campaign this past year we raised a total of $243 million uh of which 20 million were dedicated to Student Financial Aid we need to do better it's got to be not only we need to raise more dollars in general but a bigger share of those dollars has to be dedicated to financial aid and we're working uh Jen how chief devel vment officer and Alo and others are working on uh very creative plans to really accelerate our our um our efforts in that in that regard lastly even if you apply get in and and get your your your scholarship and your money necessary we need to ensure that students from low-income families have the support they need to succeed at jch now we know that if you come from a lower income family you may lack the support networks that their students enjoy um lower income family uh students tend to graduate at lower rates they're less likely to study abroad they're less likely likely to seek out transformative learning opportunities they're less likely to do uh internships that then help you get the top the top jobs our sixe graduation rate for p recipients is good in fact uh the the almanac of the chronicle just listed as as number uh eight among Public University in the country but it's 86% is lower there's a gap in graduation rates between low income uh uh students and the rest part of this big bet is how do we begin to erase those those gaps so a lot of work doing in that regard but students are our top priority providing value to them will remain our big bet and our big priority second bet is um double before anybody starts feeling a little uneasy I'll explain but double the annual number of degrees is granted a non-degree Learners Serve by the end of this decade using 2019 as the Baseline let me put that in perspective we awarded 7,500 degrees in 2019 this year that number had grown to 12,000 uh which means that we're already making good progress towards confering will be 15,000 degrees by the end of of the of the of this decade most of that growth is planned to come from the online degrees by the way uh and I'll I'll explain that in a in in a second but before let me explain our focus on degrees awarded instead of enrollment is intentional enrollment per se is not a measure of impact imagine a hypothetical University that kept its incoming classes the same but uh students graduated at worse and worse rates that school's enrollment would be growing entirely for their own Reasons by counting degrees rather than enrollment size we're focusing not on how big we are but on how much impact we have graduates with degrees get good jobs make money grow families pay taxes strengthen our communities they help businesses grow or they build their own businesses and that creates Economic Opportunity for others and then when lots of them coales in one place as it is the case in in our city they help attract bigger companies that also create Economic Opportunity so the number of degrees we're we're producing matters and it has grown at an impressive rate because yes we're admitting more students also because we're deploying uh innovative ways to serve non-traditional students but also because students are graduating at higher rates quite remarkably because our applicant pool is growing faster than our capacity to absorb them especially at the undergraduate level we've also become one of the top four most selective public universities in the nation this past year we received just shy of 60,000 applications for a class of about 3900 firste students for reference we received about 37,000 in 2019 I mean this is a huge increase in demand for a Jord Tech education as I mentioned last month we welcomed our largest ever incoming class of the 5,300 students there were those 3900 first years plus about 1,400 transfers this is very very important and we're creating more transfer Pathways so there are different avenues for different students to get to their Georgia Tech degree the W Street Journal today um talks about one specific student which I recommend you read a great great story a student who transferred from Georgia State to georia Tech doing incredibly well because of the combined work of these institutions so our new class includes a record number of women the third largest incoming cohort of Black and Hispanic students a little dip with last year but still the third largest as well as a rebound in international student enrollment which has deed uh had dipped following the the pandemic the official census numbers aren't yet available but it is likely that we will again be well above uh no for the first time we will be above uh 50,000 students as total enrollment we should be very proud of this we're getting the job done we're changing more and more lives now also we need to be aware um that this growth of course causes stress in the system especially in different in several areas of the Institute our plan is to now decelerate the growth remember we were on a path to to have 4,000 firste students coming in we're almost there we're at 3900 so our plan is to decelerate kind of stabilize the class size the first year class size around 4,000 students to help us build the resources to give us a little breather so our resources can catch up with that uh with that size but but we're laser focused I mean one of the biggest things we're doing at the at the leadership level of The Institute is this the provos for example just shared that 149 new permanent academic faculty joined us this semester um this is a 20% leap over last year and uh there's another 40 and and and the the net increase is 97 so 149 but the net is 97 and then another 45 new faculty have already joined us this this semester so a key priority for for the next five years is to really build the resources to be able to support that that size we also uh need to upgrade our um our physical space and we're making good progress Tech Square in Tech Square the George and sheller towers are rising as you can see every morning some of you who uh come to campus that way uh it's scheduled to open in 2026 uh once complete the the these two towers we add 400,000 square ft of instructional and research space along with Gathering space and in street level uh retail on this side of Campus the DM Smith building is getting a complete makeover we're also planning a comprehensive re renovation of Skyles I I heard that yeah I know trust me I my office my my office was in Skyles and it looks almost exactly the way he did uh so I I have some good news uh preliminary good news but last month the board of region included $20 million for this purpose for the Skyles renovation in its capital request to the state so it's not a done deal but at least we're we're in making good progress to secure the funding we're also making good progress uh in uh on a new first year residence hall on current Street this has been a big item of concern for our students yesterday I met with both undergraduate and graduate student governments and the issues around uh housing keep coming up this new fac facility will add 860 beds by 2026 after that then we plan to renovate the Howell and Smith residents Halls which some of our lni uh tell me occasionally that they recognize too well uh so we're going to we that is coming right after the the new residence hall we'll start with that renovation we're also planning upgrades to dining and other student services another um exciting project very early stages uh is to build a new home for um for Aerospace for the gugenheim school uh we have one of the top uh let's not get to excited this is just okay it was a terrible idea to have this uh erase this from memory guys uh we no seriously we have one of the top uh Aerospace programs in the country but our teaching and research facilities many of them are Antiquated they're dispersed uh we need to do better especially in one of the engineering fields that is uh that is growing growing so fast and making such a big difference so the planning is in its initial spaces the illustration is preliminary uh but I I want you to know that we're evaluating different designs financing financing options we're going to really rely on the help of uh of our donors in addition to the state so early stages but this is part of our big bet is one of the areas we need to grow um of course the the biggest contributors to our growth have been and will continue to be very uh in the foreseeable future the online masters of science programs that this year celebrated their 10th anniversary uh these programs offer a top rated degrees in computer science in uh in analytics and cyber security and they're allowing thousands of professionals who otherwise would not have access to uh to top uh education to get their degree advancing their career without interrupting their jobs and their and their family lives technology has allowed us to serve those individuals to create value for these so-called non-traditional students and that's something that we're going to build on now in addition to these Master students uh We've also served this is a part that not everybody's aware more than 70,000 non-degree seeking professionals last last year uh most people in the in the changing economy they need new skills to advance or to Pivot in their careers uh or simply because they want to learn and grow um so for comparison in 2019 we served less than 30,000 so we went from about 28,000 non-degree seeking Learners to S more than 70,000 this past year our goal is to maintain this trajectory by leveraging Tech Tech ology and Innovative delivery models and a key to achieving this goal which is a huge part of how we make a difference I am very proud to announce the creation of Georgia Tech's 7eventh College the College of lifetime learning you hesitated there Nelson I was looking at you yeah so so professionals and employers are demanding Better Learning and Development resources and opportunities to keep up with the pace of technological change and we have the experience and the resources to help him do that this is not new to us uh some of you may not know that um even the the origins of Georgia State University was Georgia Tech evening School of Commerce downtown that started in 1913 um so we've we've been we've been offering distance programs in somewhere or another since the 1800s the late 1800s these programs not only serve an important social and economic need but they also catalyze innovation in how we deliver instruction they allow us more flexibility to innovate for example the experience we gained through Jord Tech professional education helped us launch and scale those revolutionary online Masters which in turn helped us in gave us the agility to deal with the covid-19 pandemic when we had to to move to a remote uh operation and now even some of that technology is making its way into some of our traditional programs in computer science and Beyond so with our history in the space and the reputation that we have for Innovative research and for innovation in delivery we have the responsibility really we have a great opportunity but it's also our responsibility to lead in this space and that's what the new College of lifetime learning is all about so this new College in addition to his very important teaching Mission will also conduct research in learning science and technology and how to deliver um learning more more effectively and will also offer a home for faculty Champions Across The Institute who are interested in advancing learning in their own uh disciplines Nelson uh Baker who's done a terrific job to to get us to this point uh is serving as interim Dean and founding dean of the of of the new College which initially brings together the center for 21st century universities the seismic if you ever wonder what seismic means we're brilliant with these acronyms is the center for Education integrating science mathematics and Computing it rolls off your tongue um in Georgia Tech professional education uh GTP so all those units have come to together under this one one unit uh over the past year Dean Baker and his team and the Provost and and folks in the Provost office have led the effort to transform what was a a a support division at Jord Tech into our seventh college and in April our faculty uh voted and thank you dimon R and the rest of the faculty on the faculty executive Bo board faculty voted to recommend its establishment so initially this new college has 44 faculty members nearly 300 staff uh there's of course plans to grow both faculty and staff and also to offer courtesy appointments uh for uh faculty from other units so stay tuned for announcements in the coming weeks about all the initiatives underway but um great job Nelson and thank you to you and and the rest of the team third big bet is uh about our research and is to double the scale and amplify the impact of our research Enterprise again you using 2019 as a baseline we're not starting counting from from now um if you if you do the numbers that means that by the end of this decade our research Enterprise would have grown to about a $ 1.9 billion dollar in in expenditures we're right now uh I think the last um our fiscal year we ended up at 134 uh 1.3 billion but it might be this year might end up more run 1.4

billion and this is 8% increase over a record last last year so we're making good progress towards this goal but we we want to keep keep growing um let me highlight uh again some of what what this size has meant in terms of our relative position in the nation for the third year in a row uh based on the NSF higher education research data which is always delayed almost like a year and a half if not two years the NSF listed as among the top 20 research universities this last year number 17 to be precise of all universities but number one for the third time number one among institutions without a medical school we ranked third in computer science second in uh engineering overall as well and as in electrical computer and industrial engineering and first in the country in aerospace engineering so as we continue to grow we're playing paying close attention to transends in federal funding and and our success in securing Awards we shouldn't take any of this for granted this past year for example we received $1.37 billion in Awards which is an incredible uh figure and he's 30% higher than he was in 2019 but it's still lower than our record last year so we we'll keep track of what's happening at the federal level but going forward is very likely that a lot of this Rich growth is going to come from Fields like artificial intelligence biotechnology cyber security Electronics energy nanotechnology space exploration these are the priorities that the government is telling us that that they have good news we have substantial strength in each of those fields for instance we have made great inroads into biomedical engineering and medical Innovation and when the federal government established the advanced research projects the arpa AG the the basically the DARPA for for health GE Tech received three of the very first uh big grants worth a collective $119 million to do things like develop new drugs sensors implants to revolutionize how we detect and treat cancer we also launched last year many of you involved in in what we call the neuron next initiative which is a plan to scale our research programs to study the brain and the nervous system and to develop new medical and assistive Technologies and to support growth in in this whole area we are planning a future medical Innovation facility that would be next to the Crone uh building on on 10th Street on AI tons of work happening of course it's not new to us we've been added uh since the 1980s and we currently lead two NSF um AI research institutes and K third uh we also we were the leaders and we continue to to coordinate Georgia artificial intelligence manufacturing Coalition which is a Department of Commerce funded initiative that helps manufacturers in Georgia to uh adopt AI technology I'm very excited really really uh um excited about the first of its kind AI maker space uh Raheem College of Engineering terrific job securing the collaboration of Nvidia to create a supercomputer that and like the other maker spaces this would be a virtual space but where students have a uh access to a supercomputer to train models to learn to experiment with to learn about AI with tools that normally are only in the hands of top researchers um in in in big tech companies um we now have over a thousand faculty and students who conduct fundamental and applied AI research we were recognized this year as the number one source of AI talent in the country and to support their work we launched the AI Hub last year which I thank Professor Pascal van henten Rick um to for for for leading and it's trying to coordinate all these all these efforts in Aerospace we're also in Long operating one of the nation's stop research programs and we're making major uh ma major Investments you may have read that we just broke ground for a new 10,000 SQ foot aircraft hanger in the North Avenue research area we will allow faculty and students to construct and test uh small aircraft and we launched this space research initiative which hopefully will lead to a new interdisciplinary Research Institute that is bringing all of our assets not just in engineering but in science in policy in economics uh to really Advance our knowledge of uh space exploration and develop the the new wave of not just defense but also commercial applications of of space I I'm I'm shocked to see the the speed at which we're we're launching objects into space we estimate that there are about 11,000 objects man-made objects flying around the earth and every year we're launching even more thousands of them so so huge industry growing industry we're in a great position to help Advance it so we're also trying to um to work in in in in expanding our um applied research um um capabilities Beyond defense operations learn from what we've done at GT and and how do we apply that into into non-defense applications and also we are uh right now in the early stages of creating a think tank that will bring top you know Cutting Edge Science and Technology knowledge together together with policy leaders and Business Leaders uh to really influence how our society thinks about about about new trends in this section of research my last word has to go of course to GT GT which is a central has always been since it was created 90 years ago we just had a fun celebration of 90 years of GT has been really the the heart and the engine of uh of research at Georgia Tech we are and have become the second largest university Affiliated Research Center um we at GT are incredibly proud to develop advanced technology that keeps um our Armed Forces safe around the world and that protects our national interest and their work goes beyond defense applications and that's as as I mentioned is inspiring applied work in other in other areas to get give you an idea of how far GT has come uh just at the turn of this entry the the volume of business GT did was about $100 million we're now about $900 million nine times bigger a ninefold increase and and the trend continues to be uh just a amazing so um congratulations Jim uh hudgin and the rest of the team proud of you and uh and and hope to be part of a of an incredible growing journey in the next few years all right fourth bet to build a national hub for Innovation creativity and Entrepreneurship right here in our city and around our campus here too this is not new stuff we've been making a ton of progress as we build on two decades of work in transforming the neighborhoods around us the big bet is to even push that that that work Beyond what's already been done for example we need to complete Tech Square we need to develop our medical Innovation Hub around science square and we are in the early stages to build a new creative Hub that blends technology Art and Design around the the Randle Brothers property so Tech Square uh those of us of a certain age uh still remember what U Midtown was like um the what we now called T square at the time was a a a moldering brown field of chain link fences and broken windows abandoned buildings place we didn't spend too much visiting and thanks to the vision of uh then president Wayne KF and the support of uh Foundation Georgia Tech Foundation leaders and other organizations that came together um and then the work of uh my predecessor president Bud Peterson and and generations of Administrators and leaders of Georgia Tech we turn turned all of that into a thriving Innovation District which now other universities and cities are trying to emulate when I was uh at George Mason University I would send people here all the time to see what was happening at Georgia Tech and we still welcome groups that want to come and and see what's happening we completed as you recall theota building in 2019 and then our attention turned to the third and final phase which will be the George and sheller Towers when uh the crews Drive the final nail in 20 26 Tech Square will have the infrastructure to support the programs the talent the culture the connections the Partnerships that you need to become one of the country's preeminent hotbeds for technological entrepreneurship and this is work that we will continue to do in hand inand with our partners especially the Georgia Tech Foundation um now the experience at techware inspired us to do similar things on the west side of Campus West Midtown is also the result of investments from Georgia Tech and more recently in science square which is as you know Atlanta's first medical Innovation District this April uh the first of five construction faces open for business with the delivery of the science squares lab and also a a condominium an apartment building called The Grace residences the the science square Labs is a 13 uh story impressive 370,000 ft Advanced facility designed to accommodate High highly specialized work in the Life Sciences and medical fields and to help us keep our best um startups in biotech and and and related disciplines here and keeping them from moving having to move uh elsewhere all this development was done with private sector Partners without using uh public money and and I think I'm proud of of the creative work of our colleagues to to find ways in which we can leverage private investment to make these things happen our next development which I'm very excited is is being partnered also with the Georgia Tech foundation in the property that the foundation bought just across the street from here from the John leis Student Center the Rand the old Rand Brothers property and we'll focus on creativity on Creative Technologies on the Arts on the entertainment Industries which are thriving in our city and our state so there are some The Faculty with Jason and and and faculty leaders are considering new uh new academic programs together with those programs and the new space will support creative work at the intersection of Technology art design and business and be again a source of innovation and talent in that in that space and of course to be that Hub of innovation not only we need the space for all that work to happen we need the programs um we need those programs that that build the confidence in in our uh students and our faculty that they can create new companies we need to create programs that help conven Talent facilitate creative collisions that that are normally at the heart of new of new Enterprises create the social tissue and to support all the inventors and entrepreneurs I know some of you like me I was blown away last week I don't know if SAA is here but um uh SAA and Rahul and the whole team I mean the the demo day of create xla last week was was was unbelievable um the the record number of companies the quality of the companies the investors that are coming to see those companies to meet the founders to consider making Investments uh so all the programs that we run it's not just create X it's all the things we're doing in Eis squar the advanced technology Development Center that we run on behalf of the state Venture Labs all the other programs uh that we run in different in at the sheller College in other places are we're going to be investing in them to make sure that really Atlanta claims its spot in in the nation as one of the hot beds for for Innovation so those are the four uh the four big bets as you say I as want to emphasize these are not new things this is if you will a way to to channel and focus our our our our attention there are four other foundational we call them foundational priorities may not be the the best term the best we've been able to do these are important things essential things that we do that are not so sharply defined as as in we're going to double the number of degrees but they're are essential to be able to accomplish our mission and do that in according in accordance to our to our values first we need to remain fully committed to building a community that supports the well-being and the sense of belonging of students staff faculty from all backgrounds and perspectives and double down on our work to protect everyone's freedom of expression and inquiry and turn our campus or keep our campus strengthen our campus as a as an academic community that is vibrant intellectually that helps everybody grow in intellectually and personally so that ton of work that is happening that needs to continue to to happen there second we need to build a campus that is a model for sustainability that serves us that inspires us that inspires people in our surrounding communities a green beautiful space at the heart of our city that is really an example of smart growth of accessibility and sustainability third we need to improve our campus services and all the administrative processes we need to apply continue to apply technology we need to consider changes in culture in organization the goal is to um optimize efficiency increase agility support the work of our growing Community uh and do that by engaging the talent that we have among uh students and um faculty and staff lastly uh we need to support Athletics at a time of huge change and uncertainty we are committed to helping our students our student athletes grow we're committed to staying competitive to create an engaging experience for our fans for our alumni not only those who come to our games here but also those who watch us on on TV and we need to do all that in a changing landscape that is plagued with and certainty and he's not making uh things easier but we are committed to finding a model that does all that and is consistent with our values so again these are not new commitments um these are just statements of areas in which we need to continue to invest and pay attention to many things happening already this very semester uh our colleagues laa Hong and her team is student engagement and well-being launch the first year wellness program uh for students and there uh numerous other programs that are being launched also in corporation with um &f and HR for faculty and staff we're also uh rolling out you'll get information soon a new set of training resources on freedom of speech that will be made available one for students another one for faculty and staff and the goal is to strengthen our commitment to freedom of expression and to build that intellectually Vibrant Community I don't know if it was last night or today uh we get another recognition from a foundation that uh pushes freedom of speech and higher education called fire some of you may recall that I had an interview here on campus with the CEO of fire and one of the things they do is they they rank universities in terms of of their climate around uh freedom of speech a few years ago we were ranked 90 in the country and we talked to them said what can we do to do better I think we were in the 20 s last year 27 maybe this year whether I don't know if it came up this very morning we were ranked number five in the country um so so I'm I'm really proud of of the work we're doing but this is something that belongs to each one of us to be to be respectful of of the other um to be even curious inquisitive to turn the diversity of ideas in a place like Jord Tech into an opportunity to learn to grow to ask questions as opposed to uh having that be a wedge to to to divide us um so huge huge area for all of us we continue to make uh improvements on our campus and uh um and of course um this summer uh we were uh supposed to be done digging holes on campus by the time students moved in uh you were going to be so I'll tell you what what you we wanted you to have seen moving back to campus to have this new streets and sidewalks to support uh pedestrians and bicycles and other lightweight Vehicles a more walkable Greener campus and you will see a lot of that but sometimes it's hard to see because we've had to dig huge holes in the middle of campus to deal with this crisis around the the chiller infrastructure it's sign that we need to invest in in deferred maintenance but but we're making great great progress and that's only the beginning I mean that every year again those of us who remember the old Georgia Tech campus it was nothing like that it was not walkable it was not green it was full of cars and Roads and surface parking we're now this year we were listed as one of the most beautiful campuses In America which was shocking for me to uh to see but we're but we're it we're it and we're going to continue to to build this this beautiful Oasis uh in the middle of our of our city um we've launch uh sustainability next which is our first comprehensive sustainability plan um and the climate action plan which uh aims at reaching net zero emissions and 100% clean energy by 2050 this is very very ambitious that will include uh also changing our transportation Fleet in many in many other many other areas of the operation on the administrative side I am fully aware that we have way too many outdated ways of doing things that over time create bottlenecks inefficiencies and quite honestly can be very frustrated to to to many of us this has to be a top priority over the next 5 years let's leverage new we're going to install a new uh enterprise resource planning uh system with in partnership with the with with the the university system let's use data analytics let's use AI let's use whatever we need to do in terms of uh of of organization and culture to to increase the speed the agility the quality of the services that we provide and let's continue to strengthen the culture of ethics and compliance because it's uh it's hugely hugely important we need to create systems and processes that make ethical conduct easy and misconduct difficult and where each of us support each other and hold each other accountable so that we can keep earning the public trust lastly as I mentioned in athletics um we are in a new world we are working very hard uh to be ready for IT jod Tech Athletics has played a key role through throughout our history it's an integral part of Georgia Tech it serves of course student athletes we produce impressive alni um it helps keep our community engaged it represents our brand Across the Nation and Beyond but this last spring the NCAA and the leading conferences agreed to a new Revenue sharing system after pretty lengthy and costly litigation um that would allow students to benefit from the television and SP sponsorship value they help generate this is a big shift in in how money flows within the whole business of Athletics so to remain competitive in the new system we're going to need to make pretty significant budgetary adjustments within the athletic program but also we need the support of our donors and most likely adjustment to student fees to other forms of support from The Institute all of the solutions are on the table we need to do what ever we can to support Georgia Tech Athletics to remain competitive now the long-term goal is for Georgia Tech Athletics to remain to be a financially self-sufficient operation but the transition will require the help from from all of us we are well equipped over the last few years we've brought new leadership our athletic director Jay is doing a phenomenal job we've hired new coaches we've ramped up our efforts to raise support and funding we're raising more money we have the best fundraising year in athletics ever this past year we're building a new home on the corner another of the big construction projects the new Tom Fanning student atlete performance center at the corner of Techwood and Bobby do and we're planning other upgrades to make sure the the experience of our fans is is is phenomenal but lot of changes happening there so those four areas again we call them differently because they're defined in different ways perhaps not without the same sort of sharp goals but they're huge huge uh hugely important so those are our four big bets foundational priorities for the next 5 years um the communications team has put all this information available in the Strategic plan.at tech.edu website um so so I hope that everybody uh you read it you reflect on this hopefully this helps you align your own efforts all the things that you your units are doing is how can we uh help us achieve those those those big bets and not new objectives fully aligned with with our strategic plan but hopefully helpful in in connecting all of us um so I need your help your voices your experiences your values your contributions I ask that you remain engaged and active uh that you that you take action in your own units that you share ideas um and that you your support and dedication to making J to Tech a better place are just indispensable to achieve everything that I've listed uh today before I I close just uh a a be remiss IFI didn't mention our recent trip to to Ireland uh but not only because because we won and winning is great actually it was felt it felt uh it felt uh wonderful actually it was it was it was great but but I'll tell you for everything that happened around that trip um I was so proud of of of being there with with the Jord Tech delegation representing us the way we we had U uh volunteer service projects with a with the students students that are doing the first year abroad came came in um we visited a hospital you should have seen our cheerleaders cheering some of the patients that are dealing with terrible terrible diseases we had a CEO panel with one uh a distinguished alom Paul Brown together with a CEO of Air Lingus and all the top government officials and CEOs in the country in attendance uh we had meetings in City uh Hall in the the the the jch uh band uh really playing outside of City Hall bringing uh Dublin to a halt people like oh my gosh impressed by I'll tell you it is one of those moments and that that make you realize just just what an incredible brand uh Georgia Tech has has has developed how how we are seen and perceived and valued and esteemed not just at home but all over the world and I just wanted to highlight that so thank you for your time I'm reading the nonverbals I think I've over stayed my welcome here uh thank you for your dedication and with that um I'm happy to take some some questions great wonderful I go over there great wonderful thank you so much president Cabrera um we are over time so I'm just going to take two questions and unfortunately we have a lot so apologies I'm going to try to combine a couple um the tragic events in Winder yesterday scared us deeply could you talk a bit about what's being done to ensure the safety of our campus so yeah I I am as Disturbed and and shocked and saddened as as as everybody is and and I think it's a reminder that we need to keep our uh our guard are we need to be super super alert I am so proud of Georgia Tech uh police department what they do the way they use uh technology to keep us safe but they cannot do this alone so we have deployed an app that I think most of you have if not we uh Dr Hong will send more information we need everybody to have the app if you see something say something click on the app report what you see it doesn't matter if it hopefully what you saw was nothing but just just gr so we need to stay alert I mean this is this is serious but uh really my my heart goes out to uh to the victims and their families it's just really hard-breaking um in May the congress's select committee on China sent a letter to Georgia Tech regarding our instructional site and activities in China what is the status of the Congressional investigation and what impact might it have on our educational programs in China so yeah it's been it's been a busy summer because uh the this committee had lots of questions about what it is we're doing in China we've been providing all the all the information we've been super totally transparent uh they've asked more questions of clarification we've provided all that information um we we have been in China now for several DEC for at least a couple of decades and we've been in China to support the interest of the United States at a time where actually we wanted to be uh in China and develop those those relationships um the issue that we're dealing with is that our partner especially in the shenen campus um the the the we we we're part of a thing called the Jord section Institute which is an independent Chinese entity that is governing by the city of shenen uh Georgia Tech and tianin university tianin university in 20120 was put on The Entity list by the department of by the American Department of Commerce they they keep an entity list of entities that our government has questions about uh in terms of uh of of of national interest considerations and that's our partner and you required in China to have a partner for to operate and to offer offer degrees so um we've been given our partners ample time I mean this happened in in December of 2020 and um and we've been we we capped our enrollment we've been putting some some pressure we were going to launch the PD we didn't launch the PHD we've been trying to see as of this day our partner has not rectified that um that situation they're still on the entity list so so put the Congressional questions aside because I think we we've done a good job of providing all the information we're compliant with all the rules and all that but we still need to ask ourselves the big question about um whether or not we can continue to be in a in a partnership with with a partner that unfortunately is has made the this this list in in in our government so super complex uh situation uh shenen is a wonderful place for for us for our students uh it's a wonderful it's really uh one of the global most pre preeminent of uh of business of Technology of manufacturing there are a few places that I would recommend students to to go study brought to better than that but we need to consider our options in terms of what our presence there is it's a difficult situation so unfortunately we don't have more time for questions but we are going to show the public service announcement do you want to ceue up the vision with this and the story of these girls yeah so so yeah the many times when we do uh at these public service announcements Great Value when we have our our our football team on TV or basketball team or volleyball team we get this free free space on on TV uh most universities just have the same kind of genre these ads with like just students walking through a beautiful campus or whatever nothing wrong with that but we thought we're going to take a different approach the communications team has been very creative say what if we tell a story a story that reflects uh who we are the kinds of things we we do and they picked story that is uh related to create X is related to students Ingenuity is related to impact which I love and that

2024-09-14 00:02

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