Chancellor RObert Hemenway meets with a group of orientation assistants in July about their responsibilities in working with new KU students. June 1 marked Hemenway's 10th year at KU.

The 10-year anniversary of Robert Hemenway’s hiring date at Kansas University passed this summer with little fanfare.

June 1 was just another day at the office.

“I’m not the kind of person who constantly thinks about the number of years in the job,” Hemenway said. “There are plenty of things to do every day.”

But that doesn’t mean the 64-year-old Hemenway hasn’t been thinking a little more recently about his progress toward his goals at KU.

Hemenway has no plans to retire when he hits 65. He said he’d like to stay on as KU’s top administrator for another six years, or until he turns 70.

“Every day I enjoy coming to work, and I feel there’s a lot more we can accomplish,” he said. “I’m going to keep working up until someone tells me not to.”

Top-25 goal

One of the measures of KU’s progress under Hemenway is his often-mentioned goal of becoming a top-25 public research university.

Though he insists it’s not the only ranking method he pays attention to, Hemenway is pleased with KU’s performance in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. KU now is 42nd among public universities overall.

“When we first started our goal to become a top-25 university, we had 16 or 17 programs in the top 25 of their discipline,” Hemenway said. “Now, we have 26 ranked in the top 25. We measure that over a 10-year period, and that shows progress.”

He credits strides in a variety of areas – including student services, research and teaching – for the improvement.

“You do those things, and the rankings will take care of themselves,” Hemenway said. “You like to cite those (rankings), but you don’t want to be obsessed with it. The vision is still to have evidence the university is improving.”

Progress

Rather, Hemenway points to a variety of accomplishments that he’s proud of during his time at KU:

¢ Streamlining the university’s administration, including combining the provost and executive vice chancellor positions on the Lawrence campus, and the dean of the School of Medicine and executive vice chancellor positions at the Medical Center.

¢ The creation of the KU Center for Research, which has allowed money made on research to be reinvested into KU’s research efforts.

¢ The separation of the University of Kansas Hospital from the university structure. The hospital now is governed by a separate authority, which freed it from some state administrative guidelines.

¢ The creation of the Center for Teaching Excellence, which puts an emphasis on good instructional techniques.

¢ The completion of $750 million in construction projects and a campuswide master plan for future development.

¢ An increase in enrollment despite large tuition increases the last few years.

“I’ll take the credit for some of this, because I’m the person who gets blamed for it when things don’t go so well,” Hemenway said. “In the end, it’s the faculty, staff and students who make this a good university.”

More to do

Plenty of work remains, Hemenway said.

For instance, he points to a 100-number increase in the number of minority faculty during his time here.

“That’s progress,” the chancellor said, “but we can do better.”

Likewise on minority student enrollment, which has increased from 9 percent to 11 percent in the last decade.

Hemenway would like to see KU continue to become, as he says, more “internationalized.” That means a continued emphasis on study abroad programs and exchange agreements with foreign universities.

And he wants to continue making strides in federal research funding.

“We’ve certainly not accomplished everything I set out to do 10 years ago,” he said.

And Hemenway wouldn’t rule out pushing for a little something extra for Jayhawk sports fans before he retires.

“I wouldn’t mind a Rose Bowl and a couple Final Four championships in there as well,” he said.