The end of the academic year is always an occasion for personal reflection, and a mental review of where we began, where we are now, and where we seem to be heading.
This year is no different, though the emotional and political shifts of fortune since August have been extreme, even seismic, by any standard.
I appreciate everyone here tonight. Coming before this group of loyal Jayhawks, I feel like the producer of “Romeo and Juliet” in the Oscar-winning film of a few years ago, “Shakespeare in Love,” with Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fienes.
Shakespeare’s producer, Philip Henslowe, is having a blunt conversation with the play’s skeptical financial backer. “Mr. Fennyman,” he says, “allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”
Even so, Henslowe adds, “it all turns out well.” When Fennyman asks “how” it all turns out well, all Henslowe can say is, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
Higher education is a little like the theatre business. At any given moment in time, the situation may seem grim and the future uncertain. Yet when I see a legion of new graduates, attired in their medieval robes, marching to commencement, I find myself saying it does “turn out well.”
How we make it, from naïve freshmen to wise and learned graduates, is something of a mystery, but it happens year after year. And the alumni we honor tonight are living proof that the process works. (Ambassador Keith)
There is no mystery about why KU continues to grow in reputation and in the regard of alumni, students and the public. I want you to know how proud I am of the faculty and staff of the University of Kansas. You are the actors who make this educational drama come out well.
We have all been tested this year by national crisis and local legislative and fiscal uncertainties. This academic year began, almost literally, in the shadow of a second “Day of Infamy.” Two days after September 11, we held our annual opening convocation. We were all afraid. We didn’t know what was next.
We had to ask ourselves, “How will we help the grieving and the healing How does KU respond to this sense of helplessness How will we foster a sense of community that reflects the traditional values of the university in the midst of such crisis”
I’m pleased to say that KU faculty, staff and students answered these questions in a positive and inspiring fashion. That was no small feat, given the legislative and fiscal background that still surrounds us.
In the Legislature this spring, we worked to keep the state budget for public higher education as close as possible to last year’s level.
Early on, it became clear that the Legislature would not be able to fund our block grant increase or its promise of a third year of faculty salary increases.
The budget bill passed by both houses cuts our base budget slightly, and it does come close to providing a flat budget in operating terms. For that we are grateful. It could have been worse. But they still had to vote the taxes to pay for it. And the tax bill passed last night is 50 million dollars short.
In March, the Board of Regents publicly endorsed the position – held by Governor Graves, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a group of former Regents and much of the public -- that the state could not blindly cut its way out of this budget crisis.
Even in a time of war, even in a time of economic recession, some long-term investment is possible and necessary. In Kansas, investment in the quality of education is the best investment the state can make.
The University Research and Development Enhancement Act, which will provide $120 million in bonding authority for research buildings and equipment at KU, Kansas State and Wichita State, is one such investment.
It’s a bold response to the fear that gripped us after September 11, a statement of faith in the future that will pay off for Kansas in terms of federal research grants, high-paying employment, and even spin-off companies. We are grateful to the legislature for passing the legislation.
The other thing on our minds has been tuition. Let me say a few words about the tuition proposal that was made on Wednesday.
In my view, it is an historic proposal that promises to strengthen the academic quality of KU in some fundamental ways. Our goal is to make KU unquestionably one of the top 25 public research universities in America.
Higher tuition will help us do that. What these tuition proposals do is chart a path towards true national excellence.
Kansans deserve this kind of a university. Why shouldn’t Kansans take pride in a university of true national excellence
The people of North Carolina do, the people of Michigan do, the people of Iowa do, why not Kansans? If the Kansas legislature will join in a partnership for national excellence, KU can achieve this goal.
No one ever wants a tuition increase, but KU is seriously underfunded relative to our peer universities. We are $50 million behind our peers in funding. Our students, and the people of the state of Kansas, can’t afford for that to continue.
The Regents asked the six universities last fall to develop plans that would use tuition dollars to enhance academic and student life on our campus. The proposal we’ve submitted achieves that goal.
And it does so without closing our doors to any student based on the cost of tuition and fees.
Under our proposal, we set aside 20% of the increase, to distribute $2.2 million in KU Tuition Grants during 2002-03 -- the first time we’ve used a tuition increase to fund an increase in student financial aid.
This is on top of the approximately $128 million in student financial aid and scholarships already made available to KU students each year from federal sources and private scholarships.
For resident undergraduates, tuition and fees total about 25% of the average cost of attending KU. So this increase of $600 per year represents an increase of roughly 5% in a student’s overall budget (tuition and fees, room and board, books, travel, personal expenses).
Despite the $600 increase, resident undergraduate tuition and fees at KU will still be less than at comparable universities in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and most other states.
Increased funding provided by the tuition increase will support a variety of enhancements to the academic quality of KU, such as expanded library services, improved teaching facilities, the hiring of additional faculty, and stronger minority recruitment and retention.
It will also help pay for new, on-line registration, increased operating expense budgets for academic departments, larger stipends for graduate assistants, and higher wages for student workers.
If the state provides moderate increases in support for KU, this tuition proposal will help bring us closer to the average funding of peer universities, and will strengthen the quality of education for our students.
It will bring us closer to becoming one of the top 25 public universities in the nation, while keeping KU a university that anyone can afford to attend. We are committed to both goals.
In my convocation address last fall, I said, “We have to know more about the rest of the world. . This is not a time for America to retreat behind our borders and become an isolationist state. . Our oceans and borders will not protect us.” I feel even more strongly about that today.
It is imperative that KU students better understand the total world and how they fit into it. We have given our children only half an education if it ends with the horizon you can see from a schoolhouse window.
We will also have given our children only half an education if they graduate from high school and graduate from college never having walked in the shoes of another race or religious tradition.
Despite all the uncertainties, the KU family has acted this year with courage, with vision, and with great sensitivity to those who share this community of teaching and learning.
We have confronted our fears and, in the process, overcome them. As we end this turbulent year, we have an opportunity to show each other, and our students, and our alumni, and all those who rely upon KU throughout our state, that even in difficult times we listen and we care and we are true to our mission.
We started the year with 9/11. We ended the year with the Final Four, and an exhibition of national excellence on the road to Atlanta.
What went on in between was a daily demonstration of what it means to be a university of high aspirations. It truly is an annual mystery that always turns out well.
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