September 20, 2000
Let me extend my personal congratulations to all we have recognized here today. Any organization is only as good as the caliber of its people and they are indeed our most important resource. At Virginia Tech we are blessed with exceptionally high caliber faculty, staff, and students. To excel at your life's profession and be recognized for excellence is a gratifying experience. Indeed, it is important that we take a few moments from our harried schedules and celebrate the accomplishments of our colleagues.
Let me begin by saying how pleased I am to be accorded the honor of being a part of this great institution as we enter a truly exciting period for our university. It is not an understatement to say that the whole realm of education is just entering an era of change that may alter forever the way we teach and learn.
We are crafting the future of Virginia Tech. A future that perhaps will have dimensions none of us can imagine. In order to place our current circumstances into perspective,
Let us reflect for a moment.
American colleges and universities are successful beyond anyone's imagination. Just before the Second World War, less than 5 percent of Americans had a college degree. Even way back when I graduated from college 31 years ago, only one in 10 Americans possessed a degree. Today, one in four Americans has a bachelor's degree — this remarkable passport to a better future. Indeed, about 60 percent of high-school graduates go on to some form of higher education.
On average a college graduate will earn about twice the annual salary as a non-college grad. In addition, America's colleges and universities have been one of the primary forces behind the emergence and now dominance of the "Information Age Economy."
The transformative ability of a college degree to actually re-make lives is now legend. We helped win the Cold War and we have, through countless ways, immeasurably helped improve the quality of life in America - whether it be through focusing on the quality of the environment, advancing health care, or enlarging the safest food supply the world has ever seen.
The American university has a relevance and connectedness to the central purpose of our lives that I don't think anyone could have imagined 100 or even 50 years ago.
However, now it seems reasonable that I should speak to you about what the future might hold. But, who in fact can predict the future?
As I began to reflect further on this dilemma, a number of rather interesting questions emerged. For example, if you cannot predict the future, how can you possibly prepare for it? When is the future? How far ahead in time does present reality become distinguished from future reality? Looking at it from another perspective, how much of our past must necessarily be reflected in our future? Assuming that you can determine when the future is, how do you judge it and compare it with the past?
Certainly, not all aspects of our future are left to random chance, but the degree of certainty that we can expect in dealing with the future often is very much dependent on the assumptions that we make about the world around us. Knowing what is true and what is false.
Assumptions about the world affects the values we form about what is good and just, and, in turn, the values we hold shape our assumptions about the world.
Given the uncertainty we are likely to face, are there some guides, some constant points, either personal or professional that can provide a touchstone for dealing with the future? I believe that there are, and further I believe that it is the responsibility of every professional to reflect upon what one values and shape a personal philosophy, one which addresses the questions of morality and ethics, one which will serve as a guide as you deal with the difficult, yet unknown, issues that will confront each of us in our own careers and the university as a whole as we embark upon this journey into the future.
What have we, as an institution, done to prepare for the future?
We have taken many steps to prepare for the future. One example is the extensive effort faculty and staff members have invested in the cross-cutting initiatives. The identification of these cross-cutting initiatives was the result of
These efforts have already begun to produce significant results, such as the Virginia Institute for Bioinformatics and Carilion Biotechnology Institute.
As I noted in my comments on Founders Day last spring, it is my hope that the university embrace the goal of becoming one of the top 30 research universities in America by the end of the decade.
Each of these initiatives helps to lay the foundation for Virginia Tech to achieve that goal.
To realize our goal will take not only the shared commitment of the faculty, staff, and students of Virginia Tech, but also significant additional financial resources. As I look into the future, I do not see a dramatic change in the pattern of support from the state. We must and will seek out new partnerships and alliances to provide the much needed resources for our faculty and students to realize their full potential.
The $20 million provided by Carilion Health Systems to create the Carilion Biomedical Institute is unprecedented in our history, yet there must be more strategic partnerships with business, government, and other universities of this type forged.
As we look at shaping our future, we are fortunate to have many opportunities unfolding on a daily basis.
There are major telecommunication companies that want to join with us on projects. We have the opportunity to provide continuing-education courses in biomedical engineering to a 500-system hospital in China; the Egyptian government would like us to assist in creating a new university focusing on information technology. The list can go on.
Our challenge is to take full advantage of these new opportunities yet keep a clear focus on our academic mission and insure the vitality of our teaching, research, and extension/public-service missions.
During the last several months, we have had a team from the higher-education practice of Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen, international management consultants to assist us in thinking about how to best organize our management structure to evaluate this array of new opportunities and translate them into areas which benefit both society and Virginia Tech.
More specifically, they were asked to evaluate the organizational structure of our central administration and suggest how we might be better organized to evaluate this range of new opportunities and further propose how we take the projects from initial conception to mature operating entities and incorporate them into our existing academic structure.
I might mention that they have as their clients 15 of the top 30 research universities in the country.
To realize our goal and to shape the future of Virginia Tech we must combine our vision with concrete actions. And they must begin now.
Based on this need to assess new opportunities, I have asked Dr. Leonard Ferrari to assume the newly created post of Vice Provost for Special Initiatives and Mr. Lenwood McCoy will assume a similar post in the office of the Executive Vice President.
The first task they have been asked to undertake is to prepare a plan for the creation of an Institute for Information Technology. They will work in concert with deans, department heads, and faculty to develop a thoughtful and sound proposal for consideration by the university community.
Virginia Tech has truly formidable capabilities in the field of information technology which range across many departments and colleges. No institution in Virginia and few in the nation have the capabilities we possess in this area. However to be successful they must be both focused and interdisciplinary in nature.
Further, their plans must provide for achieving three key objectives:
As plans for the Institute are developed, we must be mindful that we are in effect creating a Learning Community advancing the use of information technology and in the application of computing and information technology in our lives. Further we must consider not only technical questions but the public-policy questions that are being generated by the information revolution.
I have noted on earlier occasions that if I could choose two adjectives to describe the university they would be "access" and "quality."
Although we are a comprehensive research university, technology has partially defined us in recent years. We have been a leader in the use of technology throughout the curriculum. I hope that never changes. We should take pride that every student, regardless of whether in the arts, sciences, or professional disciplines has the tools necessary to survive and prosper in the information age. I want every member of the university community to seek ways in which information technology can better improve teaching, work processes, or the world around us to insure there is access to the quality programs we develop.
Later this semester, the university will unveil a plan to achieve greater diversity among our student enrollment and among our faculty and staff. It will require a commitment to do things differently and a significant commitment of resources. And I am not unmindful of the difficulty of this task.
Within the next 10 days, we will be sharing with you an outline of the process for updating the university's strategic plan and evaluating our mission statement. In preparation for this effort, we held a planning retreat with our Board of Visitors in August, and I will be sharing their views as the planning process unfolds.
As we draw upon the knowledge of our time to build new communities and shape our plans for the future, we will depend upon the contributions and insights of individuals such as those members of our faculty and staff recognized today.
I spoke at the beginning of my remarks about the future, reflecting upon what we believe to be true and understanding the values we hold and how they shape our view of the world we inhabit.
For example, I accept as truth the very real connection between teaching and discovery. The late Bart Giamatti said:
"Research, in whatever field, alone or in groups, done late at night or snatched at dawn . . . is the essential source from which teaching is drawn."
That desire to seek new knowledge and to share with others for the betterment of society links us all together. Keeping that spirit alive will serve us well now and in the future.
So when is the future? The future is now.
On this Convocation Day in the year 2000, the future of Virginia Tech is a bright one.
We have an organizational culture that fosters motivation and is willing to experiment with new ideas.
We have a community of faculty, staff, and students possessed with exceptional talent and promise.
We have the will to act.
We have the capacity to take risks.
And together we will complete a new vision for advancing this university in the next decade.
I look forward to our working together with great enthusiasm and hope for the future.