HEDCO 10th Anniversary Celebration, Speech to Donors
October 25, 2019–Tonight, we celebrate a decade of extraordinary achievements. And, because I have the best job in the world, I have had the distinct pleasure of watching these achievements play out for half of that decade. To be honest, I was not sure I wanted to join the UO if an offer was tendered. As some of you will recall, the moment of my hire in 2014 was a time of significant leadership churning and, well, bad press.
During my on-campus interview, however, I discovered that we had a unique resource that would drive our success – our donor community. I had interviewed for other positions that year, but my UO interview schedule was the only one that included a dinner meeting with advancement staff and a donor. Amy Kari and Paul Elstone’s commitment, generosity, and good humor – accompanied by some great Oregon wine and food – convinced me that our college had unlimited upside potential. Three presidents and four provosts later, here I stand celebrating our success with you. Thanks, Amy and Paul!
It is most appropriate that we celebrate you, our university donors, who have laid key components in our foundation for academic excellence – this inspiring HEDCO building, and our renovated Lokey complex. However, this improved and updated physical space is just one foundational element of a field-leading academic unit like ours.
Our foundation for greatness has been built by decades of achievements by our faculty, hardworking and creative staff, and college leadership. The accomplishments of Ed Kame’enui serve as one example of our faculty leadership. He was one of only two academics to become a founding commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm – the Institute of Education Sciences. Dean Emeritus, Marty Kaufman, whose life and legacy we celebrated two weeks ago, lifted our college from the virtual ashes of the Measure 5 budget cuts. And Mike Bullis, who is also with us this evening, led our college’s response to community concerns about our lack of inclusiveness and diversity, among other accomplishments. And, it is with deep gratitude and sorrow that we remember Andrea Wiggins’ contributions to our success. Truly, it is our people that make us great. But our people can only thrive with state-of-the-art physical infrastructure and financial supports to conduct the best research, outreach and instruction.
I want you to know that your support of endowed faculty professorships and chairs has allowed us to retain and recruit the best faculty in the country – 27 tenure-related faculty alone – during these past five years. You, our donors and university leaders, have ensured our future success by keeping our talented faculty in place long enough to achieve at the highest levels. Your donor funds have also allowed us to build out needed research space and to launch the HEDCO Clinic on a path toward achieving national stature and influence. Our expanded clinical services will allow us to put many more lives back on a favorable trajectory.
With the build out of our intellectual and physical plant foundation nearly complete, our future is assured. You may ask, what does that future look like? Some aspects of our future might be obvious, while others may surprise you.
First, our research leadership will continue to expand. We have more innovations in the marketplace than any of our peers – 40 plus – and more under development. The KinderTeK app is one example of a product under development by faculty. This mathematics instruction app is proving effective for improving the achievement of early elementary grade children.
We also set another sponsored projects funding record this year, accounting for about 40% of the university’s total. We will make breakthroughs in fields ranging from preventing school disciplinary actions to improving school lunches. We will find new ways to improve children’s reading and mathematics skills and help youth recover more quickly from concussive head injuries.
Our service and outreach will soon be recognized as a co-equal contribution of our college to Oregon and the nation. We will better highlight the work of our Early Childhood Cares unit, which serves the specialized educational needs of all infants and preschoolers in Lane County. Yes, we are likely the only college of education in the country that runs our own school district. Thanks to our dedicated donors, the HEDCO Clinic has its first permanent Director, a position for a post-doctoral trainee, and an endowment that provides needed staffing. You may also not know that two of our outreach units provide the assessments needed to help high school students make career decisions in Oregon and across the nation. We are a service and outreach powerhouse. It’s about time that we told this story, which is why you will see more, and more effective, communication from our college, which will allow us to improve more lives.
Most importantly, our faculty are leading an unprecedented renewal of our curriculum. We have launched field-leading new academic programs in prevention science, and we are increasing student access by offering more on-line and remote access options for graduate students. By fall of 2020, we will initiate a fully on-line masters degree program for training Board-Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and we will have a specialization in educational data science. Our faculty have also led the creation of new curricula that enhances Oregon’s children’s understanding of, and appreciation for our native peoples. We are also improving our student’s experience in response to student surveys. These improvements in student access, success, and experience will increase student enrollment, and produce more alumni that will positively impact our society.
Finally, did you know that we are the leading producer of Ph.D. graduates at the UO? Yes, we graduate more doctoral alumni per tenure-related faculty member than any unit on campus – and by a large margin. Thus, we are having a profound impact on education and the human sciences nationally and internationally by producing the next generation of university and college faculty members.
I summarize our accelerating instructional, research, and service accomplishments as follows. We have been recognized for some time as a great college of education and we should be proud of that fact. However, because of our auspicious progress in instruction, research, and outreach, I believe that the final step on the achievement hierarchy – preeminence among our peers – is within reach.
There is no satisfaction to be had by not striving to be better, to do more, and consequently be considered the preeminent college of education. So, we push forward to break through to the highest tier of achievement. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “There is no passion to be found in playing small…”
Thank you, again, for all that you do for us. Go Ducks!
R.W. Kamphaus, PhD, Professor and Dean
Additional reading:
https://around.uoregon.edu/content/hedco-anniversary-marks-decade-innovation-and-service