"A Defining Moment in Vanderbilt's Pursuit of Excellence"

THE SEARCH:
AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Download a .pdf of this document

Vanderbilt University, an AAU and private Carnegie Research University, located in Nashville, Tennessee, seeks its eighth Chancellor.

Founded in 1873, Vanderbilt has achieved international distinction, evolving over the years from its roots as a Nashville, Tennessee and regional institution to a world-class university. It has been a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) since 1950. Vanderbilt has ranked among the top schools in the United States since the 1960's, with a number of graduate and professional departments rated among the very best; at present, the university is ranked among the top 20 in the nation, and it constantly aspires to improve.

Vanderbilt seeks a new Chancellor who embraces its ethos and its ambition. It commits, uniformly, to a strong, undiluted undergraduate focus, in the midst of one of the fastest growing research enterprises in the country. It has recruited a leadership class of students and provides a warm, civil, and supportive environment with the feel of a personal community. It attracts an increasingly renowned faculty. It manages a balanced program of athletics, personal development and social responsibility in a rigorous academic setting. It enforces fiscal discipline, in a modified responsibility centered financial system that stresses the unity of the institution. It makes large and critical investments in academic efforts that join all its parts. It operates one of the finest, and fastest growing academic medical centers in the country and it integrally links medicine to research in every part of the university.

Vanderbilt has large academic ambitions. Like the very best of the American academy it solicits and saves resources and deploys them for maximum effect, competing with a constantly improved peer group.

The Board of Trust will expect the next Chancellor to maintain the university's momentum and to lead it in its efforts to compete with the very top tier of American universities.

As a direct result of comprehensive campus wide management, including all the professional schools and arts and science, and explicitly capitalizing on the power of the medical center, sponsored research and project awards grew to $526.5 million in FY07. The National Science Foundation ranked the university 23rd in federal research and development funding among U.S. colleges and universities based on FY05 data, the last year in which rankings are available. During the period 2002-2006, the medical center enjoyed 17 percent compounded rate of growth in NIH sponsored research, the fastest rate of growth of any medical center in the U.S. At the same time, Vanderbilt's arts and science, engineering and education schools have all recorded significant growth in research funding. The university now ranks 12th in the U.S. in NIH funding and moves up steadily. In 2007, the university won the largest NIH grant in its history -- a $40 million award to fund the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. The university expects its position to climb in the future NSF rankings.

Vanderbilt's average entering student SAT score of 1379, a strong competitive score, has increased by more than 51 points in just five years. The university received nearly 13,000 undergraduate applications for the entering class of 2007, up from 9,754 in 2001. In addition, Vanderbilt has become increasingly selective. It accepted 32.4 percent of its applicants this year compared to 46.4 percent in 2001; yield improved as well, with approximately 40 percent of acceptances choosing to enroll, up from 34 percent in 2001. First-year retention has followed the same trajectory, climbing to more than 96 percent last year and the six-year graduation rate reached a record level of 91 percent. During that same time period, and as a result of focused recruiting and financial aid policies, minority first-year enrollment at Vanderbilt increased from 18.2 percent to 25 percent.

With a growing academic reputation and significant attention paid to graduate student recruiting and stipends, Vanderbilt's graduate programs have improved their own admissions. Overall graduate applications have risen from approximately 2,700 in 2001 to just over 6,000 in 2007, while offers of admission have decreased from 36 percent during the same period to just 16 percent. Several departments, including English, psychology, pharmacology and religion, are among the most competitive for admissions in the country. Meanwhile, professional schools of law, medicine, education and divinity all rank among the top tier in both reputation and selectivity. The university seeks to enhance its graduate offerings while continuing to solidify its undergraduate and professional programs.

The university has done exceptionally well in the management of its academic medical center. Over the last decade, Vanderbilt has become the dominant regional provider of care and leads the nation in growth of its academic medical research enterprise.

The medical center generates one of the strongest net margins in healthcare in the country, a trend line that has consistently improved, while still managing a proportion of uninsured patients that falls within the top quartile of academic medical centers. It plays an integral part in the university's academic plan by partnering with all parts of the university in new academic endeavors.

The university has been exceptionally well managed financially for the last 25 years. It operates with an annual budget approaching $3 billion, with approximately $1.8 billion coming from the clinical enterprise in the medical center. It maintains strict debt limits and has virtually no deferred maintenance. The endowment, with a market value of $3.5 billion as of 6/30/07, consistently performs in the top 10 percent in the competitive world of large endowments. The endowment benefits from an ambitious capital campaign which reached its goal of $1.25 billion well in advance of the target date of June 2008 and has been extended to a goal of $1.75 billion by 2010.

The Board of Trust anticipates that the successes of the recent past will provide a strong foundation for the new Chancellor, as she or he builds on the existing strategic plan and continues to take Vanderbilt University forward, guiding the institution to a position of growing international stature as one of the great, academically distinguished private institutions. The new Chancellor, working in conjunction with the Board and the Vanderbilt community, must insure that the university is an institution of choice for leading faculty, for graduate students in distinctive programs, and for the most talented undergraduate students.

The new Chancellor will provide the personal leadership required to build one Vanderbilt, a single university linking academic effort across departments and schools. To sustain its impressive trajectory, the Board of Trust will expect a new Chancellor to lead Vanderbilt as it builds an even deeper culture of philanthropy, creating a development program, the equal in quality and result with the best in the country. The Chancellor must maintain the university's tradition of highly responsible financial and managerial stewardship. Vanderbilt has a great and growing academic medical center and a new Chancellor must understand the complexities of medical centers and provide the guidance that will maintain its startling trajectory. The Chancellor must also demonstrate an ability to build consensus, to foster diversity reflective of the global environment, and to represent the university effectively on campus, in Nashville, and on the national stage.

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY

Cornelius Vanderbilt, an American entrepreneur in the burgeoning shipping and railroad industry in the middle and late nineteenth century, became the wealthiest man in the world in his time. In 1873, at the age of 79, Mr. Vanderbilt gave $1 million to endow and build the university which today bears his name.

It was the only philanthropic gift of his life, and in making the donation he specified that Vanderbilt University should "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country" at a time when the United States had just fought a civil war.

From its founding to 1914, Vanderbilt operated under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Since that time, the university has been non-sectarian and is governed by an independent, self-perpetuating Board of Trust.

Since its inception, the university has experienced steady and sustained growth. In historical terms, student enrollment has doubled roughly every 25 years, with much of the more recent growth coming in graduate and professional schools.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, the university emerged on the national scene, recruiting across the country, growing in stature, building its scholarly profile and adding to its campus and capital plant. The changes accelerated dramatically during the tenure of the last three Chancellors.

THE VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MISSION

"Vanderbilt University is a center for scholarly research, informed and creative teaching, and service to the community and society at large. Vanderbilt will uphold the highest standards and be a leader in the quest for new knowledge through scholarship; dissemination of knowledge through teaching and outreach; and creative experimentation of ideas and concepts. In pursuit of these goals, Vanderbilt values most highly intellectual freedom that supports open inquiry and equality, compassion, and excellence in all endeavors."

--Vanderbilt University Mission Statement

THE UNIVERSITY: LOCATION AND DIMENSION

The original Vanderbilt campus consisted of 75 acres, but grew steadily to today's 330 acres. It was built classically and retains its beauty. Unlike most research universities, the medical center and main campus are located side by side, an easy walk on completely contiguous land. University facilities are well maintained and were designed successfully for their function. Currently, 85 percent of the undergraduate student population lives on-campus, which contributes to a vibrant learning and social environment. With the opening of The Commons in 2008, the university will house nearly 100 percent of undergraduates on campus, an overarching goal of the university. The main campus has been designated an arboretum and public garden. It is an exceptionally attractive university campus.

Vanderbilt is about 1.5 miles from downtown Nashville, which itself is the 30th largest city in the country. The university is an essential and leading part of the community's business, cultural, political and educational fabric. Nashville has always been a successful city, but has become even more prominent in recent years. Forbes magazine, in 2006, listed Nashville as seventh among metropolitan areas for "Best Places for Business and Careers." It has a vibrant, growing and diverse economy that has attracted corporate headquarters (such as Nissan) and significant population growth in the past decade. Its strong and famous music industry has been matched by extraordinary growth in the private sector healthcare economy, with gross revenue of $69 billion, and the area constantly attracts new business. Nashville is also a center for higher education, with 19 colleges and universities and more than 90,000 students in the region.

Vanderbilt itself plays a central role in the local economy. With 22,000 employees, it is the largest private employer in Middle Tennessee and the second largest in the state. Civic leaders appreciate its role as a corporate citizen.

Prominent citizen leaders in the Nashville community have recently completed an exceptional symphony hall, a visual arts center, and a spectacular public library, developments that have helped cement Nashville's cultural reputation. The arts on campus contribute vividly to the cultural mix and attract audiences from across Middle Tennessee. Nashville is a vibrant community, with fine neighborhoods and relatively low costs, compared to other major metropolitan areas, and it has proven a great asset to Vanderbilt, enabling recruitment nationally for both faculty and administrators.

STUDENTS

Vanderbilt University is a student-centered university, with a long history of strong undergraduate teaching that has become increasingly attractive to national and international applicants. The university has a total enrollment of 11,607 students: 6,378 undergraduates and 5,229 graduate and professional students. The undergraduate student body has grown modestly, largely as a result of yield. With the opening of The Commons in 2008, the university will limit entering classes to approximately 1,550 students, approximately 100 fewer than the current year. In contrast, graduate student enrollment grew 20 percent over the last five years, with roughly comparable growth rates in both the doctoral and master's programs.

The university received 12,911 applications in FY07 (an all-time high) for an incoming undergraduate class of 1,673, up from 9,754 applicants in 2001 and 7,559 applicants in 1992. The university continues to become more selective. In 2007, it accepted 32.4 percent of its applicants compared to 46.4 percent in 2001; yield improved as well, with 39.5 percent of acceptances choosing to enroll, up from 34.4 percent in 2001.

These numbers are particularly impressive given the other top-tier universities Vanderbilt is competing against. The university's competitive edge in recruitment is helped by the percentage of freshmen receiving financial aid, a figure that has risen steadily from 52 percent in 2000 to 62 percent in 2007.

The middle 50 percent of enrolled undergraduate students at Vanderbilt in 2007 scored between 1300 and 1480 on the SAT while the average is 1379, placing the institution as one of the most selective in the country. With the 2007 fall first-year class, Vanderbilt's average entering student SAT score has increased 51 points in just five years.

Vanderbilt has carefully developed, over the last generation, a geographically diverse national and international student body; students come from every state in the U.S. and over 100 countries worldwide.

In 2007-08, 40.9 percent of new freshmen came from the South; 15.5 percent from the Midwest; 17.6 percent from the Mid-Atlantic; 11.2 percent from the Southwest; 5.3 percent from the West; and 8.1 percent from New England. Approximately 3 percent of the undergraduate student body is international. The trajectory of recruitment has been clear for two decades. The school has become more ethnically, geographically and economically diverse with each passing year.

Vanderbilt has made major efforts to enhance the diversity on campus. Based on the latest figures, 56 percent of the undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University are women, and minority enrollment in the undergraduate schools accounts for 22.9 percent of the domestic undergraduate population: 9.3 percent African-American; 6.8 percent Asian-American; 5.7 percent Hispanic; and 0.3 percent Native-American. The percentage of minority first-year students has risen significantly from 18.7 percent to 25.2 percent over the last six years, despite increasing percentages of students not reporting ethnicity (6 percent in 2002, 13 percent in 2007).

As a result of many initiatives in the past few years, Vanderbilt's first-year retention rate reached an all-time high of 95.7 percent in 2007, and the university's six-year undergraduate graduation rate also reached a record level in 2007 at 90.9 percent.

The diverse and vibrant student life is one of Vanderbilt's great strengths. There are more than 320 clubs and organizations on campus, and there is an active Greek community, with 14 sorority and 21 fraternity chapters established. The Greek community encompasses 42 percent of the undergraduate students, and it continues to be a strong, well-integrated component of the larger university community.

In the fall of 2008, the university will open The Commons, the first phase of an evolving College Halls program at Vanderbilt. The Commons is a $150 million "campus within a campus" for first-year students; it includes new residence halls, dining and social facilities located on the eastern part of the campus.

It has a Dean, a common dining area, 10 separate residences, faculty "heads" who live in the houses and an invigorating program. The Commons and any future residential colleges are intended to reinvent the classical definition of residential life at a university, creating a place in which boundaries between learning and living converge to maximize the connections among the people, programs and ideas.

The halls are expected to create an exciting social and intellectual atmosphere that will stimulate students and transform the Vanderbilt experience. The university has begun the planning and fundraising process to add residential College Halls for upperclassmen.

FACULTY

Faculty qualifications at Vanderbilt University are consistent with its status as a leading private research university. From Vanderbilt's early days the university has recruited and retained outstanding faculty across the university.

John Crowe Ransom and Edwin Mims were two early faculty scholars who led the English Department to develop such outstanding writers as Robert Penn Warren, three time Pulitzer Prize winner and first U.S. Poet Laureate, and Ralph McGill, the courageous publisher of the Atlanta Constitution during the civil rights era. The university boasts three faculty Nobel Prize winners -- Earl Sutherland, Max Delbrück and Stanley Cohen -- and currently has two MacArthur "genius" fellows -- bassist Edgar Meyer in 2002 and neuroscientist Ken Catania in 2006.

The university has over 200 named/endowed chairs distributed over the various units. Vanderbilt faculty hold elected memberships in academia's most prestigious honorary societies including the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Education.

The tradition of innovative research continues today with nationally recognized faculty working in a wide range of disciplines on very diverse issues in science, the humanities, mathematics, the arts, and socially relevant topics that will have a broad societal impact. Vanderbilt, with its compact campus and contiguous medical center, provides the opportunity for faculty to interact across disciplines and across all of its colleges. The linkages across campus are enhanced through the more than 120 centers and institutes that include the Center for Latin America and Iberian Studies, the National Center on School Choice, the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development and the Vanderbilt Institute of Imaging Science.

In FY06, there were 2,876 full-time faculty members at Vanderbilt University, including 1,753 in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing. In the last five years the total full-time faculty grew 30 percent.

Sixty-three percent of full-time university teaching faculty members exclusive of the medical center was tenured or tenure track, and 32 percent of full-time faculty members in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing was tenured or tenure track. There were an additional 346 part-time faculty members across all disciplines in FY06.

Efforts have been made to ensure a diverse faculty. Of full-time university faculty exclusive of the medical center, women constituted 26.4 percent of the tenured or tenure track faculty and minorities constituted 15.3 percent. Women constituted approximately 20.9 percent of the total tenure and tenure track faculty in the Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and minorities constituted 16.1 percent. Faculty members are not represented by bargaining units.

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS

Vanderbilt has consistently been recognized for its achievements. The university is a member of the Association of American Universities, a distinction conferred on the leading 62 research universities in the United States and Canada. In addition to its recognition as one of the top 20 universities by American publications, The Times of London recently rated the university as the 53rd best university in the world, up from 113th the previous year.

Vanderbilt offers 66 major fields of study in the arts and sciences, engineering, music, education and human development, as well as a full range of graduate and professional degrees.

The university confers 4 undergraduate degrees and 17 different master's degrees, including professional degrees in law, nursing, public health, business administration, education, medicine, religion and engineering. Vanderbilt also offers the Ph.D., Ed.D., J.D., M.D., and A.D.

It offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, music, education and human development.

Vanderbilt faculty and alumni take great pride in the quality of the undergraduate experience, which offers the intensity and focus of a small liberal arts college with the resources and intellectual diversity of a major research university. In recent years, the university has turned its attention, as a strategic matter, to the enrichment of its graduate programs. Supported by improved stipends, new master's programs and excellent faculty recruitment, overall graduate applications have risen from approximately 2,700 in 2001 to just over 6,000 in 2007, while offers of admission have decreased from 36 percent overall during the same period to just 16 percent. The effort was supported by a significantly increased pool of discretionary money available for financial aid. Top-off awards based in the Graduate School have been increased in number and size and now are supplemented with additional school-based awards. New professional development funds have helped attract exceptional students who, in previous years, would have been lost to graduate programs at other universities. The average Graduate Record Examination scores (combined quantitative and verbal) for the incoming graduate students in fall 2007 was 1284, up from 1232 seven years ago. Also improving significantly in recent years is the placement of graduate students.

Accompanying this improvement in graduate student recruitment are advances in the reputations of many of Vanderbilt's graduate programs. Peabody College of education and human development now ranks 3rd among graduate schools of education by U.S. News & World Report. The Owen Graduate School of Management is rated among the top business schools in the country by numerous publications including Forbes and Business Week while U.S News & World Report ranks Vanderbilt's Law School as 17th. The School of Engineering has been ranked as one of the top 50 undergraduate and graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report while the Vanderbilt Divinity School remains one of only four university-based, interdenominational schools in the United States, and the only one in the South, providing a distinct vantage point for viewing what has occurred in theological education since the latter part of the nineteenth century.

To accelerate the development of academic research programs, Vanderbilt University dedicated $100 million from its quasi-endowment to launch a major internal, competitive grant program in 2002 called the Academic Venture Capital Fund (AVCF). The AVCF was designed to promote interdisciplinary and cross-school work in emerging fields of knowledge.

A rigorous external review process resulted in the funding of 11 centers in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, all of which have had a significant effect on research and teaching, and have played a significant role in the growth of external funding. Hundreds of faculty members from every school in the university now participate in AVCF-funded centers.

To continue the improvement and growth of academic quality and research strengths, there is a strong feeling on campus that improvements need to be made in the quality and quantity of classroom and research facilities and in campus IT/MIS systems; also to be explored in the near-term is a significant upgrade in the central library facility.

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center consists of the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and a growing array of inpatient hospitals and ambulatory facilities:

• The Vanderbilt University Hospital, the medical/surgical adult care facility,
• The Monroe Carell, Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, a three-year old, state of the art pediatric hospital that has been a striking success,
• The Psychiatric Hospital at Vanderbilt,
• The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, and
• The Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital.

The hospitals admitted 50,716 in patients in 2007, up from 36,000 five years earlier. Surgical procedures grew in the same period from 27,000 to 38,000, a startling rise in a short time. Over a ten-year period, occupancy in a constantly expanding physical plant has moved from 60 percent to 90 percent. In that same period, over a million out-patient/ambulatory care visits took place in the Vanderbilt Clinic, a large, modern and efficient ambulatory care center built in the center of the complex. Physician services are provided by The Vanderbilt Medical Group, one of the largest physician practices in the Southeast and an integral part of the medical center's architecture. Vanderbilt's Level I trauma center and LifeFlight air ambulance provide essential emergency service to Middle Tennessee, northern Alabama and southern Kentucky.

Revenues for the medical center have matched growth in volume. In 1998, clinical revenues were $750 million growing to $1.68 billion in FY05 and to a projected $2.1 billion in FY07. Revenue growth from FY06 to FY07 was 13.6 percent. Over the last ten years, the Vanderbilt clinical enterprise grew market share 55 percent, while its prime competitors have dropped ten to fifteen points. In the last five years, the medical center has had one of the fastest clinical services growth rates in the country.

To accommodate and stimulate growth, the medical center is building a new third tower in the adult hospital, which will add significantly to ICU and surgical capacity. A feasibility study has begun for a new 120 bed womens and infants hospital. In addition, the medical center has recently secured space for a large new ambulatory care facility in a nearby suburban location.

In the same period, research funding grew from $130 million in total extramural funding to $390 million. Over 1,000 faculty were recruited, resulting in 15 percent to 17 percent annual compounded growth in NIH funding over the last five years, the fastest growth in the nation. Vanderbilt was the 12th largest recipient of NIH funding in FY07, up from 30th in 1998.

Vanderbilt University Hospital and the Vanderbilt Clinic had net patient service revenue of $1.089 billion in FY06. The Vanderbilt Medical Group had total revenues of $360 million in FY06. In FY06, clinical revenues provided 63.6 percent of the university's total operating revenues.

As a result of state cutbacks in Medicaid services, Vanderbilt is the largest provider of charity and uncompensated care in the state, growing to more than $200 million in FY07. Despite the burden, net margins on operations have increased steadily, from $8 million ten years ago to $80 million in FY07, half of which was transferred to fund new research investments.

As revenues and net margin have grown, units systematically provide a small portion of their margin to allow strategic investments throughout the university in areas in which investments will strengthen the institution. These essential revenue streams have aided the dramatic growth in the overall research enterprise in the university.

The medical center is a leading center for bio-informatics research. Today, it has electronic medical records throughout, linked to 300 evidence based patient protocols and some of the most sophisticated quality and safety programs in the country. Safety, quality and customer satisfaction are all linked to an academically vigorous effort to both study and constantly improve the effectiveness and cost of care.

Vanderbilt has a unified medical center and a unified strategy. Investments in clinical care, in research, in quality and patient safety and in customer service all reinforce each other. It is a dynamic, integrated system that invests for the very long run.

SPONSORED RESEARCH

Vanderbilt University's research expenditures were $376.9 million in FY06 (based on data from the National Science Foundation database), an increase of 7.6 percent from the prior year. It was 23rd in federal research and development expenditures in 2005 as reported by the National Science Foundation. Sponsored research and project awards, which include multiple-year grants and contracts, eclipsed $525 million in FY07, up from $448.3 million in FY06 and continuing its upward trajectory.

Seventy-eight percent of total sponsored research and project awards in FY06 were derived from federal sources. The medical center accounted for approximately $346.1 million of overall sponsored research and project awards in FY06, while the remaining university components accounted for approximately $102.2 million. There have been dramatic increases in several units in the recent past. For example, the Peabody College of education and human development has increased its sponsored project income by over 350 percent over the past seven years. Engineering and Arts and Science have also shown major growth in sponsored projects. While the majority of Vanderbilt's research is funded externally, the university internally supported research expenses in FY06 totaling $39.2 million, and this figure more than doubles when taking into account laboratory construction/renovation and start-up costs.

STAFF

As the largest private employer in the region, and the second largest in the state, Vanderbilt maintains a strong commitment to creating and enhancing a diverse workforce. The university has some 18,000 professional, technical, clerical and maintenance employees, with about 600 in bargaining units. It is a progressive employer, offering a comprehensive benefits package and competitive salaries in order to attract and retain a high-quality staff.

GOVERNANCE

The university is governed by a Board of Trust numbering 43 voting members, each of whom serves a renewable five-year term, plus emeritus members who attend certain events. The Chancellor, who is chosen by and reports to the Board of Trust, is the chief executive officer of the university and runs the daily operations; the Chancellor is a voting member of the Board. The Board includes a diverse group of business leaders, educators, medical professionals, and others who are highly engaged and passionate about the university's mission. A Board Committee provides oversight for the medical center in key areas of its operation, but all policy and funding issues are ultimately subject to approval by the Board of Trust. Full Board and Board Committee meetings occur throughout the year.

The Faculty Senate is the representative and deliberative body of the faculties. It is comprised of 48 elected members, 9 deans of the colleges and schools, and 19 ex officio members, including the Chancellor. Ex officio members may participate fully in the deliberations, but they have no vote. The Faculty Senate is the legislative body responsible for establishing minimum rules and general regulations pertaining to all undergraduate schools and colleges. The Senate also is responsible for approving new degree programs and establishing general educational policy in areas not reserved to the Board, the administration, or the several faculties. The Executive Committee organizes and coordinates the business of the Senate and its committees.

FINANCES

Vanderbilt competes with the top universities in the country for students and faculty. It is one of the few universities to be fully need-blind in admissions and meets the full demonstrated need of all students. The university has made strategic investments and fundraising to enhance financial aid and reduce student debt. It has a culture committed to teaching, including a traditional focus on faculty intensive undergraduate teaching. It seeks to improve substantially the living/learning settings for undergraduates, to recruit and retain the finest faculty, to invest in a very fast growing medical center and to make the next generation of academic venture capital investments. It can finance its ambitions from a growing endowment, from the careful use of resources, from the well managed growth of the medical center and from philanthropy. Creative and careful financial management and the excellent use of funds have created an impressive trajectory of improvement. To meet its ambitions, it will need to maximize every resource.

Vanderbilt's total FY06 operating revenues were $2.482 billion, with expenses of $2.428 billion. Operations produced with a net of $54 million. Total revenues increased $252.2 million over the prior year.

Net patient service at the medical center provided 63 percent of revenue, followed by student tuition and fees, 8.7 percent, and extramural sponsored research, 14.9 percent. Gifts, grants and endowment payout provided 8.2 percent, with non-endowment investments providing the remaining amount of the total.

The university operates under a variation of Responsibility Centered Management (RCM), colloquially known as Every Tub on its Own Bottom, or ETOB. In the 1980's, in a period of some economic stress, the university leadership reduced endowment payout rates, changed investment management, installed careful systems of financial control, developed excellent measures of deferred maintenance and built the ETOB system. In subsequent years, university leadership enforced definitive debt and endowment policies. This enforced discipline worked, putting Vanderbilt on sound financial footing.

The schools in the system are entrepreneurial, innovative and disciplined and the university is in excellent financial shape. There is virtually no deferred maintenance.

The university's bond credit ratings by Fitch and Standard & Poor's are AA, and by Moody's is Aa2. The university's endowment payout rate is 4.5 percent. Technology investments are up to date and the endowment grows steadily.

Unlike many universities with RCM systems, Vanderbilt uses internal transfers to pull revenue to the center and make it available for investment. These have been particularly productive. As revenue grows university wide, and with unusual growth in the medical center, the internal transfers have generated substantial new funds. Allied to improved philanthropy and a growing endowment, Vanderbilt has been able to consistently make the essential strategic investments, with results that are clear across the university.

As of June 30, 2007, the university's total endowment was $3.5 billion, up from approximately $1.8 billion in 1999 and $200 million in 1982. The endowment consistently performs well and is regularly included in the top 10 percent in the competitive world of large endowments (colleges, universities, and foundations with assets of over $1 billion). The annual rate of return over the most recent three years is 16.25 percent. Investment performance had generated nearly $50.2 million in revenues in FY06; the payout to the operating budget for FY07 is expected to be a 12.2 percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

In FY06, Vanderbilt's net assets, capital plant plus endowment reached an all-time high -- in excess of $4 billion. The growth from the prior year was $443 million, a gain of 11.4 percent.

Of the $50.2 million generated from the endowment in FY06, 29 percent was allocated for scholarships; 27 percent for school operations; 21 percent for faculty chairs; 10 percent for general operations; and 13 percent for other restricted items.

The university's outstanding debt at the close of FY06 was $906.6 million, an increase of $120.7 million over FY05. The university made strategic investments in The Commons and the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science. A third adult bed tower is under currently under construction at the medical center.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance ranks Vanderbilt University 13th for "Best Value in Higher Education." Tuition, fees, room and board for 2007-2008 are $45,860. The university is one of the few institutions that are both need-blind in its admissions policies and meet full demonstrated need. The estimated amount of financial aid including need-based grants, university and non-university scholarships, tuition waivers and loans was $128.0 million in FY06, a significant increase over previous years (e.g., $42 million in FY00 and $71 million in FY04). Approximately 60 percent of Vanderbilt undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, 73 percent of which is covered by Vanderbilt Funds. Tuition raises have averaged 5.4 percent for the last five years. Most of the increase covers the growth in scholarship aid.

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Vanderbilt has a large, loyal and national alumni body. About 10 percent of the university's 118,000 alumni live in Nashville, with large cohorts in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta. The university Alumni Association maintains 31 alumni chapters worldwide.

Philanthropic support for Vanderbilt has increased steadily, but not dramatically, over the last decade.

In 1998, new gifts and pledges totaled $100 million. In FY07, the total amount raised was $136 million, an 11 percent increase in overall contributions from the prior year.

Many component parts contributed to the overall result. During the past year, alumni either directly or through their family foundations or businesses, gave more than $48 million dollars, and non-alumni parents of current Vanderbilt students gave nearly $10 million. Medical center contributions from all sources, including grateful patients, totaled $65.1 million in FY07. The university also made significant progress in securing new pledges, more than doubling the value of those secured in 2005.

In addition, the university increased the amount of newly documented future bequests that Vanderbilt will receive from the estates of alumni and friends, which during FY06 totaled more than $26 million, tripling the amount received in FY05.

Strong and regularly improving annual results have been essential to the momentum of Vanderbilt's Shape the Future Campaign, which had accrued $1.24 billion of gifts and pledges as of the end of FY06.

Vanderbilt surpassed the campaign goal of $1.25 billion in August 2006, well in advance of the target date of June 2008, and has raised approximately $1.4 billion to date. Due to its success, the university extended the campaign goal to $1.75 billion by 2010.

Surveys of undergraduates and alumni reveal strong commitment and gratitude for an impressive undergraduate education. However, some alumni perceive the university as wealthy and well endowed and, consequently, contribute modestly or not at all. The university does not have a historically deep tradition of philanthropy. Roughly 15 percent of current undergraduates had one parent who attended Vanderbilt, a good legacy contribution, but there is some resentment that Vanderbilt's constant improvement in academic stature has left some Vanderbilt families behind who might have attended in an earlier era. The overall alumni giving rate in FY06 was about 27 percent, a number that the university must improve.

Vanderbilt's modern philanthropy has been led by the Ingram family. First Bronson Ingram, then his widow Martha Ingram, and their sons and daughter, have made a deep personal commitment to the university, contributing over $500 million over the last 20 years. The Ingram family has led the Board, recruited new members, spearheaded philanthropic efforts and helped launch the modern aspirational culture of the university. A century after Commodore Vanderbilt, they put Vanderbilt on a startling national trajectory.

ATHLETICS

Athletics at Vanderbilt University is a unifying tradition of pride among faculty, staff, students, alumni and Tennessee residents. Vanderbilt's inspiring scholar-athletes are achievers both on the court and in the classroom.

As the university has emerged as a nationally prominent institution, Commodore Athletics are making impressive strides in the quest to achieve across-the-board excellence in intercollegiate competition.

Varsity athletics involves more than 320 students at Vanderbilt, and the university believes that student athletes should play a prominent role in the university community. Vanderbilt also has a large and robust club and intramural sports program.

In September of 2003, the university restructured athletics to integrate student athletes into the daily life around campus, and also committed itself to compete at the highest level.

Vanderbilt participates in NCAA Division I Athletics as the only private institution in the formidable Southeastern Conference (SEC). Seven of the university's 15 athletic teams were ranked in the top 25 nationally in 2006-2007.

In addition to achieving national prominence as a result of the restructuring, the university has improved student athlete academic achievement. The cumulative grade point average for all varsity student athletes achieved an all-time high, with a cumulative average of 3.04 for the 2006-2007 academic year. As the most selective in admission and academically challenging of all the schools in the SEC, the university is proud of its 93 percent graduation rate for student athletes, which is highest in the SEC and among the top ten in the nation.

Private support from fans and other generous donors through the National Commodore Club as well as corporate support are critical to Vanderbilt's strong athletic program. Newly opened or rejuvenated facilities for Commodore basketball, football, baseball, track, soccer and lacrosse, and golf are recognized throughout intercollegiate athletics as models for their sport.

THE CHALLENGES FOR A NEW CHANCELLOR OF VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

For a generation, Vanderbilt's Chancellors, working effectively with the Board of Trust, have provided exceptional leadership for the university, moving it from regional to national prominence by recruiting a constantly improving faculty and student body. The combination of cutting-edge research, an undergraduate liberal arts focus, strong professional and graduate schools and a distinguished medical center creates an invigorating atmosphere in which students can tailor their education to meet their goals and where researchers easily collaborate. To continue this tradition, the Chancellor will address the following challenges and strive to use them as opportunities to consistently improve the academic stature of the university.

Sustain one Vanderbilt

Chancellors have powered Vanderbilt's ambition. They extended its reach nationally. They provided financial and intellectual discipline. They found and allocated resources and made strategic investments. They understood that the quality of the whole depended on strength in every part and that collectively the reputation of the university would depend on consistency across the university. They have insured that the medical center remains an integral part of the university's academic plan. In this next generation of effort, Vanderbilt must sustain its ambition and its focus, strengthening the whole through attention to every part.

Provide the intellectual leadership for the next generation of academic investment

Vanderbilt has made startling progress in its scholarly and research endeavors. With strong leadership from central administration and the schools and with pooled resources, the university has recruited and retained an excellent faculty, made strategic, competitive investments through the Academic Venture Capital Fund, built collaborations across school lines, and begun taking steps to improve investment in graduate education. In the next chapter of these efforts, the Chancellor must find the resources and provide the intellectual discipline to:

• Build strength across the board, enhancing Vanderbilt's reputation as a broadly powerful academic university, not a collection of pockets of excellence.
• Nurture and grow the strong collaborative culture that is already in place while further promoting the cross-disciplinary fertilization of ideas, conversation, research, and teaching.
• Make the next generation of competitive, peer reviewed, investments in new academic ventures that are as effective in the humanities as they are in the sciences.
• Enhance the capacity of the graduate programs in the humanities, social and natural sciences to enable them to achieve national and international prominence.
• Build the strength of the academic departments through focused, effective recruitment and retention.
• Ensure that the medical center continues as an engine of academic achievement and a foundation of health care in the region while, at the same time, remaining an integral part of the university's academic mission.

Recruit, retain and develop an increasingly distinguished faculty, who commit to the full Vanderbilt mission of teaching and research

The quality of Vanderbilt's academic disciplines is essential to the university's scholarly mission and to its emerging identity in the nation. In the tenure of the next Chancellor, Vanderbilt will need to improve on its investments in outstanding faculty and the facilities that sustain them. Vanderbilt needs to sustain and enhance a comprehensive effort in scholarship. It seeks a Chancellor who can help it to produce the next generation of outstanding scholars for the international academy.

Attract a constantly improved cadre of graduate students and sustain the trajectory of perpetually improved graduate education program at Vanderbilt

The University has attended to graduate education, has provided significant resources and made excellent progress. In the next generation of effort, it will need even more resources and persistent attention to recruit and retain the best graduate students from around the country and the world and to improve time to completion. Graduate stipends, work options for accompanying spouses, viable housing alternatives, and pre- and post-doctoral research support are among the incentives needed to lure students from Vanderbilt's competition. Orchestrated programs that combine a critical mass of faculty from across the campus can strengthen those programs. The strength of graduate programs is frequently a proxy for the inherent academic strength of an institution. Vanderbilt is determined to improve its graduate program throughout the tenure of its next Chancellor.

Continue the impressive effort to enhance the strength of the undergraduate student body and the quality of the undergraduate living/learning experience

Vanderbilt's enrollment management has produced a constantly improved, vastly more diverse and increasingly national undergraduate student body. The next Chancellor should sustain the trend, enhancing the university's stature with a nationally competitive undergraduate program that will challenge the faculty to engage the students in both intellectual and civic leadership during their campus tenure and throughout their lives.

To sustain the quality of students that will meet these goals, over the next few years, Vanderbilt will need resources to invest in increased "need blind" admissions, reducing and if possible eliminating the need for student loans "to meet demonstrated need." The university must also find ways to extend the energizing experience of the first-year Commons to all four years, which will require building the next generation of student residential living/learning "colleges."

Sustain and nurture the remarkable progress of Vanderbilt's academic medical center while maintaining its linkage to the entire university.

Vanderbilt leads the nation in the growth of its academic medical research enterprise, has one of the fastest growing clinical enterprises in the country and provides essential resources to the rest of the university.

Medical centers operate in a complex environment, subject to competitive forces, to shifts in national and local health care policy and to drastic changes in technology. They require competitive management and constant investment. The medical center has been an essential partner to academic improvement across the campus, especially in the sciences.

The next Chancellor must understand the medical center, must engage with its complexity and must provide the support and intellectual guidance that guarantees appropriate investment and long-term success. The Chancellor must personally understand the linkages between the medical center and the rest of the university and must constantly work to leverage its remarkable strengths across the entire scholarly enterprise.

Sustain Vanderbilt's welcome to an increasingly diverse community

Vanderbilt has worked explicitly to recruit undergraduates from diverse religious, ethnic, racial and socio-economic communities. The profile of the student body has changed dramatically. Those efforts continue and they will need resources. At the same time, the university has turned its attention to faculty, administrative and graduate student recruitment and has made real progress.

The next Chancellor must provide personal leadership to sustain and expand the effort and demonstrate a personal and genuine commitment that is communicated to the university community in regular and meaningful ways.

Engage Nashville and Tennessee as increasingly valued partners in community development

Great universities in any community run the danger of becoming an isolated "college on the hill" and Vanderbilt has had periods in its history when it has been viewed as having turned inward and not actively contributed to the community around it. In the last several years, the university has made a systematic effort to join and serve the state and the community. The university depends deeply on the success of Nashville, as a place to recruit faculty and students and as a home to all its endeavors. The university makes a fundamental contribution to the quality of healthcare, K-12 education, arts and culture, and social services in the community. The Chancellor serves on key commissions and encourages senior university leaders, faculty and students to be actively engaged with community affairs. The university participates as a large employer, and as a source of leadership, in all major community and economic development efforts. The next Chancellor must sustain the tradition, making Vanderbilt an increasingly valued community partner.

Recruit and retain a strong management team, develop strategic priorities, allocate capital and manage to explicit financial and program metrics

Vanderbilt intends to compete with the very finest universities in the country. It has constantly improved its resources and its position, moving up in its peer ranking. It has strong people, has accurately identified its requirements and has executed carefully. It needs strong management now and for the foreseeable future. The level of its ambitions exceeds its resources and some of its competitors have investment portfolios unimaginable a few years ago.

The Chancellor leads the management team, engages the Board, works to retain management strength and sets the standard for new recruitment. She or he leads the effort to earn net revenue, to cohere strategy, to manage debt stringently and to allocate scarce capital. The Chancellor guarantees that the team executes on its strategy.

Build a culture of philanthropy and personally lead the capital campaign

Vanderbilt has consistently improved the effectiveness of its development program. Alumni and parents have responded to the university's vision. Undergraduates appreciate the quality of their academic and student experience and the alumni body takes pride in Vanderbilt's accomplishments.

These are significant accomplishments, but they are not adequate to fund the university's ambitions. To build the residential colleges, to fund financial aid, to invest in academics and clinical care, Vanderbilt will need enhanced endowment and capital for construction. The trajectory of improvement is consistent, but the culture of philanthropy is relatively new. Alumni participation is roughly 25 percent. This should grow to 40 percent over the next ten years to approach the giving level of the top tier of national institutions. Vanderbilt has an impressive, growing alumni body of 118,000. Careful prospect research and a fresh look by national consultants confirm that the university has the potential to nearly double the results of its current program.

Vanderbilt needs its Chancellor to embrace philanthropy and commit to improving the culture of philanthropy, on campus and off, so that every member of the community understands the importance of giving back. The Chancellor must lead the campaign, work assiduously with the Board in the execution of the campaign, engage major donors personally and grow the development program so that it is competitive with the finest development programs in the country.

PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Vanderbilt University seeks in its new Chancellor a leader with intellectual vision, a world view, great energy, and the personal integrity to inspire the university community to new levels of excellence across the campus and its disciplines. Candidates should have a history of organizational leadership, a record of scholarship, the ability to build and cultivate financial support for the university and its programs, and accomplishment in creating and supporting a climate of community, understanding and mutual respect. The Search Committee understands that no single candidate will have all the ideal qualifications, but it seeks candidates with the following experience and abilities:

• successful experience as a strategic leader at an institution with an academic medical center; an understanding of the full range of strategic issues in complex organizations and the ability to build strong management teams and execute large and ambitious plans with fiscal responsibility;
• a highly developed understanding of academic values and culture; an appreciation for scholarly work and a history of support for academic excellence;
• the desire and ability to provide intellectual leadership on campus and to play a significant role at the national level in shaping discussion on issues of importance to higher education and to academia in general;
• experience with and enthusiasm about the complexities of a vibrant, growing academic medical center;
• exceptional communication and interpersonal skills; the ability to energize and inspire students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, trustees and other external constituencies;
• a commitment to the importance of undergraduate teaching;
• a personal commitment to and genuine conviction that diversity is essential to improve education, Vanderbilt University and our society; an individual who through individual action and institutional leadership will advance diversity of all types -- racial, sexual, ethnic, and intellectual;
• a powerful affinity for and commitment to the mission and values of Vanderbilt University;
• enthusiasm and respect for Vanderbilt and the various communities in which the university has a presence, including Nashville and Middle Tennessee;
• an ability to bring campus constituencies to actionable consensus;
• the capacity to represent Vanderbilt compellingly to donors and to lead a constantly improved development campaign; the ability to energize alumni to support the university at a level consistent with that of the top tier of instituions;
• an understanding of and commitment to sustaining a strong athletic program that will confer the goodwill of the university community, deliver a message about the role athletic programs play in developing ethics and integrity, and serve as a national model for other intercollegiate programs in their quest for excellence; and
• a well-developed political and diplomatic skill set in order to represent the institution's missions and goals to outside constituencies.

COMPENSATION

Compensation for this position will be competitive and commensurate with experience.

TO APPLY

To learn more about Vanderbilt University, please visit: www.vanderbilt.edu. Vanderbilt University has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist with this important search. Electronic submission of inquiries, nominations/referrals and resumes with cover letters is preferred and should be sent in confidence to:

John Isaacson, President & Managing Director
ISAACSON, MILLER
334 Boylston Street, Suite 500
Boston, MA 02116
617.262.6500
Fax: 617.262.6509
E-mail: 3497@imsearch.com

Michael Baer, Vice President & Director
ISAACSON, MILLER
1875 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 710
Washington, D.C. 20009
202.682.1504
Fax: 202.682.1272
E-mail: 3497@imsearch.com

Kevin Michael Hicar, Senior Associate
ISAACSON, MILLER
1875 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 710
Washington, D.C. 20009
202.682.1504
Fax: 202.682.1272
E-mail: 3497@imsearch.com

In keeping with its commitment to build a culturally diverse community, Vanderbilt University invites applications from women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities.