I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak before this body, and to other members of the University community who have chosen to attend this, the final meeting of the College Park Senate for the 1997-98 academic year -- and the final Senate meeting I will attend after 34 years at the university.

   As Denny mentioned, I first started coming to Senate meetings in the early 1970s, as a Senate representative from the Mathematics Department. It is from a perspective of a quarter century, therefore, that I say the Senate is an extraordinary body, one that has served the university exceptionally well.

   As you might imagine, the past several months have been an especially nostalgic time for me -- remembering, savoring and, yes, even trying to forget certain moments in those 34 years of history with you and with this institution. Transitional times such as this one lend themselves to stock-taking -- assessing where we are and where we are going. On June 30, I will leave the presidency here after first assuming the position on an acting basis just short of 10 years ago, on August 1, 1988, to be precise. After being appointed permanently in 1989, I was formally inaugurated on April 30, 1990. I'd like to use a few excerpts from the speech I delivered at the inauguration to frame my remarks today -- revisiting the promises made, the challenges we've met, the successes we've enjoyed, the aspirations we've yet to realize.

   Even those of you who were in attendance that spring day in Tawes Theatre have probably long since forgotten the story I told early in my remarks. Somehow it seems even more appropriate today than it did then . . .

VIDEO CLIP (1:10): "Early in the 1932 presidential campaign, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In this speech he laid out his point by point plan for bringing the nation out of the Depression. Four years later, when Roosevelt was running for reelection, the country was still in the Depression and the Republican candidate-- Alf Landon -- cited Roosevelt's Forbes Field speech in every address that he gave, accusing the President of having misled the public and having failed on his promises. Outraged, Roosevelt ordered his staff to book an engagement at that same Forbes Field and to get out that old speech so that he could go before the people and demonstrate -- point by point -- how he had done precisely what he said he would do. After reviewing the speech, Roosevelt's advisors came back and said, 'Mr. President, we've canceled the trip to Forbes Field. And if anyone asks you about a speech you made there in 1932, deny that you ever gave it.'"

   Some thoughts on the potential of this university may be a good starting point. Those of you who were here in 1990 saw that potential clearly even back then -- as did I. To take you back to that time, let me remind you that George Bush was President, we didn't yet know who either Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill were, Operation Desert Storm had not yet happened, and while there were storm clouds on the horizon, these were still the heady days of enhancement before the economy turned sour, before we were faced with dramatic reductions in state support . . .

VIDEO CLIP (1:00): "I assume the presidency at a propitious moment for this institution. The legislation creating the new University of Maryland System -- landmark legislation proposed by Governor Schaefer and passed by the General Assembly -- calls for College Park to be a university that is, and I quote, "nationally and internationally recognized for excellence in research and the advancement of knowledge .... a university that admits as freshmen highly qualified students who have academic profiles that suggest exceptional ability." The legislation also calls for College Park to prepare an Enhancement Plan to guide the development of the University over the next decade. This Plan has been completed. It is bold and ambitious. It charts a course of action intended to elevate College Park to the ranks of the nation's best half dozen or so public universities by the year 2000."

   No, we will not be "in the ranks of the nation's best half dozen public universities by the year 2000." In spite of our financial misfortunes, however, we have made remarkable progress toward that goal. If I were to rank us today by the most common yardsticks for measuring the quality of research universities, I would place the University of Maryland within the top 20 public research universities nationally.

   We are in striking distance of the goal set in 1990. The scholarship and research at the University of Maryland is, today, truly felt around the world. Programs that were strong in 1990 have grown dramatically in stature. That year, for the first time, our College of Engineering broke into the top 25 programs in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings. Today the A. James Clark School of Engineering has reached a new all-time high ranking of 13th in the nation among public and privates and 8th among all publics. It has been joined by our likewise highly-ranked Robert H. Smith School of Business, Colleges of Education and Journalism and our very young School of Public Affairs. Its worth noting that in a recent U.S. News and World report ranking, only three universities on the entire eastern seaboard had both their engineering and business schools in the top 25: MIT, Cornell and the University of Maryland. Also, in the most recent rankings by the National Research Council eight of our departments were ranked among the top ten at public universities: aerospace engineering, astronomy, computer science, electrical engineering, economics, mathematics, oceanography, and physics. The NRC rankings didn't include agriculture and resource economics, criminal justice, linguistics, and counseling psychology which are widely acknowledged to be among the top half dozen of these disciplines. Moreover, we have ten or so programs that are within striking distance of rankings within the top ten among public universities: history, English, political science to name three.

   But it's not just research rankings that make a university great. In keeping with the rhetoric of the inaugural speech, we have invested heavily in building the quality of our undergraduate program. Despite the austerity of our fiscal situation, we have built a first class honors program and companion programs, the College Park Scholars, the Gemstone Program and the Humanities Honors Program. Roughly forty percent of the entering freshman now come into one of these highly selective undergraduate programs.

   We've received a lot of third-party recognition for our progress. I've already mentioned the U.S. News and NRC rankings. There are others. The Arco Guide, Ivy League Programs at State School Prices rated the College Park Honors program as one of the nine best in the United States. The Boeing Company annually gives one award a year to the university with the most innovative undergraduate engineering program in the nation. Last year the Clark School of Engineering won the award. And it would have been hard for any of you to have missed the article in the December issue of the Washingtonian that opened with this line: "SAT scores are up, honors programs are booming, kids are turning down schools like Princeton and Virginia to go to College Park. The Terps are moving up, and we're not just talking basketball."

   Reaching that goal of becoming one of the very best public research universities in the nation -- one of the top half dozen or so -- will take more than an infusion of money. It will take a spirit, a unity, a commitment, and even a self-confidence that I've seen growing here in recent years -- but which still needs nurturing. We are a lot better than even many on this campus think we are. Until we fully recognize and appreciate the excellence that is within us, and that surrounds us, our progress will be impeded by the self-imposed limitations we place on ourselves and on the institution we comprise.

   Let me conclude this portion of my remarks by citing a few markers to show just how far we have come over the past decade:

   As a community, we can count the advance these figures represent, in the face of enormous fiscal strife, as one of our greatest achievements over the past decade. The courage and resolve we -- collectively -- demonstrated to not only hold onto our dream but to move impressively toward it during our time of travail is a memory that I will treasure with enormous pride the rest of my life. It is a credit to the entire community and most especially to many people in the room today. With appropriate levels of state support in the coming decade, I predict with confidence that the goal I set forth in 1990, namely being one of the top half dozen so public research universities, will occur.

   In my inaugural speech, I also laid out three hallmarks that I hoped would become part of the legacy of this university during my administration. Now, from the perspective of the other end of the 1990s, let's assess how we have done . . .

VIDEO CLIP (1:07): "The first concerns education and the crisis the United States faces in its classrooms. Perhaps no war we have fought posed a greater threat to our nation than the struggle we now face to provide a quality education to our youth from pre-school through college.

"I see College Park in the 1990's as a leader in the State's effort to solve this problem in Maryland. We will provide leadership by the example we set for the quality of education our faculty offers students on this campus-- an education grounded in the arts and sciences -- a liberal education for an age of technology and internationalism. We will provide leadership in rebuilding the quality of our educational system through the strength of our programs that train teachers for the K-12 classrooms. And we will provide leadership by joining with other institutions in the System to work with schools and teachers throughout the State in a rich array of cooperative ventures."

   Although the state and nation still face a crisis in the K-12 classrooms, the University has become a partner with public schools and with the State Department of Education. We have literally dozens of instructional and research programs underway in Baltimore City and throughout the state. We provide the state and school systems with technical assistance on a myriad of issues, including technology utilization, special education, curriculum reform, and school restructuring. In particular, we've directed our resources to the pressing needs of schools and school systems serving our most disadvantaged children.

   Increasingly, our influence is being felt not just across the state but across the nation. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Education selected this University to lead a five-year, $23 million National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching that will link universities, business and national teachers' organizations in an intensive examination of ways to improve the quality of teaching in America's schools.

   Now, the second hallmark . . .

VIDEO CLIP (:40): "I want College Park to be a place where excellence is achieved through diversity. A place that reflects the diversity of our State and the cultural richness of our world; a place where study and learning count, and color or accent or gender do not; a place where one can attack the ideas of another while affirming the human dignity of all; a place where diversity is not only tolerated, but celebrated; a place that enables individuals to be larger than they once were and more open of mind than they thought they could be."

   This has not been grafted on or decreed from above, but has grown organically out of the day-in, day-out efforts of those who make up this community. It grows from and is nurtured by thousands of individual efforts to understand, include, accept and respect each other. Although in absolute terms, we and the rest of higher education still have a long way to go, the University of Maryland is now widely recognized as a national model for a university committed to diversity. We were the university chosen by the President's Initiative on Race to host the dialogue on race and higher education. And, as we speak, the Ford Foundation is producing a manual documenting what we as a university have done and how we have steadfastly worked toward our diversity goals over the past decade.

   And third . . .

VIDEO CLIP (:30): "As one of the original land-grant universities, service has always been a primary mission and an important part of our proud heritage. But during my tenure as President, I see us playing an even more profound service role. I see us as a primary intellectual resource for the state and the federal government, and due to our rising academic stature, a link for the State to valuable intellectual and cultural resources throughout the world."

   Given our land grant legacy, an important development of the mid-1990s was the return of the Agriculture Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service to our College of Agriculture and Natural Resources from their earlier status as freestanding units under the University System of Maryland. Our level of service to the agricultural sector has never been greater, with cutting edge research underway around the state. Our faculty and facilities, for example, have served as the focal point for the investigation and remediation of the pfiesteria issue over the past year.

   Today the University sits at the center of a vast and growing network that connects us with business, government agencies and other research universities in support of the public good. The National Archives adjacent to campus now brings researchers from around the world to College Park, and enhances the stature and resources of our own programs. Countless connections and interrelationships with NASA and, particularly the Goddard Space Center, with NIST, with NSA, with NIH , with BARC give our faculty and students access to unprecedented resources while our expertise supports important national programs. The new $100 million Food and Drug Administration facility now being constructed on University property near the Metro station will bring us even more of this kind of cooperative activity.

   Our faculty, our administration and, yes, our students touch the lives of the farmer on the Eastern Shore, the elementary school teacher in Frederick, the corporate CEO in Baltimore, the firefighter in Waldorf, the librarian in Cumberland, the entrepreneur in Westminster, the senator on Capitol Hill and the minister in China. We are involved participants in society in ways that, while consistent with the intent, go far beyond anything envisioned in the agrarian roots of the land grant mission.

   We have kept our promise of service.

   Enough about where we have come from and where we are. What about the future of the university? I'd like to mention two issues, three if time permits that I believe are vitally important for the continuing success of the university and the realization of its aspirations. Not unexpectedly, perhaps, the first of these issues is funding.

1. Flagship initiative Funding

   After I announced my resignation, our wonderfully supportive Board of Visitors, a volunteer group of business and community leaders, proposed a plan called the Flagship Initiative. It calls for the state to raise the level of funding at College Park to the average of our aspirational peers, over the next four years. This is, of course, the original goal the General Assembly stated for College Park in the 1988 legislation. The achievement of this funding goal would require, over four years, $28 million more than the amount the Governor had originally proposed for the University. With unprecedented support from a broad cross-section of the business community around the state, the plan was submitted to Governor Glendening and he added $7 million to our budget for next year as the first phase of this four year initiative. It is important to note the strong support we received for this initiative from Mike Miller, President of the Senate, Cas Taylor, Speaker of the House and Delegates Nancy Kopp and Pete Rawlings

   This success we achieved this session was very sweet. But the Flagship Initiative is a four-year plan, and requires three more years of comparable funding. We have to remember that there were special circumstances at work this past Spring and so we must not be complacent and assume the next three installments will occur. We must begin to plan now and make the case for inclusion of funding for this initiative in next year's budget. I will be meeting with the Board of Visitors in a few weeks to discuss strategy, which will surely need to include the kind of impressive campus involvement and effort we witnessed in Annapolis a few months ago. Obviously, we want to press for greater funding for all of higher education and work within the System toward that goal. But we must insist that College Park, as the flagship university, remain the top priority.

   The funding of higher education at an appropriate level needs to be routinized so that this university and the state's other public colleges and universities can make long range plans with some level of certainty that funding will be there. Clearly, we have managed over the years to raise our sights on this campus as to what the University of Maryland can and should become. The job of getting the resources from Annapolis to support our aspirations is not yet done. I regret that I have to leave the completion of this task in your hands and those of my successor. I do want to emphasize, though, that the stage is set for a major breakthrough in our resource base but it will not be accomplished without a significant and concerted effort by the entire university community.

2. Outcome of University System of Maryland Review

   The second issue is that of governance -- a very timely topic given that a legislatively mandated task force is just now beginning a review of the University System of Maryland's governance, funding and efficacy.

   Let me say at the outset, I am not an advocate of systems as a way of governing higher education. My single greatest concern about systems is that they do not, indeed cannot, result in citizen advocates who in their official capacities promote the needs and champion the aspirations of individual institutions. This is especially disadvantageous for flagship institutions because of the complex mission and special needs of these kinds of universities.

   In Maryland, the current governance structure does not adequately recognize the diversity in mission and size of the institutions within the system. The University of Maryland at College Park represents over 40% of the entire University System of Maryland budget, and we are the only institution with a statewide land grant mandate in our research, service, and education programs. We conduct about 50% of the sponsored research, raise over 50% of the private funds and produce over 80% of the Ph.D.s in the state. In short, we are unique in the public sector. Yet, within the present structure, we are one co-equal member of the 13 institutions that comprise the System. At the very least, some method of giving a more proportionate voice in the affairs of the System and a greater official role in Annapolis must be considered for College Park. I can imagine that this will be an important issue in trying to convince the caliber of leader this institution deserves to become the next president of the University.

   Finally, on governance, I believe it important that we strengthen the ties between College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. It was the marriage of these two institutions, after all, that in 1920 led to the creation of the modern University of Maryland. These two institutions have complementary, rather than competing, missions. Most flagship universities in other states have medical and law schools within the scope of the principal research university. Combining the research dollars at College Park and Baltimore would significantly elevate the University's standing in national rankings, federal research reports and other indicators that contribute to national stature.

   In recent years, we have developed several joint programs and more are in the works, but an even closer collaboration between these two institutions, under some configuration and structure to be determined, would serve both universities well and help to unite the often estranged ends of the Baltimore-Washington corridor. It would make it possible to leverage the resources at both ends for the good of the entire state. Over many years of tinkering with governance, we have lost sight of the natural bonds that exist between these two institutions and the value that a truly comprehensive approach to higher education at the research university level would bring to the region.

3. The Evolving Nature of Higher Education

   The university that existed when I became president is likely to change much more dramatically in the next ten years than it did in the past ten years. Basic notions in higher education must be rethought. The concept of a "traditional student," for example, is less meaningful as we move toward "lifetime learning." Further, the line between public and private institutions blurs as the publics aggressively pursue private gifts and other alternative sources of funding and the per cent of their budgets that come from state General Funds diminishes.

   Never in the history of education has there been a greater need for innovative thinking, flexibility and collegiality. There can be no doubt that the era of the ivory tower is gone -- torn down by the public demand for greater accountability, increased competition among existing institutions, new educational alternatives such as virtual universities made possible through new technology, and growing interrelationships with the private sector that are bringing aspects of the corporate culture onto campus.

   I believe College Park can prosper in this new era. Because of inadequate funding in the past, we have developed a stronger sense of entrepreneurship than many of our competitors.

   The one area where I think we have come up short, however, and I would encourage the campus to pursue much more aggressively, is the exploding needs of continuing and professional education, especially as they relate to the use of new technologies and modes of course delivery. There is mounting demand for educational services, in new configurations, on new topics and in new locations. If we do not develop the programs, the structures and the delivery systems to meet those needs, other will do so -- indeed, are doing so. As the need for these kinds of educational services increase, the influence of those who cannot deliver will diminish.

   This brings me to the end of my remarks. I thought long and hard as to what I might say at this moment. Though I wanted it to be something profound, my words and thoughts did not respond to my desire. And so I'm left to convey two simple but heartfelt messages: first, in spirit at least, I know Patty and I will never really leave this institution. Early in the Fall semester I'm sure I will be on the e-mail asking Linda Clement for the profile of the entering class, and I'll be poring over the U.S News for Maryland's latest rankings. Second, I feel so enormously blessed to have had the privilege as serving as provost and president of this university for the past 17 years. The indebtedness for the support we have received from this community, and the friendships we have made within it will stay with us for the rest of our life. For these gifts, we thank you very much.

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