State-of-the-University AddressChancellor John A. WhiteSeptember 6, 2000

Introduction

Members of the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff colleagues, students, alumni and friends: I am privileged to welcome you to this State-of-the-University address. Thank you all for joining me for this inaugural event, which we hope will become a tradition.

When I completed the last draft of this address on Saturday, August 26, my first sentence read as follows:

"As we begin the first academic year of the new millennium, I am pleased to report that the state of the University of Arkansas continues to be very good and is improving."

I still believe that, of course, but it rings somewhat hollow given the events of last week. I must start my remarks today by acknowledging the terrible tragedy that marred the first day of classes and changed all of us forever. I am referring to the murder of Professor John Locke of our comparative literature program and the suicide of his assailant, James Kelly—a graduate student he had mentored for many years.

We must do all we can to ensure that an event of this sort never occurs again on this campus. We have much to learn from this tragedy. I pledge to you that we will study and analyze this matter and make changes in policy and practice to minimize the likelihood of a recurrence.

Our University community has been deeply traumatized. But in the days that followed, I saw this family—our academic family—come together in a spirit of unity. I saw our University in a new light - as a community that is compassionate beyond measure, proud of what this institution stands for, resilient and made of solid stock, and determined to forge a better institution from this sad experience. As horrible as the event of last week was, I believe we will grow stronger than ever as we begin to heal.

And so as we begin the first academic year of the new millennium, I am pleased to report that the state of the University of Arkansas continues to be very good and is improving. In fact, the University of Arkansas has made remarkable strides in recent years and there is every reason to believe our rapid rate of improvement will continue well into the 21st Century; all of you can take great pride in what has been achieved. Having noted the progress we have made, I must also note that we must continue improving in order to create the kind of university our sponsoring state needs and deserves. Unfortunately, the quality of our academic programs, faculty, staff, and students is not only one of the nation’s best kept secrets, but it is also one of the best kept secrets in Arkansas. Too few recognize and appreciate the value of the University to all Arkansans.

In my remarks, today, I want to recount some of the University’s recent achievements. Indeed, I am quite proud of what has been accomplished and am grateful to each of you for your contributions to what we’ve attained.

Ends and Means

But my main purpose is to talk to you about the ends of our university and the means to those ends. I define "ends" along these lines: As a University, as an intellectual community of faculty, students and staff, where are we going? Why are we going there? What is the ultimate purpose to the transformation of the University of Arkansas from a very good state and land-grant university to a top tier public research university?

By means, I am talking about what it will take to attain our goals. What are the strategies and what are the resources—both human and financial—that will be required for this University to fulfill its potential?

For the last three years, the University leadership team—deans, elected governance representatives, and vice chancellors—has focused mainly on ends. We have studied the position of the University of Arkansas within the state and across the nation and, in fact, are still doing so. We have looked, especially, at the needs of the State of Arkansas. Those needs, as you well know, are extensive.

The UA Vision

Coming out of this analysis and discussion was our vision statement, now a year old: The University of Arkansas will be a nationally competitive, student-centered research university serving Arkansas and the world.

We adopted this vision statement not for reasons of institutional vanity, but because we believe it encapsulates the best way for the University of Arkansas to serve the State of Arkansas in the 21st century. We can render the best service to the state by becoming a much stronger research university, by giving better attention to our students and making sure that a considerable majority of them graduate from the University, and by making our intellectual capital available to the state and its citizens in ways more imaginative and robust than we have dared to dream.

Why is this not just a desire, but an imperative? In the economic competition of the 21st Century, the winners and losers among the states will be decided on where the smartest people are, not where the cheapest labor can be found. A nationally competitive, student-centered research university is an essential ingredient in the formula for making Arkansas competitive in the new economy. Indeed, everything we aspire to be is designed to create the intellectual infrastructure our state requires if it is to move from near the bottom of the 50 states to closer to the middle in terms of per capita and household income, educational attainment, health and wellness, and other standard measures of quality of life.

A significant change must occur—both here at the University and across our state—for Arkansans to enjoy the same prosperity as those in states with great public research universities. Since knowledge has become the coin of the realm, investments in research universities—the founts of new knowledge, if you will—are essential for states to be globally competitive.

In comparing Arkansas with Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, we noted that an inflection point occurred when leaders in those states recognized the role higher education plays in creating economic prosperity for all. Not only is the intensity of the competition accelerating, but the number of competitors also is increasing. Recently, Kentucky made a dramatic move to be counted among the winners in the 21st Century. Arkansas must pick up the pace. Even now, Mississippi is making investments Arkansas has been unable to make. For states having nationally competitive research universities, the economic outlook for the 21st Century is bright; for those states that have not made the necessary investments in their research universities, the future is cloudy at best.

At the University of Arkansas, our mission always has been to serve our state and its people. For us to carry out that mission in the 21st century, we must become much better at what we do.

Institutional Strategy

While we have been improving year-by-year, I sense that this is to be a very important transitional year for the University. We know what we have to become, and why, and now we are focused more keenly than ever on the means to our institutional ends.

As noted earlier, one of those means is our institutional strategy—which posits five major goals. They are:

• —to strengthen academic quality and reputation by developing and enhancing programs of excellence in teaching, research, and service;
• —to improve the quality and size of the student body;
• —to improve the diversity of our faculty, staff, and students;
• —to generate increased private gift support; and
• —to generate increased public support.

Of course, these five goals are inter-dependent. Let me touch briefly on our progress and our challenges in each of these areas.

Goal #1: Strengthening Academic Quality and Reputation

Universities, like people, have a wide variety of assets, features, and qualities. But the most valuable of these is that intangible asset known as reputation. And reputation is contingent upon perceptions of various measures of academic quality—particularly in faculty, staff, students, and programs. Reputation is exceedingly important to us, not for its own sake, but because reputation effects pride and attracts resources. Whether we’re talking about excellent faculty and staff, exceptional students, or funding from government and the private sector, reputation is the independent variable upon which these resources hinge. So it is very much in the enlightened self-interest of this University to do everything we can to enhance quality and reputation across the board.

The good news is our reputation is growing. Last year, the University was selected for the first time in The Princeton Review’s Guide to the 331 Best Colleges and Universities. Indeed, our academic rating was the third highest in the Southeastern Conference, behind only Vanderbilt and Florida, and the quotes from our students about their experiences with faculty were exceptional. This year, we were again selected for inclusion with our academic quality rating still the third best in the SEC. That is very good news, indeed.

U.S. News and World Report is another matter. In this, too, our academic reputation is increasing. We are also doing better in the other U.S. News’ measures—faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, and alumni giving. But, still, we are ranked in the third tier of national universities—along with only LSU, Mississippi State and Ole Miss from the SEC.

Let’s be very clear about one thing: The University of Arkansas is not a third tier university. We are not third tier people. So, what is keeping us mired there?

The Challenge of Student Retention

Basically, it is our historically poor performance in the retention and graduation rates of our students.

Now, we have improved our freshman mid-year retention rates from 90.5 percent in 1997 to 94.5 percent in 1999. And we also have improved our six-year graduation rate from 41.8 percent in 1997 to 45.1 percent in 1999.

I am most grateful for the work of the Faculty Senate this past year in revising our academic probation and suspension policy. Now, it is aligned with the rest of the major public research universities in the five major athletic conferences.

As we analyzed this situation, we discovered that we were the quickest to suspend and the slowest to readmit students. So, without changing requirements for admittance to the junior year and for graduation, we enhanced the prospect for students to succeed academically. Previously, they had only their freshman year to succeed or fail. Now, they have until the beginning of their junior year.

This year we are introducing the First-Year Experience program, a program designed to bond entering students more closely to the University and the surrounding community. We hope those strengthened bonds will, in turn, influence the rates at which our students graduate from the University of Arkansas.

The issue of improving student retention and graduation is a matter of great concern to me. Why? Because I believe it may well be the most important issue ever to confront this state and this University. It is important for two major reasons.

• —The first is moral. How can we claim to be a student-centered university when less than half our students graduate within six years? With such a low graduation rate, how can we claim to be effectively serving our state, which is sorely in need of greater numbers of baccalaureate degree holders?
• —The second is competitive. As we seek to attract excellent students from the state and nation, our graduation rate—in contrast to those of other public research universities—becomes our Achilles’ heel. And, as noted earlier, it is keeping us submerged in the third tier of national universities, negatively influencing our academic reputation.

Our ultimate positioning goal, as we have said many times before, is to move into U.S. News and World Report’s Top 50 Public National Universities. There are a few other SEC institutions in this ranking—Auburn University and the universities of Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. Arkansas must join them if we are to be deemed nationally competitive.

Graduate Education

We have also said we want to rise from Carnegie II to Carnegie I status as a research institution. Last month, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching substantially revised their institutional classification system. Basically, the Foundation collapsed four categories of institutions—Research I, Research II, Doctoral I and Doctoral II—into two major categories. These categories are Doctoral Research University—Extensive, and Doctoral Research University—Intensive. The good news is that the University of Arkansas has been placed in the higher category, as a Doctoral Research University—Extensive. The bad news is that the criteria for these two categories have been softened considerably. The amount of federal R&D support an institution receives has been removed entirely from the criteria. All that is left is the production of doctoral graduates annually, the numbers being at least 50 per year for the "extensives" and 10 to 20 per year for the "intensives."

This reclassification in no way affects our goal of generating substantially more research funding. The Carnegie people intend to reclassify again in five years, so we will see what happens with their classification system. Regardless of what they do, we will continue to place a significant priority on increasing the research funding we receive.

Our efforts to improve academic quality and reputation extend to other areas as well. One of the most important is graduate education. In particular, we are looking at ways of expanding our doctoral programs, in terms of both quality and size. We do not seek to create an array of new doctoral programs across the board. But we are looking to build new programs that have relevance for our state and region in the context of the information age and the new economy.

Since 1997, we have created five new doctoral programs:

• —the Ph.D. in Computer Science;
• —the Computer Systems Option of the Ph.D. in Engineering;
• —the Ph.D. in Environmental Dynamics;
• —the Ph.D. in Microelectronics-Photonics; and
• —the Ph.D. in Public Policy.

With the five new programs, the University of Arkansas now offers 32 doctoral programs. In addition, we have two proposals for new Ph.D. programs pending approval from the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board. These are the Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology, and the Ph.D. in Anthropology.

UA Faculty and Staff

Of course, the quality and reputation of our academic programs depend in great part on our faculty. As strong as our faculty has been, we are becoming even stronger. With the aid of privately endowed chairs, we have been able to hire new faculty and to keep some of our current faculty from being recruited elsewhere. With the Campaign for the 21st Century getting under way, we hope to attract substantial gift revenue for endowed faculty positions, giving us the means to recruit and retain the faculty members we must have to be nationally competitive. We need to do for the entire University what is now occurring in the Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration, courtesy of the $50 million received from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation nearly two years ago.

Of course, we are also seeking ways to improve faculty and staff salaries. More than $5 million in new support will be required to bring our faculty salaries up to the average of fifty-three other public universities with which we benchmark. Certainly private gift support can be very helpful in selected cases, but we also need to look to the state for support here as well.

Let me say that I have been highly impressed with the quality of work from our faculty. Teaching has been a traditional strength of this faculty. And it shows in the remarks I hear from alumni, young and old, whose lives have been transformed by your talent and commitment in the classroom.

But, I am equally impressed with our faculty’s accomplishments in research, scholarship, and creative contributions. We may not have the critical mass of faculty that larger research universities enjoy, but person for person, our faculty compares favorably with those at the nation’s very best universities. Indeed, your intellectual achievements in recent years have positioned the University of Arkansas to really "take off" in terms of national competitiveness. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to advance the frontiers of knowledge and draw international attention to this University.

I am also grateful for a talented and dedicated staff, without which this University could not function. From Physical Plant to Enrollment Services to UAPD to University IT Services to Student Affairs to University Advancement to Finance and Administration to Men’s and Women’s athletics, to staff in the academic units and everyone in between, I am keenly aware of how much good work you accomplish, day in and day out. You do this in the face of limited resources and ever-increasing demands. Your efforts are noticed and appreciated more than words can convey. But, let me try: thank you for making the University of Arkansas work so very, very well.

Goal #2: increasing the Quality and Size of the Student Body

Now, let me speak about our second goal—increasing the quality and size of our student body.

We’ve had spectacular success in this arena. We will not have official statistics on fall enrollment for another week or so, but we do expect to see an increase, due mainly to better retention. But here are some figures we do have for the two years between 1997 and 1999:

• —freshman ACT average scores increased from 23.4 to 24.5;
• —freshman high school grade point averages rose from 3.39 to 3.51;
• —the percentage of freshmen in the top 10 percent of their high school classes rose from 28 percent to 36 percent;
• —the number of National Merit Scholars grew from 90 to 120; and
• —overall student enrollment grew from 14,385 to 15,226.

Chancellor’s Scholars

The catalyst for much of this is the Chancellor’s Scholarship program. In 1997, we had 41 entering freshmen in the program. The following year, it was 492. Last year, we reduced the number to 315. And this year, we have about 250 Chancellor’s Scholars in the freshman class. (One of the toughest things I have had to accept is that we simply cannot afford to offer scholarships to every deserving student. If we had unlimited resources and had maintained the same criteria used for the 1998 freshman class, we could have had over 800 Chancellor’s Scholars in the freshman classes of 1999 and 2000. But, we simply do not have the resources to recruit all of these exceptional students.)

The unexpected overnight success of the Chancellor’s Scholars program placed financial strain on the University, but we see a resolution in the near future. We will reduce the number of incoming Chancellor’s Scholars to about 250 over the next four years. The Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation has made a $3.2 million gift to help sustain our scholars over this period. In the meantime, we will be raising private dollars to combine with institutional resources so that we can sponsor at least 250 new Chancellor’s Scholars a year.

This year, we will have nearly 1,000 Chancellor’s Scholars on our campus. In other words, about one of every 12 undergraduates on our campus will be a Chancellor’s Scholar.

Even before I became chancellor, I said that our best students are as good as the best students at any university in the world. I have also contended that we do not have as many of them as we should. However, the ones we have are very good, indeed. As you know, UA students do particularly well in winning national competitions. Last year we had two students named to USA Today’s All-USA College Academic Team—two of the 100 students chosen nationwide for this honor. In addition, we were one of only 16 universities nationally to have three or more students named as Barry S. Goldwater Scholars in science, engineering, and mathematics. Last year, we had some 25 students winning national honors and 30 winning the year before.

We will continue the emphasis on increasing the quality of our entering students. Toward that end, we have set goals for the year 2010. By that time we expect the average freshman ACT to be at least 26.5. We also expect the freshman high school grade point average to be at least a 3.65 on a 4.00 system. We expect fully half or more of our entering freshmen to come from the top 10 percent of their high school graduating classes. And, we look forward to having at least 250 National Merit Scholars enrolled at the University of Arkansas by 2010.

In terms of the quality of our student body, we are getting better and better every year. We are also trying to get bigger and bigger every year, so that this University can begin to benefit from the economies of scale that most of our larger competitors enjoy. We would like to have close to 22,500 students by 2010.

Retention is a key ingredient to our growth strategy. Another important ingredient is increasing the size of our graduate student population. Graduate enrollments have increased from 2,378 in 1997 to 2,491 in 1999. We would like to increase that number to approximately 5,000 graduate students by 2010. Of course, such growth will require a significant increase in both the number and size of stipends for graduate students. Until we strengthen our support of graduate students, we will not be able to be nationally competitive in our graduate research programs.

Goal #3: Improving Diversity

Diversity among our students, faculty, and staff is another critical goal. When we speak of diversity, we are referring to more than how we look; in addition, we include how we learn, how we think, what we believe, and where we "came from," so to speak. But, because it is one of the clearest indications of the presence of diversity, it is important that we "look" diverse.

Certainly there are compelling reasons in terms of equity and social justice for increasing our minority populations, and particularly our African-American population, so that it more fully reflects the composition of our state. But there are also vitally important educational reasons for doing so. Our students must learn to work well within the context of a rapidly changing nation and its burgeoning minority populations. And our students must learn to work within the context of a global economy. The infusion of diverse peoples, experiences and viewpoints within our learning community is imperative if we are to create the kind of diverse learning community that is essential for a University having our aspirations.

Our minority student populations are growing incrementally, increasing from 1,728 in 1997 to 1,858 in 1999. Last year, African-American enrollment increased 7.4 percent, from 880 to 945. International student enrollment increased 8.5 percent, from 721 to 785. Our goal, however, is to have at least 4,000 minority students enrolled by 2010. That’s more than double today’s enrollment. We also expect to see increases in our international student populations.

In order to attract outstanding minority students, we must increase the minority representation on the faculty and staff. And, I am pleased to report that we have made some excellent high-level appointments of minority professionals to our faculty and staff. But, we still have a long way to go. And, to be successful in realizing our vision, we must continue to adhere to recruiting the very best people, nationally and internationally.

The University is being well-served by the new Diversity Task Force, a working group of students, faculty, administrators, and staff that has been meeting frequently since last January. The Task Force will be assessing the climate for diversity and making recommendations for improving diversity throughout the University.

Goal #4: Increasing Private Gift Support

Our fourth goal, that of increasing private gift support, has seen spectacular success. For the year ending June 30, the University raised $83.2 million, the second best year in our history. This comes on the heels of the best year in our history, 1998-99, in which we raised $85.2 million. These figures reflect actual cash gifts or gifts in kind and exclude any pledges made during that time.

There is one major difference, however, in last year’s totals. For the first time, we included totals for Razorback Foundation fund raising. We have done so to conform our fund-raising reporting system to national standards, which include athletic fund raising. This year, the Razorback Foundation raised $34.9 million—including $20 million from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

Even so, our fund-raising totals for academic and academic support totaled $48.3 million—which by itself would constitute our second-best fund-raising year ever.

Campaign for the 21st Century

This fast growth in our fund-raising program augurs well for the Campaign for the 21st Century. As you may know, we have been in the quiet phase of the Campaign since July 1, 1998, when we began counting gifts and planning this effort.

The Campaign for the 21st Century will build on the University’s first campaign, the Campaign for Arkansas, which raised $178 million between 1989 and 1996. We expect the new campaign, which we will launch publicly in the fall of 2001, to be much larger and more comprehensive, touching all aspects of the University.

This past year, we made a great deal of progress in building the structure for the Campaign, the foundation of which is our volunteer leadership group. When this task is complete, we expect to have scores of distinguished men and women who will drive the campaign. We are especially pleased with the volunteers who have accepted our invitation to lead the Campaign:

• —Rob Walton, a 1966 UA alumnus and Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart Stores, who served as presiding co-chair until June 30 of this year;
• —Tommy Boyer, a 1964 UA alumnus and CEO of Micro Images, who is presiding co-chair from July 1 of this year until June 30, 2002;
• —Jim Walton, a 1971 UA alumnus and Chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group, who will be presiding co-chair from July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2003;
• —Frank Broyles, who will lead the final year of the Campaign, which ends June 30, 2004; and
• —Johnelle Hunt, Corporate Secretary of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, who is serving as treasurer throughout the Campaign.

I would easily characterize the Campaign’s executive leadership as the best such group in America. The University of Arkansas is blessed to have volunteers of this stature leading the Campaign.

This will be a great transitional year for the University of Arkansas. While I have devoted much of this address to the "ends" of the University—our vision, our goals, and our progress toward realization—we will be giving added emphasis this year to securing the "means" to make those ends possible.

Certainly, the Campaign for the 21st Century will be key to providing the "means" from the private sector for realizing our vision. And this year, of course, will be the year in which the Campaign reaches the take-off stage.

Goal #5: Increasing Public Support

But this year will also see an emphasis on providing the "means" through the public sector. Just as we have made substantial progress in private gift support, we now need to begin the extremely challenging work of generating similar gains in public support across the state for achieving our vision.

To help us in this regard, we have formed a blue ribbon commission of 92 leaders from business, government, and academe. The "2010 Commission," as it is called, will continue its work this fall to prepare a report that makes the case for building the University of Arkansas into a nationally competitive research university—noting especially the benefits that will accrue to the state as a result.

Reynie Rutledge, a 1971 UA alumnus and Chairman of First Security Bank in Searcy, agreed to chair the 2010 Commission. I am deeply grateful to Reynie and all of the distinguished Commission members, about a third of them from the University of Arkansas, for their willingness to help move the University forward on this critical front. Bob Smith, our new provost, is serving as Executive Secretary of the Commission; we are grateful for his leadership.

Objectives of the 2010 Commission

The objectives of the Commission’s report are to:

• —demonstrate that Arkansas’ economic future demands a comprehensive research university ranked among the nation’s top 50 public institutions;
• —define the University of Arkansas’ role in driving the intellectual, economic, and cultural imperatives of the state; and
• —identify and assess the financial support that will be necessary for us to reach our goals, based on wise stewardship of current resources.

Although we anticipate completing and releasing the report in January, we do not consider it a quick-fix. Rather, we view the report as the beginning of a long-term effort to bring public support to the necessary levels by 2010.

While we have made progress across all of our major goal areas, we need to make a quantum leap in the resources available to realize the UA vision. The Campaign for the 21st Century and the work of the 2010 Commission will help to revise the thinking about what the University of Arkansas can do for the state as a nationally competitive student-centered research university of the caliber we envision.

Research Programs

There is one final area of increased public support that I would like to touch on, and that is significantly greater federal and state support for our research programs.

First, the good news. The University of Arkansas received $49.1 million in research funding for fiscal year 2000, an 18.3 percent increase over fiscal year 1999. That total includes $27.7 million in federal R&D funding, up $2.6 million over 1999. It also includes $11.7 million from the state, up $5 million over 1999.

Despite the demise of the former Carnegie classification—which recognized 59 public Research I universities—the University of Arkansas must continue to increase research funding. Our goal is to reach $100 million in research expenditures by 2010, with half of that sum coming from the federal government.

There is simply no way we can move into the Top 50 public universities without an appreciable growth in our research activity. And there is certainly no way we can render the kind of service our state needs to compete in the 21st Century until our research programs grow significantly.

The University of Arkansas has always been a research university. Research has always been part of our mission as a land-grant university. Research is who we are and what we do. This university has made world-class contributions to the advancement of knowledge. And much of our current research activity is making headlines around the world.

Nevertheless, we must pick up the pace in research. It’s what separates us from all other colleges and universities in Arkansas. It is essential to attracting superlative faculty, staff, and students. And the results of our research programs—the new products, processes, inventions, findings and insights—will constitute the intellectual infrastructure necessary to improving our state’s economy and quality of life in the decades ahead.

Intercollegiate Athletics

Having addressed the progress we have made in accomplishing our five major goals, I would be remiss if I did not address the role our athletic programs play in helping us accomplish our goals. The Razorback and Lady Razorback athletic programs are two of the University’s most effective recruiting programs; they are also two of our most visible and nationally competitive programs. Based on the strong commitment made to our student-athletes doing well in the classroom, their grade point averages and graduation rates generally exceed those for the overall student body.

Relatively few nationally competitive, publicly supported research universities do not have successful athletic programs. Although not publicly supported, Stanford University is the perennial winner of the Sears Directors’ Cup, given to the university with the athletic program (men’s and women’s sports combined) having the greatest post-season success. This past year, the Top Five universities in the Sears Directors’ Cup competition were Stanford, UCLA, Michigan, Penn State, and North Carolina. Over the past three years, we have finished 19th, on average. (Lest you conclude that our athletic programs are not nationally competitive, you should know that Stanford has 32 varsity sports, while we have only 18. In fact, all schools finishing higher in the competition have more sports than we.)

A Source of Increasing Pride

Finally, let me reiterate that the state of the University of Arkansas is very good and it is getting better, but we have substantial work ahead of us in order to make the quantum leap needed to fulfill our potential.

Nevertheless, as we begin the 2000-01 academic year, I have never been so optimistic about the prospects for the University of Arkansas. Our progress would have been impossible, and our prospects not nearly so bright, without the hard work of our exceptionally talented faculty, our devoted staff, our superb students, our extraordinary alumni and friends such as those who are driving our new Campaign for the 21st century and our 2010 Commission, as well as corporations, foundations, and other organizations who so fervently support this wonderful university.

With our vision and goals firmly before us, and with some impressive progress behind us, we now must work harder than ever in securing the means to bring the University’s vision to fruition.

As we become a national academic powerhouse, we will see a marked increase in the state’s ability to compete economically and to improve the quality of life for all Arkansans. But, we also will see something else—perhaps less tangible, but even more important. We will see a new attitude and new expectations among Arkansans. We will see people across the state taking pride in the accomplishments at their land-grant university.

As proud as Arkansans are of the Razorbacks and as strong a unifying force as the Razorbacks are for the state, when we emerge as a nationally competitive, student-centered research university it will transform Arkansas. When the University of Arkansas becomes a world-class university, it will change the way others perceive us. More importantly, it will change how the world perceives Arkansas and how we perceive ourselves.

Thank you, once again, for everything you are doing to move the University forward. You are making all the difference!