APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
University President Dave Frohnmayer called the first meeting of the 1998-99 regular fall term meeting of the University Assembly to order at 3:07 p.m. in 150 Columbia. Minutes of the June 3, 1998 meeting were approved as distributed.
MEMORIALS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
The secretary reported receipt of a memorial for Janet Grant Woodruff, professor emerita in physical education who passed away in August. Ms. Woodruff was a member of the faculty for 38 years from 1929 to 1967, serving as head of the women's physical education department for many years. The Woodruff Gymnasium in Gerlinger Hall is named in her honor.
Professor William Ayres, anthropology, read a memorial for his colleague Richard P. Chaney, associate professor of anthropology, who passed away in July. A member of the faculty since 1968, Mr. Chaney was a cultural anthropologist who was widely published in his field and described by others as a passionate teacher. The text of the memorials for these two former faculty members are found as attachments to these minutes.
The secretary also noted receipt of the annual report of the Faculty Personnel Committee which is an attachment to the minutes.
In other announcements, President Frohnmayer indicated that members of the campus community will receive a survey from the Public Employee Benefit Board (PEBB), in part asking for feedback on employee benefits currently in place. The president explained that the board is in the process of finalizing what the benefit package will be for all state employees, not just higher education. There has been some discussion concerning a change in the current benefit package, thus President Frohnmayer encouraged employees to respond to the survey and express their sentiments about what they like about their benefits as well as what they don't like. This year's benefit package is not affected -- the planning is for year 2000.
Finally, President Frohnmayer reminded everyone that a reception to welcome new faculty members will be held in Collier House immediately after the meeting. He encouraged everyone to take the opportunity to personally greet new faculty members and visit with colleagues.
REMARKS FROM UNIVERSITY SENATE PRESIDENT JEFFREY HURWIT
University Senate President Hurwit opened his remarks by reminding everyone of the reason we are at the university: for the public welfare. He argued that the idea of students going to college to develop the skills and knowledges to help them participate more fully in society and citizenship has been overpowered by more recent notions of careerism and credentialism. In a plea to strengthen the importance of the liberal arts and sciences at the UO, senate president Hurwit suggested that we not forget our obligation to prepare students for lives of complexities rather than single-mindedness. He noted that as the university begins implementing the ideas generated by the Process for Change, it will be particularly important for faculty members to remember that in an over-arching sense, the university must remain neither faculty- nor student-centered, but rather knowledge-centered in its curriculum development. Full text of president Hurwit's remarks are attached to the minutes.
REMARKS FROM UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT DAVE FROHNMAYER
President Frohnmayer began his remarks noting how quickly things can change and how we must constantly be ready to adapt to changes in the higher education landscape. One of the greatest and most rapid change affecting our university is the change in the proposed new budget system. The new system when fully implemented will greatly benefit the UO and is a vast improvement over the rather arcane and unfair BAS budgeting model.
The president went on to say that we have had unprecedented success in Oregon Campaign fund-raising efforts, raising upwards of 230 million dollars with three months to go -- a new high for any charitable purpose in the state of Oregon. The number of endowment chairs have tripled and made improvements in many buildings. The fund-raising response has been heard by literally thousands to people who care about the university. Progress in the Process for Change is proceeding with scores of faculty engaged in the implementation phase of the project, deciding which ideas will be put into action and in what ways. President Frohnmayer challenged everyone to be the positive deciding factor for those times when students question whether to return for another term or to leave the university -- to provide the kind of experiences for students that draw them into the classrooms and convince them this is the best education they can receive. He acknowledged the good work of our faculty in providing a nationally recognized "best buy" opportunity for students and to continue that outstanding reputation. Full text of the president's remarks can be found as an attachment to these minutes.
NEW BUSINESS
Provost John Moseley welcomed everyone to the start of a new academic year. He indicated that there are 26 tenured or tenure track faculty members new to the university. He called on the various deans and department heads to introduce the new faculty members to the assembly.
ADJOURNMENT
With no other new business at hand, the president adjourned the meeting
at 4:30, reminding everyone of the reception to follow.
Gwen Steigelman
Secretary of the Faculty
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ATTACHMENTS
Memorials
Janet Grant Woodruff
January 19, 1902 -- August 9, 1998
Janet Grant Woodruff, Professor Emerita in the Department of Physical Education and Human Movement Studies, a department in the former College of Human Development and Performance, died at the age of 96 on August 9, 1998, of age-related causes.
Janet Grant Woodruff was born on January 19, 1902, in Salem, Ohio, where she spent her early years with her Scottish parents and three sisters. During her elementary and high school years she displayed a proficiency and talent in many sport activities. Following high school she enrolled at Kellogg School of Physical Education in Battle Creek, Michigan where she continued participation in full-court basketball, Swedish gymnastics, track, and the glorious game of field hockey. After receiving her diploma in 1922, Janet Woodruff obtained a teaching position at Oklahoma Agriculture and Mining in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she taught Swedish gymnastics and sports for two years. Her contact with students motivated her to seek additional education and she enrolled in Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City which was recognized as having an outstanding graduate teacher education program. Dr. Jessie F. Williams, a prominent philosopher, teacher and writer was her advisor.
While in New York she participated in club field hockey, which added a new dimension of competition to her life. After receiving her B.S. degree in 1926, Janet Woodruff accepted a teaching position at Kansas State Teachers College in Hayes, Kansas. At the end of the year, she returned to Columbia University for her M.S. degree which she completed in 1929. University of Oregon President, Dr. Prince Lucien Campbell, notified Columbia University of a teaching position open in the Women's Physical Education Department. Because of Janet's strong credentials, including three years of college teaching, Dr. Campbell offered her an Assistant Professorship. Janet Grant Woodruff arrived on campus in 1929, the same year the Women's Activity Building was renamed Gerlinger Hall for Mrs. George Gerlinger, regent. Thus began the long professional relationship between Gerlinger Hall and Janet Grant Woodruff.
While serving as Head of the Teacher Preparation Program for Women during the 1930's and 1940's, Janet Grant Woodruff was influential in preparing women teachers of physical education in public schools, colleges and universities. Janet was an excellent teacher and role model for professional students. She established high standards and students knew what was expected of them. She was demanding of her students but she never failed to have a twinkle in her eye. In later years, her students realized they had received excellent preparation at the University of Oregon under her guidance.
In the late 1940's, Janet Woodruff was appointed Head of the Service Course Program for Women, an appointment she held until her retirement in 1967. During these years her leadership led to an expansion of this program. In addition to her administrative and teaching duties, Janet coached the women's field hockey team until her retirement. She was instrumental in adding field hockey to the physical education programs of many larger high schools in Oregon. One highlight of her early years at Oregon was bringing the United States Women's Field Hockey team to Oregon from the East Coast for a demonstration game with her team. Undaunted by a sudden snowstorm, she moved the game inside to the Armory at Oregon State College!
Janet Woodruff was an active professional at the state, district and national levels. She served as President of the Oregon Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation; Secretary-treasurer of the Northwest District Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation; and, as the University of Oregon's representative to the first Pacific Eight Women's Athletic Conference. She served in leadership roles in the National Association for Physical Education of College Women; the Western Society for Physical Education of College Women; the Division of Girls' and Women's Sports, American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation; and, the Oregon State Department of Education. Janet was an active member of Delta Psi Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta, professional honor societies.
In recognition of her exemplary career, Janet Grant Woodruff received numerous awards including Honorary Life Membership in the Oregon Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation; Honorary Member of Western Society for Physical Education of College Women; the Honor Award from the Northwest District of the American Association of Health, Physical Education and Recreation; and the medal for Distinguished Service from the University of Oregon.
On February 23, 1991, Janet Grant Woodruff was honored by the University of Oregon for the last time. Gerlinger Alumi Lounge was filled with former students, colleagues and friends who gathered to pay tribute to her during the dedication ceremony in which the only gymnasium in Gerlinger Hall, her professional home on campus for 38 years, was named in her honor: The Janet G. Woodruff Gymnasium.
Lois Youngen
Physical Activity and Recreation Services
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Richard P. Chaney
January 17, 1940 -- July 20, 1998
Richard Chaney, AB and PhD from Indiana University (1963, 1971), was a highly regarded member of the anthropology faculty since 1968 until his sudden death from heart failure in July 1998. He held the position of Associate Professor.
Richard Chaney was in many ways the quintessential professor: an avid reader and theoretician in cultural anthropology and comparative methods, an interpreter of exotic cultures and practices, and a successful teacher and an exceptional mentor. Richard was also active in service to the university and the larger community as well as a father greatly committed to his children and family.
Richard was a deep thinker and read widely not just in anthropology but also in psychology and philosophy of science, one of his prime areas of interest. He was developing several major writing projects that continued to expand along with his own intellectual growth: he had been working for some time on a book on a history of anthropology and had completed a major segment of a manuscript on the contexts of creativity. Chaney's writing showed evidence of interdisciplinary thinking, creativity, and fresh viewpoints. His interests in comparative hermeneutics formed the central theme of much of his writing and teaching; but as well he believed strongly in the fundamental importance of the comparative method and was especially well founded in the ethnology of Native North America.
Chaney was an expositor in his approach to teaching; his style was his own and one that inspired many students, these often followed him class after class. He attempted to lead students to make connections among the different disciplines and he was effective in both small seminars and large lecture classes; in either setting, he caused students to think, opened their minds, and helped them deal with abstract issues such as human intentionality, consciousness, and creativity. Chaney had served on more than 80 doctoral dissertation committees and was particularly involved in anthropology and education. He worked with many international students, especially in recent years with ones from Taiwan, where he was held in high regard by his co-researchers at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, and National Taiwan University in the area of traditional medicine, folk healing and religion.
In these brief notes we cannot hope to sum up or do justice to what
Richard brought to the university; however, he was one of our most student-centered
professors with strong connections to many diverse sections of the campus
from philosophy to education to physics and one who enjoyed working with
students as well as debating the role of hermeneutics in science. He will
be missed.
William S. Ayres
Professor and Head, Anthropology
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Annual Report of the Faculty Personnel Committee 1997/98
The Committee members for 1997/8 were D. Blandy, B. Branchaud, V. Cartwright, J. Fracchia, H. Gernon, P. Gilkey (Chair), L. Harris, T. Kealy (student participant), J. Stockard, D. Trombley, and J. Weiss. The returning committee members will be D. Blandy, L. Harris, J. Stockard (chair elect), D. Trombley. The chair would like to take this opportunity to express the chair's real gratitude to all the committee members for their devotion to duty, and the real wisdom they brought to the consideration of the many cases we dealt with. The University of Oregon has a long tradition of shared governance and the participation of faculty and students on such committees is an important part of University life. The FPC made 3 specific recommendations which are provided in this report:
The following document was sent to the Provost: During the deliberations
on several cases in the 1996-97 academic year, the Faculty Personnel Committee
was obliged to request, from various departments, further information and
clarification of departmental criteria for promotion and/or tenure, and
statements of the degree to which the candidate had met those criteria.
Different fields have different accepted venues for the dissemination of
research. In fact, the very nature of what constitutes research varies
significantly across the university. Expectations of teaching also vary
within the university. This makes evaluation by a committee with university-wide
representation difficult. FPC procedure requires that any FPC members from
the candidates department excuse themselves from deliberations about that
candidate. Without someone from the candidate's field to explain accepted
norms, the remaining FPC members can not be expected to figure out what
does or does not meet the criteria. It is therefore essential that each
department's criteria be stated clearly and in detail, and that the departmental
evaluation of the candidate's performance in view of those criteria be
discussed clearly and specifically. We wish to be very clear about this.
The FPC is not accusing departments of neglect. In virtually every case
a statement of departmental criteria was included in the file. The problem
is that though those statements of criteria may be perfectly clear to people
within a given field, they often are not clear to those outside the field,
as FPC members must be. To give but one example: in some fields publications
of a paper delivered at a conference in the conference proceedings is one
of the main ways of disseminating research results and is thus a respected
accomplishment; whereas in other fields such a publication is not accorded
the same high value. This is the kind of fine point that the FPC needs
to understand to reach a conclusion in its evaluations. Explicit and detailed
discussion of these issues resulting in a clearly articulated document
at the departmental level would not only facilitate and expedite the FPC's
deliberations, but it would also be in the best interests of the candidate,
the department, and the university. The FPC therefore asks the Provost
to communicate the FPC's concerns and make this request to the Deans, Department
Heads and departmental tenure committees.
Remarks from University Senate President Jeffrey Hurwit
Years ago, when I was just a boy, Bill Cosby produced a record of his comedy sketches including a piece entitled, as I recall, "Why is there Air?" The answer, as many of you may remember, was "to blow up footballs with." Well, I'd like to ask just as simple a question this afternoon. Why are we here? Not why are we here in this room, on this afternoon--which is still a good question!--but why are we and our students here at the University of Oregon, beginning another school year? The answer, though obvious, is often forgotten or else is regarded so cynically that it does not bear utterance, so embarrassingly that no one dare speak it. The answer is, "for the public welfare."
The idea that "it is better to know something than not know it," the idea that students go to college to develop the values and learn the critical skills that will prepare them for full participation in all aspects of society and citizenship, the idea that faculty are here to help them broaden their vision and formulate philosophies of living, the idea that one should pursue courses of study that do not necessarily lead to specific careers or large bank balances, the idea that people should go to college simply so that they can know more, think better, and lead richer lives--these ideas are in eclipse in American higher education, and have been for at least thirty years. They have been replaced at all levels with careerism and credentialism, with the notions that, for faculty, the greatest reward is a grant releasing them from teaching, and that, for students, the most desirable outcome of an education is money, or at least a degree that can be easily and quickly converted into money. And so the liberal arts and sciences have increasingly been overwhelmed by occupational majors and have largely been deemed irrelevant (in 1994 business majors in American colleges and universities outnumbered English majors 4 to 1).
To a very large extent, we in the liberal arts and sciences have only ourselves to blame. When (as Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg points out in the most recent New York Review of Books)--when scholars use or misuse Thomas Kuhn's classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to argue that scientific theories "can only be judged within the context of a particular paradigm,"and that no one paradigm is "privileged" over any other way of looking at the world--when, in other words, it is argued that scientific theories are culturally determined and thus that there is no such thing as objective truth at all--and when we invent and promulgate theories of art, literature and culture that argue against the very possibility of meaning and that develop narcotizing jargon to ensure that no meaning can possibly be conveyed--theories that not even the French believe in anymore--then why should our students think us relevant? When students see their own professors increasingly atomize their fields with greater and greater specialization or see them questioning and even subverting the coherence of their own disciplines, then why would they pursue a major in the liberal arts and sciences? Why should they seek meaning, instead of money, at all during their undergraduate careers?
Here's one reason: according to a recent study published in Harvard Magazine (May/June 1998), occupational or professional "courses of study fail to demonstrate that they're better preparation than the liberal arts and sciences for their associated occupations and professions. Medical schools do not prefer particular majors, not even biology, as long as basic pre-med courses are taken successfully. The Association of American Law Schools recommends courses that stress reading, writing, speaking, critical and logical thinking. Law schools report that by yardsticks of law review and grades, their top students come from math, the classics, and literature" (p. 50).
Now, I have nothing against professional schools--I belong to one--and there is, of course, nothing wrong with professional majors or with entering students who know what they want to do when they graduate, and aim from the time they first set foot on campus for a particular goal. What is wrong --what is unforgivable--is when an institution forgets its obligation to prepare students for a life of complexities rather than of single-mindedness, when it fails to provide students with a stable, coherent curriculum offering a variety of the kinds of knowledge and critical experiences that will be required to negotiate and reason out a rapidly changing world (politically, morally, and, not least, aesthetically), when it fails to give its faculty the freedom and support necessary to conduct research that broadens our human vision rather than narrows it and that, in the end, benefits our students, or when it decides to let current and often transient demands determine its curriculum--which is its heart and soul-- and channels funds from one major to another and back again depending on the irregular and unpredictable movement of student feet. This is the market-model of a university, and, despite the University of Phoenixes of the world, it will not work. It will not work because a real university, despite everything you may have read or heard, is not a business. At least, as Gerhard Casper, President of Stanford, has recently stressed, it is not a very smart, good or logical business. Businesses are in business to make money; GM charges more for a car than it costs to produce. What kind of a business is it that, like the University of Oregon, charges most of its "customers," our in-state students, about half the cost of educating them?
This year may be one of the most important years in the history of the University of Oregon. This is so because we shall begin to implement many of the recommendations set forth at the end of last year during the deliberations of the various committees of the Process for Change. There is much we can do to improve the university, and the potential for fundamental as well cosmetic change is very real. The faculty, staff and students who sit in the University Senate will monitor the implementation process carefully, beginning next week when Provost Moseley reports on the state and progress of the plan. The members of the senate will, I hope, have much to say about the outcome, and in its normal legislative role the senate will insist on final approval of matters of curriculum. But I encourage all of you to visit the senate this year (our meetings take place at this time on the second Wednesday of every month except December), and so to monitor us, your elected representatives.
One of the unspoken assumptions of the Process for Change has been that we have been, somehow, too much of a "faculty-centered" university, and its central mantra is that we must become more "student-centered." Now, as far as I can tell, "student-centered" means very different things to different people. If by this we mean that tuition should follow the students who pay it or that we need to do a better job of teaching, advising, and retaining our students--of more carefully guiding them through their years of study--then few will disagree. And yet in one over-arching sense the University of Oregon must be neither faculty- nor student-centered: it must be knowledge-centered, and research must remain at the core of what we do. The creation, discovery, and dissemination of knowledge is why we are all here, and I would argue that every bit of knowledge we acquire and transmit in every field inherently expands the public welfare, simply because "it is better to know something than not to know it." Alexander von Humboldt (the founder of the idea of the modern university) argued that students do not exist simply for the sake of the faculty nor faculty simply for the sake of the students. A university is, ideally, a partnership, a symbiosis. We are all here to engage in an intellectual enterprise whose goal is both the expansion of knowledge and the shaping of human beings to participate in the full range of social and political institutions and obligations, to be able to judge critically the scientific, moral, ethical, and aesthetic issues that have always plagued and will always plague human society, and, not least, to live informed, happier lives.
So, this is an old-fashioned plea for the liberal arts and sciences--which have always been the core of the University of Oregon--and it is a plea I make today, as we begin this critical year of re-shaping the university, because it is my firm belief that the public university is still the major democratizing force in America, and that it is primarily through the study of the liberal arts and sciences that the public welfare will increase. We cannot deal with the changes and challenges of human society without knowing our past legacies, or the contingencies of our very humanness, without understanding both human achievement and human folly. So let us put away our embarrassment, and insist on the relevance of what do here. For we are not in the quantifiable business of commodity production; we are in the unquantifiable business of opening and enriching minds.
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Remarks from University President Dave Frohnmayer
State of the University, October 7, 1998
I now wish, in the order of business of this University Assembly, to speak to the State of the University. Theologian and social critic Thomas Merton captured rhapsodically this time in our collective experience of autumn:
"October is a fine and dangerous season in America. It is dry and cool and the land is wild with red and gold and crimson, and all the lassitudes of August have seeped out of your blood, and you are full of ambition. It is a wonderful time to begin anything at all."
Thomas Merton might have gotten the "dry" part wrong, at least for our part of the world, but his richly tapestried words remind us that indeed this is a season of renewal and beginnings. Especially here at the University of Oregon . . .
That theme is the imperative of adaptation, through creativity and good-spirit, to the relentless and accelerating pace of change. Our society is undergoing rapid, unstoppable, transformative change. We face changes in our students, our technology, our state, our world economy, and our approach to education. Let me give you one positive example of how quickly things can change.
Just last January, you heard me criticize the budgeting system within the Oregon University System. Echoing the long-standing disquiet of the elders of this campus, I bemoaned this "arcane" set of formulae that defied logic and made it difficult to argue for adequate state funding. Our elders were right. A bipartisan high-caliber gubernatorial commission independently agreed. So did the governor of our state, the chancellor and the State Board of Higher Education. In just one short year, things have turned around 180 degrees, in theory and in commitment.
The chancellor of our Oregon University System and the presidents of all our state universities have agreed to junk the old system and move to a clearer, fairer, more rational, more accountable budgeting mechanism--one that, when adopted in final form, will greatly benefit the University of Oregon, every other institution in the state--and, most important, students and families, who rightly expect tangible educational rewards for their educational expenditures. The new budget system will reward hard work and innovation. Tuition money will stay on the campuses where it is raised. This model will increase accountability and make our universities more student-centered.
For the first time, state legislators will be able to see clearly where their higher education dollars are spent. We can make a more persuasive case for substantially greater funding--not for anemic "decision packages"--but for restoration of the indispensable base budgets of all universities in the system. This year, our state university system is asking not simply for enough money to stay even with last year, but for a significant increase in overall support, a $120 million increase over inflationary adjustments. We hope to fund all our state universities at adequate levels, and also to finance the new and innovative academic programs that we need in order to prepare our students for a fast-changing world.
It is vital that our Oregon University System receive at least a major portion of this request. Please feel free to write your legislator and argue in favor of the new funding model, if you are persuaded to support it. I know that there is concern that some of the smaller campuses in our state will not be adequately funded under the new model. But that is simply not true, if our state legislature embraces the funding model. I have visited all of our sister institutions in the Oregon University System on many occasions--each of them is pursuing vital missions for this state with vigor and excellence. This university, and all of us have a stake in their success, and they in ours. The new budget model is unselfish in the largest sense. It is student-centered, value-added and desperately necessary for the future of our families, our young (and sometimes not so young) people, and our state.
The past year has brought us success closer to home as well. We are nearing the official end of our Oregon Campaign, the largest fund-raising campaign in the history of this state. Many of you will remember the trepidation that accompanied our decision, five years ago, to set a goal of $150 million for this campaign--a number unheard of for any charitable purpose, public or private, in Oregon history. We set a lofty goal. We shot for the moon. And we did more than succeed. We landed perfectly, returned again and relaunched. With almost three months left to go, we are at $230 million and counting. . . . upward. We have doubled the number of scholarships for our students. We have tripled the number of endowed chairs for valued and renowned faculty. We have built some vitally needed new buildings, and will build and remodel more.
But this has been a campaign for people. And its benefits will be felt for years. The fruits of this historic effort are already helping students and faculty, creating innovative approaches to teaching and opening our doors to more young people. In a larger sense, The Oregon Campaign has made history in this state; it has raised the bar for every charitable undertaking, and has shown that Oregonians and friends of this university throughout the world have the will and capacity to give much more than anyone thought possible--if the cause is worthy.
As a final highlight, it is especially gratifying that most of the gifts came not from the ultra-rich, but from people of moderate means. True, we have received some $10-million-plus gifts from selfless and well-to-do alumni. But note this: The Oregon Campaign succeeded thanks to more than 200,000 individual gifts, thousands of them at the ten-dollar and five-dollar and fifty-dollar level. We expect--and I challenge us all--to hit the tape running at full speed on December 31. And so--with faith in your selfless devotion to building something truly great--we intend to ask you to give yet again. We have begun a campaign targeted to faculty and staff this fall, and will ask all faculty and staff to contribute what you can. You should receive a letter in campus mail during the second week of October. I hope that each of you will find a way to help.
Let me tell you about one woman who found a way to do just that. Her name is Karen Tarter. Karen was a student here in anthropology, following a dream of some day going on archaeological digs with Madonna Moss, Jon Erlandson, and others in our anthropology department, finding out about Pacific Coast Native American prehistory. Karen Tarter had wanted for many years, ever since reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" as a young woman, to give something back, to right some wrongs, to find a way to help Native American peoples. Then, while she was a student here in the summer of 1994, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. But that did not stop her. She fought the disease, studied hard, and received her bachelor's degree with honors in 1997.
She was accepted into our graduate program in anthropology. Then, tragically, her cancer returned. Now she is confined to bed, where she reads. She rereads "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." She reads Homer's Odyssey. And a few months ago, she read a copy of our university magazine, Oregon Quarterly. In that issue was a story about one of our dreams here at the university, a dream of building a Many Nations Longhouse as a cultural center for our Native American students, and a regional center for Native American education and research. And in its largest sense, it will be a source of community for all races, all ethnicities for moments of special celebration and renewal.
Karen read that story, and realized, as she said, "maybe I could still do something, even now, even from here." Early in August, she and her family donated $700 to our Many Nations Longhouse fund. I view this as a breathtakingly generous gift. What she had to give, she gave. She has given us as well a powerful message that anyone, regardless of resources, can leave a legacy for others. I hope you will find your own dream at the university, and that you can find a way to help make it happen.
Now let me shift the focus away from dollars and toward sense. That's spelled with an "s." In my address last year, I challenged you to participate in a "Process for Change," a grassroots planning process designed to draft us a wild river guide for the future to help us navigate "permanent whitewater." Hundreds of you answered the call, joining in planning groups and generating ideas. Scores more of us are now engaged in the final, most delicate and--Thomas Merton is right about October--"dangerous" stage of this process--deciding which of the many ideas we've generated will be implemented on campus, or simply, how soon and with what?
Many of you here today are hearing this for the first time, so let me review in broad terms what we are seeking to achieve through our grassroots planning process for change.
Our Process for Change is designed not to change those values, but to reinvigorate them and make them focused anew for this next generation of students. It is a new generation indeed. I was amused, then startled, then awakened, by a message I received recently noting some facts about our entering class of freshmen:
I spoke of our Process for Change with a faculty member recently, and got a one-liner in response: She said, "Enough process--where's the change?" It is already happening, from Web-based historical atlas maps, to the creation of new majors in Judaic Studies to world class inventions of multi-media use for the arts and music.
It is happening, as it should, at the departmental level. Without notes or crib sheets, our academic deans were able, at our summer retreat, to identify more than 60 innovative programs, courses, curricular ideas or works in progress developed in just one year that are tangible pieces of our renewed culture, a culture of creativity in the pursuit of shared knowledge.
As I noted, the process has moved into its final phase, where the best of the ideas generated this past year will be chosen and implemented. Given the sometimes glacial speed of academia, I would say we have made more than fair progress. And with your help and support, we will do much more this coming year. In the meantime, you can accomplish a great deal on your own. We face a flat enrollment projection this year, not because of any failure to attract new students, but because the numbers of returning students are lower than expected. This is a challenge for all of us.
It is our challenge--your challenge--because much of the most important work done this year will not happen in administrative committees, or legislative sessions, or in the Governor's Office or even in my office. The important changes will happen in the classrooms where you teach and the offices where you prepare next week's lectures, labs and seminars, in the hallways where you stop to chat with a student, and the quiet of your home where you work through ideas for your next courses, classes or intellectual encounters. It will happen in the offices of support staff, every time a student asks for help. It will happen every time a student seeks advice on a study topic, or wants to discuss a grade. It is here, at the level of every students' every day experience, that successful institutions are made. You create that experience.
If you are good, you are the mentor who takes an extra five minutes to counsel a student, desperate for advice and too proud to display the anxiety you might otherwise quickly allay. You are the researcher who takes the time to share the excitement of discovery, to involve students in the research enterprise.
You know, we provide an excellent education here, a point affirmed by our ranking in the Fiske Guide, for the second year in a row, as one of the 43 "Best Buys" among 2,500 American institutions of higher education, based on an analysis of educational quality and cost--and one of only three on the West Coast so honored. We offer the best information technology support of any public university in the nation. Per capita, our researchers are among the most productive in the world--this is not an expression of blind pride, but an observation buttressed by an independent analysis of published work.
And just in case you believe we don't run an efficient university, please note that the U.S. General Accounting Office, a few days ago, highlighted our cost-effectiveness in a report to Congress. The GAO concluded that the University of Oregon exemplified success in running a tight ship, and included us as one of only three examples nationally. We have everything it takes to build something grand here, even in the face of adversity. And it grows out of pride, and dedication, and--yes, even that precious, overused and underappreciated word--"love" of this university. Those of you who are new this year might be surprised to hear me use these somewhat non-academic terms when referring to your new intellectual--even spiritual--home, but I do not employ them carelessly. I assume this rhetorical and personal risk, because I do not want to let anyone here--no one in this room, not even those who assume an arm-folded, drawn-back veneer of cynicism to hide their sincere and passionate dedication to our ultimate value--I want no one to mistake what makes our university what it is: Pride, dedication, even love.
We all will greet our new faculty members momentarily. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of them. What an exceptional group we welcome this year. I have attempted to explain to our new arrivals why they have made a very wise cultural choice in coming here. We here assembled are much more than workers at a job. We--you, and now our new faculty--are the carriers of culture. We are the flame-bearers who should ignite fires in the minds of our students. There is no secret handshake to identify us, no incandescent ring . . . we carry no magic key that unlocks the door to a secret garden of intellectual community. But our "culture" does carry this torch amongst us. We are the stewards of that culture. We simply try to do all that is best for our collective future.
I talk a lot about dollars. I worry about dollars. I am the accountable steward, after all, for an entire institution. But the worth of our enterprise is not denominated in dollars. There is something profoundly more important. The accreditation team that visited our campus some months ago said it well. After an exhaustive examination and an award of full accreditation, the review committee commended us for, among other things, being "at the leading edge of implementing new technologies," for our "creative and entrepreneurial response to state budget reductions," our "exemplary achievement in optimizing resources and facilitating collaboration" through our interdisciplinary institutes and centers; and for our commitment not only to undergraduate education, but to graduate education as well.
And then they offered this (and I now quote): "There is a sense of the distinctive and special about the University of Oregon. Among the attributes frequently cited are the quality of the program, sense of community, people who care about their institution; the special character of Eugene, the climate and geography, the human scale of the university, and powerful traditions of collaboration, cooperation, openness, and friendliness. There is an ever-present pride and search for excellence."
Continuing that search for excellence is our task this year.
I hope that "all the lassitudes of August have seeped out of your blood, and you are full of ambition. It is a wonderful time to begin." Thank you Thomas Merton, for your poetic autumnal words. Thank you, friends, for all that you are--and most important, all that you aspire to have us become. In the words of the ancient sailor, and with fullest recognition of our own personal responsibility to determine our collective future, we should now strive mightily as navigators, to "seek fair seas and following winds."
Thank you