chancellor@ku.edu
It was not by design, but convocation this year occurs on the second anniversary of the most tragic September day in American history--the World Trade Center attack of September 11, 2001. Many brave people died that day, amidst much heroism, and it has changed our lives. Nine-eleven itself has become a kind of demarcation point, separating a more prosperous and naive past from a less secure and uncertain present.
Much of the present uncertainty is economic. Economists debate whether 9/11 caused our current recession, exacerbated it, or simply serves as an easy dividing line between the bubble of the 1990s and the diminished prosperity of today.
The facts, however, speak for themselves. Since 9/11, we have gone from the largest surplus in American economic history to the largest deficit. The fiscal cost of maintaining an occupying army in Iraq has now been set at $87 billion, to say nothing of the psychic cost of daily casualties to American troops. The $87 billion, to put it in perspective, is more than all 50 states say they need to finance their 2004 budget shortfalls.
These world events inevitably have local manifestations. We encounter reduced budgets, doubts about foreign policy, fear for our national security. Fortunately, the California recall offers us comic relief, with gubernatorial candidates of a state with a $38 billion budget shortfall talking about bikini waxing. The recall itself, however, suggests frustration with the political process and its ability to guide us through these difficult times. There is anxiety in the air, and even as we recover from the tragic events of two years ago today, and see the stock market improve, and the economy begin to recover; we know that our world is fragile.
This environment encourages us to focus on our basic mission and assess the role of the university in a successful society. Frank Rhodes, the former president of Cornell, has said that "the situation confronting all nations now requires, as never before, an informed citizenry and educated workforce skilled in handling changing and increasingly sophisticated tasks." The times demand, says, Rhodes, "a renewed public investment in higher education."
The University of Kansas is a very good university, primarily because it has an excellent faculty and staff who attract excellent students, who are being prepared as informed citizens for an educated workforce. We do all of this within a tradition and a culture of excellence. KU is the beacon for quality in the Kansas higher education system, by any measurement, and it is your efforts which make KU a shining light.
This excellence which you have created can only be sustained if the people of Kansas and their elected representatives truly want a major teaching and research university nationally recognized for its academic achievements. It is our job to convince people that KU's quality is a major asset for Kansas, the key to a promising post 9/11 future. And we must do so in an atmosphere of economic crisis that challenges us to demonstrate the value of a university of high quality. Simply put, can we afford a university of high quality in tough economic times? My point would be that today if we can't support universities like KU, then we will soon be unable to afford anything.
We must be very clear. The key to a prosperous state of Kansas is an excellent education system. Our ability to lift ourselves out of any post-9/11 syndrome will come from a University of Kansas creating knowledge, transmitting knowledge and educating students for a knowledge economy. The stakes are high. That is why the financial crisis is so frustrating.
You know better than anyone the current state of American higher education. State after state has recorded severe budget deficits, especially states like Kansas that excessively cut taxes in the late 1990s.
The decline in state budgets had two outcomes for university budgets. First, public education funding was slashed almost everywhere. KU's budget was cut $19 million over all, about 8 percent.
Second, most public universities raised tuition to preserve both access and quality, and KU did the same. You have heard the provost's analysis of this process, and how it fits with KU's strategic plan.
The students' investment of higher tuition in the quality of their education has been matched by you, the faculty. You have secured record amounts of research funding in national competitions, an indication of your ability to keep KU faculty and students at the cutting edge of the disciplines. It has also been matched by KU donors, a group that includes hundreds of you, who have given generously to KU First, the university's $500 million capital campaign. People believe in KU and have given $440 million toward our $500 million goal. Their belief in the faculty is demonstrated by the creation of 22 distinguished professorships, totaling $17 million, which have been added so far during this campaign.
Although these efforts have cushioned the effects of the budget cuts, the cuts have still had an effect, as Lloyd Sponholtz shared with us. Maintenance has been deferred, programs closed, and 150 staff positions eliminated. Maintenance for new buildings this year has not been provided at all, even though the new buildings have not cost the state a dime. Worst of all, faculty and staff received no salary increases last year, and this year only 1.5 percent was allocated for increases by the Legislature. As a result, our average salaries lag $7,500 behind the national average.
The partnership between students, faculty, donors and the state of Kansas is in danger of breaking. Students have paid higher tuition, donors have given more than ever before, faculty have raised more external funding than ever before, staff have increased productivity and classes have increased in size. Meanwhile, the state has reduced its funding. The partnership seems close to breaking down, especially in the salary area because the state has been unable to fulfill the promise in SB345 that chronically low salaries would be addressed. To date that promise remains broken.
When all this is considered, our challenge becomes clear. We must secure public support for the quality that you have created over the last decade. I believe there are three public steps that we can take to sustain and support KU in this difficult economic environment.
It is true enough, I believe that your accomplishments, achieved under difficult conditions, indicate that there is the ability in KU's faculty and staff, the talent in KU's students, undergraduate and graduate, to make KU one of the 25 best public universities in the country. The public looks to KU to measure itself against other public universities because they expect KU to serve as the educational standard in Kansas and Kansas City.
We must be clear about this. "Top 25" recognition will not be achieved by getting out of bed some morning to receive a phone call from U.S. News telling us we have arrived. I am not willing, and you should not be willing, to turn over the academic integrity or the educational assessment of the University of Kansas to U.S. News and World Report, or any other singular magazine, newspaper or exterior agency. Does this mean we should ignore rankings? No. We should use them when they point to legitimate ways to improve, and ignore them when their criteria don't apply to us. We should also recognize that most ranking systems weight heavily resources supplied to the institution for support of faculty and staff salaries, an area which has affected KU's competitive position.
The "Top 25" is simply a way to talk about quality, a shorthand for expressing our institutional striving to become a better university every day. To me, "Top 25" is just a proxy for quality. It articulates our aspirations, and it calibrates where we stand in the universe of American higher education. We can see how close we are to this kind of recognition. If we focus on quality, and the carrying out of the strategic plan as the provost indicated, our ranking will take care of itself.
KU is the only Kansas university among the 50 top public universities. Many public universities don't ever refer to rankings because they know they are not competitive. At KU, we are expected to be competitive, because we know the difference between academic quality and bogus hype, and we will not compromise our standards or fake our accomplishments. We measure ourselves every day by a set of high standards embedded in our tenure and promotion and merit evaluation systems, and those standards define the scope of our ambition.
In the end that ability to know excellence is what counts. Do we believe enough in our own drive for excellence to measure ourselves against the best universities in the country? I believe we do. And I believe the evidence shows how successful we are when we do so, a remarkable achievement, given our resources.
But we can't do it on a shoestring forever. We will be entrepreneurial, we will be creative, and we will be efficient. But we also have to have some financial help. Toward that end, you will see us this year working on an integrated marketing plan designed to show the public the benefits to Kansas of a university like KU. To say it again, you can't have a prosperous state without a flagship university like KU.
Because of you, we have a good story to tell. Our goal is to help Kansans believe in the value of KU for the future of the state. If we can be successful in that effort, I believe we can acquire the resources to match our talents and our aspirations. I refuse to believe that Kansans want second-rate education. I know KU students are not willing to settle for a loss in quality just because times are tough. But it is up to us to make the case, both by truly becoming better every day, and by communicating the value of a teaching and research university like the University of Kansas to all who will listen. To do that, we must present a positive story. Whining and complaining get us nowhere. Your achievements deserve the positive light that comes from a focus on excellence.
