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Welcome Message: Open House

October 18, 2008

Good morning to one and all! I have the pleasant task of welcoming you to the Open House for the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts. So on behalf of the campus, its administration, and its faculty, I want to extend to parents, friends, and prospective students a heartfelt welcome to the campus. It’s great to see all of you here this morning.

The Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts is the foremost public research institution in New England. As such, it offers ambitious and intelligent students numerous opportunities that they will not encounter anywhere else in the Common¬wealth. Great things are happening here in Amherst, and I am here to ask all of you to join us and participate in the rising fortunes of this campus.

Today we will try to inspire and impress you with the advent of a new era in the illustrious history of the University of Massachusetts; our purpose in this program is to convince you to come back and spend more time with us. I am thinking four years or so would be the right amount of time, and I can promise you that these four years will be the best time of your life. The reason is simple: we have so much to offer here in Amherst, from path-breaking stars of academia to tremendous intercollegiate athletics, from great student activities to cultural a host of stimulating cultural events. UMass Amherst is a great institution of higher education – and its getting better every year. Let me give you just three reasons among many that you should consider the University of Massachusetts high on your list for where you are going to spend the next four years of your lives:

1. The first reason is that we have great students, and the students we are getting are better every year. We know that they are better because of their performance in the classroom, but for those of you who doubt our judgment, you need only look at the numbers. The standardized test that most students take, the SAT, indicates that students are considerably better prepared for the rigors of university education this year than they were in the past. This past year we had the highest average SAT scores ever for an incoming class of students. In our honors college, Commonwealth College, the academic indicators rival those of any top public institution in the country. The high school GPAs for the first-year class are also the best in history. So it’s no exaggeration to say that this year’s incoming class is the best ever at UMass. This record-breaking first-year class is the result of a record number of applications, almost 29,000, and this year we expect an even greater interest in UMass Amherst among high school seniors. How do we know? Just look around! We have a record crowd here for this open house and had to turn away others who wanted to come.

2. The second reason: we have great faculty, and they’re getting better as well. As I’ve already noted, we are the best public research university in New England measured by the achievements of our faculty and their reputation among their colleagues in the country. In terms of faculty awards last year we ranked among the top twenty public institutions in the country. Many of our programs are ranked among the very best nationally, and some departments, such as Polymer Science, are among the top programs bar none. Faculty excellence takes many forms. For example, last February Professors Stephen Malkin and Thomas P. Russell were elected to the National Academy of Engineering, probably the highest distinction bestowed on an engineer in the United States. In September Linda Tropp, a member of our Psychology Department, was named a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Just last month it was announced that UMass Amherst had been successful in the competition for a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC); it received a six-year, $13.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study nanoscale polymer assemblies, polymers in highly charged solvents for potential use for drug delivery and harnessing thin-film instabilities for specialized sensors. And one of our faculty members, Sheila C. Bair, a professor at the Isenberg School of Management, is currently serving as chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In 2008 Forbes ranked Bair as the second most powerful woman in the world behind German chancellor Angela Merkel. Everywhere you turn on campus you can find burgeoning excellence, in the natural sciences, in the humanities and social sciences, and in the professional schools.

3. A third reason that UMass Amherst is right for you: nowhere else in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and at very few places across the nation can you have the combination of a world-class research university and a beautiful, traditional college campus. The pioneer valley I am told is often called happy valley, and since I just moved here this year, I can tell you why everyone is so happy: this is a wonderful place to live, to learn, and to be. Amherst and the surrounding municipalities offer one of the greatest concentrations of intellectual resources in the country. And we have arranged things so that undergraduates at this institution can take full advantage of offerings throughout the region. Our five-college consortium, which includes Amherst College and Hampshire College in Amherst, Smith College in Northampton, Mount Holyoke just down the road a few miles south of here, and of course UMass Amherst, allows students enrolled at one of these institutions to take courses at any of the other schools. In coming to UMass Amherst, students in effect are able to access the faculty, facilities, and offerings of five top-notch institutions of higher education. So you will have good reason to be happy while you’re here on the Amherst campus. Not only will you be on an idyllic campus with a first-rate research faculty, you will also be a member of a larger, intellectual stimulating Pioneer Valley community.

What about the high achieving students among you? Do we have something special for you? A few years ago you might have considered UMass Amherst your safety school. But there are good reasons that it should now be your first choice. Commonwealth College provides for you one of the best opportunities in the state for the attainment of your personal educational goals. It is designed to provide a tremendous educational experience and to enable students to realize their vast potential in a variety of academic disciplines. If you look at what students say about Commonwealth College, you’ll understand why it is so special: Steven Alden, an accounting major from Charlton, Massachusetts, remarks on the intimate connection he has established with our first-class faculty: “When I first came here,” he said, “I did not expect that some of my good friends at the university would be professors, but this is certainly the case.” Elisabeth Budd, a history and psychology major from Springfield commented: “Joining the Commonwealth College community has been one of the greatest decisions I've made.” The college “encourages you to challenge your ideas and beliefs. It makes you excited to get involved.” And Ryan McGorty, a major in physics and journalism, took full advantage of the opportunity to get involved with research at UMass – his particularly specialty is soft condensed matter – by presenting his work at academic conferences; he was also one of 310 students in the country to win a Goldwater scholarship for excellence in science and mathematics.

There is something for everyone at UMass Amherst. You just have to take advantage of the many opportunities this campus offers. So if you are seriously considering your future educational plans (and you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t), if you want a place that is exciting and stimulating, beautiful and fun, I think UMass Amherst is your ticket.

Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today, and welcome once again to the Amherst campus! Go UMass!