FAYETTEVILLE -- Boosting pay for faculty and providing more financial assistance to students will support a new set of "guiding priorities" for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, according to details released by the school Monday.
UA listed eight priorities that "truly belong to the campus as a whole," Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said in a statement.
The broad-based tenets resulted from an ongoing campus planning process begun under Steinmetz, the university's leader since Jan. 1.
Listed among the newly released set of priorities, "investing in faculty excellence" calls for the university to "work to increase the salaries of existing faculty" and to "provide competitive salaries for new faculty and for staff that provide support to faculty and students."
UA has lost faculty previously honored by the university, including cancer researcher David Zaharoff, who left in August for a joint position at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University.
Zaharoff said in an email that he wants to develop therapies he's developed into clinical trials, citing proximity to a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center as a reason for leaving. He earns a higher salary in his new role, $150,000 -- compared with the $127,419 he received at UA -- according to spokesmen for UA and North Carolina State.
UA's Faculty Senate in May passed a resolution calling for increased pay to be a top priority after years of faculty raises that lagged behind increases for administrators. Other faculty departures have included engineering faculty Douglas Spearot, now at the University of Florida, and Jing Yang, now at Pennsylvania State University.
Student-focused priorities include "advancing student success" and "promoting innovation in teaching and learning."
UA's six-year graduation rate of 62 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, is the highest among public universities in Arkansas but is below peer schools such as Louisiana State University, at 67 percent, the University of Missouri, at 69 percent, and Texas A&M University, at 79 percent.
The university will be "increasing financial assistance for those who need it," according to UA.
Steinmetz has called previously for need-based scholarships for Arkansans to be a top priority in UA's billion-dollar fundraising effort known as Campaign Arkansas. His chief of staff, Laura Jacobs, said in an email that the university is working this month "on a financial plan to support the academic plan."
Another listed priority, "strengthening graduate education," states that UA will be "boosting support of graduate students."
Some universities, including the University of Missouri, pay a higher stipend floor than UA, which a spokesman said has yet to achieve a goal of paying a minimum of at least $10,000 to all nine-month graduate assistants.
The University of Missouri pays its graduate assistants a minimum of $13,770 to master's students and $15,149 to doctoral students.
UA enrolled 4,275 graduate students, not including law students, this fall. Those 4,275 students made up 15.7 percent out of the total enrollment of 27,194, according to preliminary numbers. Steinmetz has said he'd like the percentage to be in the "low 20s."
Other listed priorities are: "building a collaborative and innovative campus," "enhancing our research and discovery mission," "enriching campus diversity and inclusion," and "reaffirming our land-grant and flagship responsibilities."
UA enrolled 2,066 Hispanic students this fall, up from 1,874 a year earlier, who now make up 7.6 percent of all students, according to preliminary data. Black students decreased to 1,308 from 1,334 a year earlier and now make up 4.8 percent of all students.
The university said it will aim to "diversify along many dimensions our faculty, staff and students." UA employed 37 black faculty out of 1,120 total faculty in 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
In announcing the priorities, UA said the planning process will continue, with a full plan set for completion in January.
"Together, we will further define these priorities in the coming weeks and begin to work on the initiatives and accompanying metrics of success that will ensure substantial progress in these key areas," Steinmetz said.
Metro on 10/04/2016