Regents, colleagues and members of the university community:
It’s always an honor to speak with you and reflect on where we stand as a university and where we’re going. As I address you today, we continue to confront significant challenges that demand our ongoing attention, while also embracing opportunities for reinvention and growth. Through it all, the University of Nebraska’s land-grant mission, together with the strategic plan we’ve built collaboratively over the past year, remains our compass—guiding us forward on our journey toward the extraordinary.
Since our last meeting, we’ve marked several important milestones across the NU System—moments that underscore the breadth and depth of our hard work and that build upon the clearly defined value the university brings to our state.
In May, we awarded 7,261 undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees across our four campuses. That number reflects the individual achievement of thousands of students, as well as the collective strength of our faculty, staff, academic programs and partnerships. These graduates will power Nebraska’s workforce and contribute to our communities in every corner of our state, as well as far beyond. From Scottsbluff to Omaha, we continue to demonstrate the enduring value of quality and accessible higher education.
Last month, we celebrated the grand opening of the Catalyst building in Omaha—a milestone moment for our academic health science center and for the public-private redevelopment taking place in the new EDGE District. The Catalyst is more than a building, more than the skeleton of a century old steel processing plant. It’s a space for university researchers, private industry and entrepreneurs to collaborate in accelerating innovation in medicine and health care. It’s the kind of investment that strengthens our economic competitiveness and reinforces the university’s central role in driving growth and discovery while drawing new and exciting corporate investments to our community.
At UNO, we broke ground on the third phase of the Biomechanics Research Building—an expansion funded entirely through private philanthropy. This addition will enhance one of the world’s premier biomechanics programs, with new capacity to study cardiovascular disease and help more Nebraskans live longer, healthier lives. Our gratitude to the Bill and Ruth Scott Family for this investment in our University and countless others is immeasurable.
At UNK, we proudly announced Dr. Neal Schnoor as the priority candidate for the position of chancellor. A highly respected educator, administrator, and leader, Dr. Schnoor brings a wealth of experience and a deep connection to UNK, as a native Nebraskan and having served in several key roles on our Kearney campus in the past. His return has been met with great enthusiasm from the campus and community. Today, the Board of Regents will vote on his confirmation as UNK’s next chancellor.
The new Diabetes Center for Excellence in Diabetes Care, Research and Education (C-DIACARE) will allow UNMC to develop a comprehensive interdisciplinary program in diabetes treatment, research and education by bringing together currently disparate programs across campus and across the system. The Center, whose director will be supported by an endowed professorship from a community foundation, will position UNMC to attract additional research funding, including applying for a prestigious NIH Diabetes Center in the future. By attracting specialized personnel and additional research funding, the Center will foster innovation in diabetes management to lower healthcare costs and address rural health through diabetes prevention and early diagnosis.
And as a community, we’ve had much to celebrate in athletics—another vital part of the student experience and a shared source of pride across our state. Husker baseball won the Big Ten championship. Husker softball advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals for the first time in a decade. And we celebrate Jordy Bahl, not just for her success as Big Ten Player of the Year, but for earning her degree this spring.
These achievements—academic, research and athletic and so many more—are a reflection of the excellence we strive for and achieve in every corner of our university. And they come at a time when we’re also navigating complex fiscal realities.
As we know, the Nebraska Legislature concluded its 2025 session in late April. We are grateful to the governor and the legislature for their continued investment in the University of Nebraska. Despite a challenging budget environment, they supported a modest increase in our funding. However, the state appropriation falls short of what was requested. It does not fully cover inflationary pressures, the rising cost of employee benefits or the strategic investments required to sustain our momentum. This appropriation also comes at a time in which the future of federal research grants, contracts and other funding that have historically supported colleges and universities across our nation is uncertain. That gap leaves us with difficult decisions as we look to preserve the core of our mission, make critical investments and recruit and retain talented faculty and staff—all while remaining financially responsible.
We are responding with discipline and care. In the coming weeks, we will implement several cost-saving measures, including a freeze on across-the-board salary increases and a review of tuition remission policies.
Today, the Board will also consider our annual budget, including a 5% tuition increase and more than $20 million of additional cuts to our core budget. These decisions are not made lightly, particularly from my personal perspective of a first-generation student. But they are necessary if we are to maintain the academic quality Nebraskans expect and deserve. Even with this increase, our university will remain one of the most affordable in all our peer groups—including the Big Ten—and will continue to protect access and affordability for Nebraska students and families.
As part of our desire to ensure the university’s long-term financial health, we must take a closer look at the tuition remissions we can control. We deeply respect the legislature’s desire to provide free tuition to veterans, first responders and their families—but when those costs aren’t funded, the university must absorb them or pass them along to other students. That’s why we’re reviewing institutionally controlled remissions, including Regents Scholarships, the Presidential Scholars Program and others. We remain committed to recruiting top students—as well as to honoring all scholarships we have already awarded—but we must also be fiscally responsible going forward in managing the remissions within our control while we work with the legislature to better manage many millions of dollars of unfunded tuition mandates. All of these actions are guided by the strategic plan the board approved at our last meeting. In the context of the challenges I just described, our strategic plan becomes not only a vision for the future—it becomes an essential road map for decision-making.
The strategic framework we adopted earlier this year rests on five pillars: extraordinary teaching and learning; extraordinary research and creative activity; extraordinary partnerships and engagement; extraordinary culture and environment; and extraordinary stewardship and effectiveness. Together, these pillars define what it means to be a high-impact public university—and they give us a shared language to guide our work today and our vision for tomorrow across campuses and disciplines.
Since the Board’s approval, we’ve been working to implement this framework in real, practical ways. At the system level, we’ve launched workgroups to develop metrics and identify opportunities to enhance efficiency. Each campus is aligning its own planning efforts with the system-wide framework, ensuring that we move forward together, with clarity and purpose.
Our focus on strategic alignment is already shaping key initiatives. For example, our move toward joint accreditation of UNL and UNMC—while still in the final planning stages—is rooted in our strategic priorities. Earlier this month, both campuses hosted a site visit from the Higher Learning Commission as part of the accreditation process. Joint accreditation raises the university's profile, aligning with other highly regarded peer institutions and ensuring we are creating more valuable opportunities for students, faculty, staff and stakeholders.
We are also focused on ensuring our academic offerings meet the evolving needs of students and employers. Later today, the Board will consider several proposals that continue our work to simplify and modernize our several existing degree programs, as well as proposals to add new degrees. New degrees on the agenda today include new undergraduate degrees in robotics engineering and one in multidisciplinary studies, both at UNL. While very different, these programs share common goals of providing flexible and relevant degrees that are highly aligned with the ever-evolving high-technology workforce demand.
This is what strategic planning looks like in action: investing where the need is greatest, cutting where we must, and always keeping our mission front and center.
That mission is broad—but it is not abstract. It is lived out every day in classrooms and research labs, on farms and performance stages, and in clinics and communities across Nebraska. It is the result of a university system that is deeply embedded in the fabric of this state—committed to access, service and an odyssey to the extraordinary.
We know the path ahead will not be easy. We face real financial constraints. But we also have real opportunities—to be more nimble, more innovative, and more intentional in how we serve Nebraska. I want to thank you—members of the Board—for your leadership and your support as we navigate these challenges together.
And I want to thank our faculty, staff, students and partners across the state for their continued commitment to the work ahead, their commitment to our university.
With a clear plan, a unified team and a shared sense of purpose, I have no doubt that the University of Nebraska will continue to thrive—and continue to be one of our state’s greatest assets and an exemplar of superb and forward thinking public higher education across the nation.
Thank you.