On Tuesday, April 19, at 4:10 p. m. in the SUB Ballroom, President Geoffrey Gamble delivered a State of the Campus address to the campus and public communities. Below is the text of the president's comments.

Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us.

I think it's important to start with a couple thank yous.

The first goes to Patricia, my wife. Dealing with the issues around the presidency is really a partnership. Patricia is about the best partner anyone could hope for in this position. She does substantial work for the university and it's done quietly, behind the scenes. She chooses to do it that way, but I wanted to start by thanking her because she has made this job so much easier for me. Thank you, Patricia.

I also want to thank my office staff, Shari and Susan in particular, but also Daryl. It's an extremely thinly staffed office, and the work that these individuals do on behalf of the university, and more particularly for Patricia and me, is just incredible. I forget to do this sometimes, but as I reflect on my career and what my job has been since I've been at Montana State University, it is clear how important they are. Thank you, Shari, Susan and Daryl.

I'm glad, also, for this chance to thank the entire faculty and staff because you do a great job. You make my job absolutely enjoyable. You make me very proud. And for me, those are the key ingredients to any job. Because of that, I feel energized and enthused every day.

Shared Governance

Finally, thank you to those involved in shared governance. I came with an idea that shared governance would be appropriate for this university, and from my perspective, it has worked wonderfully well. We're still working through a few kinks, but a particular thanks to ASMSU, CEPAC, Professional Council, and Faculty Council for all of your efforts on behalf of the university and on behalf of your colleagues.

I'm going to stop for a moment because some people don't know what shared governance is all about. We have a Web site that talks about shared governance. I'm going to read a couple of sentences from this site because I think it's so important. It says, "Shared governance at our university is a dynamic set of processes which provide a critical foundation that actively supports the university's two primary functions: the creation and the dissemination of knowledge. Input from all campus constituencies, the faculty through Faculty Council, professional employees through Professional Council, classified staff through CEPAC, and students through ASMSU, provide advice, direction and perspective to the institution's administrative leadership about issues, policies and procedures that impact the direction and quality of the university's instruction, research and creative activities, and service programs."

As you go through the Web page, "input" is a key word. It is something that we rely on absolutely. Part of my leadership style is to make sure I have a single point of responsibility for every major decision at the university. Although decision-making responsibilities appropriately rest with specific administrators, every one of us relies on the input that we're getting from the shared governance groups, and it's been incredible. I'll just tell you, without cataloging details: Shared governance has made profound changes to the direction of the institution in terms of planning and budgetary issues. It's a very active, rich process, and I applaud all those involved. I look forward to working with the newly restructured University Governance Council as a sounding board for ideas and input.

Finally, thanks to Dr. Henrietta Mann. She and Corky Bush helped me bring together a council of Native American elders. We stated in our strategic plan and as part of our vision that we would like this university to be a university of choice for Native American students, staff and faculty. To that end, and in the broader sense of shared governance, we created the MSU Council of Elders, which consists of respected, renowned tribal leaders from around the state and the region. It's a powerful council with innovative ideas and tremendous commitment to helping us make MSU a place where Indian students feel welcomed and know they can be successful. I greatly appreciate the important perspective that the Council is providing to me on university issues -- issues that transcend those specific to Indian students and Native American staff and faculty.

I have three topics to discuss today. I'll talk about some key issues as I see them. Then I'll cover, as I always do, some successes. I love bragging about this place. And finally, I'll take a brief look ahead at some things that sit out on the horizon.

Legislative Session

The first key issue is the legislative session, due to end this month. Let me start by saying I appreciate all of the efforts of legislators on behalf of Montana State University, the university system, and the state as a whole. It's not an easy job, and it's not a job I would ever want to have. It's kind of a no-win deal. You go into the session with huge expectations, huge demands, and the resources that you have are always too small to do everything you would like. Sometimes they're too small to even do everything you need to do. In spite of that, they've done a very good job for the state. And they've done a very good job for the university system and for our university.

In terms of the university system, we're seeing additions to our budget that we haven't seen in many recent years. We're seeing an additional $4. 5 million dollars put into program development and equipment for our two-year programs, including our community colleges and colleges of technology. This is extremely important. There has been a tremendous amount of discussion over the past two or three years about the need to develop a more highly educated, trained work force. A lot of that effort will take place at the two-year level. Our legislators realize that and allocated additional money for that purpose.

The legislature put an additional $10 million into present law adjustments. I'm going to come back and talk about that, but in terms of where the university system is, present-law adjustments are those fixed costs that go up year-to-year, and you get stuck with them unless you find some additional revenue.

We're seeing a $2 million addition over the biennium into scholarships. About a half million of that will be for the Montana Higher Education Grant program and about $1. 5 million will be for the Governor's Program on Scholarships. Many of those awards will be need-based. A lot of us in higher education talked with legislators about the necessity for need-based scholarships. We cannot afford to leave folks behind simply because they don't have an ability to pay for a university education.

In addition, we will get funding for two new positions in Extension: a livestock specialist at Miles City and a cropping specialist. We'll also see funding for a new Extension agent in Meagher County. This is a big deal. They've gone 60 years without an Extension agent. For them, this is heaven-sent. By the way, that's one of these partnerships I talk about. The county will step up and pay about half the salary, and we'll pay about half the salary.

I think all of us were excited to know that the state was moving towards a new pay plan. In fact, it's been approved and signed into law. The pay plan includes a 3. 5 percent average pay increase effective October 5, 2005, and an average of 4 percent increase effective the subsequent year. Embedded also in the pay increase are increases in the employer's premium for health insurance. The state will add $46 starting in '05 and $51 a month starting in '06. Both of these are sorely needed, as over the last two years we had almost no increase.

Additionally, we're seeing money for building projects. I want to give particular thanks to the Great Falls delegation for taking the lead on this, and specifically Sue Dickenson. She took the lead in sponsoring a bonded program that wasn't planned when we started this legislative session. Out of this bonded plan, we'll see $3. 5 million from the state for Gaines Hall. This is much needed. It won't cover everything we need to do, but it's going to be a great start on a project that we've been looking at for a long time. We're going to see $11 million for our Great Falls College of Technology for some much needed expansion space. They have been extremely cramped over recent years. We moved the nursing program and the Fire Services Training School out of that building -- just to free up room so they could teach. We received $9 million for our Billings College of Technology. Also highly compressed, they need additional space, and they're finally going to get it. We saw $1. 6 million put on the table for building projects for our Experiment Stations. It doesn't cover all our needs, but it's a good start for us. Finally, we'll see $7. 5 million for maintenance projects here on our campus and, in fact, all of our campuses. Almost every one of you at one time or another, as I walk around campus, have pointed out problems with one building or another, so we'll be able to get after some of these maintenance needs.

We also received authority from the state to do some much needed renovation and expansion to our Museum of the Rockies. We received increased authority for our Animal Bioscience complex. Remember this is a very complex project. It's a partnership between the federal government and us. We'll have a federal research agency on campus again, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). ARS will put up a $20 million building to conduct research. We will be putting up a $10 million building to conduct education based off of that research. We're really exited about this project.

Finally, I'm most proud to share that we have authority from the state to move ahead with our Native American Student Center. For those of you who have visited the basement of Wilson, you know exactly why this is so important. We have a wonderful program with our Native American students. It's been growing exponentially. We had a huge incoming freshman class. We've got these students crammed into a little room down in Wilson. This project is going to be funded with private money. We've started the fundraising for it, and we got approval from the state to move ahead.

Tuition Increases

Another issue that sits before us is tuition increases. You've heard me say this before, and I'm going to say it again. Tuition increases are a fact of life. I believe tuition will continue to go up. Part of that has to do with the funding formula for public higher education: only two sources of money, state dollars and student dollars. As states find that they can't put in as much as they would like to, or even what they need to, it causes tuition to go up. We know that we have to increase tuition to protect the quality of our educational experience. We pride ourselves on a very high-quality educational experience, but given those two sources of money, what the state can't do, the students end up doing.

I want you to be aware of two elements in the tuition increase recommendations. Student leadership was right there at the table with the regents and with legislators. While they hated to say it, the students agreed that tuition increases were necessary. That's a huge thing for student leadership to do and why it's important to us. It's why every year I've focused on our students -- student success, student achievement -- because students make it work for us.

The increase in student tuition will provide a portion of the funding necessary for the faculty and staff raises. While the state authorized 3. 5 and 4 percent salary increases, they didn't give us the money to cover all the expense. They gave us only 38 percent of the money. The rest of that money will come from tuition. Our students are helping to pay our salaries, and that's one reason I have such a strong focus on what we are doing with students. We owe it to them because they're reaching out to make sure that things work for us. In fact, about half of the total increases in tuition will help fund the pay plan and our insurance premiums. If you want to know what the dollar total is, that's about $12 million for the biennium. So they're stepping up to do a rather significant thing for the university.

We're currently going through a process, and many of you in leadership roles know this, to decide how best to distribute the salary increase. We have tremendous salary issues all across the campus because of lean finances for so long. There's tremendous energy to do as much as we can for everyone. We also have to pay attention to certain equity issues, and there are some serious compression problems. We will try to do it all in the little funding base that we have. Once in the past recent years, we got the commissioner and the regents to agree to allow us to amplify off that salary increase and we did a little extra. We're not going to be allowed to do that again. Everything that we have to do this year has to be done with the salary pool that they've authorized for us.

Another thing we have to do with the tuition increase is help offset some of the fixed-cost increases. I mentioned that the state put more money out on the table for present-law adjustments. They saw what the increases were and they said, "We're going to help out." They helped out more than they have in the past. But the extra funding does not cover all of the need. In fact, this year we'll get about 80 percent of the increases that we need to pay the bills. Just to give you an idea of what those fixed cost increases are, our utilities bill will go up about $1.1 million in one year. Our health insurance premium for the biennium will increase $1. 7 million over current rates. Library acquisitions will be up another half million dollars -- $500,000. This is just the cost of doing business. When the state can't keep pace with it, our students help out, and they put the money on the table.

Affordability

I'm very concerned about affordability. I think it's a huge issue, and we have to constantly keep it in mind. But I do believe that tuition will continue to increase, at least in the foreseeable future. There's nothing out there in the national or the state economy that leads me to believe that we'll see a very quick reversal of that trend. As tuition goes up, we have to develop strategies to make sure that no qualified student is prevented from attending college because of an inability to afford the tuition and fees. As you know, we've put forth very extensive efforts to increase our scholarship endowment. We launched the Putting Students First campaign, and it's been extremely successful. In fact, since we started that campaign, we've double the size of our scholarship endowment, and we're right at the edge of $20 million in that particular campaign. I believe sometime, maybe in the fall, I'm just going to declare success and say, "We did it!" Then, because it is so important, we'll turn around and start all over again on another campaign.

Just to give you a feel for how successful our fundraising has been over the last few years, I believe when I arrived at MSU our total endowment was around $40 million. As of this morning, it's about $73 million. We've been active in trying to increase private funding for this university because that's part of the equation, to offset what the state is unable to do. Tuition and private fundraising will help make up the difference, and it is making up the difference. Later, I'll tell you more about my plans for the future in terms of a fundraising campaign.

Integrated Marketing

Another issue that has had some attention in the media and on campus has been our integrated marketing campaign. The long, intense process to develop a new graphic identity has been spotlighted in the press and in discussions around campus. Please keep in mind that graphic identity is only one element of what we're trying to do. In some ways, in my mind, it's maybe not the most important element, but it is important. It's part of a total package that, in addition to graphic identity, includes key messages, branded photography and Web redesign.

It was very interesting to get the responses about the two proposed design options, which were shown around the community. We received an amazing amount of feedback, and I appreciate that. It's an input thing; we need to hear what people are thinking. We heard from a lot of you. In fact, we received nearly 1,000 comments on those two designs. For those of you who know what a bell curve looks like, it will tell you what the distribution of the comments were like. Some people really liked one or the other, some people didn't like either, and then there was a whole range of things in-between where people said, "Yeah, not bad."

Overall, I feel like we have the right elements, but if we look at the feedback, I think it's telling us that there's still a little work to be done. We're going to take a little more time to evaluate the feedback and try to make some appropriate refinements to the design. I am confident that we can combine the elements into an image that will be well received by many of our audiences.

Having a new graphic identity will be another step forward in coordinating our communications as a university. Last year I talked a little bit about some of the confusion that exists in terms of our verbal messages and our graphic messages. I ask that all units of the university adopt the new graphic identity as well as support our efforts to reinforce key messages. My hope is that by the beginning of fall semester, we'll be in a much stronger position in terms of our public communications than even a year ago. I think the last time I addressed you all, I talked about the fact that we were using over 70 different logos. We had varying color schemes, various slogans and various images. Generally, we were missing the opportunity to reinforce messages about the key strengths of this university. We were dissipating our energy in so many messages that there wasn't anything consistent, that someone from outside, looking in, would say, "That's what Montana State University is all about." I think our success in integrated marketing will undoubtedly positively impact our fundraising efforts, as well as our recruitment of students and faculty and staff. It is important that we do it, and do it well.

I think we have a lot to be proud of and quite frankly, it's not me. It's you. It's your accomplishments as students, staff and faculty that make up this university, and I want to make sure, through our marketing efforts, that our public appreciates the quality that you have built here. We're not doing it yet, but we will.

Strategic Planning

I want to touch on some highlights, successes of this year, but I'm not going to start quite with the bragging. I'm going to start with the strategic planning process. It's yet another thank you to all of you who have been involved in working on strategic planning. I know dozens and dozens of you have participated as members of the tactical teams. Those teams have generated over 200 new ideas to help us achieve the goals articulated in our vision. The strategic planning committee is now working through the list. I know for sure seven ideas have been sent to the UPBAC for immediate consideration and some ideas that don't require resources are already being implemented. I love ideas that don't cost anything, particularly if they make a big difference.

I am very encouraged to see this process develop into a plan that really does focus our efforts and help guide our decision-making. It is critical to realizing our five-year vision.

Student Successes

In the realm of successes, we did it again. Bridgid Crowley, a junior in biochemistry, received a 2005 Goldwater Scholar award. This brings MSU to a total of 44 undergraduates who have won that very prestigious scholarship. We're ranked eleventh in the nation for universities with the highest number of students that have competed successfully. We're behind a couple of pretty good universities. We're behind Harvard and Princeton, and I'm loath to say this, but we lost ground to a small California school that passed us this year. They ended up with 45 total awards. I'm going to have to talk to our team and see if we can't pull ahead again. That school, by the way, is Stanford. We're still ahead of Brown, MIT, Yale, Northwestern -- you get the idea. We're in very, very elite company. We belong there because our students are incredible and our faculty is too.

I'm going to brag a little bit about one particular program, Media and Theater Arts. Specifically, I'll mention three individuals from that program that I would like you to know about. The first is Praveen Singh who is a graduate student in the Science and Natural History Filmmaking program. I've talked to you a little bit about that program before. The important thing is that Mr. Singh earned an Emmy. It's the most prestigious award given to students by the Academy of Television, and it was for his rare footage of the Indian leopard. Now, I'm going to brag about another student in the same program, Kelly Matheson. She earned a Telly Award, selected from over 10,000 applicants. Matheson's project was a film on pilots who fly volunteer flights over endangered lands, and it has garnered national attention already. I've heard from a number of people about this particular project. Understand -- we have yet to graduate a student out of this program, the first class will graduate next month, yet our students are garnering top national awards for the work they're doing.

Finally, I'd like to mention Kevin Connolly, a freshman in Media and Theater Arts. Kevin is from Helena, and some of you, if you had occasion to look at the web, may have read about Kevin. He was born without legs. He currently has an excellent 3. 86 GPA, but maybe more impressive, he's working to earn a spot on the U. S. Paralympics Alpine Ski Team. There was a wonderful picture on our Web site of Kevin. Just think about the obstacles that he has overcome, and not only does he overcome obstacles, he surpasses everything that's put in front of him. I think this is so characteristic of the students that we have at this university. Because students are achieving so much, it tells me that our faculty and staff are doing their jobs to make sure that they help students get to where they need to be.

Across the nation, universities help prepare their graduates for admission to graduate school. It's an important feature of university work. On average, across the nation, about 47 percent of the students that wish to get into a medical school make it. Montana State University has an 83 percent acceptance rate, meaning that 83 percent of our students that want to go to medical school get in. They get in because they're getting an absolutely incredible education that allows them to successfully compete with the nation's best.

I brag every year, of course, about our students taking national certification exams in engineering, nursing and business. Our students score among the best in the nation. I did make a mistake this year, and it was accidental. If there are any engineering students here that were taking the National Fundamentals exam last Saturday, I apologize. Last year, I went in before they took the test, about 7:45 in the morning on a Saturday, and tried to encourage them -- pump them up. I said, "you have such a high bar to meet because previous classes have done so well." It turned out that class didn't do quite as well as the year before. I think they blame me, so I promised I wouldn't show up again.

Our students are finding time for extensive community service and volunteer work. The engineering students have a program, Engineers Without Borders, which just started locally last year. Already about 20 students have designed a plan to bring a water supply and a sanitation system to two elementary schools in Kenya, Africa. In fact, they will be implementing the system this summer.

Our architecture students designed and constructed a much-needed addition to the Network Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse Shelter in Bozeman. I actually had a chance to go over and watch them working on that project. I crawled up the ladder and went through all the sawdust and everything. They were doing a great job and really excellent community work for Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley.

Faculty Successes

In terms of brag points for faculty, I could go on and on. Our faculty continue to earn prestigious national and international recognition. I want to mention a couple. Eric Hongisto is an assistant professor of art. Eric received a Guggenheim Fellowship this year. This is pretty significant. There were 3,000 applicants. Only 186 of them from the United States and Canada were selected and Eric made the cut. This is a very, very remarkable achievement.

Rich Semenik, our dean of business, was one of 19 national leaders elected by the Small Business Association to do presentations at their prestigious conference on Rural Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.

Franke Wilmer, from political science, was selected as the chair of the Montana Human Rights Commission.

I just selected three. This list could go on and on because our faculty is not only doing it in the classroom and research environment, but they're out there doing community service and other exciting things.

Our research continues to provide solutions to real world problems. Our faculty members have been exploring the outer boundaries of knowledge and doing a great job. I'll mention a couple because I have a particular point to make. The first is Jack Horner. We read about Jack all the time. Jack was part of the research team that identified soft tissue in dinosaur remains from a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton found in Montana. This is an exciting discovery. We had major media coverage, both nationally and internationally. The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the LA Times, New York Times, the BBC all carried the story. By the way, the faculty member at North Carolina State that was the lead researcher on the project is actually one of our Ph. D. graduates. She was one of Jack's students.

Neil Cornish. You've heard me mention Neil before. Neil has been researching the size and shape of the universe. He has received national media attention, covered everywhere. Discover Magazine, last year, recognized Neil for his contribution in determining that the universe is 78 billion light years across. In fact, Discover Magazine listed it among the top 100 discoveries in the year 2004.

Jack and Neil are characteristic of the excellence we see with so many of our faculty. The reason I mention these two is because I wish to demonstrate one very important attribute of Montana State University, the integration of teaching and research. One of the things we take great pride in is our ability to bring together the research, creative experience and the teaching in our classroom. Both Neil and Jack bring their research into the classroom and in one case, they do it together, along with Mike Miles. The three of them created an advanced Honor Seminar called "Origins." Cornish focuses on cosmology and the origin of the universe. Horner focuses on the origin of life. Miles focuses on the philosophical dimensions involved with those discussions. It's a very rich class. I've had people approach me, people not even affiliated with the university, just community members who heard about the class, who wanted to know if they could sit in. However, demand for the class is very high, so we restrict it just to the students that are in the program.

We recently got word of a wonderful grant, the Graduate Teaching Fellows K-12 grant. This is a $1. 8 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Lisa Graumlich, director of the Big Sky Institute, is the lead. The concept behind the grant is to link Montana State University with small schools in Belgrade, Bozeman, Gallatin Gateway, Manhattan and Pray. Seven graduate and seven undergraduate students will work closely with the schools to incorporate current science and research into the classroom. The hope is to develop a curriculum that can be used in other small schools as well. Brilliant idea. This will more closely tie with our integration of teaching and research.

Hands-on Learning

Of course, hands-on learning is becoming somewhat old hat with us. Most universities are not quite there yet, but our students, and not just at the graduate level, from the freshmen level up, participate in many exciting projects, working with state-of-the-art equipment and top scientists. Next year will bring us much closer to the full implementation of Core 2. 0, an innovative approach to general education that's won national recognition. Research and creative experiences for all undergraduates is a central element. Employers tell us that research experience better qualifies our students for employment. In fact, they are beginning to expect that our students will have a research or creative experience or an internship before they actually enter the workplace, and we're ensuring our students have those opportunities.

I don't know how many of you had a chance to go by the Undergraduate Scholar Program presentations a couple of weeks ago. The projects were incredible, just incredible. I could have spent all day there. There were projects that ranged from prehistoric artifacts found in the Bridger Mountains, to foster care adoption in Montana. There was a project on starch variation in wheat and one on microbial life at Mount St. Helens. And just to reassure you that it's not just research, it's the creative experience, they started the whole program with a premier of a new classical guitar quartet written and composed by an undergraduate student and performed by him and three of his classmates. His parents (he's from Wyoming), drove up to watch the premier of their son's piece. I had a chance to visit with them, and they were so proud of their son. So was I.

The Alderson Program in Entrepreneurship, part of the College of Business, was recently named by Entrepreneurial Magazine as one of the top ten programs in the country that offer a minor or entrepreneurial emphasis. That's really significant. The nice thing about it is that it was the second year in a row that they made the top ten list, and it's a fairly new program. It is clearly very, very effective. The students in that program have now contributed more than 3,000 hours of supervised research for start-up companies in Montana.

Educational Setting

Another thing that we're doing well here is utilizing our incredible educational setting. We've talked about the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem as providing us with an amazing laboratory for research. Robert Garrott and his colleagues have created one of the most extensive databases available for large mammals in the park. The Thermal Biology Institute includes a multidisciplinary group of faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students who study the unique geothermal features found in the ecosystem. This institute, by the way, is internationally recognized for its work and it now offers a community lecture series tantalizingly called "Some Like It Hot."

I feel fortunate that we have tremendous support from the Bozeman community and, particularly, support from our Native American neighbors statewide. Many of you read that MSU joined with the Chamber of Commerce, city government, county government and other groups, to support diversity with the "All Are Welcome Here" campaign. This was in reaction to the defacing of a tipi and the literature being passed out in our community by the National Alliance. I am very proud of this community and how it reacted. It was a great way to express our positive community values and say, "This is what's important to us. "

Recently we had a ceremony to bless the new American Indian Council tepee. We had representatives from all around the state and tribes from around Montana involved in the celebration. Once that tepee was erected, other tribes erected tepees. We had, I think, nine tepees out on the lawn in a beautiful encampment. It was a wonderful sight to see and things worked just as we hoped.

Looking ahead

In terms of looking ahead, construction of a new chemistry building will start summer 2005. The Animal Bioscience project, which is a partnership between the feds and us, is also in the works. We're just doing the final phase of fundraising for our part. The federal research agency has already received a $2 million appropriation to start planning. We'll bring this on line fairly quickly.

Also looking ahead, we've had a thorough evaluation of our graduate studies program. We're currently looking at the strategies recommended by a task force to expand and improve graduate education here at Montana State University. It's an extremely important priority. As we know, a high quality graduate program supports both undergraduate education and research. We have an opportunity now, given the work of this task force, to really take a look at it, and we will do that.

In terms of the major capital campaign, it's time to take the university to a new level. To some extent, I used the scholarship campaign as a test run to see if this campus, the community, and the friends of the university, were prepared to embark upon a major capital campaign. I believe the answer is "yes." When I look at the work that our Alumni Association has done, and the way our alumni and others who care about our university have stepped up and been so generous in the scholarship campaign, I know we're ready.

I see this as a three-prong capital campaign. The beginning phase will be a fundraising campaign to do some much needed work at the Museum of the Rockies. We will follow right on the heels of that campaign with one designed for athletics. There are a number of reasons why this is important. We want to make sure that athletics never has a budget problem in the future. Part of that will be completing the fundraising campaign that wasn't completed a number of years past. Then we will begin a major campaign, perhaps at the $100-million level or a bit more, for the whole university. One of my personal goals would be to see our endowment move to about the $200- million level over the next 5 to 8 years. We're at $73 million, now so I think this is doable. It would be so important to the university. We've had great help from everyone and I will tell you that the MSU Foundation has done just an absolutely stellar job on the scholarship campaign. They have been doing wonderful work for me in preparing for a major campaign. We must have an extremely strong Foundation with a very close, powerful working relationship to make it work, and I think we're there.

Closing

All in all, as I look back, it's been a great year. We have reason to be very proud. The successes across the campus give me confidence that next year is going to be even better. You guys are awesome. I have to keep changing my brag points because you keep coming up with new things to brag about. Over and over again, you step up and exceed in ways I would never imagine. Keep doing it and I'll keep bragging. This university is built on the contributions of our students, staff and faculty. I can't thank you enough for your efforts and achievements.