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I speak to you today at a time of difficulty at the University of Minnesota.

I speak to you today at a time of challenge, change and opportunity.

And I am pleased to tell you that the state of the University of Minnesota in this time of challenge and change is strong. We are well-prepared for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century, and we are providing an excellent return on the public's investment.

We are being tested by some difficulties. This will always be so because the University plays such a central role in the life of this state. But we have made the hardest choices to deal with our problems and we are already seeing strong dividends for our students and the entire state.

We have achieved a great deal, and we can't let the difficulties obscure the achievements the people of this University community have made. We have increased our admission standards, asking more of the students who would come here, and they are lining up at our doors to get in. We have improved the undergraduate experience, making classes smaller and having more of those first- and second-year courses taught by full professors. We have added facilities ranging from biomedical engineering to new, comfortable dormitories. We have increased our four-year graduation rate. Research funded by outside grants is at an all-time high, showing the confidence government and industry have in our work and standards. And the people and organizations of the state are supporting us through private giving at an all-time high level.

First, we must settle the tenure issue in a way that shows trust in and respect for the faculty. With tenure structured as the Faculty Senate and the latest compromise proposal recommend, we will have an energized faculty that will lead change, not resist it. We must make this university a place that welcomes faculty members to invest their time, talent and careers.

Second, we are adjusting to the rapidly changing world of health care by forming strategic affiliations with managed care organizations. We are staying ahead of these drastic changes in society with the help of faculty and staff in the Academic Health Center and community leaders. In order to preserve our mission of helping patients and training the people who provide health care, we have laid the foundation for a strategic alliance with Fairview Hospital and Health Care System to run our hospital while we continue to provide care and education. The negotiations are going well and we expect to complete the contract before the end of the calendar year, as anticipated in the authorization issued by the Board of Regents.

Third, and perhaps most difficult, we have over the past several years uncovered instances of mismanagement and academic misconduct. Some of these were transgressions of long-standing. Difficult as it has been, we have taken strong action--straightforward action--to deal with those issues. I express my appreciation to faculty, administrators and the Board of Regents for their unflinching stance in dealing with these troubling problems. But we have done what we needed to do, the University has acted with integrity and there is every indication that these isolated instances will not be repeated in the future. We are and will be accountable for careful management and for correcting problems.

Finally, the University of Minnesota has carried out in the past five years changes that are as deep and far-reaching as those of any university in this country. We have freed up well over $100 million to be able to cover budget cuts and to invest in programs we have identified as high priorities.

Just as we at the University must be accountable and make changes, the public and the Legislature must now make a strong investment in the University. We are improving our performance and that of our students, and the people of this state must support this work. With only one-fourth of our total budget coming from state taxpayers, Minnesota is getting an excellent return on its investment. We cannot shortchange the economic, cultural and educational future this University provides.

Yet society is not content with academia, and it poses difficult questions of us and other major research institutions around the country. These questions are fair and reasonable, and we must answer them:

• Do we serve society as we should?
• Do we serve our students as we should?
• Is the public getting a return worthy of its investment?
• Can we manage our affairs and be accountable?

Even we grandparents continue to learn. And I want the best for my grandson who was born last Saturday and has just begun to learn.

The University of Minnesota is involved when toddlers are physically and intellectually nourished, through our Institute of Child Development and the Consortium for Children, Youth, and Family.

The University of Minnesota is involved as pre-teens and teens begin to gather the knowledge and skills they need for effective learning and fulfilling lives. We're involved through its Center for Applied Research in Educational Improvement, through programs for educationally disadvantaged students, and through 368 cooperative programs with students and teachers, kindergarten through 12th grade.

The University of Minnesota is involved in helping students prepare for college, through programs such as the Talented Youth Mathematics Program.

In 1995-96, it enrolled 500 students in grades 5-12 from 192 schools, public and private, including 168 female and 96 minority students. There were 29 accelerated UMTYMP classes at the high school and college level. There was a Summer Enrichment Institute geared to female and minority students. Classes are offered in the Twin Cities, Duluth, Rochester, and St. Cloud.

Once students are on campus, the University is involved in helping them get the full benefit of this uniquely American form of education as they explore broadly while honing in on careers and lifelong interests. We are involved through everything from our new "lap-top" computer curriculum at Crookston to residential college programs, internship programs and study abroad. And we now guarantee a four-year graduation for those who can and wish to move at that pace.

And the University of Minnesota is involved when the next generation of scientists, scholars, artists and professionals are trained.

For example, our Biomedical Engineering Institute brings together faculty from the Medical School, IT, and other areas, a group of prominent researchers who annually bring in over $7 million in grants.

In addition to the University's own investment - through reallocation for high-priority programs - the Institute has received contributions from Minnesota leaders in the field such as Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, and other prominent members of Medical Alley, and it receives major funding from The Whitaker Foundation.

Research projects are conducted with many of the companies, including direct financial support for master's and Ph.D. students, and participation by companies in the teaching of a course in New Product Design and Development.

All told, there are 40 M.S. and 30 Ph.D. students in the program. Half of the master's students are working in local industries while they study with us. This cooperative program demonstrates the living intersection of the academy and the community. These scholars, including undergraduates in many courses, are not only being prepared for the new world, they are shaping it.

With the dedication of the new Basic Sciences/Biomedical Engineering Building last Friday, a $62 million project, the Institute is poised to be the world leader in a field that originated at the University of Minnesota and which is now a mainstay of the state's economy. As the Star Tribune said in an editorial praising the program, people working in this building may one day find the cure for cancer or for AIDS.

And the University of Minnesota is involved when professionals need continuing education and development and when people simply want to enrich their lives by continued learning. At one end of the state, we are involved through beaming engineering courses to Rochester and at the other end of the state by providing a paper science and engineering course at International Falls where paper mills are a major industry. The professional development opportunities now include international experience. For example, the master's program in the management of technology last spring for the first time included a session in Beijing, an outgrowth of our visit to the People's Republic of China last fall.

The University of Minnesota is involved in enriching the lives of the elderly through learning, through our new Elder Learning Institute and elderhostels in Duluth, studying topics ranging from "Water, An Endangered Resource" to "Meaning and Identity of Mexico."

This cycle of learning keeps turning, of course. As the grandparents participate in "elder learning" their children benefit from mid-career professional development opportunities, and their grandchildren enjoy the excitement of residential college or mathematics for talented youth!

What Drives This Cycle of Learning?

The University of Minnesota is a research university that exists for its students.

In my inaugural address in 1989, I said: "Research, scholarship, and artistic activity are the driving force in the intellectual activity that we call a university." And: "The University will be, first and foremost, an institution for the students. Their welfare, their intellectual development, and their preparation for productive and rewarding professional and personal lives will guide decision-making at all levels."

The way the University affects this cycle of learning for students of all ages is driven by six factors that I would like to highlight:

1. Standards and Measures

The University of Minnesota sets standards and expectations that enhance the learning environment in the state. And the University measures what it does.

• In 1991, we implemented new standards for preparation for undergraduate education. And with the cooperation of schools all over Minnesota, this effort has borne fruit. Over 80 percent of incoming freshmen now have four years of English, three years of math and science, and two years of social studies and foreign language as compared with 17 percent ten years ago.

• We have set standards in graduate and professional programs that have kept or moved many of them into national and international leadership positions.

• We have established fourteen critical measures to be able to assess the outcomes of our efforts, among them measures of the student experience as well as measures of faculty performance.

Measurement is the heart of accountability.

It is part of our University 2000 plan and our biennial request that we will continue to set -- and raise -- our standards to ensure true intellectual leadership for the University of Minnesota and the state.

2. A University for the Students.

We are a university for the students, for learners of all ages. That's our tradition. Our aspiration. Your and my deep conviction.

We have made significant strides in the last decade in realizing that aspiration, especially in undergraduate education.

• Class sizes are down.

  Our largest undergraduate courses, such as Introduction to Psychology and Introduction to Biology, are now national models of team teaching and the use of new instructional technology.

• Students work with counselors who are now dealing with half as many students as they did in the past.

• All of our freshmen who want to live on campus are now doing so, with a total of over 70 percent living on campus. And we see a direct correlation between living on campus and completing a degree in a timely manner.

• Students are finding a university that is much more user friendly. They can register over the Internet, browse with their parents through the college catalogue on computers at home or in a library, even call up a live picture of the lines at the bookstore to see when it's easiest to pick up their texts.

• Students are voting with their feet. Freshman applications are up over 40 percent on the Twin Cities Campus since 1992.

• The four-year graduation rate is up 35 percent in the last three years -- over 90 percent in the last decade.

  But, we are not there yet. University 2000 and our biennial request lay out agendas for what still must be done:

• Fully implement new curricular revisions in connection with conversion to semesters;

• Continue the improvement of teaching, drawing even more fully on new instructional technology;

• Strengthen further our sense of community through residential programs, and by requiring every undergraduate to have at least one of the following enriching experiences: an undergraduate research experience; an internship; or study abroad.

Let me draw you a picture of how students will live and learn here in the year 2000:

• They will complete new curricula that link them to the world of work, the global economy, and the full

  knowledge resources of a research, land-grant university;

• They will be taught by high-quality faculty dedicated to, and rewarded for, excellent teaching as well as

  scholarship;

• They will be more likely to have an on-campus residential experience;

• They will take classes in modern, well-equipped classrooms and teaching labs;

• They will be computer literate and will have -- and use -- their own personal computer, with value-added access to the international resources of the "Super-Internet."

• They will be able to use the World Wide Web to complete most of their student services transactions with the University, such as registering for classes, paying tuition and receiving grades;

• They will have fewer obstacles, and more incentives, to timely graduation;

• They will graduate with a commitment from the University to provide placement support and lifelong educational opportunities that are not limited by distance;

• And they will have career opportunities in Minnesota, made possible by University research, technology transfer, and outreach. Illustrating the cycle of benefits the University provides the state, they may find their future in one of the 10,600 jobs that our sponsored research generated in 1996.

3. Outstanding Faculty and Staff

The learning environment is, of course, created by our faculty and staff. For several generations now, outstanding leaders in all fields of learning have graced the halls of the University of Minnesota.

I can think of no better examples than Regents' Professors Al Nier and Ed Ney, both legends we have lost in the last couple of years.

It is not a thing of the past. The legends of tomorrow are in our midst right now -- or are being recruited right now, or must be recruited soon.

Two new Regents' Professors, Avner Friedman, Mathematics, and Edward Prescott, Economics, are great representatives of present legends.

One measure of the faculty's productivity is the competitive sponsored research grants. Last year our faculty brought in $304 million, up $10 million over the previous year, which was then an all-time high.

To maintain, and continually renew, such a human resource, we must, first of all, maintain an environment that is supportive and encouraging. That nourishes talent. That is based on mutual trust and respect.

This is why the tenure issue is so important -- and its resolution. It is an issue that strikes at the heart of the culture that we create.

Tenure has helped the faculties of our major research universities turn them into the envy of the world.

After the most grueling apprenticeship period, faculty members are given the security of investing their highly useful careers in long-term scientific, scholarly, and artistic work -- which is still being continually evaluated by the most taxing system in the world, that of academic peer review on a national and international scale. That's what it means to be tenured.

That's what it must mean to be tenured at America's top-ranked universities. That's what it must mean to be tenured at the University of Minnesota.

I believe that these are the shared aspirations of the Regents, the administration, and the faculty. I believe that last week's Board meeting took us closer to a resolution of the issue for the Law School. I sense a willingness to discuss the issue on the basis of the Regents' revised proposal and Dean Sullivan's suggestions.

I'm hopeful.

Our biennial request addresses the issue of compensation. We lag behind our competition. This cannot be, if we are going to be able to retain, let alone recruit, the leading scientists, scholars, and artists we must have for the future - for the future of the State of Minnesota.

It is our intention to raise average compensation to at least the mean of the appropriate national competitive marketplace. In recent years, we have allocated many millions from internal reallocation for faculty salaries. But, we have been forced to freeze salaries twice in the past five years, and have not been able to improve our relative standings which have us in 24th to 27th place among the "top 30" research universities.

This must change. Our strategic investment pool must also be a strategic compensation pool.

4. Technology

Our goal for 1999 is that every student will have a personal computer. This follows the example of Crookston where the highly successful "lap top" program revolutionized instruction two years ago.

Are we experiencing a revolution?

The University of Minnesota's daily traffic on Internet -- measured in megabytes -- is now 3,367 times the daily traffic only four years ago. (And a good share of it seems to end up in my computer!)

Can we keep up?

We must upgrade our entire system, connect buildings that are not yet connected, classrooms, offices, and residence halls, and provide links to external satellite and cable-based networks for distance education.

This is the infrastructure of the 21st Century.

Making this investment will bring the "Super Internet" to the University and the state. The NSF included us among the first four universities in the country to receive a major grant to help develop the "Super Internet." We must be in a leadership position.

The list of specifics is too long to go through. Let me simply mention some important developments in the use of information technology -- critical ingredients in University 2000 and in our biennial request:

• New preparation and graduation requirements in "technology literacy."

• Full implementation of our pioneering efforts to use the World Wide Web to provide students with information on courses, instructors, careers and placement, and with easy registration.

• Continuing our pioneering efforts in supercomputing through the Supercomputer Institute and Supercomputer

  Center.

• [I was reminded at the memorial service in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, last Saturday of the fact that Seymour Cray was a University of Minnesota alumnus - and a dedicated one; he is truly, as speaker after speaker said, the father of supercomputing.]

• Continuing "Access Minnesota," the project of the Minnesota Extension Service that provides training and access to the Internet at more than fifty sites around the state.

• Further developing the University's Telemedicine Project that makes medical faculty expertise available on an on-call basis to rural Minnesota.

• Continuing our University Libraries' MINITEX program (more interlibrary loans than the Library of Congress), now expanding into a "virtual library" for the entire Big Ten and the University of Chicago.

5. Facilities

If you think facilities are not important, you should have seen the eyes of students in the new Wilkins Residence Hall, dedicated last Thursday, and of faculty and students in the Basic Sciences/ Biomedical Engineering Building, dedicated last Friday. Big!

These buildings have set the standards for the 21st Century.

We have been fortunate in recent years to be able to add new buildings on our campuses:

• The new Student Center in Morris -- and planning money for a new science facility is in hand;

• The new classroom/office building at Duluth--and planning money for a new library is in hand;

• The Ted Mann Concert Hall, the Weisman Art Museum, the new ecology building in St. Paul, new - self-financed - sports facilities;

• Also new private residence halls for students: Dinnaken, Tairrie, and Argyle, another excellent example of the public-private partnerships that are so crucial to this University's ability to serve the state.

A classroom study has set the stage for reducing the inventory, increasing the utilization, and upgrading our classrooms.

This is part of University 2000 and our biennial request -- including the maintenance needed for the buildings to avoid additional buildup of the terrifying deferred maintenance problem we face.

Our plans also call for decommissioning of five to seven buildings -- more than 500,000 square feet of space -- to help our deferred maintenance problem.

6. Partnership

Our most important partnership is, of course, the one with the State of Minnesota -- soon to be 150 years old. A remarkable partnership that has built one of the outstanding universities in the nation -- and the world.

University 2000 and our biennial request are built on a partnership with the state. We have proposed that the state and the University share equally in meeting the financial needs of the University of Minnesota over the next four years.

The students are both our most important constituency and our partners in financing the University through their tuition payments. We are trying in our biennial request to protect these partners by holding tuition increases to the rate of inflation.

But, the University of Minnesota has many other partners. In recent years, the share provided by these other partners has outstripped that provided by the State of Minnesota. Federal and private funding have reached a new all-time high.

Our partnerships include:

• The federal government, in sponsored research and student financial aid;

• Private foundations from the Keck to Bush and McKnight;

• Corporations in Minnesota and elsewhere: 3M, Honeywell, Medtronic, etc.; a distinguished list of companies, many of them founded by alumni.

• The University of Minnesota Foundation, the Minnesota Medical Foundation, the Landscape Arboretum Foundation, and the 4H Foundation, and the U of M Alumni Association.

• 60,000 individual donors, led by the remarkable Curt Carlson.

In the last two years, private giving has exceeded $70 million in direct gifts, an all-time high.

Since 1985, the number of endowed chairs and professorships has increased from 17 to 240.

This is the pattern of funding for the University today, and into the future: essential state investment, leveraged by federal, foundation, corporate, and private support.

But, partnerships go beyond funding.

The University of Minnesota maintains essential partnerships with MnSCU and with private institutions in Minnesota, with the University of Wisconsin, with the Big Ten/CIC Universities, and with a large number of universities around the world.

These cooperative ventures are assuming new importance as the new information and communications technology takes hold. They are an essential ingredient in our future plans.

The partnerships with Minnesotans from all walks of life illustrate the deep concern Minnesotans have for their University. These Minnesotans include the Governor, our legislative leaders, leaders in business, agriculture, and labor, our hundreds of thousands of alumni. They give me hope -- yes, even the conviction -- that in partnership we will be able to continue to develop this splendid university.

That's what University 2000 is about. That's what our biennial request is about.

• Do we serve society as we should?
• Do we serve our students as we should?
• Is the public investment worth it?
• Can we manage our affairs and be accountable?

I hope that my remarks this afternoon have helped answer these questions.

My own view?

Yes, the University of Minnesota does serve society -- splendidly. Thanks to your fine work.

Yes, we serve our students well -- and we have made significant improvements even in the past five or six years, particularly in the undergraduate experience which we have identified as a top priority.

Yes, we can manage our affairs, although sometimes we stumble. We've had to make changes. You have supported those changes. We have to continue to work hard to manage even better. The future demands it!

Yes, we are accountable. When I became President in late 1988, at a time of some difficulty, I declared that accountability was rule #1. It has been, and it still is.

Nothing less is worthy of the University of Minnesota, this splendid university.

Question:
Crookston and the Twin Cities were recently named IBM Global campuses. A large amount of money was included in the biennial budget for technology. As the University becomes more global and serves more students off-site, will any technology funds be available to accomplish these global goals?

Response:
Yes. At this time, these areas of investment have not been specifically identified, although there is a wide array of priorities for investment. Links with other universities, which are also links to a global university network, must be an important component. The Governor's initiative that was unveiled today will have some incentive funding for participating in a virtual university network.

Question:
What do you see as the key priorities and goals of the biennial request?

Response:
The biennial request must focus on the core of the University. That is, we must sustain the most important resources that we have. The faculty is number one among these resources. The faculty have created this University with staff, administration, student, and community support. It is the faculty that sets the tone and drives the intellectual agenda of this University. This is why we have to invest in compensation and working conditions. The other priorities are to continue the improvement of the undergraduate experience, to continue to identify high priority research areas, and to support the infrastructure of the University. These have been the priorities and will continue to be.

Question:
What implications do you envision from the proposed technology initiatives in the biennial budget request on the Morris campus?

Response:
Morris will be part of the infrastructure strengthening as a continuing link between Morris and the other campuses and increasingly with other institutions around the state.

Question:
What can faculty, staff, and students do to support the biennial request?

Response:
All these people are essential to the success of the budget. If the University community can stand united, then a strong case can be made to the Legislature, the Governor, and the public. Disagreements need to be set aside to rally behind the basic agenda for the University. Nothing is more damaging than some group within the University being the worst critic.

Question:
What is the future of affirmative action now that it has come under attack from other places?

Response:
Affirmative action is still the policy of the University. Last year we brought to the Board of Regents, and they unanimously confirmed, that affirmative action is still the policy regardless of what is happening on the national scene. One of the pleasing aspects of the development in undergraduate education is that in the midst of raising standards and preparation requirements, the University has had a significant increase in minority student enrollment. It has increased from 7% to more than 10% and approximately 16-17% of the freshman class are minority students. A commitment to this was made with U2000 and that will be continued.

Question:
What is the current stance of the administration on tuition policy, vis-a-vis high tuition high aid versus lower tuition and moderate aid?

Response:
The policy, as expressed in the biennial request, is that the University, after raising tuition in the last few years, should try to stay at the rate of inflation. At the same time, we are strengthening financial aid. A new era in financial aid was started 3-4 years ago when the University started investing operational funds in financial aid. At this time, I don't know where the University will end up, but we will try to stay at the inflation rate. It also depends on the public's investment and the funding decision by the State.

Question:
The fragile relationship between the faculty, administration, Regents, and the public appear to be near the breaking point. What specific initiatives are taking place to bring us together?

Response:
I do not believe that the differences are as fundamental as they sometimes appear. I believe that we do have a foundation of common shared values. We simply have to go back to these values and then start working our way back to the specifics. I do not think that there is any disagreement in the State that we must have one of the leading research and land-grant universities in the country. There is disagreement about exactly how we should play out our agenda, how much emphasis we should put on research, how much emphasis we should put on certain types of undergraduate education, how selective we should be, and what the role should be of outreach at the University. There is much misunderstanding here which we need to dispel. Then we can move forward with a strong agenda. We need to return to common values.

Question:
Does Duluth have faculty representatives on the Senate? What are the priorities for the University Senate this year?

Response:
Professor Gray, responding for President Hasselmo, said that Duluth faculty are represented through their bargaining unit rather than through faculty governance. The exception is the Duluth School of Medicine which is not involved in collective bargaining. The priorities for the Senate are to settle the tenure question and then to address the many other important issues facing the University such as semester conversion and other educational policy issues.

Question:
Do you have a feeling of how we can become effectively administered as opposed to becoming a business?

Response:
I wrote a piece for Kiosk that tried to address that question. To me, it is not a matter of becoming a corporation, it is a matter of how we should operate as a University. It is interesting that the corporate models that are used as a comparison are outdated corporate models. We have to operate our infrastructure and support services effectively for the sake of the academic community and the purpose of the University. This has to be done with collegiality, leadership, and committee structures. We cannot destroy this. Faculty need to feel like they are part of a community to support creativity. The University, though, is getting bogged down with poor maintenance, poor student services, and financial mismanagement. This is why we need to operate efficiently and effectively in these areas. That is not corporatization though. It is just plain common sense and being effective.

Question:
What will you be doing at 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 1997?

Response:
I will raise a glass of aquavit and thank my good fortune to have had the most marvelous adventure of my life!

Martha Kvanbeck
Abstractor