Winter 2003
From the dean: Imagining possibilities
Terry Faust
"'There is no use trying,' said Alice; ‘one can't believe impossible things.' ‘I dare say you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
In these tough economic times, I awaken some days feeling a bit like Alice (minus the blond curls)--with no wonderland in sight. Then I remind myself of what we've accomplished in CLA over the past six years, and I imagine the possibilities that lie ahead.
To be sure, the next few years will be very, very challenging ones for CLA and the University of Minnesota. Following years of surpluses, Minnesota is now facing a budget deficit in the billions of dollars. "Crisis" is not too strong a word.
Perhaps it's some consolation that we're not alone: States across the nation are experiencing comparable budget woes, or worse.
Minnesota's economic picture
As we go to press, the governor has announced a $185 million cut in the University's budget over the next biennium--fully 15 percent of the state appropriation and the largest reduction in the University's history. This announcement follows a $25 million "emergency" cut in state funding for the current fiscal year. Of that amount, CLA took a $2.9 million hit, on the heels of a $2.1-million cut last summer--for an immediate 13.4 percent reduction in state support for CLA.
These are deep cuts for a college whose budget already must stretch to serve the educational needs of nearly 15,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students. Frankly, cuts of the magnitude we face could put at risk the gains we have made--and create hardships for many of our students.
For several months, faculty and staff across the college have been meeting to discuss long-term strategies for meeting the daunting fiscal challenges that we face--seeking ways to both manage reductions and generate revenue. Our challenge is to act strategically and thoughtfully, in both the near and the long term, to preserve the vitality and excellence of our state's most precious and far-reaching public asset, the University of Minnesota, and its largest college, CLA.
The good news: a solid base of excellence
Over the past six years, we have worked together to build exceptional excellence in this college. We have leveraged resources creatively and strategically. We have been good stewards of the University's historic facilities and traditions while also turning our energies toward and investing in the future. The changes have been dramatic and positive on all fronts.
We have recruited to Minnesota some of the best and brightest faculty on the planet and given them the resources they need to be inspiring teachers and mentors, and pathbreaking scholars and artists. We have created new research centers to fuel their research and creative work across disciplines--work that profoundly benefits the people of Minnesota. And we have converted some of the U's most dilapidated buildings into cutting-edge facilities to advance the teaching, research, and creative work of our faculty.
These and other initiatives have reached deep into the heart of the college to transform just about every aspect of the student experience. And the word is out: CLA is hot. The number and quality of applicants to CLA continues to rise, making the Class of 2006 the best ever. With new registration policies now in effect, 97 percent of first-year students are taking full course loads, putting them on a path to graduation in four years.
Giving back to Minnesota
CLA has honored its public trust. The college has been a good citizen and strong civic partner in building an economically and culturally vital future for our state. We have established new and stronger partnerships with all kinds of organizations--from the public schools to Fortune 500 corporations, from government agencies to small businesses and nonprofits.
We have brought faculty together with community partners for creative problem solving and policy development on such fundamental issues as housing, transportation, economic development, health care access, affordable housing, urban planning, international trade and diplomacy, and environmental quality.
Weathering the storm
So how do we move forward?
It may sound glib, but I think that what we do is stay the course. We must keep our priorities in sight and advance those priorities by building on our strengths.
We must use University resources at all levels with utmost efficiency; sharpen priorities and target resources to where the energy and opportunities are; and focus with laser-like precision to develop our strengths in the pursuit of excellence.
It will be an uphill battle; we will need to make difficult, even painful, choices. And there will be no quick fixes: We must find solutions that ensure the college's vitality over the long term.
Minnesota's knowledge economy: the ideas behind the machines
You may have heard some of the recent discussions of Minnesota's "knowledge economy" and about the University's pivotal place in that economy. The term reflects a recognition that economies and cultures are built not on high-tech machinery or megabytes of raw data, but on complex understanding of information--the ability to analyze and critique, to sort good information from bad, to find patterns, meaning, and value.
Our economy's mode of operation and the source of its strength are the creation and transmission of knowledge and ideas. Its leaders are active learners who create, organize, interpret, and communicate knowledge; and who challenge assumptions and orthodoxies to clear the way for new knowledge and understanding.
Minnesota's knowledge economy depends on the creativity and enterprise of a well-educated citizenry and on a constant infusion of new knowledge and ideas, imagination, and intellectual energy. These qualities are precisely what CLA brings to Minnesota communities. These qualities fuel the cultural, political, social, and economic engines of our state and keep them running.
For CLA to continue to thrive, it is critical that we understand, and help others understand, the centrality of our mission to the health of the state. We must communicate the profound importance of liberal education in a world whose destiny is driven by knowledge and ideas. And we must communicate the importance of educating our young people to be the knowledge creators and knowledge bearers in that world.
Meeting the challenge for the public good
To meet the challenges we face and make the tough choices needed to ensure continued greatness, we must proceed in a spirit of collaboration. We must involve University people at all levels, as well as alumni and friends, and citizens throughout the state. All Minnesotans have a stake in the decisions we make. Truly, we are all in this together.
As a friend of CLA, you will play an essential role in the University's, and CLA's, ability to weather this storm. We need your help, now more than ever.
What you can do to help
Please take a moment to read the stories in this issue--stories that describe the ways that CLA people are making a difference in the lives of our students and of the citizens of Minnesota and beyond. Then help us spread the word by sharing these stories with neighbors and friends.
Help us recruit outstanding students. Serve as a mentor, provide an internship, or create a scholarship for a deserving student. And please, communicate with your legislators. Tell them why public higher education matters to you, and to all Minnesotans; and why it's so very important that they support Minnesota's great public research University.
Imagine the possibilities. Then help us make them happen.