Office of the Chancellor

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Homecoming Breakfast Remarks

October 17, 2009

Good Morning. I would like to welcome you all back to campus and hope your visit is full of fun and fond memories. The alumni association has a slate of activities lined up for you from art exhibits to tailgating. And, of course we have a great football rivalry: UMass Amherst vs UNH. GO UMASS!

I’m going to keep my remarks brief so you can attend some of the events planned, stroll pass the pond and see the new fountains, and take in both the beauty of the campus and Amherst, the country’s best college town, which you have known all along. Our campus landscape continues to change: we’ve recently celebrated the opening of the completed Integrated Sciences Building and next to it the beautifully restored Skinner Hall. There is the Studio Arts Building, gracefully perched on the gateway to campus on North Pleasant Street. The big brick behemoth across from the athletic fields is the new student Recreation Center, scheduled to open soon. We will break ground tomorrow on a building for the Power and Class of New England, our wonderful UMass Minuteman Marching Band, and early next month, start construction on a new police station.

Today I would like to deliver two messages. As friends and donors to this campus, your gifts have had a deep impact on students and the institution. I thank you for your financial support - and for the time you have given to your alma mater. I know many of you serve on advisory boards or dean’s councils, mentor students, and serve as guest speakers. All of your efforts are deeply appreciated across campus and by generations of students.

My second message is that without your support, UMass Amherst would not be the foremost public research institution in New England and on the cusp of rising into the top echelon of national public universities. We have outlined our desired trajectory to the top in a document called “Framework for Excellence.” Framework for Excellence takes us to 2020. By then we expect the University of Massachusetts Amherst to be known across the country as the best place to get an excellent and affordable education, the best place to encounter outstanding faculty members in the classroom and in the laboratory, and the best place to engage yourself in the service of the Commonwealth and the nation.

Some of the improvements we plan to institute address undergraduate education. Our goal is to offer every undergraduate a research or scholarly experience with a faculty mentor. We want to provide a study abroad opportunity that costs the same as a regular semester to all students who want one. Lastly, we want to enable for every undergraduate a meaningful community service and learning experience where they will make a difference without prolonging the time it takes to earn a degree.

I have often echoed the words of Clark Kerr in saying that the quality of a university is directly related to the quality of its faculty. Our plans call for securing, retaining, and supporting the best faculty possible. With your generosity and the generosity of others, we now have thirty-one endowed professorships and one endowed dean’s chair, which provide us with a great start toward our goals for faculty support.

We are at an unusual point, a critical point, in the history of the campus: we find ourselves at a moment of great opportunity and great challenge. As a community, we have the chance to make the choices necessary to gain greater stature and to shape a future of our own creation. This transformation can happen despite our present economic woes, which will likely not ease for another few years. There’s an old saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. We’re resilient, smart, bold, and entrepreneurial. We will use the economic downturn we face today as a turning point – one that will define this institution. As a university on the rise, we will rise to the challenge and emerge stronger by working together.

We have the future of UMass Amherst in our hands. It is a wide-open future filled with bold dreams for a safe, healthy, sustainable, and democratic world. While some will no doubt question the timing of our new endeavor, the decisions we make now, in the midst of the economic shift, will shape our future. I look forward to your support in the coming months and years to help us realize our most important goals.

We recently produced a video about the University to share with members of our Board of Trustees. I want to share it with you today because it shows the progress this great institution has made and illustrates how terrific our students and faculty are.

Now, let the fun begin with a performance by the Vocal Jazz Ensemble led by Catherine Jensen-Hole. Catherine is a visiting faculty member in the African-American Music and Jazz Studies Program here at UMass Amherst. She is a nationally published composer and arranger: her compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by university and college ensembles across America.