Carrying the Conversation Forward
Today I have spent
more time than usual on the subjects of revenues and business plans. If that has
made some of you uncomfortable, then I have succeeded. This is the new reality
of a harsh environment for higher education. Attaining our ambitious academic
goals depends not only on our conviction that they are right but also on our
success in obtaining the resources to fund them. And, more and more, we will
have to generate those resources ourselves: our students through tuition, our
faculty through grants and contracts, our vice presidents and deans through
innovative and profitable academic programs, our friends and alumni through
philanthropy, and all of us through difficult decisions and, yes, continued
sacrifice. Remember, this year, amidst recession, we got a reprieve, but not a
pass.
My remarks this afternoon are just the beginning of our
conversation about tough decisions, essential priorities, and innovative
thinking. As appreciative as I am for your attention today, the discussion of
our future must carry far beyond this room, onto every campus, into all of our
schools. So I will visit every school and college across the university in a
series of forums over the course of this academic year. On each visit, I will
reiterate our goals for Rutgers and lay out the issues as I see them, but mainly
I want to hear from you. What are the sacrifices, hard choices, and
entrepreneurial opportunities that your part of Rutgers must undertake in order
to reach its goals? I want to be present for your discussions of that question.
If you believe in the goals I have shared with you today, please join
with me and with each other in accepting responsibility for ensuring that future
generations of Rutgers women and men will have their own opportunities to attain
these goals for themselves and for their Rutgers. I know that you will do
that—and I thank you.
[Excerpted from the President's Annual Address to the University Community - 9/25/09]