Speeches and statementsHard Choices for a Prosperous FuturePresident B. Joseph White It is a thrill, an honor and privilege to lead the University of Illinois and to join the leadership group of one of the world’s great cities, Chicago, and one of the nation’s great states, Illinois. I speak to you today as the leader, chief executive and chief steward of one of the state’s most prized and valuable assets, the University of Illinois. I’ve been on the job for nine months. What have I found? And what are our plans? Of course, I have found a great University: a classic campus in Urbana, an edgy and exciting institution in Chicago and an aspiring young university in Springfield. Seventy thousand students, more than a half-million alumni, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, America’s largest medical school, an engine of economic development, great academics, athletics, health care, arts and culture. It is a treasure. The University of Illinois has an overarching mission shared by our three campuses: to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge and putting knowledge to work. The three campuses have very distinct characters. Urbana is a classic, everything we love about college life and great minds at work. Chicago is exciting, edgy, diverse and woven into the fabric of the city, just as the late Mayor Richard J. Daley envisioned. Springfield is young and aspiring. The University of Illinois has never been more important to Illinois and Chicago than now, because educated people and knowledge, more than natural resources and location, are the new, true wealth of nations. Educated people and knowledge — on a large scale and with excellence — that’s our game at the University of Illinois. For nearly 140 years, the fortunes of the University of Illinois and the State of Illinois have been completely intertwined and causally connected. As the state grew and prospered, so did the University. And vice versa. It has been a great, mutually beneficial partnership. But today, the University of Illinois is at a tipping point. One possible future is a slow slide from great to merely good, possibly on the way to mediocre. This would be a result of continued, unaddressed erosion of state support. The other future, the one for which we must strive, is what I simply call “brilliant.” Creating a brilliant future for the University of Illinois, which I assert is absolutely vital for a prosperous future for the state of Illinois, requires some hard choices. The reason is simply this. In the world of great public research universities, there are three things that don’t go together no matter how much we wish they did. They are:
As Bill Clinton used to say, “That dog won’t hunt.” I wish that we could private fund-raise and cost-reduce our way into continued excellence at the University of Illinois, and each of those functions has a role to play, for sure. But they aren’t enough, even under the rosiest scenario. Across the nation, governors, state legislators, university trustees and presidents are making hard decisions about this triad of quality, state support and tuition. I noted over the summer that the regents of the University of Michigan and the trustees of Michigan State University approved 12 and 13 percent tuition increases, respectively, a brave decision to protect quality in the face of declining state support. In some other states, de facto decisions to permit the erosion of great public universities are being made though, of course, they’re never labeled as such. So what will it be for Illinois and the University of Illinois? We have weathered serious cuts in operating support and little new capital from the state since 2000 with a combination of cost cutting and reallocation, tuition increases and great faculty success in attracting funded research. Going forward, I think our most serious challenge is to forge a new Compact to support the University of Illinois in which five parties do their parts to ensure continued excellence of a vital state asset:
If all of these five do their part, the burden on any single one of them won’t be excessive and, most important, Illinois will continue to be served by one of the world’s great public research universities. What are the stakes in forging this new Compact? Big. I believe that a brilliant future for the University of Illinois will contribute materially to a prosperous future for the state of Illinois. We cannot have the latter without the former. I have talked a lot today about resources. But let me end on a different subject: ideas, big ideas. Daniel Burnham, Chicago’s great planner and the mastermind of the Chicago Exposition of 1893, reminded all to, “Make no little plans.” And he was right. I sense that today, the state of Illinois needs some bigger ideas for a prosperous future than I read or hear about. And you should expect the University of Illinois to play a part and even take the lead. Here’s just one example. Four great growth industries of this century are likely to be health care, life sciences, information and energy. Illinois is strong in health care, growing in life sciences and has a foot in the information industry. By the way, the University of Illinois is essential to all three. But what about energy? I think that we in the state of Illinois should aspire to be a global spire of excellence in sustainable energy production and consumption. This will be a century of energy transformation. And think about it. Illinois has every form of energy on which the world will depend: nuclear power, coal, biomass and wind, as well as some oil and gas. Equally important, we have, among the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab and our energy companies the expertise to build this global spire of excellence. I say, let’s do it. Thanks for your attention. I look forward working with you to create a brilliant future for the U. of I. and a prosperous future for Illinois. |
