Letter from UO President Frohnmayer to the UO Community March 20, 2007

March 20, 2007

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir [the] blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that É long after we are gone [such a plan] will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. - Daniel H. Burnham American Architect and Urban Planner (1846-1912)

Dear Colleagues:

As I write this letter to you, one hour before spring officially arrives in the Pacific daylight time zone, I find myself already grateful for the extra hours of illumination and the reassuring emergence of the glorious Willamette Valley blossoms and greenery.

I could delay this letter until a happy conclusion of our men's and women's post-season basketball tournaments but will instead salute their continuing distinction. I hope that this letter will arrive amidst reports of great success. Not withstanding internal discussions about the direction of our athletic programs, a recent USA Today news article underscored the distinctiveness of our efforts. According to the NCAA, in 2005, 82% of the nation's Division I-A athletic programs operated at financial losses averaging $7.8 million. As you know, our athletic program is self-supporting.

Calendars and common sense tell us that spring term will be busy, in addition to beautiful. In mid-April, we will be visited by an accreditation team which will conduct our decennial review by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. We all owe a deep debt of gratitude to the co-chairs of our accreditation steering committee, Jo Anna Gray, professor of economics, and Dave Hubin, executive assistant president; our distinguished committee members; and countless others who have labored to produce the report in which we have persuaded the Council to allow for thoughtful integration of the university's many planning efforts. I urge all members of this community carefully to review the report, which you will find at http://accredit.uoregon.edu.

Earlier this month, we announced to University of Oregon Foundation trustees that our Campaign Oregon had reached the $500,000,000 mark. I will report more completely to you in the next few weeks on the heartening momentum we have sustained. We have celebrated small and large triumphs along the way. One of the most memorable was the selection of the first twenty awardees of the Fund for Faculty Excellence only a few weeks ago. It is gratifying beyond measure to see the variety and quantity of research efforts underway by faculty members across the range of academic disciplines. I congratulate these outstanding members of our community once again as well as pause to express gratitude to the anonymous donors who have now established endowments of more than $10 million for such awards in the future.

The search process for the critically important deanship of the College of Arts and Sciences is now well advanced. We should expect campus visits by leading candidates in the next few weeks. As you may know, two of our most eminent showcases in the arts are under new leadership. John Evans, the highly acclaimed guiding force behind the BBC's Radio 3 and the network's head of music programming, will join us as executive director of the Oregon Bach Festival, and, happily, former UO dean of architecture and allied arts Robert Melnick has agreed to be the interim director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Both of these institutions will continue to bring great visibility and credit to the University of Oregon through their outstanding work in the performing and visual arts.

My own calendar has two journeys of significance for the university in the next months. The first is my annual visit to the AAU spring meeting in Washington D.C. where the new Congress's agenda on higher education will undoubtedly fill much of the discussion. During that visit I hope also to visit every member of the Oregon congressional delegation to pursue our own legislative agenda and, during the trip, visit alumni and friends of the university in New York City. Later this spring, I journey to Hangzhou China for the tenth anniversary meeting of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, of which we are a charter member. This increasingly robust multilateral organization of thirty-seven leading universities helps to sustain active relationships for faculty and students. Our interests range from climate change to economic and environmental sustainability to the political dynamics of this rapidly developing area of the world.

A number of employee recognition events in winter term still stand out in my memory. A special reception for classified employees saluted a collective total of 1,915 years of service. A separate event for those serving twenty-five years or more honored 1,856 years of dedicated work with the university. And kudos also are deserved by dozens who worked successfully to meet the deadline for submitting detailed unit diversity strategic action plans in response to our initiative of last year.

No special event has yet thanked the dedicated Facilities Services staff who responded so quickly to the sudden loss of water pressure in the core campus during finals week, but we are deeply grateful for their skill and professionalism as well.

As the initial quotation and subjects of this letter emphasize, this is a time in which big ideas, big dreams and big plans matter. Universities are the place where they are generated, molded, and given force. We should continue to use the momentum of our campaign along with legislative efforts and the creative strengths among our faculty and staff to make this a time of "big plans." I hope that spring term will call forth discussions among us in a number of venues that capture new possibilities for a vibrant future. We will develop ideas for these discussions in very short order.

I welcome you back in this happy time of growth and wish you continuing personal and professional fulfillment. Thank you again for your enduring hard work on behalf of the university. As always, please contact me with your ideas and concerns at any time at pres@uoregon.edu.

Warm regards,

Dave Frohnmayer President