West Virginia Universitys Board of Governors on Friday (April 3) approved approximately $740,000 in matching funds for the states Research Trust Fund (RTF), bringing the total approved by the Board to $1.66 million. With another $2 million in pledges, total gifts and pledges stand at $3.68 million for the research endowment fund known asBucks for Brains,officials say.
The panel also endorsed a proposal to streamline management of WVU hospitals and the physician practices on the Morgantown campus, and supported advancing WVU s research enterprise.
Research Trust Fund gets infusion
With Fridays approval of $740,575 in funds for the RTF , the Board has now OKd $1.66 million in matching funds ($918,453 at the February meeting), interim Provost E. Jane Martin said. They come from the following seven sources:
- Schoepp Neuroscience Research Student Support Fund$10,000
- Verizon WV Fund for Biometrics$250,000
- L. Zane Shuck Laboratory Endowment in Nanobiotechnology$25,000
- James H. Walker Chair of Pediatric Cardiology$111,075
- James A. Kent Endowment for Biomedical Engineering$43,000
- Wells Fargo Energy Group Scholarship$1,500
- George M. and Mary Freda Vance Medical Scholarship-Fellowship$300,000
According to WVU Foundation officials, approximately $3.68 million has now been secured in gifts and pledges, including the $1.66 million approved by the Board to date and approximately $2 million in pledges.
Health care proposal would change organizational structure, streamline decision-making process
In his report to the Board, Fred R. Butcher, interim vice president for health sciences, told the panel that an internal working group recently completed a proposal to streamline management of WVU hospitals and the physician practices on the Morgantown campus.
Our goals are to improve patient care, to increase the resources we can generate to support education and research, and to be ready for upcoming changes in how health care is financed,Butcher said.
In the current health sciences structure, patient care is organized under two separate structures: WVU Hospitals and University Health Associates. Each has its own governing board and management structure; each has its own budget.
Interim WVU President C. Peter Magrath, who currently serves as chair of the West Virginia United Health System Board of Directors and WVU Hospitals Board of Directors, noted that as the University prepares to select a health sciences chancellor, this plan is acrucial opportunity to define that leaders role in the clinical operations more strongly, to link UHA and WVUH more tightly to one another and to core missions, and to prepare for future challenges.
For more than a year, faculty, administrators and members of the various organizationsgoverning boards have been studying how patient care is managed at academic health centers around the country and considering changes to WVU s organizational chart, Butcher said. Their proposalwhich will need approval from several governing boards and the medical facultywould place UHA and WVU Hospitals under one leadership team with one chief executive officer and would be called WVU Healthcare.
Under the proposal, an executive committee led by the yet-to-be-appointed health sciences chancellor will oversee WVU Healthcare, and UHA and WVUH will continue to exist as legal organizations. Each groups board will nominate four members to the executive committee. UHA will become a member organization of West Virginia United Health System and have voting representation on its board.
The proposal, developed with the assistance of the Chartis Group, a consultant firm that works with academic medical centers across the U.S., was unanimously endorsed by the 15-member study group. The group included Butcher, two WVU deans, the CEOs of WVUH , UHA and the health system and the chairs of several WVU School of Medicine departments.
Following the presentation, the BOG endorsed the plan.
For more information, go to http://future.hsc.wvu.edu/ .
Research enterprise must grow
Vice President for Research and Economic Development Curt M. Peterson reported that WVU researchers have attracted nearly $350 million in federal funding during the past five fiscal years.
Research expenditures are a major measurement of a research universitys activity,he said, noting that WVU outpaced 17 of 20 peer institutions in the percentage increase of total research and development expenditures between fiscal years 2004 and 2007. Even with this increase, the average for peers was $271 million in 2007, compared to WVU s $133 million.
He pointed to some of WVU s research strengthsenergy and the environment, security and intelligence and biomedical sciences and health. Programs advancing those research areas at WVU include the Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR), WVNano Initiative, Advanced Energy Initiative and the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute.
Top federal funding agencies supporting WVU research include the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, National Science Foundation, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and NASA .
The goal is to advance the research enterprise by 2020, Peterson added, by increasing research and development expenditures, adding more full-time tenure track and research faculty and more postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students.
With federal stimulus money available, Board members Charles Vest and Ray Lane encouraged the research office staff to compete aggressively for funding for projects related to energy, clean coal, carbon sequestration, food and water.
There should not be any university in the country that can compete for funds in those areas more aggressively,Vest said.
Magrath agreed, adding,We havent had as an aggressive culture as we need to be a really strong research university. We need to be nimble, entrepreneurial and aggressive.
Financial indicators stable
Vice President for Administration and Finance Narvel Weese said while the economy continues to be weak, WVU s financial position is stable. He also reported good enrollment projections for fall. While applications are slightly down compared to last year (14,454 so far this year compared to 15,617 for the same time last year), the numbers compare favorably with past years.
We had very strong applications numbers last year,Weese said.This years numbers are closer to what we have seen in previous years. Given the economy, were very pleased with where we are right now. Applications from international students are particularly strong.
On campus projects, Weese said the University is proceeding on the intermodal facility, child care facilities and Honors College residence hall, among others. WVU s energy performance contract with Siemens Building Technologies, he added, is paying off.
WVU embarked on a four-phase project with Siemens in 2005 to make improvements on all WVU campuses. WVU invested $7.8 million in the first phase involving buildings on the Evansdale Campus, including lighting upgrades, air conditioning and heating equipment upgrades and water conservation measures.
In the first year, Siemens guaranteed savings of $750,000; actual savings amounted to $1.1 million with WVU able to keep the additional savings. Work is now under way on a $12.5 million second phase, with two phases planned through 2011.
Other Board matters
In other business, a nominating committee was appointed for slating officers for the Boards June meeting in Charleston. Committee members are Jim Dailey, chair; Ellen Cappellanti, Oliver Luck and Edward Robinson.
Long said a special meeting will be held in the coming weeks, following the legislative session and approval of the state budget, to determine tuition and fees for the 2009-10 academic year.
The Boards next regular meeting is June 5 at the WVU Institute of Technology in Montgomery.