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Community Breakfast Remarks 2011

August 31, 2011

Thank you, Todd. Good morning, everyone!

It couldn't be more fitting that we celebrate the new academic year by breaking bread with members of the Pioneer Valley community. We're friends and neighbors, collaborators and business partners, colleagues and allies. Together we're working toward the common goal of making UMass Amherst and the towns where we live and work exceptional places.

Before I continue, allow me to recognize someone who, when she's not rushing our three daughters in her flaming minivan from school to swimming, devotes much of her time to benefit the Pioneer Valley, including serving as co-chair of this year's United Way of Hampshire County's annual campaign. My wife, Sabine.

The year ahead will be my fourth and final year as Chancellor of UMass Amherst, and I look forward to working closely with all of you to fortify the gains the campus has made and to help this wonderful institution grow even stronger. I am grateful for the support the community has shown me and my family since we arrived in Amherst. Our flagship campus continues on its upward trajectory, starting with the outstanding first-year students who will arrive for orientation tomorrow.

These students are coming to campus earlier than usual to take part in our first fall new student orientation. We continue to host orientation for new students during the summer months, but this year we felt students could assimilate more smoothly into the university community with the addition of a fall orientation. First-year students will be on campus for three days before the upperclassmen arrive on Sunday. They'll be busy at an official convocation, a barbecue, small lunch and dinner sessions with faculty, and other activities. On Saturday, they'll venture into Amherst center where they will be treated to street performers and entertainment along with promotions from many of the local merchants. My thanks to all of you who are reaching out to welcome them.

You'll be pleased to hear that we've also taken steps to minimize local traffic disruption this year by staggering student move-in days and centralizing check-ins for the residence halls.

Our increasing efforts to build stronger relationships between UMass Amherst students and the community will extend far beyond fall orientation. The speakers that we just heard from, Tiffany and Michael, are just two of the many students involved in long-term community service activities. I thank them for being with us today and for serving as role models for their fellow students.

As I mentioned, we'll be welcoming truly outstanding students to campus this fall. For the fourth consecutive year the academic profile of the entering class is at an historic high in terms of test scores and high school grades. It remains diverse, with students of color constituting 21 percent of the class. Out–of-state students will constitute over one-fourth of the entering class this year.

About 700 of the 4,700 first-year students qualified for admission to our highly selective Commonwealth Honors College. That's about 200 more than met our stringent standards for honors a year ago. More than ever before, UMass Amherst is a top choice for top students.

I'd also like to call your attention to the high caliber of the students coming here from Massachusetts community colleges. Through a program called MassTransfer, we guarantee admission to UMass Amherst for qualifying community college students. 350 have enrolled this year, and the academic profile of this diverse group, too, is the strongest in recent years. Through our new Community College Connection, we are waiving tuition for those community college graduates with grade point averages of 3.0 or better.

Highlights of the coming year on campus will include the dedication of our police station and the long-awaited George N. Parks Minuteman Marching Band Building. Construction of the New Laboratory Science Buildings continues on schedule for completion a year from now. Later this fall we'll celebrate the official groundbreaking for a major project in the heart of the campus – the six-building Commonwealth Honors College residential and teaching complex. In the spring, the celebration will continue with the groundbreaking for our academic classroom building.

We've reached out for your input on a new campus master plan — the first in 20 years. The master plan will help us build a more logical, sustainable, and, yes, beautiful campus.

And, speaking of sustainability, one of the newest feathers in our cap is an award in that very area. UMass Amherst was recently ranked in the top 20 national research universities for leadership in campus sustainability due to innovations such as the new campus permaculture garden. Take a walk by the garden if you can; it's in front of Franklin Dining Commons, and it's looking magnificent right now.

Tied in to the new master plan will be a university-funded transportation study that will help advance the Gateway Project along North Pleasant Street. We want to see our campus linked more closely with downtown Amherst in a way that protects the surrounding neighborhoods, and we will work together with the town leaders to make this exciting project become reality.

As we strive to connect town and gown both physically and intellectually, we become ever more aware of the unique character of our community. It's true there are quite a few very nice towns similar to ours in New England. They, too, have bucolic settings, historic buildings, and colorful pasts. Some towns, like Amherst, can boast of famous former residents, and others are home to a prestigious college near a lovely town green. But none benefit from the presence of two nationally recognized private liberal arts colleges and a public national research university of the caliber of UMass Amherst. What sets Amherst and the Pioneer Valley apart is UMass Amherst and its people.

We bring the world to the Valley. You can enjoy sporting events, public lectures, concerts, and exhibits on our campus. Read the letters in the Daily Hampshire Gazette to see that UMass people aren't shy about raising the level of public debate on everything from China's economy to the best use of public land. It goes without saying that with today's economy and unemployment rates, the economic impact of the university and the jobs it provides are more important than ever.

But UMass Amherst also contributes to the community in unexpected and often unseen ways. For instance, at the preschool my youngest daughter, Natalie, attends, the teachers were preparing a unit on mapping skills. Asked for suggestions of things that might be mapped, I'm told parents quickly contributed ideas far beyond simply documenting the route from home to preschool. These UMass parents suggested to the teachers ideas about mapping the ocean floor and mapping the pathways of the brain. When the lesson got underway, a regional planning graduate student presented maps from the university library's collection to the children.

Without UMass Amherst, Amherst, Hadley, and other surrounding towns would be much smaller and much quieter, for sure, but you have to agree that without UMass Amherst the Pioneer Valley would be a much less interesting place – even for four-year-olds.

My family feels privileged to live here, and we look forward to the year ahead. I hope to see you around campus and around town, at games, galleries, restaurants, performances, and public lectures. Thank you for joining us this morning.