UI's Nellis completes Idaho tour

MOSCOW - Simultaneously exhausted and energized, University of Idaho President Duane Nellis returned to Moscow Thursday after an eight-day, 1,500-mile tour of Idaho to re-engage with the state.

Billed as a followup to Nellis' "listening tour" two years ago when he was new to the job, the tour took Nellis to 14 cities, 37 events and 21 media interviews.

On that first tour, Nellis said he heard from UI alumni, business leaders and others that the university needed to return to its land-grant roots and make a greater effort to serve the entire state.

"They felt that the University of Idaho had somehow shied away from that," Nellis said in an afternoon news conference in his Administration Building office.

But now the university's various constituencies believe the school is on the right track, he said. As evidence, he pointed to partnerships with businesses like Simplot, Avista, Schweitzer Engineering, Wells Fargo, Agri Beef, Micron, Coeur d'Alene Mines and Potlatch that have allowed the university to leverage its shrinking state appropriations to greater effect.

Nellis also said outreach to the state has been bolstered through various service learning projects undertaken by UI students and faculty members to revitalize small communities like Salmon, Arco and Cascade.

"Rather than complain," Nellis said, "our constituents reinforced what we're doing."

Such success stories include the Cummings Research, Extension and Education Center in Salmon, an 1,100-acre cattle ranch where a partnership with Agri Beef is yielding new research on cow and calf feed; the Caine Veterinary Teaching Center in Caldwell that provides supporting research for Idaho's $2 billion dairy industry; and research in Hagerman that is saving the state aquaculture industry millions of dollars each year.

But there is pressure on the university's county extension agents and their staff members to do their work with fewer dollars, Nellis said.

"I think they feel some stress."

He noted the university has pared back its extension system in several areas, including closing one of its four regional offices. The university is attempting to take up the slack using technology like video conferencing to bring its expertise into the field.

"So we're trying to stretch creatively the resources we have," he said.

The state signaled its appreciation of the UI extension service earlier this year when it didn't cut any more of its budget, Nellis said. He also credited the extension agents themselves, and their staff members, for answering a call to public service and dedicating themselves to their jobs in spite of not seeing a raise in several years.

Salaries are a problematic issue at the university, however.

"We're losing some of our good faculty to other universities who dangle big salaries in front of them," Nellis said. "Every year we have some of our most talented faculty that get courted."

Part of his tour was making contact with the university's primary donors, and to impress upon them the need to support things like endowed professorships. He said such endowments can supplement a faculty member's salary by a few thousand dollars, enough to make the difference in whether he or she stays or goes.

He also asked the donors to commit to funding more scholarships, an issue that has grown in importance in the face of relentlessly increasing college tuition.

The university is in the silent phase of a major capital campaign, which will go public in May 2012. Nellis gauged the mood of donors to be positive, and noted the university got a record number of gifts last year.

But though numerous, the gifts have been smaller, perhaps a reflection of the current economic climate, Nellis said.

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Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 883-0564.