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Introduction
Thanks to Chair Adele Berlin and members of the Senate for another opportunity to speak to you today on key issues of campus achievement, organization and strategic direction. This is my one shot so I do hope to hit the target.
Welcome!—to a new academic year that always brings renewed energy to a restart that never gets stale. The new year is all about "the new:" new students, new initiatives, and new opportunities. The milestones of our annual cycle require us to finish in the Spring and start in the Fall.
Speaking of milestones, we are entering our 150th Year this fall and we are sufficiently pleased with ourselves that we have decided to extend this birthday until October 2006 when our capital campaign officially kicks off. Throughout this year we will be celebrating this sesquicentennial through events you will hear about in due course. Stay tuned.
Our programs continue to sport lofty rankings with 51 ranked among the top 15 by U. S. News & World Report, up from 18 in 1998. Top 25 programs number 79, up from 28 in 1998. Shanghai Jiao Tong University's ranking of the top-500 universities worldwide puts us in 47th place and 35th in the United States.
And for lofty sports rankings, intercollegiate athletics has its highest number of academic honor roll athletes ever. The sum of our ACC honor roll and Maryland honor roll athletes is 628, 50% higher than it was in 1998.
Speaking of lofty, the NASA project Deep Impact, led by Astronomy Professor Mike A'Hearn, made a permanent dent in
Comet Tempel 1 on July 4 and a fairly deep impact here too. Its web site transmitted nearly a half terabyte of information
in less than two months to 167 countries from the Keeling Islands to Vatican City. This was an impact felt around this world as well as out of it!
New Students
Our new students are as good as ever coming in with a mean GPA of 3.9 and an SAT of 1280.
The number of University Honors students shot up close to 900, a couple of hundred over the target because of a higher than expected acceptance rate. All signs indicate that people believe that we continue to add value to a Maryland education.
The incoming class is ethnically diverse too with 13.1% African American, 5.8% Latino, 13.0 % Asian American, less than 1% Native-American and 9 % Other, which is our fastest growing segment. Caucasian students are just under 59%. The January issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on minority enrollments at some selective universities as a follow up to the 2003 Supreme Court's affirmative action decision. Our University topped all others in the list in the percentage of African American freshmen in 2004. By the way over the two-year period following the court decision, our African American freshman enrollment increased 13% and our Hispanic enrollment increased 4.2%.
Post-game celebrations
On the issue of rowdy post-game celebrations, it is fair to say that the University and the greater community have no tolerance for further such unruly fan behavior like as has damaged the community and the University to a notable degree. Most students understand this.
Many student organizations, led initially by the Interfraternity Council and then joined by the Student Government Association, Residence Halls Association and Pan-Hellenic Association, are planning post-game celebrations, student forums, a student leader summit and outreach to students to provide alternatives to these destructive celebrations. I thank them in advance for taking strong leadership action. Student leadership and student action are keys to resolving this problem and I am impressed with their determination and understanding.
The first student arrested by Prince George's County police during post-game disturbances this past Spring was given three years of supervised probation, 100 hours of community service in College Park and the requirement to present 20 campus lectures on fan behavior.
In the coming year we expect the Regents to classify probation by the courts as conviction. Both are a legal finding of guilt. Therefore, students who receive probation from the courts will be directed to the Office of Judicial Programs for disciplinary review under the Code of Student Conduct. So as not to be surprised by the severity of the expected sactions, it would be safe for any student who is arrested for disturbances following a campus event this year to plan on being dismissed from the University.
Today
Last year I used four descriptors to highlight key issues for us. They were innovation, entrepreneurship, partnerships and international. Today, I want to speak about what we have done under these rubrics and also comment on our follow up from the review of the Graduate School.
In addition I want to speak about our most difficult problem—the nation's most difficult higher education problem: How do we build programs of the highest quality while retaining affordable access to them by students of all financial means? I will describe a campaign we are undertaking to deliver on the State's promise to build a flagship university ranked among the best in the country while simultaneously maintaining access to it.
I apologize in advance for the many important issues that I will not have time to speak about. There will be opportunity to ask about some of them at the conclusion. I will also post copies of today's remarks on the website plus a summary of other highlights which will hit other issues. A year ago the web site received 10,000 hits in September so people do use it.
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Partnerships and International
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