Ángel Cabrera
2024 Institute Address
Thursday, Sept. 5
John Lewis Student Center: Atlantic Theater

Good morning, Yellow Jackets! Whether you’re here in person or tuning in online, thank you for attending the 2024 Institute Address, which is already my sixth! In fact, just this week, I received a very nice message from HR congratulating me on five years of service, and I couldn’t believe it!

A new academic year is in full swing, and with it comes an incoming undergraduate class of more than 5,300 first-year and transfer students, new faculty and staff, and a few changes in the administration. To all our new Yellow Jackets: Thank you for choosing Georgia Tech! We are thrilled to have you here and honored that you have chosen to join us and work together on our important mission to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition.

I’d like to start by acknowledging new members of our leadership team:

• Jarmon DeSadier was named vice president for the Office of Equal Opportunity, Compliance, and Conflict Management, effective Sept. 1
• Jamie Fernandes was named interim vice president for Finance and Planning and chief financial officer, effective June 1. 
• Jason Freeman, longtime chair and professor in the School of Music, was appointed to a newly created position, interim associate vice provost for the Arts, effective March 15. In his new role, Freeman promotes and integrates the arts across our curriculum, research, campus life, and community.
• After serving as interim vice president for Information Technology and chief information officer since Jan. 1, Leo Howell was selected for the permanent position following a national search, effective July 1. 
• Ron Johnson, formerly a professor of the practice in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was appointed senior vice president of strategic initiatives and chief of staff, effective June 1. 
• Anuj Mehrotra was named dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Dean’s Chair of the Scheller College of Business, effective Jan. 1.
• Vivek Sarkar, former chair of the School of Computer Science, was appointed dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Dean’s Chair of the College of Computing, effective June 1. 
• Jim Stephens was named vice president of Infrastructure and Sustainability last month after serving in an interim role since March 1.
• Richard Utz, former senior associate dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, was named interim dean, effective April 20. 

I’m also pleased to welcome the leaders of our Student Government Association, undergraduate president Shivani Virani and graduate president Kiera Tran, as well as Rhett Mayor, secretary of the faculty; Dima Nazzal, chair of the Faculty Executive Board; Shamecia Powers, chair of the Staff Council; Dene Shehane, president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association; and Al Trujillo, president of the Georgia Tech Foundation.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Chaouki Abdallah, our executive vice president for Research since 2018, who, as you know, was recently appointed president of Lebanese American University in Beirut. On behalf of the Institute, I want to express my sincere gratitude and admiration for Chaouki’s leadership over the extraordinary growth of our research enterprise, and congratulate him on being called back to his home country to serve this prestigious institution! 

Let me also acknowledge longtime Yellow Jacket Timothy Lieuwen, Regents’ Professor and the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, who has agreed to serve as interim executive vice president for Research, starting next week, while we conduct the search for Chaouki’s permanent replacement. Thank you for your service, Tim.

I want to start with a word of heartfelt gratitude to the members of our faculty, staff, and administration, as well as our students, alumni, volunteers, and donors, for having delivered another banner year for Georgia Tech. Together, we have found ways to serve more students; to provide them with one of the best value propositions in the nation; to conduct more groundbreaking research; and to have more impact in our city, our state, and our world. 

When we began this strategic cycle five years ago, we pledged to amplify our impact, and I am proud to say that, today, Georgia Tech is making a bigger difference than ever before.

• Georgia Tech has been the nation’s fastest-growing public university over the past decade. This past spring, we set a record for the most degrees ever conferred during a single academic year, and our enrollment briefly became the largest in our state. (As of this fall, we’ve returned to being Georgia’s second-largest university, right under Georgia State.)
• Our students recently produced one of the nation’s highest six-year graduation rates, and our graduates are benefiting from some of the nation’s best career outcomes. 
• We received a record number of applicants but — despite our growth — still remained among the four most-selective public universities in the nation. 
• The National Science Foundation (NSF) ranked our research enterprise the 17th largest in the nation, which — for the third year in a row — made us No. 1 among universities without a medical school.

All this activity is having a noticeable effect in our state. According to the most recent economic impact report commissioned by the Board of Regents, Georgia Tech contributed a record $5.3 billion to our economy during the last fiscal year. That’s the largest share in the University System of Georgia — 18% higher than our total from the year before, 24% of the combined impact of all USG institutions, and 42% of the USG’s growth since 2019. And remember: These numbers don’t reflect the value of the startups we incubated, the jobs created by our alumni, the assistance we provided to Georgia companies to help them grow, or the companies we helped attract to our state — all of which create even greater and longer lasting impact.

These outcomes belong to our entire community — students, faculty, administrators, staff, service personnel, and everyone who invests in our work: tuition-paying families, state and federal governments, donors, and volunteers. Without our entire community’s collective commitment to Progress and Service, I wouldn’t be able to report any of these successes, nor would I have the confidence to commit to the ambitious goals I’m going to share with you today. Thank you.

Our growth in scale and impact hasn’t just happened on its own. On the contrary, it is the result of intentional work and decisions we have made. Five years ago, we brought our community together and crafted a strategic plan, which stated that, over this decade, Georgia Tech will achieve unmatched scale and impact, champion innovation in our city and state, grow as a hub of global collaboration, expand access to talented people of all backgrounds, cultivate the well-being of our community, and lead by example in how we conduct our business. I am delighted to report that we are delivering on each of those goals.

As proud as I am for all the progress we have made, I am also aware that our growth has put pressure on several areas of the Institute. Resources haven’t always kept up with our growth, and the large number of strategic initiatives we are pursuing may be overstraining our bandwidth. For all these reasons, I wanted us to engage in a refresh of our strategic plan this summer. My goals were to assess what we have accomplished so far, consider how the world around us has changed, revise and clarify goals, and sharpen our focus on a narrower set of strategic priorities. 

I convened a committee this past May to guide us down this path, and I want to thank everyone who served and contributed. I then took the committee’s recommendations and distilled them into four Big Bets that target specific outcomes in support of our mission and strategic priorities, which remain unchanged. These Big Bets are not adding to the strategic plan; rather, they are intended to help us better focus our efforts to realize the plan.

These Big Bets are (1) to be a national leader in outcomes and value for all students, (2) to double the number of degrees granted and nondegree learners served over this decade, (3) to double the scale and amplify the impact of our research over this decade, and (4) to build a national hub for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship around our campus. 

Let me start with our top priority: Be a national leader in outcomes and value for all students. 

Over the last five years, thanks to generous state appropriations and good fiscal management throughout the Institute, we bucked the inflationary trends that have plagued higher education and kept tuition well below our peers. 

Undergraduate tuition and fees today are 6.2% lower than they were five years ago for Georgia residents, just 1.5% higher for out-of-state domestic students, and 3.4% higher for international students. (When annualized, these increases amount to 0.67% per year.) If adjusted for inflation, tuition and fees are 23% lower for in-state students than they were five years ago, 17% lower for out-of-state students, and 16% lower for international students. I am not aware of a similar case outside of Georgia. It hasn’t been easy to operate with higher costs in virtually everything without passing those costs on to students, but that’s exactly what we have done. 

In addition to tuition and fees, time to degree is also key to the value proposition we offer students since each additional year of schooling increases expenses by 25% and defers earnings. There, too, we have delivered: 94% of our students graduate within six years, and 67% finish within four. These are the highest graduation rates in Institute history. Our six-year rate is one of the highest among public universities, and our four-year rate ranks well above national norms and is trending higher. 

When you combine low tuition and high graduation rates with the high-paying jobs our alumni tend to secure, the result truly is a smoking deal that national media outlets are recognizing. The Princeton Review and Niche.com named us the No. 1 best-value college in the U.S. among public universities, and Bloomberg named us No. 2. Forbes named Georgia Tech among its list of “New Ivies,” and Money magazine awarded us a five-star rating for quality, affordability, and outcomes two years in a row.

And my phone was on fire this morning because The Wall Street Journal just listed us the No. 2 public university in the country and No. 9 overall based on a methodology that measures how well colleges set graduates up for financial success. Only two public institutions made the top 10 — Berkeley and Georgia Tech. This is an awesome recognition, and we’re in excellent company. We’re grateful for another great ranking that helps us tell our story.

Our goal now is not just to be a national leader in outcomes and value in general, but to be that for all students, including those coming from lower-income families.

One of the most direct things we can do in this regard is to continue to keep tuition low. While some increases will likely be necessary to keep up with rising costs of virtually everything, we will remain an example of affordability and will keep any increases over this decade well below inflation.

Second, we need to increase student financial aid. Even at our relatively low tuition levels — and even after factoring in the HOPE and Zell Miller scholarships and Pell grants — a Georgia Tech education remains out of reach for students on the lowest income tiers. No talented student should have to give up on their dream of a Georgia Tech degree for lack of a few thousand dollars — but some won’t even bother to apply. 

We need to keep working to convince these talented students that Georgia Tech is for them. That’s why we are expanding our outreach efforts in rural Georgia and have joined the Small Town and Rural Students College Network. Our admission counselors have increased travel around Georgia by 270%, and we’re seeing results. Applications from rural areas are up, and we recently admitted the first two students from Twiggs County since 2000. We’re also working to create new transfer pathways in partnership with institutions that serve low-income students. 

And once students apply and get in, we need to make sure they have the resources to study here. About a third of our undergraduates require aid, but we can currently meet only about 40% of their need — we are about $65 million short of closing that gap. In Georgia, more than 40% of students qualify for federal need-based scholarships or Pell grants, yet Pell-eligible students make up only 15% of our undergraduate class. This is an improvement from 13.7% in 2019, but it’s still below our target of 20% by 2030. 

We are making progress, though. This past year, we increased annual funding for institutional scholarships from $6 million to $8 million. We expanded the G. Wayne Clough Promise Scholarship to provide a debt-free degree to 75 qualified Georgia students from low-income families, and we expanded the Stamps President’s Program from 40 to 50 students. We have also made student financial aid the top priority of Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech. Of the $243 million we raised this past fiscal year, $20 million will support need-based aid, and we’re planning some new matching programs to drive these numbers higher.

Lastly, we need to ensure students from low-income families have the support they need to succeed at Georgia Tech. We know that these students often lack the support networks that other students enjoy. They tend to graduate at lower rates and are less likely to study abroad, seek enrichment opportunities, and land internships that lead to top jobs. Our six-year graduation rate for Pell recipients is good compared to national norms — in fact, at 86%, we are No. 8 among public universities — yet it is still 8 percentage points lower than our overall average. Our goal for the next five years is to erase these gaps.

Our second Big Bet is to double the annual number of degrees granted and nondegree learners served by the end of this decade, using 2019 as the baseline. To put this goal in perspective, we conferred about 7,500 degrees during the 2019 academic year, and about 12,000 this past academic year, which means we’ve already made good progress towards conferring 15,000 by 2030. Most of the growth going forward is expected to come from online programs.

Our focus on degrees awarded instead of enrollment is intentional. Enrollment per se is not a good measure of impact. A hypothetical university that kept incoming class sizes steady but had declining graduating rates would grow its enrollment for all the wrong reasons. By counting degrees rather than enrollment, we’re focusing not on how big we are but on how much impact we have. Graduates with degrees get good jobs, make money, grow families, pay taxes, and strengthen their communities. They help businesses grow or build their own — either way, creating economic opportunity for others. And when many of them coalesce in one place, they attract companies to where they are.

The number of degrees we’re producing has grown at an impressive rate because we’re admitting more students, because we’re deploying innovative ways to serve nontraditional students, and because students are graduating at higher rates. 

Quite remarkably, because our applicant pool is growing faster than our capacity, we’ve also become one of the top four most-selective public universities in the nation. This past year, we received just shy of 60,000 applications for a class of about 3,900 first-year students. For reference, we received about 37,000 applications in 2019.

Last month, we welcomed our largest-ever incoming class of more than 5,300 students — the 3,900 first-years plus about 1,400 transfers. The new class includes a record number of women, the third-largest incoming cohort of Black and Hispanic students, as well as a rebound in international student enrollment, which had dipped following the pandemic. Official census numbers aren’t yet available, but with our graduate programs experiencing strong growth as well, overall enrollment should set another all-time high with more than 50,000 total students.

Of course, as proud as I am of this incredible growth and what it means for our impact — and we should all be proud of this — I am equally aware of the stress this growth has caused for various areas of the Institute. Our current plan is to decelerate the growth of the undergraduate program to about 4,000 first-year students per year to help us build up our resources, which is a top priority for our leadership team. The provost just shared that 149 new permanent academic faculty were appointed this past year for a net gain of 97 — about a 20% leap in net faculty growth over the previous year — and another 45 new faculty have already joined us this semester. A key priority for the next five years will be to secure the resources necessary to recruit and retain the world-class faculty and staff that we need to serve our students.

We also need to upgrade and expand our physical space. Over in Tech Square, the George and Scheller Towers are steadily rising from the ground and are scheduled to open in 2026. Once complete, Tech Square Phase 3 will add 400,000 square feet of instructional and research space, along with gathering spaces and street-level retail. 

On this side of campus, the D.M. Smith Building is getting a complete makeover. We’re also planning a comprehensive renovation of the Skiles Classroom Building, and I’m happy to report that, last month, the Board of Regents included $20 million for this purpose in its capital request to the state.

Work also continues on a new first-year residence hall on Curran Street. The new facility will add 860 beds by 2026, after which we will renovate the Howell and Smith residence halls. We’re also planning upgrades to dining and other student services.

Another exciting project we’re working on is to build a new home for the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. We have one of the top aerospace programs in the country, but many of its teaching and research facilities are antiquated and dispersed. Planning for this project is in its initial phases, and the illustration you see here is preliminary. But I want you to know that we’re evaluating various design and financing options that I hope will become clearer over the next few months.

The biggest contributors to our growth, though, are not our campus-based programs, but rather our suite of Online Master of Science programs that celebrated their 10th anniversary this year. Offering top-rated degrees in analytics, computer science, and cybersecurity, these programs are allowing thousands of working professionals to advance their careers without interruption, and I am delighted to know that they have inspired similar efforts in other universities. Technology has allowed us to serve and create value for so-called nontraditional students, and that’s something we will continue to do.

In addition to these master’s students, we served more than 71,000 nondegree-seeking professionals last year — mostly people who need new skills to advance or pivot in their careers or who simply want to learn and grow. For comparison, in 2019, we had about 28,500 of these students. Our goal is to maintain this trajectory by leveraging technology and innovative delivery models. To achieve this goal, I’m proud to announce the creation of Georgia Tech’s seventh College, the College of Lifetime Learning.

Professionals and employers are demanding better learning and development resources and opportunities to keep up with the pace of technological change, and we have the experience and resources to help them do that.

This work is not new to us. In fact, one of our earliest forays into this field, the Evening School of Commerce, which Georgia Tech created downtown in 1913, led to what is now Georgia State University. These programs not only serve an important social and economic need, but also catalyze innovation in how we deliver instruction. For example, the experience we gained through Georgia Tech Professional Education helped us launch and scale our revolutionary online master’s degrees, which, in turn, helped us deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and are now helping us introduce new modes of instruction in campus-based programs.

With our history and reputation as an innovative research university, and our dedication to serving the public good, we have the responsibility — and a great opportunity — to lead in this space, and that’s what the College of Lifetime Learning is all about. In addition to its teaching mission, the College of Lifetime Learning will conduct research in learning science and technology and will be a home for faculty across the Institute interested in advancing learning in their own disciplines.

With Nelson Baker as interim dean, the new College brings together the Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U); the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC); and Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) under one unit. Over the past year, Dean Baker and his team have led the effort to transform the division into Tech’s seventh College; and in April, our faculty voted to recommend its establishment.

The new College starts off with 44 faculty members and nearly 300 staff. New faculty and staff hiring is underway, and joint and courtesy appointments will soon follow. Stay tuned for announcements in the coming weeks about new research initiatives, changes in organization, and plans for new degree programs.

Our third Big Bet is to double the scale and amplify the impact of our research enterprise. Using 2019 as the baseline, that goal translates into reaching at least $1.92 billion in research expenditures by the end of the decade. With research expenditures reaching $1.34 billion last year (an 8% increase over the prior year), we are making good progress towards this goal.

Let me highlight again our achievements in this space. For the third year in a row, and based on 2022 data, the NSF listed us among the top 20 research universities — No. 17 to be precise — and No. 1 among institutions without a medical school. We ranked third in computer science; second in overall engineering as well as in electrical, computer, and industrial engineering; and first in aerospace engineering. 

As we continue to grow, we’re paying close attention to trends in federal funding and our success in securing awards. This past year, for example, we received $1.37 billion, a considerable figure which is 30% higher than our 2019 total but is also lower than last year’s record of $1.45 billion. 

Looking forward, we anticipate research funding is likely to be driven by artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity, electronics, energy, nanotechnology, space exploration, and sustainability. The good news is that we have substantial strength in all of these sectors. 

For instance, we have made great inroads into biomedical engineering and medical innovation. After the federal government established the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), Georgia Tech received three of the new agency’s very first grants, worth a collective $119 million, to develop drugs, sensors, and implants to revolutionize how we detect and treat cancer. Last year, we launched the Neuro Next Initiative, a plan to scale our research programs to study the brain and nervous system and develop new medical and assistive technologies. To support growth in these and other related fields, we are planning a future medical innovation facility next to the Krone building. 

On the AI front, a field where we’ve been working since the 1980s, we currently lead two NSF AI Research Institutes; colead a third; and head the Georgia Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing coalition, where we’re supporting the adoption of AI across our state’s legacy industrial sectors. And I am very excited about our first-of-its-kind AI Makerspace launched this year in partnership with Nvidia. This virtual makerspace will give students access to a supercomputing facility to learn, experiment, and innovate with resources typically available only to leading researchers and tech companies.

We now have more than 1,000 faculty and students who conduct fundamental and applied AI research. To support their work, we launched the AI Hub last year. Directed by Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck, the hub aims to drive AI education and research across disciplines with a focus on developing responsible technology conducive to positive social impact.

In aerospace, where we’ve long operated one of the nation’s top research programs, we’re making major investments to upgrade infrastructure. In addition to the new home being planned for Guggenheim, we’re building a 10,000-square-foot Aircraft Hangar in the North Avenue Research Area, which will soon allow faculty and students to construct and test small aircraft. 

Earlier this year, we also launched the Space Research Initiative, taking the first step toward creating a new interdisciplinary research institute (IRI) that will integrate and strengthen Georgia Tech’s leading space research portfolio. The space industry has exploded, and our decades-long experience puts us in a good position to work with government and private enterprise to drive the defensive, scientific, and commercial applications that are transforming how we live. Think about it: more than 11,000 satellites now orbit the Earth, and we’re launching thousands more every year. Georgia Tech can lead thanks to our capabilities from hard science and engineering to economics, policy and international affairs. We’ll have more on our 11th IRI next year.

Over the next few years, we’re also planning to expand our applied research capacity and build a think tank that will convene leaders across sectors to infuse scientific and technological considerations into critical policy and business decisions.

But I want to save my last word in this section for GTRI, a central asset and engine of our research enterprise. We owe much of our research success to GTRI, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. As the Department of Defense’s second-largest University Affiliated Research Center, GTRI develops much of the advanced technology that keeps our armed forces safe around the world and protects our national interests. And their work goes beyond defense and is inspiring new applied research in areas such as agriculture, energy, infrastructure, and public health. To give you an idea of how far GTRI has come, GTRI’s research awards surpassed $100 million for the first time in the year 2000. Over the past two years, they’ve averaged higher than $900 million — a ninefold increase since the turn of the century that now accounts for two-thirds of the Institute’s overall research funding and one-third of our total budget. GTRI’s growth continues, and we are planning an overhaul of our research space and resources to support that growth.

Our fourth Big Bet is to build a national hub for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship right here in our city and around our campus. Here, too, we have made a lot of progress as we build on two decades of work in transforming the neighborhoods surrounding our campus into thriving technological and commercial districts. 

Over the next five years, we will complete Tech Square. We will develop our medical innovation hub in Science Square. And we will build a new creative hub blending technology, art and design, which will be anchored around the Randall Brothers property.

Tech Square has become a national example of how a university can help transform a city. Back in the ’90s (when I was a graduate student), the neighborhood now known as Tech Square was a moldering brownfield of chain-link fences, broken windows, and abandoned buildings. Thanks to the vision of former president G. Wayne Clough, the support of our foundation and other organizations, and the continuing work under former President Bud Peterson, we turned it into a thriving innovation district, which other universities and cities are now trying to emulate. 

After completing the Coda building in 2019, our attention turned to the third and final phase: the George and Scheller Towers. When construction crews drive the final nail in 2026, Tech Square will have the infrastructure to support the programs, talent, culture, connections, and partnerships necessary to become one of the country’s premier hotbeds for technological entrepreneurship.

Tech Square inspired us to pursue a similar development, the Interlock, in West Midtown and another, more recently, in Science Square, Atlanta’s first medical innovation district. This April, the first of five construction phases opened for business with the delivery of the Science Square Labs building and an apartment community called The Grace Residences. Science Square Labs is a 13-story, 370,000-square-foot advanced facility designed to accommodate highly specialized work in the life sciences and medical fields — and to help us keep our city’s most promising biotech startups from moving elsewhere.

Our next development, being planned in partnership with the Georgia Tech Foundation in the old Randall Brothers property, just across the street from the John Lewis Student Center, will focus on creative technologies, the arts, and entertainment industries, which are thriving in our city and state. Together with academic programs being currently considered by the faculty, the new space will support cutting-edge creative work at the intersection of technology, art, design, and business. 

And, while space matters, it is equally important to activate that space, convene talent, facilitate creative collisions, create collaborative social tissue, and support inventors and entrepreneurs. Last week, I was blown away by a record-breaking CREATE-X Demo Day, and I can’t wait to continue to work with Professor Sivakumar, the Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Advanced Technology Development Center, CREATE-X, VentureLabs, and other programs and leaders inside and outside the Institute to create a thriving hub of innovation that is second to none.

To help us realize these four Big Bets and to continue to strengthen our community, we’ve also identified four Foundational Priorities.

First, we need to remain fully committed to building a community that supports the well-being and sense of belonging of students, staff, and faculty from all backgrounds and perspectives. And we need to double down on our work to protect everyone’s freedom of expression and inquiry, making our campus a vibrant academic community that helps everyone grow intellectually and personally. 

Second, we need to continue to build a campus that is a model for sustainability and that serves and inspires people at the Institute and in our surrounding communities — a green, beautiful space at the heart of our city that is an example of smart growth, accessibility, and sustainability. 

Third, we need to remain focused on improving campus services and processes through technology as well as organizational and cultural transformation. The goal is to optimize efficiency, increase agility, and support the work of our growing community. Engaging the talent within Georgia Tech — students, faculty, and staff — is central to this effort.

Lastly, we need to support athletics at a time of great change and uncertainty. We are committed to helping our student-athletes grow, to being competitive, and to creating an engaging experience for alumni and fans at home and around the country. Doing this in an evolving landscape that is plagued with uncertainty won’t be easy, but we are committed to finding a model that is consistent with our values. 

Again, these are not new commitments, but my hope is that they help us better focus our work. Much work has been done in each of these areas, and much will be done in the coming years.

This very semester, Student Engagement and Well-Being launched a first-year wellness program for students as well as new well-being programs for faculty and staff. They are also rolling out a new set of training resources on freedom of speech that will be made available to students, faculty, and staff with the goal of strengthening everyone’s commitment to freedom of expression and to an intellectually vibrant community.

We continue to also make improvements to our campus, including streets and sidewalks, to support pedestrians, bicycles, and other lightweight vehicles; improve safety and accessibility; and create a much better, greener, and healthier system for getting around. We’ve also launched two key climate-related initiatives: Sustainability Next, the Institute’s first comprehensive sustainability plan covering instruction, research and campus operations, and a Climate Action Plan aiming to reach net-zero emissions and 100% clean energy by 2050. In particular, the plan calls for 100% clean ground transportation and fleet vehicles by 2030, and efforts to achieve these goals are already underway. 

On the administrative side, I realize that we have too many outdated ways of doing things that, over time, can create bottlenecks and inefficiencies and be quite frustrating. Over the next five years, we’re committing to leverage new enterprise resource planning technology, data analytics, and AI, as well as changes to our organization and culture, to improve the speed, agility, and quality of services; enhance our campus experience; and ensure regulatory compliance. 

Our commitment to building a culture of ethics and compliance won’t change either. The goal remains to create systems and processes that make ethical conduct easy, and misconduct difficult, where we each support each other and hold one another accountable, so we can keep earning the public trust. 

Lastly, collegiate athletics is entering a new world, and we are working hard to be ready for it. Georgia Tech athletics has played a key role throughout our history, serving students, producing impressive alumni, keeping our community engaged, and representing our brand across the nation and beyond. 

This past spring, the NCAA and the leading conferences agreed to a new revenue-sharing system that would allow students to benefit from the television and sponsorship value they help generate. To remain competitive under the new system, we will need major budgetary adjustments within the athletics program; additional support from our donors; and, most likely, adjustments to student fees and other forms of support from the Institute. Our long-term goal is for Georgia Tech Athletics to be financially self-sufficient, but the transition will require support from all of us. Over the past couple of years, we’ve brought in new leadership, hired new coaches, and ramped up efforts to raise support and funding for our programs and student-athletes. We’re making good progress in building a new Thomas A. Fanning Student-Athlete Performance Center to support our student-athletes and are planning other upgrades to enhance the experience of our fans.

And there they are: our Big Bets and Foundational Priorities for the next five years. The complete list of goals is available in greater detail at strategicplan.gatech.edu. I hope that they will help us increase our focus and align our efforts during the second half of this strategic cycle. Rather than additional objectives, these goals proceed directly from the strategic plan we developed together five years ago with the engagement of the entire community, and they should help us prioritize our decisions and investments. Everything we’ve discussed today is within reach if we work together, and it’s up to each of us to contribute toward the realization of these ambitious goals.

So, we need your help — your voices, your experiences, your values, and your contributions. Please remain engaged and active. Speak up. Take action. Share ideas. Your support and dedication to making Georgia Tech a better place are indispensable to the health of our community, the growth of our campus, and the future of our Institute.

Thank you for your time, your attention, and your dedication to Georgia Tech. And with that, I’m now happy to take some questions. At the end of our Q&A, we’ll close by playing Georgia Tech’s new PSA, so I hope you can stick around!