Graham B. Spanier's Remarks
Friday, May 16, 2003
This academic year has gone by with extraordinary speed, but it was a year filled with record accomplishments and wonderful advances for the University.
This afternoon we get to celebrate one of the best accomplishments, which is the success of our students, when we recognize the achievements of some of our best and brightest with the Medals Ceremony for the Schreyer Honors College and the R.O.T.C. commissioning. Then we embark on the first of our commencement ceremonies for Engineering and Earth and Mineral Sciences. These, of course, are followed through the weekend with the rest of the commencement ceremonies for all of Penn State's colleges.
This weekend we will graduate 9,464 students - 746 with associate degrees; 7,147 with baccalaureate degrees; 1,311 with graduate degrees; 96 with medical degrees; and 164 with juris doctorate degrees.
The commencement ceremonies that occur this weekend represent the best symbol of what Penn State is about: giving students a chance to learn and grow and advance into society. It is the very best time of the year for a university president. We are able to see up close the excitement and pride that radiates in the faces of the graduates and their families.
Many of the thousands of students graduating this weekend owe their degrees - and their future - to the generosity of Penn State's many friends and alumni, who have collectively helped us achieve one of the most impressive and significant accomplishments in the history of our University, with the successful completion of the Grand Destiny Campaign. Many of you were here for the closing ceremonies a few weeks ago, and were able to share in the excitement of our announcement that we had reached $1 billion, 363 million dollars in gifts and pledges.
This campaign brought in more private support in seven years than had come to the University in the previous 141 years combined, since its founding in 1855.
Later in the Board meeting we will talk about this in some greater detail and recognize some of the staff in Rod's office who worked so tirelessly to bring this about. But I do want to acknowledge this superb effort that Rod Kirsch has led, and to offer special thanks to Ed Hintz, who served as the initial campaign chair; Jim Broadhurst, who took over as chair in mid-campaign; the campaign executive committee; and all of the Trustees around this table who have made this possible. Through your generosity, you have helped so many students realize their dreams. Thanks to all of you for making that happen.
In addition to the student support generated by the campaign, it has also made possible some wonderful new buildings at Penn State. On May 2nd, we were able to dedicate the Frank and Sylvia Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. This facility was built entirely through the generous gifts of private contributors and joins the Helen Eakin Eisenhower Chapel to serve the growing spiritual needs of Penn State students, faculty and staff.
Penn State is one of the few public universities in the country to have a chapel on campus, and with the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center addition, we now have one of the largest spiritual centers in the nation.
Since the last Board meeting, we were also able to break ground for the new home for the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. The building will be a state-of-the-art facility using the latest in "green" technology. The lead gift of a $10 million came from Cal Stuckeman and his late wife, Eleanor.
While the Grand Destiny Campaign has been a clear success, the budget situation in Harrisburg is anything but. Two weeks ago I testified before the House Appropriations Committee. Everyone is aware of the very difficult budget situation that the state faces, and I have acknowledged publicly on many occasions that Penn State is prepared to do its part in this lean fiscal time. But I did remind the committee members that in the past year-and-a-half, Penn State has had to absorb $29 million in budget cuts, and the governor's proposed budget would cut an additional $16 million directly, and several million more through indirect cuts in other state agencies. The total approaches $50 million.
In the face of these state budget cuts, our fiscal problem is exacerbated by increases in health care costs, deferred maintenance, malpractice and other insurance costs, ADA and environmental compliance costs, escalating costs of technology and library materials, utilities increases, and increases in contributions to the State Employee Retirement System.
Despite these difficulties, I am proud to remind the Board that Penn State continues to be regarded as one of the top universities in the nation on virtually every indicator of cost containment and efficiency.
We will continue to make our case to the state government leaders, and will report to you when there is a breakthrough on the budget deadlock.
Despite our budget difficulties, Penn State remains one of the most popular universities in America. Last year we saw a record number of applications, and the numbers for this coming fall are well ahead of last year's pace.
Total applications as of May 3rd are ahead by 5,508, an increase of 7.5% over 2002. Applications to Penn College are up 8.9%. Applications to Dickinson are up sharply by 43.4% - a stunning increase. Applications to Hershey are ahead by 9.6%.
At our current pace, it is very likely that we will reach nearly 85,000 total applications by the start of the fall semester. And the increases cover virtually every category that we can measure. Out of state baccalaureate applications are up 17.5%. Undergraduate minority applications are up 22% over last year. Out of state minority applications are ahead 29.5%. And this year 64% of all undergraduate applications were received over the Web. Within a couple of years, virtually all of our applications will come in on-line.
In part because of our strong enrollments, Penn State is a major economic factor in every community where we have a campus. Our role in economic development contributes greatly to the growth of the Commonwealth, and our success in this area continues to grow. I am very pleased to be able to report to you that it was recently announced that Penn State is now ranked in the top 10 nationally among university patent recipients.
Many of the 50 patents awarded to Penn State last year are already generating business, jobs and economic growth at spinoff companies. For example, two patents on inventions related to catalysis technology for pharmaceutical applications, developed by Dr. Xumu Zhang, associate professor of chemistry, are being put to work at Chiral Quest, Inc., a publicly traded company based solely on Penn State technology.
Thin film technology for deposited silica and other materials was invented by Dr. Stephen Fonash, the Bayard D. Kunkle professor of engineering and director of the Penn State Nanofabrication Facility, and was patented by the University last year. Fonash's co-inventors are Ali Kaan Kalkan, research assistant, and Sanghoon Bae, a former graduate student. The technology is being commercialized at NanoHorizons Inc., a spinoff housed in the Technology Centre Incubator of the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County located at Innovation Park at Penn State.
A gel drug delivery method invented by Dr. Daniel R. Deaver, adjunct professor of dairy and animal science, and Dr. David Edwards, former associate professor of chemical engineering, was also patented last year and is being commercialized by EIEICO, Inc. The company was formed in 1999 when Penn State bundled inventions related to new poultry feed and swine genetics into the same start up company to bring new agricultural products to market.
In fiscal 2002, Penn State expended more than $500 million on the research and creative activities from which patentable inventions spring. The research funding comes primarily from federal, industry and foundation sources, is spent in Pennsylvania and stimulates the local economy. For faculty and students at Penn State, the opportunity to do relevant and commercially useful research is an important component of the educational experience and fulfills a central mission of the University to serve the people of the Commonwealth and the nation.
The research work of our faculty is a source of great pride at Penn State, and I am very pleased to be able to note that earlier this month three members of our faculty were elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. This is a rare event for any university.
Penn State's newest National Academy members are George E. Andrews, Evan Pugh professor of mathematics; A. Catharine Ross, Dorothy Foehr Huck chair in nutrition; and Alan Walker, Evan Pugh professor of anthropology and biology.
Andrews' research centers on number theory, partitions and related areas of mathematics. He a has applied number theory, particularly partition theory, to such diverse areas as computer programs for algebra and the behavior of liquid helium on a surface.
Ross has made major contributions to understanding the functions and metabolism of Vitamin A by linking basic biochemical research with dietary studies. Vitamin A is essential to the health of the embryo and eyes, skin, lung and immune system, and its deficiency is one of the most prevalent and serious nutrition problems worldwide.
Walker is one of the world's foremost experts on the evolution of primates and humans. His research involves searching for primate and human fossils in rocks dated from about 30 million to 1 million years ago. He pioneered the study of living primates as a basis for the analysis of fossils and was one of the first to use scanning electron microscope studies of enamel microwear on teeth to understand the diets of extinct mammals.
Andrews, Ross and Walker join seven current faculty members who are members of the National Academy of Science:
⢠Stephen J. Benkovic, Evan Pugh professor and Eberly family chair in chemistry, elected in 1985;
⢠A. Welford Castleman Jr., Evan Pugh professor of chemistry, elected in 1998;
⢠Moses Chan, Evan Pugh professor of physics, elected in 2000;
⢠Nina V. Fedoroff, Evan Pugh professor of life sciences and the Verne M. Willaman chair in life sciences, elected in 1990;
⢠Gerald Mahan, distinguished professor of physics and materials, elected in 1995;
⢠Masatoshi Nei, Evan Pugh professor of biology, elected in 1997; and
⢠Roger Penrose, Francis R. and Helen M. Pentz distinguished professor of physics, elected in 1998.
Another Penn State faculty member has been in the news for his national leadership role in one of the country's largest scientific undertakings. Penn State Professor of Physics Paul Sokol is heading the scientific and construction programs of a cold-neutron-chopper spectrometer, which will be part of the U.S. Department of Energy's $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source project under construction on an 80-acre site at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It is the second biggest science project in the world right now, behind the International Space Station.
The Spallation Neutron Source is one of the largest construction projects of a scientific facility that the United States has undertaken in several decades. When it is complete in 2006, the Spallation Neutron Source will be the world's premier facility for neutron research.
Sokol is leading an instrument-development team of more than 30 members from both universities and national laboratories -- one of the first such collaborations for a Department of Energy instrument. Sokol's Penn State team will split design duties with the Argonne National Laboratory. Most of the actual instrument, which will be housed in a 30-foot-diameter, 25-foot-high building at Oak Ridge, will be built on Penn State's University Park campus. The design and construction efforts will involve as many as 30 Penn Staters.
Homeland security is a topic of great concern to many people these days. Several weeks ago, Penn State hosted the kickoff summit meeting of the Keystone Homeland Security University Research Alliance, which is bringing together the collective strengths of four major research universities to assist Pennsylvania and the nation in enhancing homeland security.
Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have formed the Keystone Alliance to provide Pennsylvania's response to the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security's education and research needs.
Building on prior successful collaborations in the life sciences, system-on-a-chip technologies and nanotechnology, Penn State, Penn, Pitt and Carnegie Mellon plan to collaborate and apply their research resources in biology, biomedicine, agricultural sciences, engineering, information management and security, and public policy.
Given the state of world affairs, this is an extremely important undertaking for the University, to help ensure the security of the Commonwealth and our nation.
A topic that I have discussed with the Trustees at previous Board meetings is the on-going problem of illegal file sharing over the Internet. This has been a source of great concern to all of us in higher education, as well as those in the recording and motion picture industries.
We intend to continue to be vigilant with regard to the way that our network is used, while trying to explore options that might provide students in the residence halls with access to music at a minimal charge. I am co-chairing, along with the president of the RIAA, the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, and will keep you posted as we develop methods for dealing with this difficult issue.
Fortunately, we have students who are doing much more than copying music on the Internet, and I'm pleased to report that four Penn State students have won prestigious Goldwater Scholarship awards. The four students are Lee Bassett, Jennifer Erhart, Michelle Kinder and Katherine Weaver. The program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater encourages outstanding students to pursue careers n the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.
Athletics has always played an important role in campus life at Penn State. Recently there have been some incidents involving athletes at Penn State that have caused concern. I can assure you that I am paying considerable attention to these matters.
On the positive side of athletics, an outstanding winter sports season has allowed Penn State to remain among the leaders in the latest 2002-03 NACDA Directors' Cup standings. The Directors' Cup is a measure of athletic success across all sports.
The Nittany Lions are in third place following the completion of the winter sports. Penn State is seeking its seventh top 10 finish in the Directors' Cup.
The NFL draft last month was also a bright spot for the University. A school-record four Penn State standouts were selected in the first round of the National Football League Draft in New York in April. Penn State led all schools nationally with a total of six players selected in the draft's first two rounds.
Another "number one" for Penn State is certainly our Schreyer Honors College. We recently did an outside review of its progress. And that review could not have been more positive. I would like to read to you from its conclusion:
"It should be clear that the review team was extremely impressed by the enormous strides that have been made in transforming the honors programs that existed before 1997 and those made possible by the Schreyer's extraordinary gift. It is our belief that the Schreyer Honors College has not only attracted outstanding students to Penn State, but that in doing so, it also has elevated the entire student body as prospective students, noting that top students in their high school are choosing Penn State because of the Schreyer Honors College ⦠The College serves as an excellent entity for experimentation, especially in curricular matters, and when successful, these experiments then influence the curriculum for all students at Penn State ⦠Penn State can rightly claim that it has the best honors college among the CIC institutions, and it is likely one of the best of its kind in the country."
That is great praise for such a relatively new endeavor, and one that all of us at Penn State are very proud of.
Finally today, I want to recognize two people who are attending their final Board meeting. Vice President for Student Affairs Bill Asbury, and Vice President for Outreach and Cooperative Extension Jim Ryan, are both retiring at the end of next month.
Bill has been at Penn State since 1976, working his way through a number of administrative appointments to become Vice President in 1987. His work with students here has been extraordinary. They like him and respect him and listen to him - and so do I. All of us who know Bill are deeply grateful for his outstanding contributions to Penn State's success. Bill, thanks.
Jim Ryan has been with Penn State for 22 years. He served as the Campus Executive Officer at Wilkes-Barre, and played an invaluable role in the reorganization of our outreach and cooperative extension areas. He leads the largest unified outreach organization in American higher education. He and Diane, who is also retiring as executive director of the alumni association, have been unfailing boosters of Penn State across the entire Commonwealth. His advice and counsel will be greatly missed. Thanks, Jim.
That concludes my report. I would be happy to answer any questions.