James Gallogly has focused on cost-cutting since becoming the University of Oklahoma’s 14th president on July 2. But at a press conference Thursday Gallogly announced how he plans to grow the university by investing in “human capital.”
“We have a large number of students, great academic credentials, good graduation rates. The one thing we lack at this point in time is that really robust graduate education process,” Gallogly explained. “So we’re going to be trying very hard over the next five years to double the amount of research that we’ve been doing so far.”
He plans to measure the five-year goal by the amount of grant funding received by faculty.
Gallogly also said he’s working with the Board of Regents to create a fund that will provide annual raises to academic faculty.
“Many of our faculty have not had raises for over five years, and that’s simply unacceptable,” Gallogly said.
Gallogly commented on budget cuts he’s made during his short time as OU president, including scaling backthe office dedicated to recruiting and retaining Merit Scholars, reducing the number of executives who report to the president from 25 to 17, and demanding the City of Norman contribute $300,000 more to Cleveland Area Rapid Transit (CART), which runs Norman’s bus system.
“We needed to do some things to improve our financial situation, so we could, in fact, keep tuition flat, so we could, in fact, pay our faculty better, so we could advance our research mission,” Gallogly said.
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