• Introduction
• Highlights of Last Year
• Last Year's Goals
• Student Academic Experiences
• Student Benefits at a Research University
• Goals for This Year
• Closing

I am delighted to welcome you all to University Day at the University of New Hampshire. A special welcome to those who are visiting us today, as well as those who have been in Durham through the whole hot summer, those who were away for the summer and who have only recently returned, and those who are joining the University this semester for the first time. The University comprises a special kind of community--diverse, lively, always learning.

We welcome especially 31 new tenure-track faculty and 20 additional temporary faculty who have joined the University this semester. They come to us from the best universities across the country and are already engaged in directing the learning of our students. Eight of the 31 new tenure-track faculty are people of color and 14 are women. Their hiring is an important part of our commitment to build a diverse community that provides a rich and supportive learning environment for all. A second part of this commitment, of course, is making the University a place where they will want to stay for a long time.

We are proud to present to the faculty and larger community approximately 2550 freshmen new to UNH this semester. While this is not the largest freshman class in recent times, it compares to about 2100 a year ago and 2300 in 1997. As a consequence, we have somewhat more togetherness in our residence halls than we have experienced over the last couple of years. We do appreciate the good efforts of our residential life and housing staff in accommodating this increase and the goodwill of new students as we work through issues relating to crowding. The freshman class represents a significantly larger number of Presidential Scholarship students and a 30% increase in the number of incoming honor students. We graduated a large senior class last May, but with this somewhat larger freshman class, the total number of UNH students this year is close to the total number last year.

We were pleased in July when the legislature adopted a state budget that provides more adequately for the support of the University over the next two years. We are grateful to the State for this support and for the recognition that the future of New Hampshire depends on a high-quality public university accessible to all well-prepared citizens. The new budget contains a 4.7% increase in the state appropriation for each of this year and next; as a consequence, the Trustees have been able to hold tuition increases to 6% for in-state students. If the State support of the University continues at this level beyond the current biennium, in-state tuition is expected to return to inflation levels within four years.

During the course of the legislative deliberations, many voices spoke on behalf of greater State support for UNH. We are especially grateful to the USNH Trustees, the Alumni Advocacy Network, our own Parents' Association, the AAUP, the student body leadership, leaders of New Hampshire business and industry, and the boys and girls in 4-H Clubs, many of whom wrote their legislators on behalf of the University.

Some needs we had hoped to have addressed in the new budget are not there. The Trustees had requested an additional 2% increase for academic technology. This critical need regrettably was not funded. The Trustees have released over $1M in one-time money to address this need temporarily, but the University must identify a predictable, permanent revenue source to meet the ongoing costs of technology. Throughout this year we will work to develop plans to do that.

The State was also unable to meet the University's full need in capital projects. The legislature did fund the renovation of Pettee Hall. That is especially important because Pettee has been essentially closed by the fire marshal causing serious difficulties for the School of Health and Human Services. And, UNH received planning money for Kingsbury's renovation. Regrettably, we did not receive money to undertake the full renovation of Murkland or to do infrastructure work required to link the Entrepreneurial Campus to the core campus. I will talk about this issue again in more detail when I talk about goals for the current year. There is still one bill, HB699, pending before the legislature that we will watch closely when the legislature resumes next session. This bill would provide State funds to match the University's success in attracting private gifts for student scholarship endowment. It is critically important that we increase the funds available to attract high-ability students and to make the University accessible to qualified students, independent of family circumstance.

One thing we had all hoped would happen over the summer was the achieving of agreement on a faculty contract. Last spring the impasse between the parties was placed in the hands of a fact-finder who issued his recommendations in mid-August. The AAUP accepted his recommendations but the Board of Trustees did not, so there is not yet a resolution. Thus, at the beginning of an academic year that has the potential for substantial achievement, we are again working in a dark climate. I believe that negotiations must resume quickly with a firm commitment by both parties to find grounds for a fair agreement. The University's faculty provide the most important part of its quality. Our highest priority must be resolving the current impasse and learning ways to make the bargaining process work effectively at UNH. At the end of the day, agreement can only be reached at the bargaining table. I am hopeful the two parties will quickly resume negotiations, search for common ground, examine some new approaches to old problems, and work until there is a resolution. Today I will talk about high points of last year--it was a banner year--but that record is regrettably now under the cloud of the bargaining impasse.

Highlights of Last Year

Although the legislative session took considerable time for several of us, achievements on campus brought the greatest recognition to UNH. Let me give a few quick examples. Professor Ross Gittell in WSBE spent last year developing the State's long-range economic development action plan. That plan is now in draft form and being reviewed by state officials in the Governor's Office, the Department of Resources and Economic Development, and the Office of State Planning. Individual faculty have received numerous awards and prizes. Among these are two CAREER awards from the National Science Foundation. These highly prestigious awards are given by NSF to junior faculty to indicate the importance of the work they have already done and their unusual potential for distinction in their fields. Liming Ge (Lee Ming Geh), an Associate Professor of Mathematics, received one of only four that were given nationally in mathematics this past year. Carmela Amato-Wierda, Assistant Professor of Material Sciences, also received an NSF CAREER award. UNH can be very proud to have received two of these awards in the same year.

Among the many books published by UNH faculty last year, several have received national attention. Professor Kurk Dorsey in the History Department received the 1999 Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize for his book, The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy. David Frankfurter, also in the History Department, will receive an American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence for his recent book, "Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance." If we add to these two, the national awards received by Professors Lucy Salyer, Jeffrey Bolster, and Eliga Gould, we see that in the last four years five faculty members in our distinguished History Department have received national book awards. A second example. In the Sociology Department, within months of each other, 5 out of the 13 faculty members had their books published. Professors Mil Duncan, James Tucker, Linda Blum, Cliff Brown and Anita Garey released works that deal with subject matter ranging from race relations, rural poverty, and organizational behavior, to motherhood in regards to breast-feeding and to work. These are simply a few examples of the productivity of UNH faculty last year. Several academic programs were cited for their excellence; geoscience was ranked third in the country. The Whittemore School ranked high in a recent nationwide survey of business schools in the Spring 1999 volume of the Health Finance Report.

UNH has a special distinction at the national level for its programs to prepare doctoral students not only in research, but also for future teaching roles, and is a lead school in the national initiative funded by the Pew Charitable Trust called Preparing Future Faculty. This past year, not only did the UNH Summer Institute on College Teaching continue to serve UNH graduate students and faculty, but it also attracted faculty from several New Hampshire colleges as well as from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and West Virginia.

The University submitted its fifth-year interim accreditation report to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges last winter. The report highlighted work in four areas: diversifying the faculty, staff, and students; assuring adequate library resources; addressing the University's missions and purposes within a System organization; and defining the role of the Manchester college. You have probably seen that the University received high marks on all four of these issues. We are obligated to submit a full self-study five years from now.

In a similar way, it was time for our Athletic Department to undergo NCAA certification review. This review focused on several areas, and the review team judged UNH's programs to be in compliance on every criterion. That team understandably did not pay attention to the impressive successes of our intercollegiate teams, but across the region and the country other universities were well aware of our accomplishments last year: near national championships in both women's and men's hockey, Jerry Azumah's Walter Payton Award, Jason Krog's Hobey Baker Award, conference championships in eight different sports, several coaches receiving Coach of the Year awards, and 95% of the scholarship athletes graduating on time in May Commencement-second in the nation among Division I schools. A truly outstanding year in intercollegiate athletics.

We made significant progress last year in our efforts to catch up with academic technology. All residence halls are now wired and students are making full use of ResNet, the residential computing network. Our "new" Dimond Library accommodates laptops at every library table; the number of general use computers on campus has increased by more than 60% in the last two years. Incidentally, we were pleased, but not surprised, when the New York Council of the Society of American Registered Architects awarded Graham Gund its Design Award of merit for Dimond Library. We recognize what a superb piece of work he did for UNH.

What students need, of course, in order to have the energy that intensive study requires is food--lots of food-- not only for the mind but for the body. University Hospitality Services received a literal smorgasbord of national awards last year for its theme dinner, its MUB food service, its multicultural menus, and its nutritional emphasis, bringing the number of their recent national awards to an even dozen.

Last year was the first year of the new University Magazine. The magazine has been well received by its readers and has received a national award from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. We also released the President's Report, Our Sense of Place, which highlights major achievements of the University and details our financial condition. One purpose of this publication is to communicate to prospective donors, in anticipation of the upcoming financial campaign, that UNH is an attractive and sound choice for investment at this time.

In Manchester, we completed negotiations with the city and the EPA to finalize a complex agreement enabling UNHM to move from its Hackett Hill site to renovated space in the mill yard over the next three years. With this move, the University will have a truly urban college positioned to provide access to higher education for those citizens in central New Hampshire who are better served by a commuter campus, and to develop programs responsive to urban needs. This college will serve not only Manchester programs, but all University programs that benefit from an urban laboratory.

We've undertaken the site work for one new building in recent months, the Environmental Technology Building located in the Entrepreneurial Campus next to Ocean Engineering. These two buildings provide facilities where UNH faculty and students will have opportunities to work on problems presented by the industry of our region. The new ocean mapping program, which relates to New Hampshire's aquaculture industry and to ocean cable businesses, will be housed in Ocean Engineering. Three or four senior scientists from NOAA will be joining that group.

Last Year's Goals

One purpose of the annual State of the University speech is to review institutional goals that were set a year ago and to set new goals for the current year. Let me remind you of the four goals I set for the year just past.

The first was to implement proposals that would affect a balanced budget for the University in the two years of the next biennium--that's this year and next. A primary cause of the budget shortfall has been the failure of the State's per student allocation to keep up with inflation over the last decade. In dollars adjusted for inflation, the University lost approximately 25% of its per student state funding over a ten-year period. Although some of this shortfall was made up by increases in tuition, the University still needed to affect budget adjustments at the level of $4.5 million last year. This projected gap between revenues and expenditures has now been corrected through a combination of program reductions and revenue increases. Many of the cuts will be felt for the first time this year, and we must expect when we are required to take program reductions at these levels on top of the many other cuts the University has taken over the last decade, that they may have negative effects on what we are trying to accomplish.

I have been particularly pleased that even as the Colleges continue to implement cost saving measures, they creatively reshape programs and introduce new opportunities for our students. During the course of last year, the Trustees approved new degree programs at the baccalaureate level in environmental engineering and in European cultural studies and at the graduate level an MS in Accounting and an MFA in Painting. Also, UNH introduced new options in museum studies within the MA in History, and in Music Education and Music History within the MS in Music. What we see is that UNH is keeping its degree programs relevant and of high quality even in difficult budget times.

The second goal last year was to develop a new method for budget management at UNH. For almost three years we have been working on a more flexible model that creates incentives for revenue generation, rewards efficiency, and places accountability and authority at the proper levels. The model is now sufficiently complete that it can be tested in the year ahead. We will use it concurrent with the old model, and I will make a determination in December about proceeding with full implementation next year. The development of the new model has engaged the work of a steering committee supported by nine different working groups. Although such work may not be glamorous, it is among our most important undertakings.

Another goal over the last academic year was to position the University and its Foundation to make a public announcement of a $100 million capital campaign early this year. That announcement will take place on October 1 and 2. Indeed, the University is very well-positioned to engage in this, its largest fund-raising effort. Over the last few months, we have received pledges and cash at the level of more than $35 million toward the goal of $100 million. The Foundation staff and I have traveled extensively and are committed to continuing that pace until the goals of the campaign are met.

Later in this talk I will say some additional things about the targets for the financial campaign, but I do want to call your attention to the programs on our campus on October 1 and 2, the first Friday and Saturday of October. There are three co-chairs for the capital campaign: Jeanne Shaheen, the Governor of New Hampshire; Fred Whittemore, a great friend of the University, benefactor, and Advisor/Director at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter; and Marcy Carsey, the television producer in the team of Carsey-Werner, producers of shows like Bill Cosby, Roseanne, Third Rock from the Sun, and the 70's Show. The UNH Alumni Association is presenting its highest award, the Pettee Medal, to Marcy Carsey on October 1. That afternoon, she will give a presentation about her experiences at UNH and her career. The presentation will be moderated by Natalie Jacobson, another UNH graduate and Boston's most recognized television anchorwoman. On Saturday morning of that weekend, we will combine the campaign events with the University's Family Day and with Legislators' Day and showcase three academic areas where UNH has international distinction: space science, the American family, regional culture and history. This event will take place in the Whittemore Arena, and we welcome each of you, and your guests, to this important community occasion.

The fourth goal from last year was to make significant improvements in the areas of student recruitment and retention. Dr. Mark Rubinstein has been UNH's Vice Provost for Enrollment Management for only one year, but in this short time he has worked with the staff in Admissions, Financial Aid, Registration Services, and Academic Support Services to make changes that already are making a difference. In our organizational structure, Dr. Rubinstein reports to the University Provost, Dr. David Hiley. We are delighted to have attracted to our university a person in Dr. Hiley whose academic leadership is nationally respected and whose scholarship is widely recognized. A philosopher, Dr. Hiley, is nearing completion of his most recent book, The Politics of Skepticism: Doubt, Distrust, and Indifference. He comes to us from positions as Dean of Humanities and Sciences and most recently Vice Provost at Virginia Commonwealth University. He will speak to you about UNH's enrollment planning. Please welcome Provost David Hiley

Student Academic Experiences

UNH's learning environment is greatly strengthened by the research and creative activity of faculty. Research is the basis of graduate education, and at UNH undergraduates also frequently have opportunities to participate in research projects. This past year external research funding at UNH has climbed to $60.5 million--up from approximately $50 million a year ago. The continued increase in research funding, primarily from the federal government and the private sector, documents the importance of the work of UNH faculty. Last year's research funding included new funds to initiate the Center for Crimes Against Children, the Hydrography Center, the Consortium for the Study of the Prevention and Control of Crime, and the New Hampshire Institute for Health Policy and Practice--we are particularly pleased to have received state funding for this last center. These new centers illustrate the types of activity that are now available to engage our students. UNH is distinctive among research universities in the extent to which work here is interdisciplinary. Our faculty press knowledge at the edges of their disciplines and work to connect what is known in one field to other fields, frequently integrating not only academic disciplines but also integrating teaching and scholarship. We speak often about how research informs teaching, but at UNH teaching also often informs research.

Another person with me on the stage today is Professor Paul Brockelman. I recognize it is dangerous to have two philosophers on one program, but Paul is a special faculty member at UNH. He joined our faculty in 1963 and has contributed greatly to the University in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service ever since. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Chair in Religious Studies. He was a recipient of the Gary Lindberg Outstanding Scholar/Teacher Award, the most prestigious award given in the College of Liberal Arts. His interests include phenomenology and philosophy of religion, environmental theology, and cosmology. Also with us is Dr. Eberhard Moebius, a professor in Physics working in UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. He came to UNH in 1990 from the Max-Planck-Institut in Germany. His work is in the area of space plasma physics and in the design and testing of instrumentation for satellites. He has held the Arthur K. Witcomb Distinguished Professorship at UNH. These two faculty members have jointly offered a seminar exploring the relationship between contemporary science and religion. From the ideas developed in the seminar, Professor Brockelman has written his recently published book, Cosmology and Creation, an example of how a faculty member's teaching inspires and enriches scholarly work. They have agreed to talk about their experiences in this exciting seminar.

Student Benefits at a Research University

Students who have opportunities to study at a good research university have many benefits: they come under the mentorship of distinguished faculty, they have access to research libraries and state-of-the-art laboratories, and at UNH they often get to participate in research themselves. In the financial campaign that will be announced October 1 and 2, $28 million is identified for student support, not only for scholarships for individual undergraduate and graduate students--that of course is a substantial part of the goal--but also expanded endowments for the Honors Program and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.

Sixty million dollars of the $100 million total is identified to continue to strengthen UNH's most recognized academic programs. The third component of the academic financial campaign is current use monies to provide the tools of learning that faculty and students need: technology, equipment, library acquisitions. The campaign has already received substantial gifts including $4.2 million in student support and scholarship funds, $5 million in faculty support, $22 million for academic programs of distinction, and $2.5 million for tools of learning.

Currently, funds that enable undergraduate students to undertake research in foreign countries come to the University in the form of a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. We hope during the course of the capital campaign to identify a major gift to permit the continuation of these unusual opportunities for undergraduates. Twelve UNH students have just returned from abroad, after spending the summer conducting research around the world. These students spent the entire academic year last year preparing for this summer's experience, including taking extra language courses. In addition to each student's having a mentor in a foreign university, their UNH mentors have also been at a nearby research site for at least a portion of the student's time. One of the students who has recently completed this experience is Amy Snedaker, who traveled to the Ukraine to conduct research at the Agricultural College of Crimea. Amy is a pre-vet senior at UNH. She has conducted research on campus under the supervision of COLSA faculty at both Woodman and Kingman Horticultural Research Farms. This summer, armed with that experience plus intensive Russian language study, she set forth to investigate the feasibility of growing the semi-bush hybrid pumpkin, developed at UNH by Dr. Brent Loy, in the short growing season of Crimea. Amy, we would like to hear about your experiences.

Goals for This Year

Let me use the last minutes of our time together today to set some new goals for this year. During this talk, I've referred more than once to issues related to the condition of the University's physical plant. The physical plant at UNH comprises approximately 200 structures; of these approximately 80 are core academic and administrative buildings built with State funds. Over the last decade, the State has given the University funds for three major renovations. At the rate of three renovations every decade, our 80 core buildings would be renovated or replaced on a 240-year cycle. This schedule is clearly unacceptable and will not sustain the physical plant. We must be concerned that we are on a path that will leave later generations without useable facilities and with overwhelming costs. With the help of outside consultants, our Facilities Division has undertaken a careful assessment of the condition and requirements of our physical plant. This year we will work with the Trustees, the Governor, and the legislature to develop a plan to restore these vital assets to a condition adequate to support the University's teaching, research, and public service.

Now to a second goal for this year. The University of New Hampshire is a land-grant institution formed in response to the federal Morrill Act in 1862. As a consequence, one of our historic missions is to significant public service within this State and region. In addition to our highly visible and respected programs in Cooperative Extension and at New Hampshire Public Television, public service is an important component of many of our academic programs. At UNH we have placed the public service mission together with the research mission within the administrative purview of the Vice President for Research and Public Service. When we searched for that position this last year and hired Don Sundberg, one of the things we learned from the review was that we need to clarify the mission of public service at UNH to determine if we are doing exactly what we intend in this area. Consequently, Vice President Sundberg will coordinate a review to determine how public service will relate to our other missions of teaching and research, how knowledge of the public service activities of our faculty and staff can be made more visible, and how public service will be coordinated across the campus. The outreach missions of many public universities are evolving to new levels of engagement with their surrounding communities, and UNH needs more clarity to determine its own role in this process.

And now, a third goal. In the year ahead UNH will place major emphases on institutional planning. The Faculty Senate is undertaking a comprehensive review of general education; Vice President Sundberg is coordinating the review of the University's public service and outreach mission and activities; the University Master Plan is under review; our Facilities Division is completing the assessment of the condition of our physical plant. In addition, we already have in place the Blueprint for the academic capital campaign, the first part of an enrollment management plan, a plan for the strengthening of graduate education, and plans for the future funding of research. We need to be sure that our various planning documents are compatible and mutually strengthening, that there are no serious gaps in our planning, and that we have strong academic underpinnings for everything we plan to do. Provost Hiley will coordinate institutional planning this year to bring together the existing plans and create from them an institutional action plan to guide UNH over the next three to five years. Because this work will engage a large number of people both from the University community and outside, you can expect to hear of opportunities to become involved. Because institutional planning requires broad faculty participation, the initiation will depend on the collective bargaining process, but my goal is that one year from now I will be able to report to you that we do have an action plan to move the University toward its institutional goals.

Closing

My goal for each of you is that this will be an action-packed year filled with the excitement of learning and discovery. One of my favorite philosophers--in addition to the two on the stage with me here--is the American writer and commentator, Mark Twain. In The Innocents Abroad, he wrote,

"What is there that confers the noblest delight? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought. . .To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first-that is the idea."

We have the amazing privilege of committing this year to that "noblest delight." Discovery. Welcome to this community of explorers. Welcome to the University of New Hampshire.

And now, one final thing to share with you. Last January we produced a videotape about the University to be used by Ernie Gale, Director of Alumni Affairs, when he went to alumni chapter meetings across the country. The purpose of the video was to give UNH graduates a picture of the University's quality and achievements during the calendar year 1998. Now our talented people at Media Services and University Relations have done a video to highlight the major events at the University last year. Pictures often communicate more fully than words, so I want you to have an opportunity to see this new video. Those of you who were here last year may see yourselves in these pictures; those who are new can imagine that you were there.