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Robert L. Carothers President |
Bond vote brings URI’s needs to the public
Each September, the cycle of life at URI is renewed as a new freshman class spills once again out onto the Quad. The leaves begin to turn to red and gold in Kingston, the Elephant Walk fills with students and their backpacks, and the football players down the hill crash against each other with renewed enthusiasm. And always there seems to be a marching band playing somewhere in the distance. All in all, life at URI is pretty good.
This fall we have even more reason than usual to be hopeful about our future. The governor and the General Assembly have approved nearly $90 million worth of new facilities for the University, and we must now seek the support of the people of Rhode Island on the November ballot. The largest of these projects is the new Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences, a wonderful new home for biologists here at URI and the epicenter of the state’s effort to grow biotechnology businesses in Rhode Island. Next is the Ocean Exploration and Research Center on the Narragansett Bay Campus, a home for Bob Ballard and his colleagues at the Graduate School of Oceanography, including an Inner Space Center that will rival NASA’s mission center in Houston. Together, these two facilities will help create a science core at URI that will serve us for decades.
A third proposal will continue the renewal of our student housing, a project about halfway completed. We will also be adding some 800 additional beds by the fall of 2006, in new apartment and suite configurations, these to be self-supporting. Finally, the fourth question put to the voters will allow us to begin refurbishing Meade Stadium and create new training and academic support facilities for our student athletes behind Keaney Gym. Each of these projects and the bond issue referenda that will support it is critical to our ability to serve our students and our success as a modern university.
Across America, state funding for the operation of public colleges and universities continues to shrink. We all understand that the future lies in our ability to be creative and to generate ourselves the revenue needed to preserve and grow the quality of these important institutions. What the states are funding is the infrastructure we need to be competitive and to fulfill our historical missions. This November, Rhode Island voters will have the opportunity to build the capacity of its flagship university, the University of Rhode Island.
We will need your help in carrying the blue and white for this campaign. We need you to be a drum major for your university, telling everyone you know about URI’s future and about how much their support of these bond issues will mean to that future. We need you to bring family and friends to the polls, and most of all we need your vote. Generations of URI students yet to come will thank you, as will we all. Go Rhody!
