On Wednesday, April 26, at 4:10 p. m. in the SUB, 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. This is interactive today-so you get to be part of the campus address, and the first thing you get to decide is, because it's very nice outside, do you want it short, medium or long? How many long votes? Mediums? How many shorts? My hieroglyphics have to be put away then. So we won't start there.

Thanks for joining in, and it is beautiful outside. What a gorgeous day. As you know, twice each year I like to address the campus and the community, and if you've noticed, in the fall, I like to look ahead and talk about the vision and goals for the upcoming year. Then in the spring, I like to use this address as a retrospective, that is, to look back a bit-and it's the end of the academic year and I think it's a great opportunity to say thank you to all of you for the work that you've done over the course of the year, and to acknowledge some of your accomplishments.

As many of you know, I'm very fond of bragging about this place and about you. And I can tell you that each year, you renew the little chest of brags that I work from so I always have fresh things to brag about, which makes it pretty exciting for me.

I want to start as I have done in past years, with just saying thank you-recognizing the role of the faculty, staff and students as leaders in our shared governance framework, and also within the Montana University System. I want to give special note to the folks that I've had a chance to work with over the course of this year. Genevieve Burmeister with CEPAC, and CEPAC has been particularly active. I've got to tell you that being a fairly new member in the shared governance system, they have really displayed great integrity and discipline and enthusiasm for bringing issues forward. They have really done a wonderful job of representing the classified employees of the university. I certainly want to acknowledge Blake Rasmussen. Serving two terms as president of ASMSU, he has also displayed great leadership and has been an active and I think effective spokesperson for students. Doralyn Rossman has done a very good job this year as Professional Council and has put together a number of very important presentations and done an excellent job of representing that work group. And I'd like to recognize Shannon Taylor from Faculty Council, and a number of faculty that are unable to be here today because the Faculty Council is meeting right now to vote on very crucial issues. But the faculty members that are here should stay here and not go over and try to cast your vote. (audience laughs) So you just stay right here. And I won't tell you what the issues are (more laughter).

I'm looking forward to working with the group that's coming in and what's fascinating to me -- I mentioned the university system -- within shared governance, is that these groups are wonderfully active and really are doing a great job in helping to move the university ahead. It turns out these same groups are active at the system level. And when you go to a Regents meeting and you look to see who's providing leadership for eight campuses of the Montana University System, it's the Bozeman folks. Whether it's CEPAC for the classified staff, whether it's the Professional Council, whether it's the faculty or the students -- in every case the leadership from Bozeman turns out to be the leadership for the whole system. And it's just wonderful. Blake Rasmussen serves as president of MAS, all of the combined students. In each group, they've taken a leadership role and I think that's incredible.

I'd also like to recognize the whole Bozeman community. Bozeman community members are incredible. They support us in so many ways. Obviously at Move-In Day we see a lot of those folks; they're out there helping us move those small refrigerators and television sets and snowboards and you-name-it. They're out there helping us move them. This community constantly steps up and makes donations, particularly in terms of prizes for various events on campus, including things like the Parent-Family Association. They serve on councils and on boards. I have a number of community members that serve on my advisory council. They serve on UPBAC. This community is well-integrated into the life and fabric of the university and quite frankly for a healthy town-and-gown relationship, that's what we need, that's what we expect, and that's what we have. And I take great pride in telling my colleagues across the nation about how well it works in Bozeman-so thanks to all of those folks.

I want to start in the retrospective to talk a little about the integrated marketing campaign. It's been six months since we introduced the new logo. A number of you have the new logo on your clothes today. Thank you. It's personally satisfying to see the logo being used on letterhead, on business cards, on publications, as well as in our new Web design and on our merchandise.

Along with changing our graphic identity, I think we're doing an excellent job of presenting ourselves, our unique personality and stressing the features of our campus-which really make us different from other universities. And that was part of what we wanted to do. We had such a great story to tell here, but it sounded just like everyone else's story, when in fact, we knew there was something qualitatively and quantitatively different here. And I think we're starting to capture that and the messages are coming through very clear and in a very positive way. And of course we're accomplishing this through focused messages. Instead of having thousands of messages, we focus our attention on a small set that really captures the essence of this university. We're using branded photography. We have a certain way of presenting ourselves graphically that people are starting to identify. They look at it and they say, "Oh. That's Montana State University." And we want that. We want people to be able to identify us very quickly.

I do appreciate the willingness of colleges, departments and centers to let go of their old logos as we unify the look of the university. Your support is critically important to the success of this transition and I think we're moving in the right direction. That is-we're strengthening our overall image, and we're strengthening our reputation as we go. And it will get better, believe me. There's an important feature -- we started the integrated marketing campaign when we did because (and a little bit later in my presentation I'll talk briefly about an upcoming capital campaign) we needed to start developing our new look, our new feel, our new messages as we enter into a new phase to do something really significant for the university.

I'm going to focus a lot of my time on bragging about the university. I want to talk about the accomplishments. And I can't do them all. There's just insufficient time, even in the long version, we couldn't have covered all of the accomplishments and achievements of this year. But I want to start by mentioning that there are six words that we've been using to represent our key strengths. How many of you know those six words? How many know one of the six? Where can you find those words? Well, they're on the banners along the mall. They're on the Web page, the home page of the university. And those six words change every time you go back to that site, there's a new one up there. I'm not going to ask you, it's not a quiz. But I would hope that you would spend some time learning what those six words are because I think our students, faculty, and staff accomplishments continue to reinforce the main strengths of the university. And those six words are meant to capture the strengths, the essence of this institution. By the way, the six words, I'll just tell them now since a couple of you could have done it. Susan could have done it, right? The six words are: discover, explore, create, excel, serve, and connect. I'm going to go through some of this year's accomplishments to show you how they reinforce those particular messages about our university. And we've had some really great examples.

I'm going to start with "discover," which really speaks to the research effort of the institution, which is just incredible. As you know, a new classification system by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching now recognizes Montana State University as one of ninety-four research universities in their top category. We're now categorized as having "very high research activity." It's an immense accomplishment. And quite frankly, when you look at the western states, I will tell you that we are the only university in Montana with that designation. In fact, we're the only university in Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas that has that designation. And in fact, only one school in Oregon has it, two in Washington and one in Utah. We're in some very elite company, along with institutions like Yale University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Washington. And this designation says an awful lot, not just about the research profile, but the research and educational profile of Montana State University. And I just recently got back from a meeting in Dallas, and people notice. I sit on subcommittees with the president of Ohio State, the University of Georgia, Penn State University. All of them came over to congratulate me on reaching that designation because it's something that good universities aspire to, and we're there. And that's a big thank you to all of you that made that happen. So that's "discover."

The second word: "Explore." It's interesting because it also speaks partly to the research mission, but it also speaks to a number of other things: opportunities to study, opportunities to research, and to do so in a place that's absolutely incredible. This morning I thought: "What an incredible place. It's just a beautiful morning." I want to talk in this category about one faculty member: Steve Shaw. Shaw recently received a $400,000 career award from the National Science Foundation. This is one of the NSF's most prestigious awards. Shaw got this award for support for early career development and it's given to a handful of professors who are integrating education and research in a very positive way. Steve Shaw typifies part of what we have as a brand promise for this university.

I suggest that after you've memorized the six words, go in and take a look at the Web site that talks about what our positioning statement is, that talks about who we are, what we're doing, what's different about us. Take a look at our brand promise. A brand promise is simply a short phrase that says, if you had to know one thing about this university, this is what you should know. Our brand promise is integrating learning and the discovery of knowledge. It's a fusion of teaching and research. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, those are not two separate things. There are a lot of places, a lot of institutions that see those as different things. There are some, even on this campus, that haven't caught on to the fact those aren't separate things.

Teaching and research are simply opposite sides of the same hand. Both are necessary to have a quality university and we have both, and Steve Shaw characterizes how people are recognizing that in what we're doing. In fact, I believe one of the unique characteristics of Montana State University is our ability to fuse teaching and research in a positive way that works to the students' advantage, to the university's advantage, to the state's advantage-and it's a wonderful thing to see when it works well. Quite frankly, I can tell you there are a number of institutions around the nation right now that aspire to do what we're doing. We're already doing it well. And I get questions occasionally from other presidents saying, "Well, how did you make that happen?" You know the good news? I didn't do a thing. I got here and you were already making it happen. I am just able to brag about it and I thank you for that.

"Excel" -- that's the third word. Well, there's so much to say, and it's a chance to brag about our students, but I'm going to pick up on a theme that's very common to you. I want to talk about three of our undergraduate students who just received Goldwater Scholarships. All of them are juniors and are part of our Honors Program. That brought our total of Goldwater Scholars at this institution to forty-six. In terms of ranking-sometimes ranking's important-it puts us 10th in the nation. Harvard and Princeton sit at the top. We're number ten. The schools just below us are wonderful schools, but they're still below us, and that's fine too. MIT is one of those. MIT is ahead of us, by the way, in the Carnegie listing because they do it alphabetically. It goes MIT, and then Montana State University...something to keep in mind. (laughs) Our students out-compete some of the nation's best and we're so proud of them.

The three students this year that received Goldwaters: Christoffer Renner of Bozeman, who's a physics major, Eric Morschhauser of Wappinger Falls, New York, who's in earth sciences, and Brittney Pollard of Boise, Idaho, in earth science. These three students are incredible. They're doing such a great job. They're all characterized by students that are active in hands-on learning in research labs or in creative experiences, and that's why that integration of teaching and research becomes so important. In fact, I saw that just recently, April 4th, we held an Undergraduate Scholars Conference and brought together a number of our undergraduate students that are involved in the research experience.

Just to give you an idea, in the fall term, I think we had about 1,200 undergraduate students involved in undergraduate research programs. In the spring term, we had over 900 students involved in it. And on April 4, a number of them presented their findings with posters and presentations-and the presentations were absolutely incredible. They went all the way from looking at the corrosive factors involved in steel-concrete interfaces in buildings, to tattooing among the Pacific Islanders. I mean it was a rich, rich array of research and scholarship presented and these young folks did a great job. And remember, it's not just research labs, it's also creative experiences. From one of the music composition classes, a young man had written a string quartet from scratch and premiered it at the Undergraduate Scholars Conference and had four musicians perform it. It was a wonderful piece of music. What a great time to go and look at what our undergraduates are able to do-next year you ought to attend.

Faculty -- I want to brag at least about one faculty member. I could brag about so many. I've talked about Steve Shaw, but I want to talk about Paul Grieco. Grieco, as you know, is in chemistry and biochemistry and this year was named Regents Professor. There are very few of them in the state and it's a lifetime title, and it recognizes his great service to Montana State University, his contributions to the science of organic chemistry, and he joins a very small group. I was very proud to present his case before the Board of Regents. It was a unanimous decision on their part and a very easy sell, Paul, because you do great work and we appreciate everything you've done for us, so thank you.

Fourth word: "Create." David Steppler is a chemistry and biochemistry student. He's from Lambert, Mont. You know what, I don't know where Lambert is. Northeast? Thank you. Steppler currently works in the lab of Robin Gerlach in the Center for Biofilm Engineering. And as an undergrad, Steppler was recently invited to attend the Undergraduate Research Conference in Washington, D.C. Actually it took place last weekend. Steppler was one of only 60 students nationwide who was selected to present their research in Washington, D.C. He made his presentation to U.S. senators, congressmen and agency directors, and represented us very well. This is representative of the quality that I'm talking about, and why we should be so proud of what we see in our students, in our staff and our faculty.

The fifth word is "Serve." And this university, although understated, is very service-minded. I could give a lot of examples. I'm going to pick on just one example, because it's an example that's now bearing fruit and I think it's quite exciting. Since 1990, the College of Arts and Architecture has partnered with the Extension Service. Now there's an interesting partnership to start with. Arts and Architecture and Extension have partnered to work with community leaders in the city of Anaconda, Mont. to develop and implement a multi-phase downtown revitalization plan. I didn't know this, this is an interesting historical thing: Anaconda has the first electrical street light system west of the Mississippi. The very first. And the Department of Electrical Engineering has been working with Extension and community leaders in Anaconda to develop a restoration plan for those historic street lights-to bring them back into service. The implementation plan is underway. In addition, and for those that worry about trees, 900 trees have been planted on the east entrance to Anaconda. As some of you know, Anaconda was a Superfund site at one time-it was almost barren, and now it's starting to come back to life. The DNRC recently honored Anaconda as having the top urban forestry volunteer project, and we're delighted that we've been partners with them in helping make some things happen. Our architecture students and Extension personnel are working with retailers in Anaconda on visual merchandising to assist them in creating successful displays in their stores and windows. I think a big thank you needs to go to Barb Andreozzi, along with a number of others, who have really led the work with the Anaconda community leaders to help revitalize the town. That's just one example of how MSU benefits communities around the state and how we form active and productive partnerships. And of course along the way, our students benefit. They're getting hands-on experience working in a community, doing something with the knowledge that they're gaining from the classroom to really help a city and the state.

The sixth word is "Connect." This word can mean a lot of things. I'm going to talk about connections in several different ways. First, I want to mention MSU For a Day. Some of you may remember that it existed at one time, and then it disappeared, and now it's reappeared. And for several years we've taken MSU For a Day back on the road. The concept is incredibly simple. We take a group of our most talented teaching faculty, we negotiate with high schools, we go into a community and our faculty members spend all day in the high school, teaching full-fledged college classes. There are some reasons for this. The high school graduating population in Montana is decreasing and it's decreasing very rapidly. It has over the last three years. We will continue to see a decrease over the next eight years, it could be as much as 12-15% decrease in the number of students coming out of Montana high schools. That's a big number for us. We wish to encourage as many high school seniors as possible to think about going to college, but that number's going down. So we have to encourage a larger number of them to think seriously about going on to school. Having a college professor in the high school class, standing up there teaching a college class gives reassurance to a certain group of high school students who really haven't seen themselves as college material. And they're not certain they can do it. But as they sit there, and they watch the professor, as they listen to the material, you can see some of them thinking, "You know what? I can do this." It gives them the energy and the courage to think about going on, whether it's in two years or four years, it doesn't matter. We want them to go on.

We took MSU For a Day to Big Timber, Harlowton, and Lewistown. And our faculty gave lectures at Sweet Grass County High School and Fergus High School. We took seven faculty members with us. They taught 84 classes to 1,200 students over two days. I mean it sounds like torture, doesn't it? But I'll tell you-those folks are greatly invigorated, they loved every minute of it, and the students love it, as do the teachers in the schools, and the administrators. We also had several student ambassadors go with us this time from the College of Agriculture and from the College of Engineering. We also had two representatives from the libraries go along to work with the libraries in those communities and the schools to help them understand what resources are available so that they can do a better job reaching out to their students.

Along the way, several of us, Cathy Conover and I and some others, visited with the Extension offices and with county commissioners, both in Big Timber and Lewistown. We toured several businesses in Harlowton, and I didn't even know they were there. You probably don't know they're there. A wonderful business called Cream of the West. They focus on grains and breads and pancake mixes and things, they're doing a great business. It's a wonderful business there. It's growing and thriving and doing very well. Along with that is another business called Rocky Mountain Cookware. Rocky Mountain Cookware specializes in making high-end commercial griddles. Steel griddles. Now this is pretty neat: Cream of the West gives you the pancake mix and (laughs) you get it. You can go get your griddle over at the cookware place and you're ready, you can cook pancakes right there. And these folks know that. They're very interactive. And finally, Elk River Systems is a fascinating little computer operation in Harlowton. Some of you know Elk River Systems, but you don't know that you know, because their Web address is tickets.com. If you have any kind of an enterprise where you want to have tickets made for sale, for anything, for a concert or for a benefit, you go on the Web, you fill out these things, and it goes off to tickets.com and in the mail you get all your tickets-printed out the way you want them. That's Harlowton. That's Elk River Systems. And these three companies are doing well, growing. It's going to revitalize Harlowton, I think. All three of those businesses are beneficiaries of Montana State University, through MMEC and through Tech Ranch. They've all benefited from the efforts that our university has put out to try to help businesses throughout the state.

We held a wonderful alumni reception in Lewistown. It was standing room only. Pretty interesting. As we get ready to think about a capital campaign, not only my efforts, but some of your efforts as well, we need to get you out visiting. Because these folks care deeply about the university and they just need a little attention, they need a little contact, and I think we'll see a lot of them be responsive as we think about where we want to go with the campaign. So I want to give a big thank you to the faculty who participated and to the Extension agents and staff who helped put these things together. It was a great visit. Currently, we're doing two of these a year: one in the fall and one in the spring. We're getting so much demand. They're so successful, so popular, we think we'll probably increase that to four per year. And if you're at all interested and think you might have the time to invest, it would cost 2 or 3 days, we'd love to have you think about being part of it. We need to get good people out there talking to these communities because it does make a difference. And we've actually seen in the data-by going in and doing this-we can see an increase in the number of high school graduates choosing to go on for post-secondary education, either at the two-year level or the four-year level. So it is getting the effect that we'd hoped for.

Another form of connection, and I want to brag about one department, which is Earth Sciences. Is that all right Dave, if I brag just a little bit? Another form of connection is what the Earth Sciences department is doing. They're connecting in ways that allows expansion and strengthening of connections with industry. And I'm going to give you several examples because they're pretty exciting. The first is strengthening a relationship with Exxon Mobile. They recently named Montana State University their regional recruiting center for the Pacific Northwest. That means anyone in the Pacific Northwest that wants to work for Exxon has to come to MSU to interview. We're a partner with them in helping develop their work force. Marathon Oil recently set up the largest endowment they've ever given to a university. I was able to accept the check -- $125,000 to begin with. And then successive checks in the $50,000 range each year to be used for scholarships and departmental field trips. They feel investing in students at a place where they know the students and the graduates are good, will pay benefits to them in the long run. And it's a good strategy. If they provide scholarships it may be that some of our best students will say: Well, maybe I ought to go to work for them. So I think it's a good strategy, and for us it's very helpful because it's providing resources for our scholarship program.

Beyond Petroleum -- how many of you have seen the ads for Beyond Petroleum? It used to be known as British Petroleum. But they've now gone green. They're into alternative energies. Beyond Petroleum, with the guidance of Montana State University alum, Russell Stands-Over-Bull, is in the process of establishing a scholarship, mentoring and training program on our campus, with us partnering with tribal colleges and high schools across Montana and Wyoming to provide science and engineering education opportunities for Native American students. They're going to put the money on the table to train Native Americans in sciences and geosciences because they feel they need to diversify, and they've selected us as the one place in the world that they're going to do that. And we're delighted to be a partner with them, and we think it's going to make a profound difference. As a show of good faith, we've asked them, their home office in London, to consider a gift to the Native American Student Building Project to really say that they're right there and they're right here with us, so, we'll see. And don't forget, two of the three Goldwater winners this year are students in earth sciences. I don't know what you're doing over there Dave, but keep it up. We love it.

Yet another connection is coming out of the College of Engineering and I just want to mention in passing the decision by Sikorsky Helicopter to come to Bozeman. One of the key factors in the relocation of that company was them knowing that the College of Engineering is producing some of the best graduates right now out of any engineering school in the nation. And Sikorsky wanted to be here and be part of that, and I think that's going to be quite a partnership. I predict that we'll see a lot of clustering -- little businesses starting up in relationship to Sikorsky, so it will probably lead to some other things out into the future.

One of the things that we know for sure is that students who learn in strong academic programs, with hands-on research experiences, are attractive to employers. We hear it over and over again. The fact that we build that into our curriculum-we require every student to have that experience-causes employers to want to come here and seek out our students. And we're watching the data, we've watched it for years now. We know that our students are getting jobs, they're getting good jobs, and more importantly, a lot of them are now able to stay right here in Montana. If you want a feel for the growth rate right now in the Gallatin Valley and Bozeman, just talk to Greg Gianforte at RightNow Technology. They're in a hiring mode, and they're hiring average is one new hire per day. They've hired over 90 since the first of the year; they will hire probably 320-350 by the end of the year. Two-thirds of them will work right here in Bozeman. And they're looking at our students with great big eyes, saying: "We want them," because they know our students are good. The university and its integrated research and teaching clearly bring good jobs to the Gallatin Valley, and there are absolutely clear connections between MSU and the economy of the area and the state. There's a lot more accomplishments, but I'm not going to get done if I keep bragging.

I want to look out ahead and just give you a heads-up about some changes taking place. The first is that soon (where's Joe Fedock, is he here?), Joe, we will not have a dean of the College of the Graduate school. Joe agreed to step into this interim role. He's doing a wonderful job but we have hired Carl Fox. Fox is from Northern Arizona University. He will be with us in July, and we will change the title of the graduate school leadership from dean of the College of Graduate Studies, to vice-provost for Graduate Education. It brings it in line with what most universities across the nation are doing in terms of graduate education. We look forward to Carl being here, but we want to thank Joe Fedock for all that he's done there. Actually, this morning when I mentioned something to Joe about it and I said, "When's Carl coming?" Joe's comment was: "Not soon enough." (laughs).

We have two members of the senior leadership team that are leaving us, one through retirement -- Jerry Bancroft. JB has given immense service to this institution. He's done so much for us. JB has decided to retire, and he and his wife are going to move to the Southwest and build a new house. I asked JB-understanding that JB is an architect-I asked him if he was going to have someone design and build it for him and he said no. They're just going to do it themselves, so our best to JB. We'll have an occasion to say more about him later. And Sara Jayne Steen, the dean of Letters and Sciences, has just been selected as the new president at Plymouth, Maine. She's going to do a great job. One of the most talented leaders I've had occasion to be around. We were delighted to support her. We're sorry to see her go, but we wish her only the very best and we will start a search to fill that position as soon as possible. Both have been excellent members of our senior leadership team.

As some of you know, have hired a new CEO of the MSU Foundation. This is Connie Talbott. She will also have an affiliate appointment title as Vice-President for Development. This is absolutely imperative to bring the Foundation and the university much more closely together so that we're unified in our thinking and our aspirations and how we carry things out. Talbott agrees with that. She will be here in early June. She leaves Virginia Tech where she is currently working at a leadership level on an 800 million dollar campaign for them. She will come here to help us kick off our campaign. We do not envision anything in the 800 million dollar range, although it sure sounds nice. We will have a capital campaign that will be more modest, but I think is a stretch for us. I've talked about $100 million. That certainly is do-able. $150 million is certainly do-able. Part of my vision for our next campaign is that about half of it would go into endowment, and the other half would be a cash infusion into the university, to help us take care of some of those things that we just need to take care of. And I've even invited Cole Arthun to consider if the student leadership, ASMSU, might want to play a role in the capital campaign because they have needs. In fact, if you read the Exponent, there are great stresses right now. These folks are making very difficult leadership decisions because their resource base, like the whole university's resource base, is very thin, so if we can help out, we'll try to do that too. And I look forward to working on that.

I've got to give construction updates. I vaguely remember-you know we could check with the media to find out-I think the first year I gave this presentation, I said that I thought many university presidents suffered from a type of disease in which they liked to have a lot of buildings built. And I don't know if I pledged, but I'm sure I suggested that I didn't think I had that disease. I'm going to have to re-think that. It seems like there's a lot of building going on around us right now. All of it is important, all of it is necessary, but it sometimes surprises me. Let me start with the chemistry building. You know where it is. You can see what's happening. The structural work on the second and third floors is currently underway. The expected completion date for that project is still October of 2007. We have a number of student projects, and it's been a wonderful experience working over several spans of leadership for ASMSU in getting these projects underway. The H&PE Center is underway-demolition has begun, and that project is also expected to be complete in October 2007. The Black Box Theatre -- we're working on final contract negotiations right now. We believe that construction should begin in May and that project would be finished one year from that time, about May of 2007. And then the SUB renovation project-which has been I think a most difficult issue for student leadership and administrative leadership. Looking through it, our aspirations are to do as much as possible to really upgrade the SUB, but I think the students and the administration have agreed that some funds were diverted from the SUB project to make sure the H&PE and Black Box got done, and now we're working with the SUB building committee to identify priorities and redesign the project. I think that's going to take about six months. And then if everything goes well, completion is scheduled for the spring of 2008. There may be some opportunities around fundraising-we need to think about that-maybe do a couple of the extra things that we'd like to do, so we'll get back together and talk about that.

Museum of the Rockies has a lot of things underway. Jack Horner's Mesozoic Media Center will open in mid-June. This is the second of three phases of the Siebel Dinosaur Complex. This is fully funded by private gifts, most of it coming from the Tom and Stacey Siebel Family Foundation. It will include some pretty exciting things. There will be a real-time Webcast so that you can watch dinosaur digs underway. You just go over to the museum and you can see the crews out there digging in the dirt. I think it will be exciting. In addition, as some of you know, we recently signed agreements with the Smithsonian as a primary affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. As this new room comes on line, it will allow visitors to access programs including collections at the Smithsonian and at the British Museum, through the Discovery Channel and a number of other venues. This partnership is going to enrich us as well as all of our partners so it's a pretty exciting time. The fundraising for the third and final phase is nearly complete. That final room will be called the Hall of Giants and it's expected to open next year in time to celebrate the Museum's 50th anniversary.

Another project I find extremely important is the Native American Student Center. The architect has been selected -- it's Think One Architect of Bozeman. By the way, they are our alums from our architecture program. They're working closely with the renowned Native American architect and MSU alum Dennis Sun Rhodes. We're in the beginning phases of the fundraising campaign. We have a goal of about $8 million, and Walter says he'll have that done in just a few months, so not to worry (laughs). I believe we have a number of people that are so compelled on this project that they'll be willing to give of their own personal resources to make sure that it comes to completion.

The Animal Bioscience complex, the location for it will be across 11th Street near the Plant Bioscience building. We're putting the academic part of that together. It will be funded entirely with private gifts. We have about half of the $12 million that we'll need for that, and it will house state-of-the-art teaching and outreach facilities for the College of Ag. Our federal partner, USDA-ARS, is also constructing a building right in the same location. They have a $6 million appropriation of the total of $22 million that they will need for the construction of the building. That building will focus on beef genomics. Remember I've mentioned that once Baylor University finished mapping the complete genome of a cow-and they were our cows-they were Line 1 Herefords from Miles City. We felt we wanted to position ourselves to take every bit of that knowledge and turn it to usefulness for the livestock industry in the state, the region, the nation, and the world. And we've managed to pull that off. And so when that complex of buildings will be finished, there will be no place in the world that will be doing applied genetics, particularly for livestock, that we'll be doing here. So we're very excited about the prospects for that and what it means for the livestock industry in this state and in the nation.

I want to mention MSU Tomorrow's Campus Plan. Some of you have been involved in the focus groups. I want to thank you for that. I'm pretty excited about the future of this university. We're on the move. The last five years have been incredible, and I think those are just the prelude to what we're going to see over the next 5, 10 and 15 years. Of course it's all up to you, but I think that you can do anything. So things are looking great, I think, at the university and one of the ways that we have to be thinking of ourselves is to think into the future. What are the implications of what we're doing now in terms of where do we put a building, what programs should we bring in place? And realizing that if Bozeman's 2020 Plan comes to fruition, which it's going to, and it won't be the year 2020-in fact it's happening at about a three times faster pace than the early planners thought-our university and all of our lands just to the west of 19th Street will be completely encircled by residential and light commercial. And not just completely encircled -- some built with heavy density. That will have a profound implication on what we do, how we do it, what's the campus look like, where do we go? So we have a planning team that's going to spend a year-and-a-half to two looking at this and strategically planning for the physical growth of this university over the next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, even 100 years. We have an obligation to think out that far. We won't be here to worry about it, but the folks that come behind us will really be thankful that we've gone to the trouble of thinking about it now. If you have a chance, please sit in on one of the focus groups. I think it's important, and we need as much input as possible. I want to give great thanks to Jerry Bancroft, to Bob Lashaway, and Walt Banzinger for their leadership in this, and they're doing an excellent job of getting information. It's really the right way that a university goes about making decisions. We get a lot of input, we weigh that input, and then we make our decisions based upon that.

Just a reminder -- June 2nd. Why is June 2nd important? It's primary election day. General elections, by the way, will be held November 7th. I really encourage you to familiarize yourself with the range of choices and vote in both elections. The university is a major component of this community, and we owe it to ourselves to be thoughtful and energized and active citizens as we think about voting. And I want to give you encouragement to please do that, and I think it's extremely important. I also want to say thanks to the candidates. I've told you this before: public service isn't easy work. It takes a very high level of commitment and their willingness to get involved is incredible. Whether they win or lose, the fact that they're out there putting themselves on the line says an awful lot about them. I'm grateful for their efforts.

I'm going to end and just again say that the credit goes to you. All of the accomplishments are your accomplishments. My job, which is incredibly easy, is just to encourage you and brag about you. I love doing it because this place constantly renews my ability to brag about it and I look forward to that. This university has a lot to be proud of. We have a lot to look forward to and the model that we've chosen, a shared governance model, will get us there. Thank you all for being here today. (applause)