By Jamie L. Freedman
The state of the university is sound, GW President Steven Knapp affirmed at the annual Faculty Assembly Oct. 5 in the Jack Morton Auditorium.
The fall meeting—which brings together all regular, full-time GW faculty members--featured a comprehensive State of the University address by Dr. Knapp, who updated the professors on the year’s highlights, discussed his top institutional priorities and outlined his vision for GW.
The president’s remarks began with an overview of GW’s record-setting undergraduate and graduate entering classes. “This academic year has gotten off to a great start, especially when it comes to our increasing selectivity as an institution,” Dr. Knapp said.
The class of 2014 is the most academically qualified class in GW history. “We had just short of 22,000 applications this year for our undergraduate freshman class and accepted 31 percent of the applicants, which is our lowest admit rate ever,” Dr. Knapp said.
The university’s graduate programs, too, received the highest number of applicants in university history—15,700—coupled with the lowest-ever admit rate—42 percent. “The medical school received 10,500 applications—the highest ever, and an admit rate of 3 percent, which is steady with previous years,” the president continued. “And the Law School’s entering class is the strongest ever with a median LSAT of 167 out of 180—that’s the 95th percentile—and a median cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 3.79.”
The university’s new faculty members and deans are an equally impressive group, the president continued. “Each year, I am more and more impressed by the caliber of the faculty that we are recruiting and bringing into this institution,” he said. “It’s a very encouraging sign of where this institution is moving, as we strive to achieve our aspiration to become the premier research university in the broader capital region.”
The president emphasized that throughout the recent economic downturn, GW was able to continue recruiting top faculty and investing in the future. “Unlike many of our peer institutions who at the time of the financial crash found themselves strapped, we have remained financially strong, which has enabled us to continue hiring and growing while other universities have had to either freeze or reduce their programs,” he stated.
Progress in one of GW’s top institutional priorities, research and discovery, was highlighted by the identification of 10 cross-disciplinary initiatives that will be the subject of special focus in the years ahead, he said. The president highlighted three of the targeted initiatives: computational biology, the global status of women and autism. Dr. Knapp spoke about the university’s plans to launch a computational biology institute in the near future, as well as an institute focusing on global women’s issues.
“We have existing strengths across the institution in the fields of global women’s issues, autism and many other focus areas, as well as extraordinary opportunities in those fields presented to us by our location in the nation’s capital,” Dr. Knapp said.
Another area of growth at the university centers on GW’s physical infrastructure. “Next week, our Board of Trustees will be acting on a proposal to build a state-of-the-art science and engineering complex on our Foggy Bottom Campus to address the most urgent scientific and technological problems of our time,” President Knapp said. Several other new academic facilities are in the works, including a new home for the School of Public Health and Health Services, a new law learning center on G Street, and the renovation of the Ames Building on the Mount Vernon Campus.
The president lauded GW’s two newest residence halls—West Hall, which opened this fall on the Mount Vernon Campus, and South Hall, which has achieved LEED Gold certification. “I am confident that West Hall will also achieve LEED Gold,” he said. “It is another very welcome addition to the university.”
“So, how do we pay for all this new construction, plus the ongoing recruitment of top faculty from around the world?” the president asked.
Discussions are currently underway regarding the launch of a comprehensive new capital campaign, he said. The GW Power and Promise Fund, a philanthropic campaign to quadruple support for need-based scholarships, is making strides. “It’s a pretty ambitious goal, but by dramatically increasing philanthropic support for scholarships, we won’t have to draw so much on tuition revenue to cover student aid,” the president explained, pointing out that GW has increased scholarship support by 47 percent over the past five years, and is budgeting $150 million for student aid this academic year.
Dr. Knapp updated the faculty on the latest news regarding the Innovation Task Force—which he established last year to help propel GW to the next level of excellence. “So far, $17.5 million in recurring savings have been identified toward the ITF’s total target of $60 million over five years, and we are now at the implementation phase for the first six innovation initiatives,” he said.
Dr. Knapp concluded his remarks by referencing GW’s strong partnerships with institutions in Washington and beyond. “We continue to engage the world from this nation’s capital in a variety of ways,” he said. “Today on our campus, we are co-hosting the GreenGov Symposium in partnership with the White House. This summer, we signed a new memorandum of understanding with the Smithsonian, building upon our 100-year partnership. And we recently entered into a partnership with Politico, the political publication, to support our Battleground Poll. All of these partnerships give a great deal of visibility to GW.”
“It is an exciting time at the George Washington University, as we prepare for the university’s bicentennial celebration in 2021 and for the centennial of our arrival in Foggy Bottom in 2012,” he said. “We are poised for a decade of transformation ahead, as the university continues to grow in stature.”
GW’s Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Steven Lerman, who joined the university this summer, next took the podium, introducing the university’s new faculty members and thanking his predecessor Donald Lehman for helping ease his transition to GW.
Dr. Lerman thanked everyone in attendance for the “wonderful welcome” he has received at the university. “I have felt a part of this community from the day I arrived on campus,” he said.
“GW is a place on the move,” he said. “This is a pivotal time in the university’s history, as we aspire to become a premier, world-class research and teaching university. We have both the wherewithal and the intellectual capacity to make it happen, and I’m deeply committed to being a part of that.”