Let me begin by saying how very pleased I am to have the opportunity to speak to you today. I understand it is a tradition for the President to report on the "state of the campus" at the first meeting of the Senate each fall. Because I had been on campus only 18 days on the occasion of that meeting, we were all quite fortunate Provost Geoffroy served in my stead.

Before I accepted the presidency of our campus, I had heard about our strong academic programs, with highly reputed faculty and dedicated staff, and very talented students. I also sensed a great many people, both within and outside the university, have been working diligently for many years to elevate the quality of the institution to the echelon of the very best public universities in the nation.

From my first day on campus, I have been speaking with people from all regions of the state and throughout the university, and I have had continuous affirmations of these initial impressions.

• Our faculty win prestigious awards;
• our federal contract and grant awards reached an all-time high last year and continue at this pace;
• we have colleges and schools ranked in the top tier by U.S. News and World Report, the National Research Council and Business Week—where just last week the Smith School rose to rank 22;
• Black Issues in Higher Education placed us first among non-historically black colleges and universities in awarding engineering doctoral degrees to African American students;
• and this year's freshman class has the highest grade point average and the highest SAT scores of any class ever to enter the university, with more than one-third of these freshman enrolled in our honors programs.

As many of you know, I have devoted my time here to listening: listening to faculty, staff and students, learning of their experiences and expectations. It has been both instructive and truly enjoyable. When asked, amazingly enough, people will tell you what they think! Among these many occasions, the ones that are most memorable were the receptions Patsy and I hosted for more than three thousand of our campus staff at the President's Residence. I was truly touched by the thanks of many for their first chance to visit the residence even after decades of service to this campus—some of whom were retiring the next day. My opportunities to boast about the quality of the University of Maryland and to transmit our determination to reach the top tier give me purpose and direction.

I especially enjoy telling prospective students and their parents about our students: who they are, where they come from, and why they came here. When asked why they chose the University of Maryland, many students answer that it offered them the best opportunities to combine majors, to work closely with faculty, to be involved in special programs and to live in a diverse community of scholars in a beautiful setting. The diversity of our university family and the warm and welcoming community we all cherish are high priorities for our students, too.

I was impressed from the outset by the determination underlying the development of the University's Strategic Plan, and by the breadth of the planning efforts that had taken place in units all across the campus. Indeed, the passion for improvement of the university is more strongly felt and more widely shared than I had imagined before my arrival. This has strengthened my earlier conviction that we are a university "on the move."

However, there are matters that require our immediate attention. One is the Governor's "Task Force to Study the Governance, Coordination and Funding of the University System of Maryland," and a second is the funding of the Flagship Initiative.

As many of you know, the Governor has appointed a 23-person task force, chaired by Admiral Charles Larson, former Superintendent of the Naval Academy. Two members of our Board of Visitors, Sen. Joseph Tydings and Clifford Kendall, join me as members of the Task Force. The Task Force report is due in the Governor's office by Jan. 1, 1999. And, as the Admiral put it—in the best of naval tradition—he has never failed to meet a deadline and never asked to have one extended either. So it will be done.

Three Areas Needing Significant Change

You most likely recall that the elevation of the University of Maryland to national stature was a principal objective, possibly the principal objective, of the 1988 legislation that reorganized higher education in Maryland. That goal remains among the most important challenges facing the state and its citizens today.

The citizens of Maryland require a set of diverse and complementary colleges and universities if they are to pursue their personal goals. Within the State's family of universities, there must be a research university with the mandate to create new knowledge and technology; to bring the fruits of current research into the classroom, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; to contribute to the artistic and cultural life of the greater community; and to serve as a catalyst for the economic and societal development of our State and region.

In other parts of the country, the presence of a major research university has enhanced greatly the well-being of those states and their citizens. The State of Maryland and its citizens require no less. In my view, the vision of a distinguished research university embodied in the 1988 Maryland Charter for Higher Education represents the first phase in the creation of such an institution. We must now make the adjustments in policy, structure and funding that will allow the University of Maryland to reach its promised standard.

In order to do this, I propose three areas in which significant change is needed.

First, university-specific benchmarks for both funding and performance must be established for all System institutions. For our campus, this will mean recognizing our special role as a comprehensive research university, as the equivalent institution in Maryland to our benchmark universities: the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The funding derived through state and tuition fees would be benchmarked against the funds received by these institutions. It will also be necessary to set expectations of performance that reflect our singular mandate in Maryland to achieve national stature as a research university. Measures of achievement appropriate to our mission might consider the number of faculty elected to national academies, the number of highly ranked doctoral programs, the number of prizes in the arts and humanities, placement of our students and so forth. Measures of activity, such as faculty workload, should never be confused with measures of achievement. Just because you're moving does not ensure you're going anywhere.

Second, we must find effective ways to communicate the needs, achievements and aspirations of this campus to the Governor, legislature and general public. As one of 13 members of the University System of Maryland, this campus represents a fraction of the responsibilities of the Chancellor and the Board of Regents.

Budgetary and planning processes that necessarily, or at least unavoidably, seek to achieve balance among member institutions cannot be expected to represent effectively the special importance of this campus to the future of this state. Because we account for 40 percent of the System's budget and nearly 50 percent of all its federally-sponsored research, and because our success is fundamentally essential to the well-being of the State, the President should present the campus mission, programs and budgetary requirements directly to the Governor for full and independent discussions.

Third, the university must have greater flexibility to conduct academic and business operations. The high level of control imposed on operations by layers of State offices has been documented in many recent studies. The attempt to establish academic policies that apply equally to all member institutions works at cross purposes with the assignment of a specific mission to any one of them. The absence of a campus-based foundation has also hampered full and effective pursuit of private support here and possibly at other System institutions. Greater autonomy could reduce administrative costs as well as provide the opportunity for a clearer individual university profile. It would be useful to create a task force to identify particularly burdensome and unproductive forms of System and State administrative oversight and to make recommendations on how best to deregulate some university operations.

I shall press for these changes through my work with the task force, which begins with my presentation to it on Oct. 21.

Another matter I wish to bring to your attention is the need to obtain additional funding for our Board of Visitors' Flagship Initiative. As you have heard, our Board of Visitors implored the Governor and General Assembly to renew their commitment to the 1988 legislation by increasing the university's operating base budget by $7 million a year for four years. The Board played a critical role in securing an additional $7 million of funding for FY 1998. This increase is on top of the Governor's proposed four-year funding plan.

We must now build on last year's success and begin to plan for the second $7 million base-budget increase and, ultimately, for full funding of the Flagship Initiative. I am pleased to add that, at the first meeting of the Task Force on Sept. 23, the Department of Legislative Services reported on the passage of Senate Bill 596 which recommends funding for the Flagship Initiative over the next four years.

New Position, New Title

Last year, the Visiting Committee of the Middle States Association recommended that we consider elevating the position of Associate Provost for Research to Vice President for Research. Following my discussions with the deans, my cabinet and the Chancellor, I have decided to create a new position: Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies, effective immediately. The duties will be those assumed by the former Associate Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies. We will soon begin a national search chaired by Provost Geoffroy to fill the position.

I am also pleased to announce that the title of the position Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost will be changed to Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. The change is undertaken to clarify that this position is second in the administrative line following the president. I wish to add that no changes in the scope or responsibilities of the provost's current position or president's current position accompany this title change.

We are at a pivotal point in the history of the University of Maryland. What the institution aspires to become has been outlined in large part by our Enhancement Plan, a vision that I embrace. The university must become the "Pride of Maryland," achieved through recognized service to our society—the society it was created to serve nearly 150 years ago.

Though the pinnacle of a great university remains always out of reach, we want to have it in our sights and to become a member of the class of truly fine research universities—those that attract and retain the best faculty and students from Maryland, the nation and the world. We wish to be admired nationally and internationally for our faculty, research environment and for the impact of our graduate education and research.

We want to be the scientific and technological academic resource that fuels Maryland's economy and industrial growth; to be the intellectual center for the humanities and arts that preserve the soul of our society and nurture our fundamental values; and to be viewed as a showplace for the talents of visiting artists, scholars and dignitaries from around the world. This vision, which is shared widely by our university family, will be our focus. And, as incoming president, I see my charge as leading all of us working together to the fulfillment of these dreams.

The great structures of the world were built by laying one, plain-looking, even simple, brick at a time according to a magnificent plan. And after years of unrelenting, unforgiving, unashamed expensive work on the extraordinarily high ideal, the beauty of the structure begins to appear almost magically for all to behold.

So it is with great—truly great—universities: an appointment here, a new field there, the de-selection of a field past its prime. Leadership, leadership, leadership at all levels, but especially in the departmental chairs and deans who most directly determine the quality achieved by the campus. This is the pathway to greatness, and there are no shortcuts. The pathway is long and the determination of all of us will be tested, but the treasure of the pursuit is also enormous.

Over the next several years together, we will elevate the contributions and recognition of this university to be comparable with the best public research universities in the nation and competitive with the best research universities found anywhere. By doing so, we will enhance the culture, economy, community and in fact the future of this State, and we will also move well along our pathway to the top.

Remarkable Faculty and a Diverse Campus

Our goals demand that we continue our quest to recruit and retain faculty of remarkable potential and achievement. But the retention of such faculty requires extraordinary means. Salaries need to be competitive, but they alone are insufficient. Of equal importance is an environment that nurtures sustained excellence. To approach our pinnacle, we will need to create a campus society of colleagues and collaborators: of talented students, skilled staff, modern laboratories and libraries that are simply too good to leave.

We should strive to have our unforgiving, unrelenting, unashamed passion for individual and group achievements permeate every nook and cranny of this 1,600-acre campus. We need to be able to feel it in the hallways and on the pathways, like the tension of electricity in the air on a stormy day; difficult to explain, but certainly felt.

I am committed to maintaining the diversity of this campus. We can be justly proud of our diverse community and the national recognition our diversity programs have earned. Each of us benefits from being part of this community every day; we owe much to those who have worked so hard for so long to bring us to where we are. Strengthening this community will continue to take dedication from us all. We have so much to learn from each other. The celebration of the richness derived from our open society is fundamental to our campus culture. It is our communal responsibility as a public institution, and our essential responsibility as a great university. To paraphrase what the philosopher G. N. Grisham said 100 years ago: No person can well refuse to raise the platform on which they must stand.

Now, let me comment on the importance of expanding and strengthening our Maryland family. Our potential for greatness relies on our capability to involve others, our friends and alumni in the life of our university. The success we are experiencing with our Board of Visitors is but one instance of its importance.

As you all know, we are engaged in a campaign that will bring more than $350 million in private funds to our campus for key programs. Last year, a record $77 million was raised. However, raising money for the university is but one goal of the campaign, and actually it is not the primary goal. Our primary goal is to build the base of support from our alumni and friends by developing authentic, lasting, multi-generational relationships with them. We must reach out to them and give them every reason to reconnect with us.

The campaign gives us an opportunity to open our doors to them, to display our treasures in ways that we have not done before. If we are to succeed as an institution, we must build and strengthen the relationships we have with the Maryland family. One out of every 35 people in this state is a graduate of this campus. Think about it: it is this family that should be there for us, supporting our endeavors through good and bad times, and celebrating our victories with us. When we reach out to them, they will come home to the campus and, as a consequence, our campaign—and future, even larger—campaigns will succeed.

One final comment. We collectively know creating an effective shared governance structure between the administration and the faculty is not an easy undertaking, and becomes even more complicated when the needs of students and staff are represented. Yet here, at Maryland, we have crafted a shared governance structure that is unique in higher education—it is inclusive and effective. Congratu-lations to all of you.