CivilTiger
Water Engineer
Posts: 68
Joined: Apr 2009
Reputation: 11
I Root For: Tigers
Location: Memphis
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RE: Vision Forum 2014
(09-08-2014 09:51 PM)NDTiger Wrote: (08-16-2014 05:46 PM)Tigerx3 Wrote: I don't post here any more but I promised some people Info
Just finished up the Vision Forum and as promised to a few people here is a summary.
The VF happens every two years (or so). The National Alum Executive Committee, Chapter Presidents, key senior university admins and of course the alumni office were there. Anyone can attend. Many of our out of town chapter presidents attended.
Folks, the blue koolaid flowed freely and I loved it. The morning program held in the Zone Amphitheater was streamed and will be posted on the website (the university website is getting a complete redo by an outside company.)
We heard from the Alumni Exec Dir, tony Poteet on the Master Plan and interim Provost. All the news was positive and moving in the right direction. CJP, Bowen and Cjf all made videos. Nothing new.
Rudd spoke. He is engaging, interesting and exciting. He is a man of action with an unprecedented fast idea to plan to implementation timeline. We have already seen him handle the difficult budgeting issues. From all accounts he has been the action guy behind Martins Ideas and some of the ideas were Rudds not Martins.
Rudd shared more on enrollment reports. After three years of declining enrollment, the university graduated historic and record numbers of graduates this past year and this fall increased the Freshmen by 11.6%. Half of the increase came from out of state students. An amazing state was that we moved from a 76% acceptance rate to a 46% rate. The focus is on more selectivity, more out of state, and more international students.
We continue to increase our numbers/% of freshenmen and overall student participation in the honors program. Nobody is close to us in the state. In ten years we have grown alumni membership from 1,100 to over 12,000 and expect to have 22,000 in five years. It's a big deal in rankings. We also continue to target $100,000,000 in research funds. That number is important because it would give us national research univ designation and provide an additional $20,000,000 in state funding alone. See a pattern here? Rudd has a vision to lift our reputation.
Central project looks to be on track to be complete in the summer 2015. The Zac Curlin/ Central intersection will turn into a null our way as the main entry into the central parking lot. The music Center will be located East of the holiday inn. 20% of our part for funding has been committed. They are looking at maybe two years before ground breaking. There is another building we can't talk about that will likely be built between the holiday inn and music with a parking garage behind.
The nursing/community health building on Park ($60,000,000) will be ready or fall 2014 and the new entrance road be the new entrance. The showed the mock ups for the FB and BB facilities. No exact numbers on the progress during the 'Silent Campaign" but it's moving public, they are pleased with progress but no dates mentioned.
They are moving ahead with the $52,000,000 Richardson Towers project. The current towers will be imploded next summer and that space will become green space.
The old rec center will come down and replaced with a state of the art facility. Land bridge, amphitheater, parking garage and six new athletic fields will carry a $100,000,000 price tag. Two new private housing projects will be announced soon. There will also be the rerouting of Patterson across the tracks and an amazing renovation of Walker to highland in the business district.
There was some discussion of the $65,000,000 bio research facility moving to phase II.
We started the fundraising for a signature logo Legacy Mto be placed in front of the Admin Building.
We discussed some red tape involving a Blue Victory Light project. Think a Batman bat light to be shown after Tiger victories. Anybody have aviation rules and regs experience?
We also heard from the Lambuth campus. All good news.
The afternoon was devoted to four focus group discussions.
There will be more attention to out of town alumni chapter development.
There will be an increased effort to recruit international students.
We talked B12 and no, nothing to share.
The entire day was well done, informative, positive and visionary. The FIT was filed with successful, intelligent, dedicated fans and loyal alumni who invest their time, talents and money to support the advancement of the Univ in all aspects.
I know I left ome thing out.
Thank you for the summary. Sorry to have missed it. I included a link to all the presentations below. If you scroll down, you can see the updated campus master plan. It really is gorgeous. I love how the land bridge ties the whole campus together. What a great idea to anchor on one end with the recreation center and the other with the main quad. Some really beautiful aesthetics: green spaces, signage, and uniform brick pathways (very traditional, classic). I guess the "unannounced build" next to the new location for the music building is the alumni convocation center.
http://www.memphis.edu/alumni/visionforum.php
I also noticed the 2014-2015 TN Government "Capital Outlay" includes
-$14M Patterson Parking Garage
-$18M Railroad Land Bridge
-$20M Southern Parking Garage
-$62M Student Recreation Center
Any idea when construction starts?
http://www.tn.gov/finance/OSA/documents/...Budget.pdf
If buildings are like road projects it could take some time. The new fiscal year began at the beginning of July. At that time the new state budget became official and all of the funds were allocated. It typically takes another month before the state completes all of their paper work to release the funds. The UofM will probably need to enter into an agreement with the state detailing how the funds will be spent before the funds are obligated. If the UofM has design and construction documents completed we would need to submit the plans to the City of Memphis, MLGW, and the railroad for approval, since this project requires the closure of a city street, access to city infrastructure, and crossing a railroad. Once we have all of the necessary approvals we will be able to bid the construction. Based on construction phasing and bidding projects separately, the earliest I think you will see any work begin is Summer 2015, which will probably be the parking garage.
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