Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Hybrid Meeting In-Person and via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Megan Barajas, Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Greg Bradbard, Mike Burrows, Ken Coate, Kevin Dyerly, Otis Greer, T. Milford Harrison, Fran Inman, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Mike Layne, Bill Lemann, Darcy McNaboe, Miguel Mendoza, John Mirau, Vikki Ostermann, Bansree Parikh, Catherine Pritchett, Thomas Rice, Dan Roberts, Elizabeth Romero, Paul Shimoff, Eric Ustation, Lupe Valdez, Reggie Webb, Michael Wells, Kim Wilcox, Ray Wolfe, and Marisa Yeager.
Guests: Arnold San Miguel
Announcements: 1) The upcoming Inland Action schedule for July was announced and will be on future Agendas. As is customary, there will not be a meeting the day after the July 4th holiday. 2) San Bernardino International Airport will hold a community concert in celebration of daily non-stop flights to San Francisco with Breeze Airlines. Flights begin August 4th, 2022. The concert will be on July 23, 2022, at 7:30 p.m. Admission to the concert is free and will include beverages, food trucks and live bands. All Inland Action primary and alternate representatives will be invited to a separate private reception to be held in the terminal prior to the event.
Lowell King, Chair presiding.
Motion by M. Burrows/Second/Passed: Minutes from June 21, 2022.
Marisa Yeager introduced Dr. Kim Wilcox, Chancellor, University of California, Riverside who joined the group in-person. As UC Riverside’s chief executive officer, he oversees a campus of more than 26,000 students, 850 faculty members, and 4,700 academic and administrative staff members.
Kim Wilcox was appointed in August 2013 as the ninth Chancellor. Since that time, UC Riverside has seen historic growth across its education, research, and public service missions, including record improvements in student success, research funding, and philanthropic giving as well as the establishment of new schools of medicine and public policy.
Guided by UC Riverside’s (UCR) long-term strategic plan, Kim Wilcox has initiated an ambitious effort to grow the faculty and the campus’s physical facilities. Over the last four years, UCR has grown its faculty by nearly 200, while increasing the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among incoming faculty members. Likewise, UCR has added or renovated more than 100,000 square feet of building space on campus since 2013 with another $1 billion in capital projects underway.
UC Riverside has become a national model for achieving student success, particularly across socio-economic and ethnic categories. In the past five years, four-year graduation rates at UC Riverside have increased by 16 percentage points and six-year rates by 5 points. UC Riverside is one of the few institutions nationwide that has eliminated graduation-rate gaps across income levels and ethnicity. In 2016, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) recognized this achievement with their “Project Degree Completion Award,” which goes to one university nationwide that has demonstrated innovation in student success. Additionally, UC Riverside became a charter member of the University Innovation Alliance, a collaboration of major public research universities in America seeking to improve student graduation rates and outcomes across all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds.
UCR is national leader in research and transformation according to US News College rankings. UCR climbed 33 spots in two years to become America’s Fastest Rising public school. They hold the number one spot for social mobility for the 3rd year in a row and have moved up 16 spots as most innovative based on peer surveys of how higher education leaders view UCR. They are one of only 5 Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to have an R1 research classification, a Seal of Excelencia certification (a national certification for institutions that strive to go beyond enrollment to intentionally serve Latino students), and US Dept of State Fulbright HSI Leader.
In addition to UCR’s increased enrollment, their graduation rates continue to rise from 69% in 2014 to 77% in 2020. They are nationally ranked number two in Pell gradates and number three in Hispanic STEM graduates.
UCR has recently completed numerous construction projects such as parking structures, medical simulation suite and plant research facility. Their new student health services will include exam rooms, urgent care, pharmacy, full-service laboratory, radiology, and ambulance loading. The Medical School which began in 2013 with 50 students has grown in 2021 to 328 MD students, 34 PhD students, 19 Masters students, and 128 residents & fellows. They have 365 full-time and community faculty, 373 staffers and have had 42,000 patient visits. 34% of MD students and 38% of Biomed students are underrepresented minority (URM) and 65% have ties to Inland Southern California indicating a very strong chance they will remain in the area.
Opportunities to Advance Sustainability, Innovation, and Social Inclusion (OASIS) is a Clean Tech Park that is leveraging the presence of CARB and already existing synergy with local stakeholders by co-locating Center for Environmental Research & Technology (CE-CERT). They are addressing clean transportation & infrastructure, agriculture technology & food security, community health & health disparity, natural resource management (Air, Water, Soil), clean energy & fuels and more. The Clean Tech Park is a university extension as well as a startup incubator and accelerator space.
UCR truly serves as a resource engine for the Inland Empire producing talent, innovation and knowledge creation that all have a direct economic impact.
A Q & A period followed.
Meeting adjourned at 8:32 a.m.