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The presidential scoping document also describes the university's goal to "lead the nation among public universities with a primary emphasis on undergraduate education." Reading the scoping document, it is clear that this ambition—this wonderful exuberant ambition—is not an ambition driven by rankings, but rather an ambition to achieve the best in what we do. Let me end my remarks today by focusing briefly on three elements critical to our excellence and success: mission focus, culture of innovation, and resources.
Mission Focus
Earlier I noted that the key to our success will be to convert our assets into our advantages. The heart of this point, and the major section of my remarks today, is the need to have a clear identity. With identity comes focus and with focus the ability to effectively direct attention and resources to those activities that ensure success. As my remarks have emphasized, I believe that the scoping document clarifies our identity, resolving a number of ambiguities that have resulted in less focus than we need if we are to be among the very best universities. What we need to do now is to express that identity in terms that both clarify and inspire. One task, already underway, is to rewrite our mission statement. While our recent accreditation process was viewed as a model for others and identified many outstanding qualities of Miami University, it also noted the need for greater clarity of mission and directed us to prepare a new mission statement. A committee has taken the first steps of that task and prepared background materials to frame our approach to a new statement. Provost Herbst will soon announce a new committee to draft that statement. It is an essential task and an important expression of our identity.
At a dinner in our home one night last week the topic of our national reputation came up in the context of The New York Times article that continued the theme that we are "a hidden gem." After the guests had left, one of the students who works for Carillon Catering expressed her frustration. "Why aren't we better known for our quality?" she asked in an exasperated voice. While it is nice to be a gem, it sure would be nice to be a known gem rather than a hidden gem! To become less "hidden" requires several strategies, but it begins with clear and strong messages, directed both internally and externally, that leave no doubt as to who we are.
In this modern era, one of the most powerful expressions of collegiate identity is the university website. I have looked at a lot of websites over the years because of my responsibilities with Macalester and Washington. In my view, Miami's website is at least as good as most, and very much like other university websites that give a sense of what universities are all about, but I can't say that it projects anything close to what makes Miami special and distinctive. In fact, of all the websites I have looked at, only Carleton College has ever evoked a "Wow!" response. When I first looked at Carleton's website my eyes immediately moved to the lower left where the following statement appears:
Founded in 1866, Carleton College is an independent and highly selective liberal arts college with a diverse and exceptionally able student body, a talented faculty whose first priority is teaching, and a continued commitment to the liberal arts.
I was taken both by the simplicity and by the directness of this statement, especially the phrase "a talented faculty whose first priority is teaching." What would such a statement look like for Miami? I challenge us to create such a statement, a statement that proclaims for all to see how unique Miami is while still reminding us of our central focus. As I noted in my public forum last spring, I would love to see a similar effort to create a sentence that would appear in every ad for new faculty, adding to our national distinctiveness and clarity of focus.
Culture of Innovation
Miami University will soon celebrate its 200th birthday. To have even survived that long is a magnificent achievement, to have gotten better throughout most of that history is an even greater accomplishment. In general, institutions that have done so well over such a long time are known for their core values and their ability to innovate. In my view, we are in a period of enormous transformation in higher education, and more than ever our excellence depends on our ability to create a culture of innovation that will challenge everything we do. As many of you know, I am very fond of Jim Collins' book, Good to Great, which I believe does a superb job of describing how institutions advance. The philosophy behind the book rests on a simple, powerful notion: that good is the mortal enemy of great. It is a notion that recognizes the need for an irrepressible impulse to improve. It strikes me that we face the risk of being satisfied with being very good and thus, resisting the impulse for change. I have observed in my many years in higher education that our strengths can often also prove to be our weaknesses. At Miami, our strengths lie in our confidence and our traditions. These have been and should be important to our success, but we must not let them lead us into complacency.
Many of you have read the book by Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges. I truly believe that this book was written for Miami. It is a book that rests heavily on the values that have made Miami special, most notably our student-centered experience, but it is also a book that reminds us of the tremendous amount of work to be done in order for us to look at our bicentennial as the launch of our greatness and not the peak of our history. As we approach the years ahead, I hope and trust that we will create a culture of innovation second to none, producing new generations of successful alumni who will look back on their Miami Experience as the most transformative period in their lives.
Resources
For us to achieve greatness, it is clear that we need resources. Given our funding outlook, a significant portion of those needed resources must come from the better use of our current resources. As difficult as it is, we need to extend the culture of innovation into our resource allocation process. We need to make hard decisions about how we offer the Miami Experience. We need to become more aware that our time is our most precious resource and find ways to use it more effectively. The biggest challenge, I believe, is the systemic application of innovation. The academy is very good at producing successful individual projects, but we are generally very poor at learning from those experiences and extending them into a broader transformation of our curriculum and practices. I have no doubt that with focused effort, we can become the model for the new American education, and increase the impact of our resources.
In stressing the importance of innovation in stretching our resources, I do not mean to suggest that we don't need more resources—we do. We absorbed a $2 million budget shortfall last year that is simply not sustainable without putting our quality at risk. As noted earlier, the State of Ohio will remain a significant component of our funding base, as will the federal government. We must do all that we can to stabilize, if not increase, their investment in higher education. But realistically, we cannot expect much in the way of new funding from these traditional funding bases. So we will be forced to increasingly rely on other sources—tuition, research grants, and development—much like private schools have done for a long time.
At virtually all colleges and universities there has been, and is likely to continue to be, growing pressure to increase tuition. We have worked hard in the past few years to better align tuition with the ability to pay for the cost of an education, effectively moving the state subsidy towards those who need it most. The new promise of support for students from families with annual incomes of under $35,000 is another major effort to create a rational tuition plan that makes it possible for all students to access the high-quality Miami education, while providing sufficient resources to sustain that high quality. We also have seen a significant rise in external research funding that at its best enables our faculty and students to participate at the highest levels of research, a point of great pride for Miami University. I hope and trust this will continue to grow, providing even more opportunity, but we need to take care to ensure that our quest for external funding complements, and does not detract from, our core educational mission.
Miami is very fortunate to have alumni with uncommon passion. As I described earlier, the Miami Experience is appreciated in its fullness—the academics, the co-curricular, the social life that marked a truly memorable and formative part of their lives. Launching the Campaign, "For Love and Honor," is our most serious effort ever to make sure that every alum continues to be connected to Miami and gives back so that the next generation of students can have a similarly fulfilling experience. Throughout Miami's entire history, every student attending the university has benefited from the generosity of others. The gift from Lois Klawon is one of the best examples of how the generosity of alumni provides opportunities for future generations of students.
Our goal, then, is to create sustained connections that enrich the lives of our alums, while earning their support for our future. The Campaign and the Bicentennial offer us unparalleled opportunities to do just that. Last year we raised a record $33 million, along with another $30 million in bequests and pledges. Yet our giving rate among alums at 16 percent remains only slightly above the national average of 14 percent. While we are today celebrating the magnificent $10 million gift of Mrs. Klawon, it is important to recognize the amazing potential of a higher level of giving by our alumni. If each of those alums who are not now giving were to contribute $200 per year to Miami, we would have nearly another $30 million to make Miami stronger and more accessible!
It is important to understand that the success of the Campaign is not solely the responsibility of our talented and dedicated advancement staff. Rather, it is a partnership in which every person at Miami can, and I hope will, play a significant role. From our extraordinary Reunion Weekend to divisional and departmental visiting committees, from a warm welcome on campus to an encouraging word to our new graduates, from a willingness to spend time with an alumni group somewhere off campus to a willingness to host alumni on campus, every one of us—faculty, staff, and students—has a part to play in the success of the Campaign and Miami's future. You will hear much more about this in the months ahead, and I know that we will join together to generate great excitement about the Campaign and, especially, the Bicentennial. Together we will ensure that all alumni have the chance to enjoy not only life-long learning because of their education at Miami, but also a deep life-long connection because of their experience during and after their years here.
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