Hopefully your new year is off to a great start! If you’ve been in Bloomington, you know it’s been filled with snow. As we enter the spring term at IUB, we are hitting the ground running (or skiing, perhaps). Here is a preview of key initiatives to look for in the days ahead.
Along with the ongoing lab and infrastructure renovation projects active across campus, we are working with schools and the College to review new proposed guidelines for research space allocation and utilization. My thanks to Caroline Jarrold from the College and Todd Royer from O’Neill for spearheading this effort.
We are also continuing numerous faculty searches, including several hires in 12 strategic areas related to technology and life sciences. I am excited that faculty committees have reviewed over 2,000 applications and interviewed nearly 200 candidates to date. I look forward to getting more of these key faculty innovators to campus this fall and beyond.
Faculty and academic leaders continue to innovate in the curriculum, in alignment with student and market interest. Three new undergraduate and eight graduate degrees, involving seven different schools and the College, have been developed and received final approval in 2024. An additional three graduate certificates and seven Accelerated Master’s Program pathways also have been added. Many other programs remain in discussion and under development.
Work is also progressing on the IU-wide budget redesign initiative. The project is intended to improve centralized budget planning and accountability while incentivizing innovation and collaboration across all campuses. At a campus level, the campus steering committee is now assessing, reviewing and developing new conceptual models and will be reviewing those with BFC and other leaders this spring. The group will then run current models alongside any new budget model in the next fiscal year, 2026-2027, putting us on pace for launching a new budget model in fiscal year 2027.
Following the record $138 million grant from the Lilly Foundation for a new biomedicine and technologies hub at IU, “IU LAB,” we are moving ahead quickly on the next steps. With Vice President for Research Russ Mumper, we are building a campus working group to explore the best opportunities for Bloomington faculty and programs to be involved. This is an exciting development, and I encourage all our faculty interested in translational biotech to find out more.
We continue to advance key initiatives connected to the 2030 plan related to experiential learning, the first-year undergraduate experience, supporting transfer students, and updating general education, including a new seminar for first-year students. We are also enhancing career development and coaching for graduate students, along with additional efforts to support our student assistants, benchmarking teaching and research stipends with BFC, and increasing compensation.
IU is commited to empowering students through innovative programs and enhanced support as part of our IUB 2030 strategic planning.
We have recently received recommendations from a campus working group led by Education Dean Stacy Morrone, looking at classroom needs. The study included extensive data collection with faculty and students, in which you may have participated. We will be advancing the next steps, particularly toward developing a classroom master plan, in the coming days.
With congratulations to Indiana’s new governor, Mike Braun, our university relations team and senior leaders are working tirelessly to ensure our interests – and those of higher education broadly – are as well represented as possible across Indiana and beyond. The state’s new legislative session is underway, including setting our state budget allocation for the next two years. As I have said before, we continue to have a critical opportunity to demonstrate the impact and value we bring to Indiana and the world every day.
We are working with Dean Rick Van Kooten and other College leaders to ensure a sustainable future for the College that enables strategic growth, given continued pressures on enrollment and rising costs, as are happening across higher education, particularly among arts and sciences schools. I am confident the College here will emerge stronger and even better prepared to pursue the biggest opportunities for impact we have ahead.
The search process for the new Bloomington chancellor continues to advance, with campus interviews expected in February. We will also be recruiting leaders for other key campus leadership positions, including the deans of the Kelley School of Business and the Hutton Honors College, the vice provost for undergraduate education, and the executive director for arts and humanities. I look forward to working with each of these prospective colleagues.
For staff, beginning this spring, the Bloomington campus will also host quarterly new employee welcome sessions. These events will provide an official welcome, an overview of what it means to work at IU, and a detailed exploration of the lesser-known benefits of being a staff member at IU Bloomington.
It promises to be an exciting and busy rest of winter and spring at IUB. I look forward to continued collaboration in helping us all reach our fullest potential.
Faculty, staff, and students may nominate faculty from across IU Bloomington, with self-nominations welcome.
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Staffing rural health clinics in southern Indiana is one of the many ways that Indiana University students are tackling the challenge of increasing access to health care across the state.
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IU Bloomington will increase its minimum stipend pay for graduate students who hold part-time teaching or research appointments to $24,000 beginning July 1.
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