Well, the time has finally arrived when I deliver my valedictory Convocation message. When I announced last year at this time that I would be retiring in June of this year, I vowed that this would not be a lame-duck year, and I can assure you that it has not been. What I would like to do this afternoon is to give you a report on the “state of the University,” as I have done every spring following the adjournment of the General Assembly in Annapolis. By many accounts, it has truly been a very good year for higher education in Maryland, and a very good year for Frostburg State University.

Let me begin by giving you a sense of how we fared this year with our operating and capital budget requests. The operating budget for the USM has been increased by 15%, including COLA funding, a dramatic change from the past several years. Even though we are not yet back to the level of state support that we enjoyed prior to this past recession, we are clearly in a much better position than any of us hoped for. I would note, however, that the total enhancement to our budget is largely restricted to mandatory expenses. In Frostburg’s budget, there is a little money for enhancements that we specifically identified as high priority for our campus, including faculty salary adjustments and resources to implement the new UEI, but much of the increase in our budget is earmarked for Regent priorities, including funds to prepare for a major capital campaign and increased investment in facilities renewal. Funds have been allocated, as well, to sustain undergraduate in-state tuition at the current level, rather than to raise tuition by 4.5%. The revenue that would have been generated by that increase is to be supplanted by state funds.

The capital budget is a story too good to believe. To abbreviate a very long saga that occupied most of my time during the month of February, we were disappointed, to say the least, that the Governor’s projected five-year budget pushed the replacement of Tawes Hall to 2011 for planning, with construction therefore impossible for completion before 2014. The Regents had consistently been requesting that planning begin in 2008. After advising the Chancellor of what I planned to do, I contacted every member of the capital budget committees of the House and the Senate, urging them to help us get the project back on track. In brief, what finally happened is that not only did we get it back on track; the legislature unanimously approved moving it up, so that the money to begin the design is in this year’s budget, beginning July 1, with construction to be completed in 2010. Let me add another miracle for the record: After the legislature allocated the money for the new building, I received a call from the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Governor’s office, who indicated that the administration would not oppose what the legislature had recommended for us, and that, in addition, the Governor knew that we had a need for property acquisition, previously unfunded until 2011, and that he was putting another $2.7 in his supplemental budget to cover that need. Bottom line, as they say, it has been a very good year!

This has also been a year in which the quality of some of our academic programs and the University as a whole has been affirmed following intensive review by external accrediting bodies. Kudos to the College of Business for attaining highly selective and prestigious AACSB accreditation; to the leadership of our programs in recreation and engineering for very positive reaccreditation evaluations; and to the entire campus for the extremely positive review by our Middle States evaluating team.

I received just yesterday the draft report from the Middle States team, and I would like to share with you just the opening paragraph of the Executive Summary: “Frostburg State University’s most notable change during this past ten years has been its evolution from a comprehensive college to a regional university. The team commends Frostburg on the numerous, effective outreach initiatives into the community. The campus is seen as a major cultural, educational, and economic development resource within the region, and the special emphasis selected for this self-study, ‘The University and the Community,’ clearly demonstrates the considerable progress that has been made.” The report also is extremely laudatory of the quality of our faculty and academic programs, our students, including the diversity of our student body, our student services programs and services, and the way the institution has been managed. Special kudos are given to the new UEI general education program, with its emphasis on interdisciplinarity and learning communities and to our model on-line initiatives. Recommendations regarding issues to be addressed over the next five years include enrollment management, planning and budgeting, and faculty diversity. Copies of the final report of the team will be available when it is received. Although we will not know the formal decision of the Middle States Commission until June, we are heartened by the positive findings of the team and appreciative of the sound guidance that the report will provide for the campus and for my successor.

A number of our faculty members have achieved national and international recognition for their scholarship, among them Dr. Tom Serfass, who won a highly competitive Wilson Elkins award of $80,000 to support his research on otters in Kenya and Tanzania; Dr. Linda Lyon, who received a grant to support her ethnobotanical research in Madagascar; Dr. Keramat Poorsoltan and Dr. Sudhir Singh, who received a large grant from the Coleman Foundation to foster entrepreneurism in our region; Dr. Richard Raesly, who received nearly $300,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency to support his research on stream ecosystems; and other members of our faculty who authored or presented literally hundreds of published works, gave professional readings and presentations, and exhibited or performed creative works. Without question, the faculty here are not only outstanding teachers, legendary for their classroom excellence; they are also productive scholars.

During the course of this year, we have also launched or expanded our partnerships with businesses and government agencies, bringing five of them to temporary space in Tawes Hall. These partnerships have resulted in collaborative research with our faculty and valuable internships for our students in biology, chemistry, geography, computer science, and engineering. More of these relationships will doubtless develop as the designated business and technology park is developed on the south end of the campus prior to the demolition of Tawes Hall.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of the year has been the successful search for my successor, with the naming of Dr. Jonathan Gibralter, the current president of the State University of New York at Farmingdale. He brings to the position experience in dealing with the many demands of a presidency, an impressive record of achievements, and a proven ability to work with the broader community on behalf of both an academic institution and its surrounding region. I know that you will all welcome him enthusiastically. Fortunately, he will have the pleasure and just plain fun of seeing come to fruition in the next few years a doubling of the size of the Lane Center, the replacement of Tawes Hall with a $50 million Center for Communication and Information Technology, the development of a new, upgraded entrances to the campus, the re-routing of University Drive, and, hopefully, the construction of the first building on the Allegany Business Center site.

The challenge of stabilizing and modestly increasing enrollments will also be part of his inheritance. Fortunately, we have made good strides this year, as the Middle States report noted, under temporary leadership. Dr. Gibralter will need to decide where enrollment management will reside administratively and who should head it. He will also need to conduct a search for a new Vice President for Advancement as he prepares to lead the campus in a $15 million capital campaign that will doubtless occupy much of his time. He will also need to devote considerable time and efforts to sustaining the level of influence that we now enjoy among Regents, legislators, the executive branch, alumni, and other external stakeholders. I urge you to recognize and appreciate the fact that these responsibilities will require him to be away from the campus frequently.

As I approach the conclusion of my tenure here, I have also been giving considerable thought, as you can understand, to where we have been during the past fifteen years, so I am asking you to indulge me as I recall what some of those years have been like. When I first arrived at the University in the fall of 1991, all of the institutions in the University System were in the throes of a recession that had begun the previous year. Although generous resources were infused into the System for two years following its establishment in 1988, just two short years later the bottom fell out of the economy, and all of us suffered through ten consecutive cuts in State appropriations, totaling over twenty percent. I knew when I accepted the position that times were not easy, having dealt with the first-round reductions at the University of Baltimore, where I served as Provost. But the free fall was relentless, resulting in lay-offs, salary reductions through unpaid furloughs, and deep cuts in programs. Sustaining campus morale was, to say the least, very difficult.

But the University that I inherited when I came to Frostburg was extremely strong, and, in time, we not only recovered but were able to make solid progress. What was the legacy I inherited as a new president? Academic programs offered by extraordinary faculty, many of them recruited by President Nelson Guild during the 1970's, legendary for their commitment to student learning. (This is a value deeply ingrained at Frostburg, as I later learned from my interactions with alumni who graduated in the 1940's and 1950's.) I also inherited a student services division providing dynamic, creative programs, including a residential summer planning program for students and parents that had been developed over twenty years before anyone else even thought of it. The campus was beautifully maintained, as it is now, because of the dedication and good work of the staff. Because of the prudence and resourcefulness of our senior management team, we were able to weather the budget reductions and still maintain quality. And, finally, I was privileged the month before I officially arrived on campus to participate in the ground-breaking for our magnificent new Performing Arts Center, for which funding had been secured by my predecessor, Dr. Reinhard. I confess to being a Pollyanna at heart, but it was not difficult to recognize the enormous strengths of this institution, reaching back for decades, despite the current reduction of resources. And it is those strengths that have enabled us to rebound from the recession of the early 1990's and the recent recession following the tragedy of 9/11.

I am frequently asked these days what I am most proud of in terms of the accomplishments of the past fifteen years. Let me begin by emphasizing that these are not MY accomplishments. They are the result of the inspiration and commitment of many, many individuals dedicated to making the University as strong as it can be. Having said that, let me identify just a few of the "bragging points" that I share with others at every possible opportunity:

• Our academic programs have expanded to include opportunities for students to study in exciting new areas, such as engineering, ethnobotany, exercise and sport science, athletic training, health science administration, liberal studies, law and society, masters of arts in elementary and secondary teaching, and others. We have instituted learning communities, expanded internship opportunities, initiated on-line course offerings, and adopted an exciting new undergraduate liberal arts core curriculum that promises to become a nationwide model. Several of our programs have merited national accreditation during the past fifteen years -- social work, graduate psychology, education, recreation, athletic training, and business -- a public testimony to their excellence.
  
  
• As I noted earlier in my remarks, our faculty and staff have achieved national recognition for their excellence. Several have won Fulbright grants and other intensely competitive awards; two have received the coveted Elkins professorship award; some have been recognized nationally for outstanding leadership within their professions; some are creative writers lauded by organizations like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Barnes and Noble; some have had their creative works exhibited or performed in other countries, including Russia, India, Italy, England, and Japan. At the same time, these outstanding faculty members are inspired classroom teachers, dedicated to student learning.
  
  
• Minority enrollment on our campus has risen from a little over six percent in 1991 to nearly twenty percent this year. International student enrollments have increased, and our students have more opportunities to study abroad. We firmly believe that it is essential for our students to live and learn in a diverse community that mirrors the personal and professional worlds that they will enter after their graduation.
  
  
• Our Community Service programs have been heralded as the best in the country by the Corporation for National Service and showcased as one of six model programs by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The impact of these programs on the residents of Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties is virtually incalculable.
  
  
• Our partnerships with the business and professional community in our region have never been stronger, as evidenced by the incubator initiatives to which I referred earlier.
  
  
• The Performing Arts Center has become a magnet for visitors who travel near and far to see outstanding performances in theatre, music, and dance by our own students, as well as by nationally and internationally acclaimed guest performers. It is truly the cultural hub of Allegany County and the broader region.
  
  
• Our physical plant has grown in size and beauty. We completed the construction of the Performing Arts Center; landscaped the quads behind the library and near the Guild Center; totally renovated Gunter Hall (with the aid of a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation) to house our programs in geography and environmental science; constructed a new, state-of-the art Compton Science Center; built a four-hundred bed residence hall, financed through a public-private partnership; installed technology throughout classrooms, offices, and residence halls; and made numerous other smaller improvements. The campus remains one of the most lovely in our entire System.
  
  
• Our facilities are now used year-round, providing a rich resource for the broader community. The campus is teeming during the summer with young people enrolled in various camps, with our own students taking summer classes, and with civic groups for whom this lovely setting provides a serene and supportive environment.
  
  
• The assets in our Foundation have grown from a little over $1.5 million in 1991 to nearly $13 million; in addition, the Foundation has transferred to the University a $2 million collection of wild animals that will be the centerpiece of a new natural history museum/exploratorium being installed in the Compton Science Center.
  
  
• We have secured the strong support not only of the local business community, but also of elected officials in the County, in the State legislature, and among the Regents. In the halls of Annapolis, Frostburg State is no longer viewed as a quaint little institution with little visibility or little recognition of its value to the State. That recognition has resulted not only from my own personal crusade, but also from the fact that a number of our other administrators are viewed as leaders within our System and/or by State policy-makers.

I envy my successor the opportunity to settle in to this campus and this community at a time when many exciting things are happening, not only on our campus. Our entire region is experiencing a Renaissance the like of which it has not seen in decades. One idea that I have shared with leaders in the area is the possibility of an annual Appalachian Festival in the region, bringing together not only the University and its resources, but the resources of the community colleges in Allegany and Garrett Counties and other groups to celebrate the rich heritage of the area. The Scottish-Irish, Amish and Mennonite traditions in music, dance, arts and crafts, and folklore could be showcased, as well as adventure sports and research in ethnobotany and wildlife and fisheries. I would love to be able to come back in a few years to such a celebration, a forerunner of which will take place this fall through a grant secured by Bill Mandicott for an Appalachian Festival on our campus.

Other memories and thoughts -- myriad and jumbled, too numerous to name -- come crowding into my mind as I think about my fifteen years here at Frostburg State. Foremost among them, however, is gratitude that I was privileged to form many life-long friendships here, in this idyllic mountain place. My thanks to all of you who have enclosed me in your circle of friendship.

CRG/mg
4/26/06