State of the University Addresses

2002 State of the University Address

Good afternoon and thank you for joining me for our annual academic convocation and my report on the state of our University. I'd like to thank Chairman Ed Hintz and other members of our Board of Trustees for the dedicated service they provide to Penn State. I extend a special welcome to our many alumni and friends who are members of the President's Club, our loyal group of annual donors to Penn State. And I very much appreciate the presence today of student leaders and faculty and staff colleagues, many of you here at University Park and others joining us via satellite at locations throughout Pennsylvania.

As I begin my eighth year as your President, I am grateful for this continuing opportunity to work with all of you to help move our University toward greater service to our students and to yet higher levels of national prominence. To paraphrase that great philosopher Joe Paterno, it is the work of all of you that has allowed Penn State to continue its pursuit of excellence and to provide an extraordinary academic environment.

This reminds me of one of my favorite letters received this past year. It reads:

Sincerely...

Where We Stand

This has been a tremendous year for Penn State, and we have much to celebrate. Once again, our University achieved several important milestones. We continue to be among the most popular universities in America, and last year we once again experienced record-breaking enrollments, with nearly 82,000 students. We also admitted one of the best-prepared freshman classes. This fall's students are similarly impressive.

Our faculty are among the most cited for their innovation and scholarship. We rank number one in Fulbright Scholars, and nine of our newest faculty members were honored with prestigious National Science Foundation Career Awards.

We again experienced a significant leap in total research expenditures, surpassing $500 million in annual research expenditures. With this new record for Penn State, we join a small number of universities to have ever surpassed a half-billion dollars. In addition, new awards last year also exceeded $500 million, thus ensuring that we will continue this competitive trajectory. We are home to more than 246 interdisciplinary centers that unite scholars from throughout the University. We also collaborate with institutions across the nation and throughout the world to discover solutions to some of society's most pressing problems.

The Grand Destiny Campaign, Penn State's ambitious seven-year fund-raising effort, is enhancing our ability to continue on this path of progress. In one of the most extensive private fund-raising campaigns ever conducted by a public university, the generosity of alumni and friends has been overwhelming, with gifts totaling $1.2 billion by the end of the sixth year of our campaign. With less than a year left in the campaign, we are well on our way to our $1.3 billion goal. I have been overjoyed by your responsiveness to our needs. I especially want to commend our faculty and staff, more than 50 percent of whom have contributed to the campaign. This is truly remarkable for a large public university.

Challenges

These, of course, are only a few of the highlights of the past year. This also is a time of great challenge for Penn State. The Commonwealth, as a matter of public policy and financial exigency over the past decade, has continued to shift a growing portion of the burden for financing higher education from taxpayers to students and their families. Adjusted for inflation, Penn State's appropriation this year is 8.8 percent below where it was in 1995, which translates to $24.5 million. In this fiscal year, only 13.4 percent of our total budget is from legislative appropriation. This presents a growing challenge for the majority of our students who already depend on financial aid for their education.

I want my position to be clear on two counts: First, I firmly believe that public higher education is of the utmost importance to the future of our state and nation. As one of our founding fathers, John Adams, wrote in 1779, "Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue...[are] necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and ... these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education ..."

Penn State must be supported, nurtured, and celebrated as a public good. It would be shortsighted public policy to abandon the state's historical investment in our progress, in our excellence, in our service to the citizens of the Commonwealth, in our promotion of science and technology, in our incredible contribution to economic growth, in our outreach in social and cultural development, and in the role we play in educating the plurality of citizenry. I might mention that if taxpayers were motivated by nothing more than return on investment, we should note that college graduates earn (and pay taxes on) double the income of those who attended only high school.

Second, we will not stand idly by and allow the increasing cost of education to deny worthy students without financial means a Penn State degree. We will redouble our efforts to provide our most needy students and their families with financial aid packages that open the doors of opportunity. Through an appropriate combination of grants, scholarships, loans, work-study, savings, and employment, we will strive to ensure that no academically gifted Pennsylvania resident will be turned away. It was President Abraham Lincoln who declared that land-grant institutions were not simply public universities but, in every sense, the "public's universities," and we must not allow our state's revenue shortfall to erode the quality of education or its accessibility.

It is in this spirit that we have launched the Trustee Scholarship Program, an ambitious effort to raise at least $100 million in private funds for need-based scholarships. This goal will transcend our Grand Destiny Campaign. Moreover, the administration and the Board of Trustees have committed to invest no less than $1 million of new operating funds over each of the next five years-leading to an annual total of at least $5 million-to match the yield of donor endowments.

We will continue to promote frugality. We will attempt to keep tuition affordable. We will work hard to raise funds to assist our students. We will tighten our belts, and eliminate programs that can no longer be justified. We will trim some of the services we provide externally when they are no longer valued. But we will not, under any circumstances, allow the quality of this great University to be eroded. It took us 147 years to get here, and I have no intention of retreating from our progress. Make no mistake about it: Our most valuable asset is our reputation. You can't cut your way to greatness. Being average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top. Mediocrity is neither a palatable nor an acceptable goal.

So I continue to be optimistic about our future. The glass is not half-empty or half-full at Penn State. It is nearly full, but we must not be bashful about elevating our sights even higher, about seeking the support we need, about filling the glass.

Toward a More Student-Centered University

I wish to turn now to what might seem like an unrelated topic. But it isn't at all. I want to focus my remarks this year on the compelling need for Penn State to become a more student-centered university.

If my address could have a subtitle, it would be "Bats, Owls, Vampires, and Other Creatures of the Night." Bear with me and this will become clearer.

First, allow me to suggest that being a student-centered university also means being an employee-centered university, an alumni-centered university, a donor-centered university, and a parent-centered university. Why? Because being eager to come to work each day, going the extra mile for a student, enjoying teaching, wanting to be financially generous to one's alma mater, and being proud of your child's college choice are all related to the climate fostered by a student-centered university.

Telling you all of this reminds me of a story about two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, whose work was being heavily criticized for the leaps it made in theory without verifiable data. On one such occasion, Nobel laureate Niels Bohr said, "I think we are all agreed that our colleague's latest theory is crazy. The question is, is it crazy enough to be true?"

Although a university's national reputation is substantially based on the research productivity and stature of its faculty, we must never forget that our University exists first and foremost to provide an advanced education to our students. I truly believe students must be our top priority, and this is why Penn State must be a model of a student-centered university. As a learning community, we must put our students and their development at the heart of all we do.

To do this, we must better understand today's students. Listen to them. Be aware that in 2002, students arrive with some decidedly twenty-first-century attitudes, values, and experiences. Accept that they bring with them different expectations. As Claude Bernard, father of experimental physiology, warned, "It is what we think we know that often prevents us from learning."

Bats, Owls, Vampires, and Other Creatures of the Night

I recall well that first night in August of 1995 when I slept in the residence halls with the incoming freshmen. It was nearly midnight, following an exhausting move-in day. A dozen young men were gathered in my room, just hanging out. I had finished boring everyone with magic tricks when one of the guys said, "So what should we do now?" I'm a late-night person myself, but about the only thing I figured they might do at that hour was go to sleep. Not good enough. They left the residence hall to explore the downtown, looking for excitement. I realized that the University rolled up the campus at 10 p.m., and there truly was little left to do.

This was the kernel of the idea for LateNight Penn State, a now flourishing program that attracts 5,000 students at University Park to activities in the HUB and White Building each weekend. But the story isn't about LateNight Penn State. It's about creating a student-centered university. I realized that many of our students are creatures of the night. Like bats, owls, and vampires, they come to life after dark. They avoid 8:00 a.m. classes, have meetings in the evenings, populate the fitness centers at 10:00 p.m., keep the pizza delivery services going past midnight, and send me e-mails at 3:00 a.m.

While we in higher education have designed a university to operate from eight to five, most students prefer noon to midnight. Don't get me wrong. My message is not that we shift our workday by four hours, but rather that we think much more creatively and responsively about the needs of today's students.

Who are Today's Students?

So who are today's students? Defining an entire generation by its shared experiences or biological age is a difficult, if not impossible, undertaking. For example, students from the late 1960s and early '70s are often portrayed as a rebellious generation that became disillusioned with "the establishment"-even though the majority were mostly passive observers at the time, and most are now part of the establishment.

Today, the U.S. undergraduate population is 72 percent larger than in 1970. These students are the most diverse group of students that American higher education has ever served. Minority students now represent a third of all undergraduates nationally, and women continue to outnumber men, reaching a postwar high this year and prompting some to worry about a new gender gap in education.

The so-called "traditional" students of this generation have never known a world without personal computers, compact discs, fax machines, VCRs, or the Internet. They are extremely comfortable with technology and display a level of expertise that belies their age. Nearly 80 percent of incoming freshmen nationwide last year said they use computers regularly, and I can tell you from personal observation that reading instruction manuals is a thing of the past, no longer deemed a worthy investment of time for this hands-on generation of wired whiz kids.

Today's students are practiced in doing a number of things simultaneously, like listening to music ... while talking on the telephone ... while browsing the Internet ... while instant messaging friends ...while eating-a feat known as "multi-tasking."

Recently, I was in a computer store when I overheard a man complaining that his son didn't go outdoors much anymore. The father realized his son was spending too much time on the computer after he asked the teen if he'd like to play baseball and his son replied, "Sure. I'll go get the game cartridge."

Technology is a pervasive force in the lives of this generation. We must continue to rethink our approach to teaching and learning to meet the expectations of our students, an increasing number of whom will not be residents of our campuses or, alternatively, will be residents on campus but will spend more of their time learning from behind a wired or wireless device.

In fact, demographically, almost 75 percent of undergraduates in the U.S. are considered "nontraditional" because of their age, enrollment status, or the fact that they are not supported by their parents. Almost half of all college students in the United States today-6.5 million-are older than 25, and that number is expected to increase to 7.1 million by 2010. Yet some parts of our University operate as if we are serving only 18- to 22-year-olds who live within the confines of our campuses.

Beyond Demographics

Other characteristics also help define our changing student body. Many more of today's students are coming to us struggling with a host of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. No one is exactly sure what dynamics fueled this growth in mental health needs, but the fact is that nationwide there is a significant increase in the demand for therapy. At University Park, the number of students seeking assistance from our counseling staff has more than doubled since the 1980s, rising from 900 students per year to 2,000 today. All Penn State campuses now have some form of counseling available for students.

Most college students are chronically sleep deprived, and many, as we know, are also familiar with alcohol and drugs. Nearly half of all high school seniors say they have experimented with marijuana at least once before graduation. In a recently released study, 36 percent of the high school graduates in 1999 reported using alcohol in eighth grade or earlier.

Eighty percent of undergraduates now work while enrolled. Members of this plug-and-play generation often report being bored in class, and they shun traditional styles of instruction. Yet, their expectations are incredible. In a recent survey of college students, three-fourths of those polled predicted they would be millionaires and 75 percent expect to retire by age 50. When I heard about this optimism, my first thought was that the odds of winning Powerball were better than I thought!

Another aspect of the cultural shift taking place on American college campuses involves our increasing role in career development and job placement services for our students. Once considered the responsibility of the graduate, the tasks of providing career services now fall under the purview of a cadre of university advisers and counselors who help our students' transition to the working world. At Penn State from 1980 to 2001 the number of students attending a career fair increased more than fivefold. I am proud that we have one of the largest, most comprehensive career centers in the United States. Our new MBNA Career Services Center, completed a few weeks ago on the University Park campus, is a direct response to the changing needs of our student population, as well as the needs of alumni and business and industry.

Students are demanding more for their money. Although I know that many of us in higher education do not like to think of ourselves in business models, the fact is that many students and their parents do. They see themselves as consumers purchasing a service, and they expect it to be delivered to their specifications. While academics recoil at the thought of running academic institutions like corporations, the plain truth is the rest of America sees it differently, and we cannot ignore this perception, no matter how much we may scorn it.

I'd love for you to catch a glimpse of my daily mail. Many of the sentiments from students are delivered as ultimatums or carry with them a threat of retaliation, such as this recent note: "I'd appreciate your help in reversing this blatantly unfair decision. I think you owe me that much since I pay your salary."

Or my favorite: "I thought I would give you the opportunity to resolve this matter before I turn it over to my attorney." And I used to think an A- was an excellent grade! I know that some of you have stories of your own. Is it possible that Mark Twain could have been right when he mused, "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach the age of 18."

Many parents today not only want their children to obtain a first-rate education, they are increasingly seeking tighter supervision of their children's private lives. Ironically, many of those who are lobbying for new policies to protect their children, even some who have filed lawsuits, are from the same generation that, as students themselves, rallied against "in loco parentis" - the notion that the University should exercise parental-like authority over the personal lives of students.

Many parents want notification of alcohol violations, call us to intervene in their sons' or daughters' roommate disputes, and want to argue about exam scores. Students, on the other hand, want what they have always wanted: the freedom to make their own choices. Yet some of those same students end up pointing to the University as responsible if their academic careers are derailed by poor choices.

The Role of Faculty and Staff

Throughout history, universities have struggled with the question of whether their residential students are adolescents or adults. Rules prohibiting women students from visiting men, curfews, and dress codes were abolished long ago, replaced by practical safety guidelines and programs geared toward developing character, conscience, citizenship, and social responsibility. I chuckle when I recall that one alumnus, who graduated in the late 1950s, found it interesting that during his time at Penn State he could have as many candles as he liked in his room, but could not have a single woman there. Nowadays, he says, the reverse seems true.

Throughout the long-standing debate that still wages today over the concept of in loco parentis and whether our students should be treated as adults or adolescents, I've always believed that we should not choose sides on this issue, because the truth of the matter is that our 18-year-old first-year students are undoubtedly in transition-struggling with choices, responsibilities, and maturation.

While we strive to treat our students as responsible adults, we also must provide them with support and guidance that recognizes their personal needs and the evolution they are experiencing, as well as helps them to attain their educational goals. College has always been about transition, and it is our job, as educators, to foster not only intellectual inquiry, but personal growth as well.

There is an unfortunate dichotomy on college campuses across America, one that I reject. The work of helping our students grow intellectually is often seen as the responsibility of faculty, while the work of helping students grow emotionally and socially is seen as the territory of student affairs professionals. Indeed, those who work in student affairs provide much of our valued student services on campus, overseeing residence life, career services, counseling, health services, and co-curricular activities. But the development of these critical elements of student growth does not belong solely to student affairs. We should all be active in this endeavor.

For staff in areas that do not deal directly on a day-to-day basis with students, it may be difficult to envision how one fits into this student-centered philosophy. How, for example, does a person in landscape services help foster a learning community? That employee's work is a valuable part of the student environment because aesthetics are extremely important to creating an atmosphere conducive to living and learning. From the physical environment to the intellectual environment, student life benefits enormously from everyone's efforts, and we must all be cognizant of the fundamental role each of us plays in this academic community.

Accolades

Fortunately at Penn State, we have hundreds of examples every year of putting people first, of fostering a student-centered environment.

In our School of Theatre, faculty members Beverly Patton and Mary Saunders detected that the singing career of one of their students was in jeopardy. They encouraged her to see a specialist in New York and drove the student there personally, where it was discovered that a cyst had developed on her vocal chords that could be removed only through risky surgery that could mean the loss of her singing voice. The professors helped her weigh the options. They helped her find a surgeon in Chicago and worked with the 21-year-old through the details of insurance coverage. After her surgery, the professors were in nearly daily contact with her. The student had a full recovery, graduated in May, and is now living and performing in New York. Professors Patton and Saunders, I'd like to ask you to please stand and be recognized.

All of us recall the horrific accident experienced by football player Adam Taliaferro, his remarkable display of courage, and his miraculous recovery. Fewer know that Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, an orthopedic surgeon on the faculty of our College of Medicine, who serves as director of Penn State Sports Medicine, raced onto the field, as he is trained to do, and was responsible for taking actions that made Adam's recovery possible. Adam's father credits the doctor with saving his son's life. He also lauds Dr. Sebastianelli for his continued involvement with the family, his compassion and encouragement, and his frequent visits to Adam's bedside. This is an example of the student-centered service Dr. Sebastianelli provides to more than 800 student-athletes and hundreds of others in the State College community. Dr. Sebastianelli, would you please stand and be recognized?

Ivan "Ike" Shibley, assistant professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, attends student plays, dance team performances, sporting activities, and speeches by his students. He regularly sits in on classes that his advisees are taking, attends meetings in the residence halls, invites students to dinner in his home, eats lunch with them, and plays basketball and golf with them. He involves undergraduates in his research, making them partners in his lab. In addition, he and his wife, Lisa, recently pledged $10,000 in scholarship money for future students. Professor Shibley, would you stand and be recognized?

Lakshman Yapa, or "Lucky," as he is known, is a professor of geography who has been taking students to inner-city Philadelphia for years to engage them in service-learning programs in which they study poverty and the issues surrounding it. Students from a variety of disciplines are conducting research projects there in an attempt to improve the quality of life for those in the inner city. Their research has generated new knowledge and has changed the way poverty is viewed, while giving them hands-on learning experiences that demonstrate the relevance of their studies. Professor Yapa, would you stand and be recognized?

By striving to see the potential in every student, these and other faculty are helping to build a more intimate living and learning environment at Penn State, and for this I applaud you.

Engaging Students

For most students, the first year is a critical time of adjustment and learning. Every year, about 7 percent of University Park freshmen and 16 percent of Penn State freshmen University-wide do not return for their sophomore year. Some of you may recall this statistic from a letter that I send to faculty each year, in which I ask you to make a special effort to reach out to first-year students. The failure of these students to thrive at our institution is not necessarily due to a lack of academic preparation so much as to social and personal experiences.

The simple act of talking with a student about a grade, of showing concern, may have benefits more profound than you can imagine. Students who are approached by faculty are more likely to talk about ideas introduced in class or about career plans. These students are also more likely to seek feedback and reportedly work harder. As Ralph Waldo Emerson so eloquently said, "Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can."

Faculty Guidance

Eighty-three percent of faculty nationwide report that lecturing is their preferred instructional method, even while surveys of students say that question-and-answer periods, team projects, work on problem-based activities, and face time with the instructor were the biggest contributors to a positive learning experience.

In a videotaped conversation I had last year with several of our students on the topic of teaching and learning at Penn State, students were asking to be greater participants in their own learning experiences. These students were articulate about their desire to have faculty members be more approachable. They plainly understood the delicate balance between coddling and helping, and most were troubled by the culture of separation they feel exists between faculty and students.

Class size made little difference to these students, who said the real key to learning was having a teacher who was enthusiastic about the subject matter, and who could relate the course material to real life. Students at Penn State are looking for a teacher who is honest about expectations and prepared to provide suggestions for overcoming difficulties in their course work, as well as in their lives. Copies of this video were sent to each department, and I hope that you will have a chance to view it.

A Few Small Steps

For those looking for tangible ways to better serve our students and other constituents, there are dozens. Allow me to mention several small things that are important to me. In an ideal student-centered university:

When someone is seeking help via telephone, a caller should never have to be transferred more than once. If you can't solve the problem, never let a caller go unless you are sure the next person can solve the problem. If you are unsure where to turn, do some research and have the right person call back-or call back yourself.

Reply to e-mail and letters the day they arrive, even if to say that you'll need some time to look into the matter. People save their greatest wrath for those who ignore them or unreasonably delay a reply.

Front line staff must have authority to solve most problems. Always having to ask a supervisor, or worse yet, the supervisor's supervisor, infuriates people and is often unnecessary.

When an answer is "no," give a reason. Most people will accept a rational decision. To be dismissed without explanation is frustrating and often needless.

The world doesn't come to a halt at noon anywhere anymore. All offices should be open over the lunch hour unless it is a one-person office. In that case, shared arrangements should be made with nearby offices.

Students should always be able to talk to a real person, if desired. We have phenomenal abilities through automation, but there must always be a way to reach a live person.

Safety should be considered everyone's business. Providing a safe environment for our students, employees, and visitors is exceedingly important.

We need to look for ways to make life better-and easier-for our students. For example, we heard loudly and clearly from many students and parents that they would like to have the option to use their credit cards to pay certain bills, including tuition, even if it means paying a fee. We are implementing such a system.

We need to communicate to our students where they can turn for help, regardless of what help they need. I want students to end up at the right office, and preferably to start there. If all else fails, they can e-mail president@psu.edu.

Here is a simple but powerful rule: Always give people more than they expect. Small but meaningful changes, like these and dozens of others can represent a significant step toward a more student-centered University. As a Russian proverb says, "If everyone sweeps in front of his door, the whole city will be clean." I am asking all University administrators to explore what changes they can make in their areas of responsibility to support such an agenda.

A Final Thought

I'd like to leave you with this thought. Never underestimate the impact that reaching out can make in the lives of our students. In my 26 years as a university administrator, I have learned that even the most modest interventions can change lives. Sometimes it only requires that we go slightly beyond our normal routine to put students first. Sometimes, it requires a heavier investment on our part. But always, our students will benefit from our interest.

Thank you for all that you do to make Penn State a more student-centered university.