• Introduction
• Last Year's Highlights
• The Character of UNH
• Last Year's Goals
• This Year's Goals
• And, Finally...

Welcome back to campus, and thank you for being here today. Today is University Day at the University of New Hampshire. We're celebrating the University, the efforts of all who have made UNH what it is today, and the opportunities that we have for the future. Let me say that it is good to have you all back in Durham. The summer here is too quiet. Now, for the last two weeks, the campus feels like a university community again.

A very special welcome to UNH's new faculty and staff and to our new students. This year, we have a freshman class of 2,133 students plus new transfer and graduate students. The first-year students were selected from an applicant pool of 8,500 from 49 states. We have new students enrolled from Asia, Canada, Europe and the Middle East. We welcome the Class of 2002 and all the new students here today.

The leadership in student government and the MUB have planned a range of campus-wide activities for the weekends this autumn; there is a new Spirit Squad determined to get each one of us involved in the activities of the community; and, of course, leading the list of things that will appeal to students is the new Dimond Library. I have both seen and heard that facility come to life outside my office window over 18 months and so I love it like a new child. It is a marvelous facility, and we are grateful to the State of New Hampshire and our private donors who have made this library possible. I have predicted that Dimond will be "the place to be" on Friday nights. Not everyone thinks that is true, but time will tell.

In this speech today I want to highlight some of last year's achievements, review the goals that I set for the University in last year's speech, and identify goals for this year that I believe are essential in our work together.

Last Year's Highlights

We are particularly proud of student achievements over the last year. Individual students received national recognition in several academic areas. For example,

Heather Taylor received a $5,000 undergraduate fellowship from Pfizer, Inc., one of only 50 students nationwide.

Leah Fraser is one of 75 students who received a $5,000 Morris K. Udall Award for outstanding students interested in environmental public policy, health care, and tribal public policy.

Kevin Clark, who one day will be a pediatrician, is one of just ten students nationwide who was invited to study at Harvard University's Regional Primate Research Center this past summer, where he worked on the gene sequence for a herpes virus.

Angel Tirado [Ahn-hil Tir-ha-do] was selected for a summer fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where he studied public health issues, particularly preventive health efforts among minority populations in the U. S. as well as international health issues.

The Christiansen Project continues this fall because of its success last year. This project connects students' English 401 instruction to Professor Sam Smith's class, Foods and Dudes. Professor Smith said last year that the 140 Christensen Hall students presented better written lab reports than students not involved in the project and, indeed, their GPA's after one semester averaged above their peers.

Another initiative begun last year for undergraduate students is the International Research Opportunities Program, funded by a grant from FIPSE. This will allow 15 undergraduates to conduct research projects abroad next summer, each with a foreign mentor. Students selected last spring will spend this academic year learning the language and culture of the countries they will visit next summer.

And there were student accomplishments outside the academic areas. On the playing fields, rinks, and courts our student athletes had unusual success last year. In fact, UNH again had more student athletes on the America East academic honor roll than any other school in the Conference. Our women's hockey team earned the title of best in the nation, with senior forward Brandy Fisher named the top player in collegiate women's ice hockey. The men's hockey team advanced to the final four for the first time since 1982. Jim Boulanger, head coach for men's indoor and outdoor track, led both teams to America East championships and was named America East coach of the year. Other Conference Coaches of the Year included Volleyball coach, Jill Hirschinger; women's swimming coach, Josh Willman; men's tennis coach, Mark Moulton; and women's cross country coach, Gina Sperry.

UNH faculty accomplishments are well-documented. The University's external research support has climbed to almost $50 million, up more than $3.5 million from last year; 68% of these funds come from the federal government, 10% from state and local governments, and 4% from business and industry (leaving 18% from other sources). Part of UNH's research mission is graduate education. It is critical that the University attract high-quality students to its graduate programs. The Vice President for Research and Public Service and the Dean of the Graduate School are looking at ways to increase the number of graduate students who are supported by external funds--an essential step in our ability to attract the best in many fields.

Planning is complete for the next building in the Entrepreneurial Campus--environmental technology--and construction will begin early next spring. This part of our campus will provide facilities to link faculty and students more closely to businesses and industries of the region. In light of the development of the Entrepreneurial Campus and other new developments in the core campus, Vice President Corvey is structuring a review of the University's Master Plan this year.

Faculty work has had high visibility in the media. Over the last year, literally thousands of stories appeared in state, regional, and national newspapers about the University, particularly about its faculty. The Faculty Senate compiled a selection of these stories in a publication distributed to legislators, new parents, donors, and others. We have placed a few copies by the door if you haven't seen this publication. Ray Coward, Dean of the School of Health and Human Services, was quoted three times on the front page of the New York Times within just a few weeks. Theater Professor David Richman was profiled in the July 31 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. There was another article in the September 4 Chronicle describing the outstanding teaching and research that goes on at our Shoals Marine Laboratory. Advancements in the area of climatology continue to attract national attention. Murray Straus' work on the effects of corporal punishment on children seems to touch people's consciences, and from time to time even I get letters asserting that Murray doesn't know what he's talking about but, of course, he does. Our faculty are quoted in the media on issues that range from child care to President Clinton. In addition, last month Kiplinger's Magazine listed UNH as one of the 100 Public Universities To Cheer About, and U. S. News & World Report listed UNH in the top 50 publics just three weeks ago.

The list of awards and prizes given to campus programs last year is very long. The Department of Recreation Management and Policy, for example, earned four prestigious awards including the American Therapeutic Recreation Association's Excellence in Education Award. UNH Dining Services was recognized with several awards, including first place in a national competition for the promotion of nutrition on college campuses. WUNH, our student radio station, was named the 1998 number-one college radio station. Our "Faculty Make the Grade" videos, a series of teaching and research spots produced for television by UNH Video Services and University Relations was nominated for the Boston/New England Emmy Awards. We are making another six of these spots for this autumn.

Professor Jeff Bolster's book, Black Jacks, continues to earn prizes and awards from both professional organizations and public reviews. EOS researchers Dr. Paul Mayewski and Dr. Martin Lee were named fellows of the American Geophysical Union.

There is especially good news at Manchester. After many months of planning and negotiations, we have concluded an agreement with the City that provides the University with a consolidated facility in the mill yard. This location will permit UNHM to move aggressively toward its two goals of providing access to higher education for the citizens in the center of the State and directing that college's academic programs to the needs of an urban area. In meeting these two goals, UNHM will strengthen Durham programs as well as those in Manchester.

Staff and faculty alike are aware that during the last year, we completed the planning and implementation of Administrative Services Redesign. It is a major accomplishment for the University to restructure its business services in a way that provides for both more professional delivery and lower cost. There are still some bumpy roads to navigate in this process, but generally the Redesign is working well on behalf of all of us and has met its targeted savings for the General Fund.

Cooperative Extension continues its effective outreach work with new partnerships every day. Just recently, it received a grant from the EPA that will allow high school students across the State to work with local conservation commissions on issues affecting land use, water resources and wildlife.

If you were here last spring, you saw the moat around Thompson Hall. Contrary to popular rumors, a drawbridge was never in the plan. The purpose has been to restore the foundation of our most historic building and to repair the basement so that it could once again be occupied. The work is nearly finished, and we will soon have in the basement of T-Hall the new Center for Public Service whose purpose is to bring together several of the outreach programs on campus for better coordination and integration. We are pleased to be able to house this Center in Thompson Hall because that location reinforces the University's commitment to its public service mission.

The Character of UNH

It is well-known that at UNH we work in an environment of highly constrained financial resources. Being required to eliminate programs, to reduce the number of employees, to do more with less every year over a period of several years is not only damaging to the University, but it limits what the University can provide to the industry and people of the State and the region. I am very pleased that New Hampshire is now wrestling with the questions of what the State expects from its schools and how it will fund public education. UNH is part of public education in this State. We will be among the voices that insist New Hampshire not only address today's problems but plan for the future needs of the State. Education and research--the business of the University--are about the future, not just the future of individuals but the future of society. These issues are difficult for our State and create hard times for the University. What impresses me at UNH is that we don't give up our goals in hard times. We initiate those efforts that need to be initiated and find ways to keep them going.

The character of the University is exemplified by the extra efforts of our faculty, staff, and students to strengthen our programs and serve the larger community, whether it is the commitment of faculty to the new writing-across-the-curriculum program, the new OS/PAT community scholarship, the work of more than 120 students over Spring Break to build homes for the disadvantaged, the work and recommendations from the President's Commission on the Status of People of Color to move the University closer to its diversity goals, the new demonstration gardens designed by UNH's Sustainability Program.

We don't give up our goals in hard times. That quality is a sign of institutional character. UNH's character signals moral and ethical strength, a stubbornness toward excellence, lofty goals. We have inherited these qualities from those who were here before us, and they are in the very fiber of this institution.

Last Year's Goals

Last year in the State of the University speech I identified four goals that I believed required special attention. Let me review what those goals were and what progress we have made toward them.

The first was to improve the University's communication with decision-makers at the state level. In addition to our annual Legislators Day and hosting various legislative committees that visit campus, individual faculty work closely with state policy-makers. Whittemore School Professor Ross Gittell is leading the UNH portion of a project to ensure that the state's work force and businesses are well-positioned for the 21st century.

UNH faculty helped policy makers examine the Claremont decision, and Dean Bruce Mallory hosted a statewide series of Public Conversations about the issue of funding public education. The University's School of Health and Human Services has been selected to evaluate the state's welfare reform programs, and faculty in CEPS and COLSA are working closely with legislators on environmental pollution and sludge issues. Four UNH representatives met with the Governor this summer in her first roundtable discussion on higher education.

A year ago, our budget analyses indicated that UNH has four areas of critical need that cannot be met from current operating budgets: instructional technology, library acquisitions, student scholarship support, and matching funds for federally funded research equipment. Last September we documented these needs and asked the System Office to consider including them in the next biennial budget request. I am pleased that the Trustees have now approved the request to the legislature for the next biennium and that the request includes significant funds in the area of instructional technology.

I am also pleased that our Alumni Association has recognized a need for continuous grassroots communication within New Hampshire on behalf of the University and is putting in place a statewide advocacy network. In this endeavor, they are working with the Parents' Association, student government, and Cooperative Extension. I view this as a most positive indicator that we are learning how to tell the University story to the voters, to legislators, to prospective students, and to donors. Under the leadership of our new Executive Director for Alumni Affairs, Ernie Gale, I expect the advocacy network will be an important vehicle of communication and influence.

The advocacy network will be supported by the new University Magazine. The first issue of this magazine will be released this month and mailed to all University graduates, state leaders, parents, faculty and staff. It will provide a window into UNH, tell thought-provoking stories of its people and its missions, and engage its readers in the work of this dynamic institution.

And, one more new program with our alumni. (This is a digression but I want you to know about it.) The Distinguished Alumni Celebration is a joint project of the Faculty Senate and the Office of Alumni Affairs. Scheduled for early next calendar year, the celebration will bring three very distinguished graduates to campus to participate in classroom activities and university-wide events. The purpose will be to honor UNH graduates, acknowledge the success of our faculty in mentoring these graduates, and provide role models for our current students.

The second goal for last year was to continue to shape a major private fund-raising campaign. Under the leadership of Young Dawkins and the University Foundation, we have made significant strides in planning a $100 million campaign. The Deans and the Provost, working with chairpersons and faculty, have established the campaign targets. The campaign will be designed to raise the academic stature of the University in support of its people and programs, and will be structured in four major areas. The first area is student support, primarily student scholarship support but also some endowment monies under programs like University Honors, UROP, and special pre-college programs. The second category is the establishment of eight named chairs and eight term professorships, as well as endowment funds for some programs like Teaching Excellence that support faculty development. The third category of the campaign will be directed toward endowments in support of selected distinguished academic programs, most of which are either ready to expand into important new directions or need the stability of an endowment to smooth out and leverage external funding. And, the fourth area is what we are calling infrastructure--the tools for learning provided through library acquisitions, instructional technology, and other materials critical to learning.

These four areas represent the pillars of academic quality in the University. With the success of this campaign, we will position the University for a future of genuine academic strength. Campaigns of this sort do not rescue us from current problems because most of the funds will be invested as endowments so that they can pay indefinitely into the future. Nonetheless, private fund-raising is a critical piece in the future of this University, and we are learning how to do it well. One reason we can be confident about the success of a major campaign is that this past year we broke the annual fund-raising record. By last July 31, the Foundation had recorded funds totaling $17.74 million for the last year with an 8% increase in the number of donors. We are careful to link private funds to federal funds, industrial support, and monies from private foundations in order to provide the level of funding for our designated programs that is required for true excellence. We have demonstrated that if we plan carefully and build on clear areas of strength, we can attract significant private funds to UNH.

The third goal that I stated last year was that we would finish wiring the campus for full electronic support, including all academic buildings and residence halls. I can now report that UNH is wired. In the residence halls, each student room is wired for voice, data, and video, including access to the internet and Catvision, the University's cable television system. Several central computing centers are now equipped with Apple Power MacIntosh and Dell Pentium computers, as well as high speed laser printers. All computer centers on campus are networked and offer access to the worldwide web. The University's NSF very high-speed Backbone Networking connection will be up and running in October; CIS is developing twelve information and demonstration sessions to assist faculty and departments this year.

Renovation of Dimond Library will provide 124 new computer terminals, with expansion possible to 464. There will be 210 laptop ports at the reading tables and expanded electronic resources that include several new electronic databases.

Last year I appointed the Advisory Committee on Academic Computing (a committee that now calls itself ACAC). Under the leadership of Professor Jeff Diefendorf, this committee worked hard throughout the year to develop a UNH plan for Academic Computing. I now have that plan and will meet soon with the Committee to review their recommendations. In addition to asking the State to help with this need, we will also use private fund-raising and other sources to catch up with what the campus needs in academic computing.

Finally, a year ago I set as a fourth goal the completion of the Dimond Library project in time for us to use the Library when classes resumed this autumn. That goal has been met with a marvelously transformed library facility. Our newly renovated Dimond has light-filled reading rooms with high ceilings, small group study rooms, student and faculty carrels, multi-media rooms, lounges and discussion space. There are 21 miles of shelving for books and journals, sufficient to provide for 20 years of growth, and 57 miles of cable for phones and computers. The University is indebted to a large number of people who provided for the operation of the Library in the 18 months that it could not be housed in Dimond, and for their skills moving out and back into the facility. The Library staff, the physical facilities people, the individuals in Purchasing, Telecommunications employees, landscaping personnel--this project required the effort and participation of the entire campus and extra effort on the part of many employees.

This Year's Goals

We must begin the discussion of this year's goals with a brief description of our budget situation. We are always struggling with budgets at UNH because our funding levels are too low. We have been working in recent months to close a $4.5 million projected continuing gap between revenues and expenditures caused primarily by the fact that the University has not met the enrollment predictions of three or four years ago. Indeed, the University's enrollments are now somewhat smaller than they were in 1996 rather than being significantly larger. We will address that predicted shortfall by a plan to reduce expenses and increase revenue on a permanent basis by the start of FY2000. The Deans have been working through the summer with the Provost and their chairpersons to identify adjustments within the colleges and academic programs to address the 1996 Planning Council academic responsibility of $2.2 million, and all the Vice Presidents have been working with me on strategies to save an additional $2.3 million. This work is extremely difficult given the cuts UNH has been required to make over the last years. We will move ahead as quickly as is practical. It is important to understand that this year's budget is balanced, but required significant one-time funds that will not be available to us in future years.

A goal for this year is the implementation of the proposals that will effect a balanced budget in the two years of the next biennium.

A component of UNH funding for the next biennium will be determined by the legislature in their next session. Our Board of Trustees has now finalized the System's request to the legislature. This budget requires an increase to the basic state appropriation of 5%, with an additional 2% for instructional technology, in each year of the biennium. It assumes an in-state tuition increase of 6% and an out-of-state increase of 3.5% in each of the two years. The intent of the Trustees has been to get to a point where the State subsidy plus in-state tuition covers the cost of education for in-state students so that future tuition increases can generally match the cost-of-living. Because tuition for in-state students was not increased at an earlier time to compensate fully for reductions in state funding per student, the University is overly dependent on out-of-state tuition. What is essential to the plan to get tuition increases to cost of living is, of course, the 5% operating increase from the State in each year of the next biennium.

Another area of considerable activity and importance and one that may not yet have high visibility, is the exploration of new and far more decentralized budgeting processes. Our goal is to give units greater local flexibility, and to increase their incentives for revenue production and cost containment. Throughout the last year, we have had a steering committee supported by nine different working groups dedicated to this project. A team spent a full day at Indiana University where these kinds of budget processes have been in place now for eight years. In addition we have studied documents from several other public universities that have adopted various forms of what has come to be called responsibility center management (RCM).

Our goal for this year is to develop a new UNH model for budget management, to test it against FY97 data, and to make a decision about whether or not to go forward in this direction.

If we do go forward, in FY2000 we will use an RCM model in parallel with our current budget management model anticipating full implementation in FY2001.

Our current efforts to make program reductions and increase revenue demonstrate the importance of modifying where and how budget decisions are made in the University. Hopefully, the University will always have more opportunities than it has revenue. Because our current decision processes are so centralized, in the natural order of things every three, four or five years, it becomes clear that costs are going to exceed revenues. Then we must take an all-campus time out and put things back in balance. A budget process that places more control for both revenue and costs with the smaller units should provide for the continuous adjustments and program reshaping that are essential to a dynamic university.

Changing the way we do our budgeting requires a great many decisions about what costs should be centralized and what costs should be decentralized, what revenues should be held centrally and what assigned to the units. The process itself requires that we revisit institutional values and clarify priorities. To this end, last spring the steering committee asked me to write a statement of vision that would begin to articulate the values of the institution. I did that and called it simply "The President's Vision for the Next Decade." If you are interested, the statement is now on the President's website. Actually, whether you are interested or not, it is a good exercise to surf through the University's webpages. There is always something new to learn about UNH on the Web. I am particularly pleased that the Faculty Senate has set one of its tasks for this year to clarify further the issues of institutional values and priorities. That is where the hardest work is, and it must be done before the budgeting work can be done.

Another area of University administration closely related to the budget is the area we call Enrollment Management. This area comprises the offices of Admissions, Financial Aid, Registration Services, and Academic Support. We are bringing all of these functions together under the leadership of Dr. Mark Rubinstein, who joined the University on August 10. He will reshape our efforts in this area and coordinate all recruitment and retention efforts for undergraduates. In one way or another, these efforts involve us all: faculty, students, staff, alumni, friends.

A third institutional goal is to improve all the indicators related to recruitment and retention.

The enrollment management task is more complicated than it may appear and cannot be fully accomplished in one year. In the recruitment area alone we are talking about in-state students and out-of-state students, international students, students of color, students with special talents, student athletes, students in small towns, students in big cities. UNH is the very best school for many, many students. We want to get information to these students early and in ways that attract their interest.

A fourth area of intense effort this year will be the activities necessary to move ahead with a major financial campaign. Research at the University Foundation has identified several thousand graduates with high giving potential. We know where they live, and we will undertake conversations with approximately 20 groups of these people this year to talk about the University, its programs, and its promise. In addition, over the next several months our Foundation staff will make individual calls on approximately 2,000 of our graduates.

My fourth goal this year is to position the University and its Foundation to make a public announcement of a $100 million capital campaign approximately one year from now.

Reaching this goal will require that I be away from campus more than usual this year. I hope you notice! I will be talking to many people about you and the University's programs. Although the success of a major campaign depends on the generosity of many large donors, it cannot be successful without the full participation of the entire University community. A critical component in the campaign will be the student scholarship support. Because of the importance of this target, we intend to challenge the State of New Hampshire for a match to gifts in this area. Please keep scholarship support on your own personal list as you think about participation in the campaign.

And, Finally. . .

I want you to know that I look ahead only with great optimism. In spite of what you might infer from this speech, I assure you I don't spend quite all of my time worrying over budgets and money. In the two years that I have been here, I have seen accomplishments of our students, faculty, and staff that far exceed any I have seen in other places. It is exciting to be part of an institution that has a clear sense of purpose, that never settles for second best, and that can solve the problems of the present because there is a future. We now have strong voices speaking on behalf of the University, both from within and without: business and industry, leaders in state government, alumni and parents, the media, members of our governing board. They believe in us. We are confident and proud and grateful for the mission that is ours.

In 1893 on the occasion of his inauguration, Reverend Charles Murkland, the first President of the College of Agriculture and the Mechanical Arts in Durham, spoke these words to his audience: "Our work must be thorough to the last degree, original as far as it may be, and always with this end in view, that by the exertion of every power the highest service shall be rendered to the truth, to our country, to humanity, and to God. . . .With patience and courage and faith the future is in our hands."