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- U of M President David Rudd on his time at the university tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] - I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by U of M President David Rudd, thanks for being here again.

- Yeah, good to be with you.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

So you have been president for coming up on, what eight years now?

- Yeah, about eight years, correct.

- You are moving on though, we'll talk about your staying around, but moving on from the president's role, you spent a year as provost.

So nine years at the U of M and I want to talk there, maybe some, current event stuff that we should talk about, but I didn't wanna spend a bunch of time looking back on U of M and the changes, challenges you talked about your, you told me just a minute ago before we started that you're in the middle of writing a book, "Perpetual Crisis".

- "Perpetual Crisis," yeah, yeah.

Which captures it.

- Which captures it, which you said there were some 68 crises that you dealt with.

We won't talk about every single one.

I wanted to start though, on the positive in the sense of, is there one accomplishment, there's been so much change at the U of M, I mean so much, and the world has changed and Memphis has changed and higher-ed will talk about, has changed so much and continues to change, but do you look at one or a set of accomplishments that really you are most proud of?

- Yeah, it probably is not what other people would recognize.

And I would argue arguably the most critical thing for the university, for the community and for the future of the University of Memphis.

We did a couple of things that were really important.

One early in my tenure, we identified the mission and values at the university.

And so we had greater clarity about who we were, why we exist, and then what are the values that we follow in serving this community, that was critical.

And we really embraced our role in serving the Memphis community and recognizing that we exist to serve students, both at the undergraduate and the graduate level, which is essential.

And that's not to dismiss our research mission.

You know, I'm a clinical scientist by training and very much an active researcher, but at the heart of every university are students, and as a result of that, we made very significant gains in graduation.

We made very significant gains in closing inequities in graduation and retention rates across students that had advantages versus those that had disadvantages and we've closed those gaps and we've moved those rates significantly.

And then we did all of that within a frame of affordability in terms of recapturing, an affordable environment that provides access to students, so they can be successful.

I would take that as foundation of everything that we've done over the course of the past eight years.

- One of the things that, you've been nice enough to be on the show many times over the years and talking about all kinds of things, and rarely talk about sports, which is always funny.

I always have it on my list and we rarely get there, which is fine.

- Which is a big chunk of those crises.

[laughing] [indistinct] - I would like to know what the percentage is.

But I remember one of the earliest changes I think you made if my memory is right, it was that you changed the definition in a couple steps of what it in-state/out-of-state.

I think the first step was broadening what in-state would be a 250-mile radius.

- Yeah.

- Instead of the state borders, because of the very obvious reality that Memphis is in the center of multiple states.

- Yes - We are sort of the capital, people say we're the capital of the Delta we're all these people, and that immediately changed the dynamics of who you were bringing in.

And am I right that eventually you just got rid of out-of-state tuition because you said, why are we doing this?

We want the best students, and we're gonna do this differently than other people.

- Yeah, absolutely.

At the heart of that is kind of, a relatively archaic perspective that legislatures, not just in Tennessee, but nationally have used.

[indistinct] - Yeah.

- Mentality and all that kind of stuff.

- Yeah, they were providing state funding, you ought to have advantages if you're an in-state student.

So we dramatically reduced those costs, like you said, we started with that five-state region.

Then we expanded nationally and we reduced out-of-state tuition rates by about 30% in contrast to previous years.

Give you an example of that, certainly the pandemic has been difficult for everyone.

In-state enrollment contracted 2.4% last year at the University of Memphis.

And across the state of Tennessee, it was 3.5% so we actually did better than most.

Out-of-state growth at the University of Memphis last year was 14% positive.

So it's growing as a national university.

If you look at the actual, they're called heat maps of activity for applications, admissions, and enrollment, you can see the movement from a regional university to very much a national university that is in every state in the Union now, and globally has remarkable reach.

Our U of M Global campus is the fastest growing arm of University of Memphis and U of M Global now accounts for 16% of all enrollment at the university.

- Yeah, bring in Bill.

- Talk to me a little bit, Dr. Rudd, about the impact of these last two years, and the pandemic specifically on the university.

Obviously there are a lot of goals that were there at the outset of the pandemic.

What did the pandemic do to those plans and to those goals?

- Well, I will tell you, in terms of our effort around capital improvement, the building and growing infrastructure for the campus, none of that slowed down.

So we actually got our STEM building, the new science building funded, they'll actually break ground on that this coming year.

This session, we're gonna get a $50 million endowment for our Carnegie One effort.

We're gonna get two additional renovations funded for the Fogelman College of Business.

- Carnegie One, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but for people not as close to it.

- Carnegie One is a national research university classification system.

They're 146 universities that are at the top tier that's public and private and the University of Memphis achieved that this past December when they did the new rankings.

And, so the pandemic slowed that effort in terms of student growth out-of-state.

But as I just mentioned, this last year the largest portion of the growth we had was out-of-state grew our electronic delivery a little bit more, but ultimately what was critical for us is we had about a little bit under 2000 students that were at risk to dropout.

And given federal dollars and reallocation of internal dollars, we were able to keep enrolled at the University of Memphis, about 1600 students that we probably would've lost.

That's at the heart of the mission of the university.

That's why we're here, that's how we serve this community.

That was a remarkably positive outcome in a very difficult time.

- As to the title of your book "Perpetual Crisis."

- Yes.

- How many of those crises actually dealt with academics and how many of those were outside of what people become university presidents for?

- Oh, I don't think any of them dealt with academics.

[laughter] And I mean that very genuinely, I don't think a single one dealt with academics.

I mean, if you look at the definition of academia, I don't think a single one of them, a good, I'm just trying to look at a round figure in my head real quick, probably a full 40% were athletics, and the other were social issues that impact our campus, that ripple into the campus from the local community nationally and globally, that become political issues on campus.

- I kind of suspected that, but it does really illuminate that for the status as a research university, for all of those goals, for managing to retain about 1600 students who probably would've been in the wind and not going.

- That's never even been covered in the press.

- Yeah.

- So wouldn't rise to the issue of being a crisis.

It was a critical crisis for the university, but nobody knows about it.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

There'd been one of the changes I think is most striking, we've talked about before has been the increase of, I don't know how to describe it, but more of a residential campus, right?

- Absolutely.

- More buildings, more students on campus, more private housing right around campus, the transformation of neighborhoods in part, through the community development in partnership with, I think the community development corporation, the university district community development, the landscape changes, right?

I mean, along Highland Row and development there and all that, was that a part of the original plan, I mean.

- Oh, yeah.

- To say, "Hey, we don't wanna be "just as much of a commuter college, "we want to have this residential experience that we didn't have enough of."

- We have to be that to achieve at the level that university needs to achieve.

It has to be more of a residential university, needs to be tied to those neighborhoods, needs to be tied to the community.

That kind of development is essential for that level of success, that kind of visibility, and to provide that kind of a quality experience for students, so you can attract those students, those faculty, those staff, and then keep them.

- Yeah.

- That is a part of the effort where we built our school system.

We have literally built an entire school system.

- Yeah.

- We just opened the Porter-Leath U of M facility, the early child facility, that's in partnership with Porter-Leath, that facility serves from birth through preschool.

And now we have that, the ELRC, which serves preschool children.

We have kindergarten and our campus school, we have middle school and this year we're opening high school, we will serve the full spectrum.

And that is to create that residential environment for faculty and staff and students growing the residential base in terms of students, living on campus is critical.

It needs to realistically double, and so that is... - And from what it... - About 12%, needs to be 25%.

To be a real residential campus, you need to have a quarter of your students living on the campus.

- How long will that take?

- It'll take a decade.

- A decade really?

- Yeah.

- It'll take a decade and several hundred million dollars of investment.

- In the housing and infrastructure.

- In buying land to do it, and so, yeah, absolutely.

- In that we talk about 10 years and you and I have talked before about, you know, just the trajectory of higher-ed.

Our kids are similar ages and I think we've talked about this before, coincidentally, but one at USC, University of Southern California, one at NYU, right?

Do I remember that.

- Considered USC, University of Texas, Texas Law School.

- Right, okay.

Sorry, but the trajectory for some of these schools and their costs are unbelievable.

And it's not just these, these are ones that are near and dear to my heart emotionally and financially.

- Yes it is stunning.

- So I have one, you know, I only have 10 more months of a daughter at NYU and she's been lucky and fortunate.

- I have paid that bill and I know.

- But you look at the trajectory, it will be a hundred thousand dollars a year.

- Easily.

- In four or five years.

I mean, given the inflation runs ahead at colleges, it has forever, that is not alone, it's just a one that's near and dear to our heart - Yes, yes.

There are so many schools on that trajectory and it just, and I know we've had this conversation before, but you look around and you wonder how many people can really afford a $400,000 education and how many people are gonna view that, even if they can do it and say, is that really worth it?

- That's the question.

And that is actually good to hear you say that.

And I would argue, this is coming from a first generation student that had the great privilege of being able to go to Princeton on a military scholarship and would I argue whether or not it's worth it, no.

I would argue that everything that you want to do, you can accomplish at the University of Memphis and you can do it at half one year's cost for a school like NYU for the entire tenure at the University of Memphis, that's a better investment.

And then the real trajectory for professional if you decide to go to professional school, go to law school, medical school, get a doctorate, it's the transition to professional school that will dictate your professional trajectory.

And you can do some of that at the University of Memphis, but you can go from the University of Memphis to anywhere.

And I can give you example after example after example of student has gone from University of Memphis to Harvard, gone from University of Memphis to Princeton, gone all over to the highest ranked programs nationally and been successful.

- Yeah, Bill.

- So has that changed the nature of the student who sets out and says, "I'm gonna go to this school for four years."

Are you seeing fewer of those and are you seeing more students who one year here, oh, okay, I can get that here and make that transition.

- Well, we're seeing more students that come to us, and this is the great thing, another reason we built the high school on campuses is it's a full dual enrollment high school.

You can finish a year of college while you're in high school.

So you can come, you can go through our educational system, finish a year of college, and then do three years at the University of Memphis complete an undergraduate degree.

We're seeing more students bring in dual enrollment credit, be with us for briefer period of time, and then staying on for graduate school and be able to do all of that at a fraction of the cost that you would pay elsewhere.

And we're seeing more students recognizing the benefit of lowering their overall cost and investment and recognizing is it a good move for you to, if you don't have someone who can help you with the tuition fee cost for a university, is it a good investment to take that kind of loan debt at that age?

And I think the argument is becoming more and more clear that in some cases it is not.

- It seems as if it wasn't that long ago, though, that we were discussing probably around this table, that historically it was taking college students longer to get their degree.

So this is a relatively recent phenomena.

- It is, and you're gonna see, you know, as over the course of the last four years, our graduation rates have moved consistently and sustained above 50%.

This last year was our most successful year in our history in terms of graduation.

And a part of that is we've changed systems that reach to students individually in terms of advising and graduation tracking.

And we've implemented technology that facilitates that as well, and help students understand and recognize the financial impact and decisions they make and then we start that process in orientation.

So every single student that comes through orientation gets financial advising at the very beginning of their journey, so they recognize what these investments and costs are.

- So the clock is ticking.

- The clock is ticking and the longer it ticks, the more it costs you and there are all kinds of pathways to help you get through this at dramatically less expense, have a high quality experience that prepares you for the next step and to do it in a way that is smart.

- Is that a function of all of the attention on student loan debt?

Do you think?

- It's a function of a recognition of the significance of that.

I mean, you know, it is remarkable.

I was actually looking at some numbers the other day of average student loan debt, not just at our university, but other universities as well, looking at NYU and a couple of others, and what the interest costs are to students.

Not paying down principle, but what just the interest costs are over the life of those.

It is just stunning, the amount of debt that has been incurred.

- I wonder the change, I've seen it among my peers.

I mean, when I went to college a long time ago, I got on, my parents put me on a plane with a bag and they shipped some boxes and I got there and I called them and I told them I got here, and then I talked them once a week, maybe from the hall phone, right?

- I talked to them once a month.

- Yeah, I mean, they came to college twice and they certainly never had contact with my faculty, with scheduling.

It was all just me, I was on my own, that was a great experience.

I made lots of mistakes and I did certain things really well.

That's not so much the case anymore with a lot of parents.

I am really struck by peers of mine.

I shall not name names, friends and peers who are so deeply involved in their kids' lives and academic experience.

Even over your last eight years, I mean, just the, I know colleges have had to staff for this to.

- Absolutely.

- Communicate with parents who are deeply involved in class schedules, all kinds of things.

- Yeah, you know, it is interesting.

One of the things I would argue that I think was important about my time at the university has been that I've been accessible.

It's a good thing and a bad thing to be accessible.

I believe in it because it's a value.

So I've made myself accessible and the reason I've done it is 'cause it helps reveal where the problems are, when you're accessible.

Because you hear from people that are having interactions at levels that are at the entry level at the university and the day to day level at the university so you know what the problems are.

And I can tell you that we have gotten dramatically better at dealing with those things because I've been made aware of them and I get dramatically fewer complaints.

But I will tell you, I hear most frequently from parents, not from students, but from parents.

And I would argue a big part of that is the cost of this endeavor that parents are so heavily invested, that they wanna make sure that they are getting some return on that investment.

And that when higher education elevates the cost so dramatically, I would argue that as a parent, you have a right to do that.

I would encourage people to do that.

Recognize though, that there many of those issues need to be dealt with by the student, that they're grown adults.

It's hard to accept that sometimes, but they should argue those cases.

- Yeah.

- Dr. Rudd, let's talk about sports.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Does sports have an out-sized role-- - Oh, no question.

- At colleges and universities?

- I mean, it's not even debatable, my goodness.

What did college athletics generate, what 16 billion last year nationally?

It is absolutely no question that it has an oversized role.

It's the most visible aspect of university function.

And as a result of that, one of the things that we did and we decided nine years ago to do, was to leverage the visibility of athletics to move the academics of the university along with it, that universities don't move in pieces.

They move as an entity.

So you can't move an academic unit without moving the whole university.

You can't take in, you know, I got this argument repeatedly about, you need to focus and highlight what our strengths are.

People aren't interested in that, you gotta tie it to what people are interested in.

And that's what we did, and Tiger Athletics is a huge part of that for so many good reasons, but it absolutely is, it's got an oversized role these days.

- So you've been able to move academics with it.

Has it been a time suck, I suppose you would say in pursuing some of those academic roles?

- Not really because, what's interesting about it is somebody had mentioned it to me and said, you know, you spend a lot of time tweeting.

Actually I haven't, I tweet about athletics, but that takes me about a minute, you know, to formulate a tweet.

It doesn't take very long to do that.

Let me give you a figure you'll love.

When I started on an annual average basis, we have doubled how much money is raised annually.

So we've essentially, on an annual basis, raised twice as much money as we were raising annually a year ago or nine years ago, I'm sorry.

If you look at nine years ago on an annual basis, seventy-five percent of what was being raised was athletic.

Twenty-five percent was academic.

You know what it is now, seventy-five percent of what we raised is academic, twenty-five percent of is athletic.

- How did that happen?

How did that [indistinct]?

- Because we leveraged athletics to have conversations with people about what we do academically, and we have quietly moved the needle dramatically.

One of the largest donors at the University of Memphis who has no ties, I won't name the donor, has no ties to the university whatsoever, He is not an alum, has never really spent any time at the university.

My first contact with that donor that is now giving very significant amounts of money at the University of Memphis, I invited him to a football game, 'cause he liked football, has given the vast majority of his donations to academics and it has worked wonderfully for us to move the needle.

And I would argue that is at the foundation of how we've achieved Carnegie One status.

We've moved, we've raised more money, and the vast majority of that money has been in academics.

- What happens next?

We get to do a whole show on conferences and so on and I don't wanna do the sports radio thing, but just from a pure, you know, I mean, universities are, to some degree, a business, right?

And the conference, you know, the sports alignment that mid-size schools like Memphis potentially getting left out of all this realignment and left out of money then, and you said, I mean, it's oversized, but it's a big part of how you leverage.

So you don't want U of M to be left out, it's your successors.

I'm not saying you're leaving it to them as a problem, but they're gonna have to deal with this.

But what does your crystal ball say in terms of where the mid-size schools like Memphis end up with all this constant realignment, all the money that keeps flooding into, especially football, basketball.

- Yeah, it depends on a couple of things.

I mean, you know, one, I would tell you that we are remarkably well positioned.

We have upgraded all of our facilities, we have an indoor practice facility for football, a new operations center for football, a new basketball.

Basketball facility is one of the finest in the country.

And I'd tell you, our football complex is one of the best in the country as well.

We've upgraded all of that, we're getting ready to upgrade baseball and women's soccer, the track facility, getting ready.

We are in a major campaign now, $600 million campaign that we are about halfway there in terms of they'll announce this next year or so about that campaign when they reach 3/4 of it.

We are really well positioned for the next step.

I would tell you that Memphis is the kind of place that any major conference needs to have.

The future of this country is around metropolitan universities.

They are around major cities and Memphis needs to and should be, and we perform at that level and should be a part of that.

The only thing left to do is around the facility for a football, whether we dramatically upgrade the stadium, build a new stadium, and you'll be hearing more about that in the coming weeks.

- You almost broke news there, a new stadium, what?

- Well, that question will be answered about what we're going to do around that.

And we're gonna do a major investment.

This community, this university will be investing significantly to make sure that we are well-positioned and competitive for a major conference.

- Just a minute left, Bill.

- And the state funding, of course I think has been the major part of the question here.

If the Liberty Bowl is replaced, does the state chip in, as it has another university?

- Yeah, I think the state needs to, I think, you know, there was a great article in the Memphis Business Journal about our Carnegie One achievement and had some data and some graphs.

I'd encourage everybody to read it.

Those graphic examples of funding differentials between us and the other public Carnegie One university in the state are profound.

During our period of greatest success over the last nine years, and I am talking about every metric you can use academically or otherwise, across the board, we've never been more successful in outcomes around everything.

That gap between us and the other public Carnegie One university grew significantly.

They received additional funds of 124 million, we received additional funds of 48 million, it grew about 250%.

- Yeah.

- I will say quickly.

I wanted to thank you, I don't normally do this, but you've been accessible.

You've been on the show every time we've asked, and we appreciate that.

You have supported the Institute for Public Service Journalism, which is partnered with Daily Memphis, launched around the time we did and it's done some great journalism I appreciate that.

And WMR, the Memphis Radio station, which we are partnered in is a great music station in Memphis.

So just a note of personal and professional thanks, that you were involved.

You were very involved in little things that I have done with the University of Memphis.

You very much helped.

- Well, I appreciate that.

I believe in transparency for good or bad.

- All right, well, thank you.

Thank you for joining us, do join us again next week.

If you missed any, you can get at it at wkno.org, or you can download the podcast of the show wherever you get your podcast, thanks.

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