Published June 16, 2016
MONROE, La. — The University of Louisiana Monroe passed the 2016 GRAD Act performance accountability
process and related legislative data audit with no negative findings.
The GRAD Act was approved by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Bobby
Jindal in June 2010. As a result, the Board of Regents entered into six-year performance
agreements with each of the participating institutions. In the agreements, the institution
commits to meeting specific performance objectives in exchange for increased tuition
authority and eligibility to participate in certain autonomies.
Additionally, according to the report published by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor
last week, ULM’s preparation of data used to compile the annual GRAD Act report was
found to be “sufficiently reliable” on the basis of a combination of assessments,
sample testing, and other criteria.
“I am very pleased to see that all nine of our campuses prepared data that was sufficiently
reliable, and have no additional comments,” University of Louisiana System Interim
President Dan Reneau said in a letter addressed to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.
This marks the final GRAD Act report per the six-year agreement, which was put into
place just as ULM president Dr. Nick. J. Bruno came into office six years ago. Since
then, ULM has successfully increased retention, graduation, and applicable licensing
rates according to the targets set at the outset of the program.
“We have worked hard to increase the success of our students and enhance the overall
growth of our university,” said Bruno. “It’s not easy to move numbers related to retention
and graduation, but we have made concerted efforts to do just that over the last six
years.”
Complete past reports are available from the Louisiana Board of Regents regents.la.gov/page/grad-act.
