Highlights from the President’s convocation address

Highlights from the President’s convocation address

During Convocation 2003, President Robert L. Carothers discussed a wide range of challenges facing the university and steps being taken to address them, among other issues. The following are a few highlights from his speech. The full text can be viewed at www.uri.edu/president/convocation/default.html.

The state of the University of Rhode Island is sound. This year we have a large and capable freshman class, new and rehabilitated academic buildings on line, the Freshman Village completed, and record productivity in research and outreach. We hired some truly outstanding new faculty members and some excellent members of the staff. At a time when universities around the country are retrenching, at URI we have avoided laying off employees, salaries reductions and cuts in coverage for health care for employees...

We are not, however, without our challenges, nor are we alone in facing those challenges. Our first defining theme is, not surprisingly, money, or the absence thereof. The reduction in state support for universities and the reduced income from endowments and from donors to both private and public universities, along with congressional and state legislative pressures to cut operating costs, have everyone’s attention. The consensus is that this is not a blip from which we will someday soon recover. Rather, it reflects a fundamental shift in the agenda of the baby boomers as we age, from education to health care, prisons, homeland security and reduced tax burdens. When this is combined with an increased demand for higher educational services, it is almost inevitable that we are moving toward a revenue-driven, market-responsive restructuring of higher education. Why? Because the tax system can’t support higher education in the face of competing priorities...

So how do we continue on the path of change we have embarked, how can we continue to create, in the words of our vision statement, a “new culture for learning”? A key element is alignment of goals, the goals set by the nation and the state, those set by our Board, those set within the University as a whole and in the colleges, schools and departments. We have much work to do in Washington and at Rhode Island’s statehouse, but I believe that we are well aligned with the goals of the Board of Governors. Both the overall goal of increased educational attainment in Rhode Island and the goal of collaborative use of resources between and among institutions are consistent with what we want to achieve at URI. Our three-year strategic plan captures our overall goals for the near term, and it initiates processes that will help us focus our investments in a more effective manner. That plan calls for twenty new faculty lines over the next three years, beginning with six this year; more refurbished classrooms, with Ballentine Hall the model of what we want to do; the new Academic Enhancement Center in Roosevelt Hall, more investment in libraries ($1M more into the base over the next three years) and information systems, creative financial aid strategies which will improve transfers from CCRI and other community colleges and support retention efforts, and more...