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]