Good morning and thank you for being here. Homecoming is a special time and we are glad you are here to renew old friendships and celebrate our many successes.

Today, I would like to reflect on our recent accomplishments and describe a new vision for North Dakota State University's future.

Five years ago, we set forth on a new course for NDSU; a course that some thought unrealistically ambitious and, yet, in this short time, we have achieved nearly all of our declared goals.

Our goals were accomplished through a convergence of effort by faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends united by a common sense of purpose and dedication to NDSU. The people of NDSU deserve recognition for the efforts that have yielded this growth and success. I am appreciative that so many are working so hard on elements of our institutional change.

I also recognize the support and flexibility given us by state officials, including the Governor, members of the State Board of Higher Education, the delegation, and members of the legislature that provided the optimal environment for our success.

Today, guided by the ideals of the land-grant philosophy, we again set forth ambitious goals in the belief that through the attainment of these goals, we are one of the best hopes for building North Dakota's economic vitality. While many of our previous goals were quantitative, we now seek more qualitative goals, as we continue to establish our university as a national model of a contemporary land-grant university.

As I meet with off-campus groups in Fargo and across the state and nation, people tell me they see in North Dakota State University an energized center for economic and social growth. As I meet with donors, I am told that they see their gift to NDSU as a gift to improve the lives of others. As I meet with the state's leaders, they tell me that a public dollar invested in NDSU offers the greatest rate of return for future generations.

It is on this base that we set a new course as we define our institution -- a course inspired by our recently adopted university mission statement:

With energy and momentum, North Dakota State University addresses the needs and aspirations of people in a changing world by building on our land-grant foundation.

As we begin to plan, a quote comes to mind from famed Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, who said:

Make no little plans
They have no magic to stir one's blood and
Probably will not be realized

Make big plans
Aim high in hope and work remembering
That a noble, logical diagram once recorded,
Will never die, but long after we are gone
Will be a living thing,
Asserting with growing intensity¹

So, where are we headed? I again propose no little plans. I offer that we continue to use our established timeless campus themes and cluster around each new sets of ambitious, but less quantitative goals.

People remain the most important asset in our equation of success. Our focus must be to continue to move salaries forward. We have made some progress on salaries but it is a never-ending challenge. Salary compression, in particular, is a concern that we must address.

In addition to increasing salary funding, we will work to maintain the fully funded family health insurance, continue the individual professional development program that makes grants of up to $1,000 available so faculty and staff can participate in activities with national peers, and maintain and expand the family tuition program. We must continue to make progress on increasing salaries if we are to attract and retain the best faculty and staff we need to do our work.

An important hallmark of our national peers is respect for people of different backgrounds and perspectives than our own individual backgrounds. We are working on a strategic plan for diversity and we should see a draft yet this semester. The process of developing the plan gives us the chance to think institutionally and individually about what we say and how we interact with others. The campus climate survey taken last year showed relatively few overt acts of hostility towards people from underrepresented groups. But it did indicate subtle gaps between our intentions and outcomes.

While diversity brings many thoughts to mind, we view diversity as being about gain. Diversity is about respect. Diversity is about making sure that all people feel welcome at the table of human interaction. Diversity is about being a great land-grant university. We cannot be a great national university if we do not welcome all.

North Dakota State University enjoys a special opportunity this year in hiring a vice president and three new deans, and we will seek to hire as many new faculty and staff as we need to meet our education needs from the increased number of students. We also include an invigorated emphasis on engagement with constituent groups across our community, state, and nation.

Five years ago, we set an ambitious goal of reaching 12,000 students. So it was with particular satisfaction that this fall, one year ahead of projection, we surpassed our enrollment goal of 12,000 students. This growth was the product of several factors including the expansion of program offerings -- particularly at the doctoral level, immense efforts by faculty and staff to attract and retain students, and NDSU's location in a growing, dynamic metropolitan area.

We are a university of choice.

Many are watching closely as our enrollment grows. Without a doubt, it will continue because NDSU is a university that serves and values its students and our state, because the education we offer builds on our land-grant heritage of engagement and service, because students choose institutions where they see that their personal goals can be achieved, and because our main campus is located in a growing and dynamic community.

Further, North Dakota State University should grow, as long as we can continue to build and enhance the quality of the educational experience for students. We should grow as long as our expanded research portfolio continues to spark economic activity for our state and community. North Dakota State University should grow as long as we continue to recruit and retain quality faculty, staff, and students.

We are now about to enter into a new stage, one of managed growth. In this phase, we have developed new programs that have the capacity to serve additional students and we will seek to build from those disciplines.

As we look to the future, we will strive to increase those activities that retain North Dakota's young people while also attracting new young people. We will continue to be a leader in using classroom innovations, like the Personal Response Systems, to foster teaching and learning. We will increase graduate enrollment to 2,000 students and international enrollment to 1,000 students. We will increase diversity for the many benefits it brings. And we will create a mentoring program to nurture our brightest scholars and increase participation by NDSU students in elite academic offerings, such as the Rhodes Scholars program.

Research shows that college students who are involved in campus life tend to reach their educational goals. The level of student involvement at NDSU in the life of this campus is exceptional. Students have been involved in beautifying the campus, in our move to D-I, and students made the decision to expand and fully fund the Memorial Union and Wellness Center. Our students are to be commended for fully supporting these efforts with their own funds even in the face of rising tuition.

It is critical that in our success and growth, NDSU maintains its focus and orientation on students -- their education, development, and aspirations.

As always, students are, indeed, paramount.

We have identified our new programs as an engine of student growth in becoming the national research university we wish to be. Here, too, development is impressive. We now have the academic program mix, including 41 doctoral programs, of our national land-grant peers.

This growth is the product of a tremendous effort from our faculty, staff and students who accepted the challenge to move the university to the next level, one program at a time. As a university president, I understand that such growth cannot be ordered. Universities can encourage growth. Universities can create policies that facilitate growth. But academic growth must come from the faculty and staff, otherwise it will surely fail. At North Dakota State University, we have gone through a transformation unlike any I know. I applaud our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends for this accomplishment.

Programs are the focus of the heart of our transformed university. We will continue to develop new programs that meet identified needs, we will strive to be the center for new innovative instructional paradigms and, responding to educational complexity, we will seek to be leaders in interdisciplinary approaches to education, and we will increase support for the NDSU Libraries to a level appropriate for a national research university.

We will also soon launch a complete curriculum review to insure that our programs and majors will be at the cutting edge of education. And we will use the statewide mandate of our land-grant status to bring academic and service programming to all corners of North Dakota and beyond.

We promised to assume a greater share of the financial responsibility for our growth. We said we would use our new flexibility to seek out partnerships to fuel university growth and make significant contributions to North Dakota's economic vitality.

The measurements of our success are impressive by any measure. In an analysis by Professor Larry Leistritz our success is shown to have significant direct and indirect impacts in terms of jobs creation, increased tax revenues, and other economic activity.

Dr. Leistritz and his team looked specifically at NDSU's growth from fiscal years 1999 to 2004. During this period, the NDSU operating budget grew from $156 million to $237 million, an increase of 52 percent.

That growth, combined with the jobs created by new facility construction and total spending by a larger student body, is shown to support 2,450 new jobs. This is in addition to 312 full-time positions, 306 graduate assistants, and 110 part-time and temporary positions created by NDSU during this five-year period. This is an increase of nearly 3,000 new jobs for the state.

NDSU's growth has added to the state's general fund by generating new tax revenues. In fiscal year 2004 alone, NDSU's growth added roughly $3.3 million in sales and use tax revenues, while the new jobs and income resulted in $1.5 million in additional personal income tax revenue.

When you look at the direct and total economic impacts of our institution -- remember, this is of just our growth over the last five years-- there is more than an $800 million impact on the state's economy from support generated solely by new activity at NDSU.

Perhaps the most impressive information from the analysis shows the extent of our success at raising outside funds. The study shows that for every additional dollar of state support NDSU received during the last five years, we raised roughly seven dollars and fifty cents from other sources.

As our legislature considers how to allocate state funds for the next biennium, we can clearly show that a dollar invested in North Dakota State University offers a huge return to the public.

The generosity of alumni and friends of NDSU has been exceptional. The assets of the NDSU Development Foundation have grown from about 49 million dollars in 1999 to 93 million dollars in 2004. We are over halfway to our goal of 75 million dollars for our current capital campaign, and we have nearly ten million dollars in cash and pledges toward our goal of 13 million dollars for Phase 1 construction of our College of Business Administration building.

As we look at infrastructure, our downtown campus is transforming Fargo through its structural, technological and social attributes. It has changed this university and I see it as just the beginning of a downtown presence that invigorates both our university and our community. North Dakota State University is, indeed, a better university because of our location in Fargo and our many partnerships both in Fargo and across the state. Our facilities and our quality of life enhance each other. The institutional progress we've made could not have occurred in another state.

Earlier, I spoke about how North Dakota State University is a great public investment. An excellent example is our Research and Technology Park. Just a few years ago, no buildings were located at the site. Now, eight organizations are locating in some of the finest facilities found anywhere. Additional businesses will be developed in the six million dollar business incubator building. Students are enhancing their education by working side-by-side with our business partners, who are in turn looking to hire our students after graduation. A new teaching hotel will host travelers to the park and community, as our students learn the hospitality industry from the inside.

If retaining young people in North Dakota is at question, then North Dakota State University is a proven answer.

This is clearly demonstrated by data from NDSU Career Services that shows that to a growing extent NDSU graduates from in and out of state are finding their first jobs in North Dakota. Increasingly, we are a university of choice and we are becoming a state of choice.

North Dakota State University will continue to leverage public support and return more to our state than we receive. In the next five years, we will complete the biggest capital campaign in our history. Already, we are over the halfway point of our $75 million goal. Through this campaign, we will enhance scholarship funding and campus infrastructure with new classrooms, residential capacity and library support. We will build economic opportunity by using the Research and Technology Park to harness the potential of our faculty and the energy of our students and become a center for emerging technologies. And we will expand NDSU Downtown as a cornerstone in a section of Fargo that is fast becoming a cultural center for our state.

Through our success of the last five years, the stature of NDSU has transformed.

This can be demonstrated by the growing number of NDSU faculty, staff and students participating at national and international conferences. It can be demonstrated by the attention paid by national news media to our university, programs and our accomplishments. It can be demonstrated by the growing number of nationally prominent university and business partnerships.

Stature is also measured by the National Science Foundation in its annual listing of research expenditures. North Dakota State University has the state's largest research enterprise, being ranked 126th in the nation in the most recent NSF report for fiscal year 2002. Our status as a research university continues to grow with a milestone passing $100 million in research expenditures for the current year. Our goal is to enter the ranks of the top 100 research universities in the nation.

North Dakota State University's status as a land-grant university makes it the people's university, and we offer our services to all corners of the state.

Agriculture is a cornerstone of the state's economy. NDSU affirms its commitment to providing information, products, and technology important to this critical industry.

We are committed to reaching the highest level in the new Carnegie System. We are committed to elevating the visibility of our state through the excellence of our intercollegiate athletic program. We are committed to achieving full re-accreditation in February 2006. We are committed to expanding our regional marketing program to the broadest audience and invite students from all corners of our nation and world to live, study, and work in North Dakota.

Our visibility nationally has grown this year as our athletic program competes across the full range of Division I sports. Our athletic program's stature will continue to grow as our fans see us competing against some of the finest universities in the country.

North Dakota State University is a different university because we have a unity of purpose, because we believed we could be more. We have taken "can-do" to "we did it", and now, we want to do more. We have been successful in our efforts because of the support and flexibility granted us by the legislature. We have the ability to respond quickly as new opportunities emerge. The value of this in our success cannot be overstated.

Significantly, our success occurred because the people of the NDSU community are willing partners in all our efforts. Faculty members are willing to take on the added task of evaluating their own academic programs. Our students are willing to dig into their own pockets to invest in educational excellence. Our alumni and friends are providing the financial resources for needed scholarships and facilities.

As an enormous momentum carries us forward, the future of North Dakota State University will be energized by our recent accomplishments. It is my belief that the academic programs we have added, our great strides in research, the technology park, receiving the largest freshmen class in our history, and the increase of our national and international stature are creating this momentum.

Our growth and diversity, while goals of the past, now are part of the fabric that will define NDSU as a great contemporary land-grant institution.

I would now like to briefly review the context for our future direction. We are still visiting with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends as we work to define our new goals in largely qualitative terms using our established campus themes.

Our new goals for It's About People are to increase salaries, address salary compression, foster an environment of empowerment, and embrace diversity.

For Students Are Paramount, our goals are to raise student services to a new level, achieve national recognition of student accomplishments, and maintain our commitment to the student partnership in all our efforts.

Our goals for Programs are to be a recognized center for innovative instruction, become a national center for emerging technologies and new agricultural products, to foster interdisciplinary programs, to deliver our services across the state through University Extension, ensuring relevancy in all our agencies, and to expand our global perspective.

Our goals for Leveraging Support include the completion of our capital campaign, enhancing business partnerships, seeking equity in public funding, and developing and enhancing our infrastructure.

Finally, our goals for the campus theme of Stature are to become a national model of a contemporary land-grant university and to become one of the top 100 research universities in the nation.

These are, once again, a challenging set of goals for our university. But we have already achieved goals that some said couldn't be met. We are enriching the lives of our students, reaching out to the people of North Dakota through centers and programs in every county. We are a best hope for building our state's social and economic vitality through the jobs we are helping to create. We have been given the flexibility to respond quickly.

In 1961, William Hunter wrote in his history of this university, Beacon Across the Prairie, "The future of North Dakota State University...will depend on the combined efforts of its administration, its staff of teachers and experimenters, its students, and its alumni. And their efforts will have to rest upon the support given by the people of North Dakota through its Legislature."²

Our success today is as Professor Hunter said it would be, the effort of diverse groups working together to seek a better future. This is a remarkable time in the history of North Dakota State University. What a privilege it is to experience it with you.

Thank you.

¹ Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864-1912)
² Hunter, W. C. (1961) Beacon Across the Prairie. North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, Fargo, N.D.

Appendix 1: Economic Impact of NDSU Growth, FY 2000-2004 Requires Acrobat Reader

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