UC Merced: Realizing the Promise
As Prepared
Thank you, President Yudof, for that generous introduction — and thanks also for the equally kind sentiments expressed by Regent Ruiz and the leaders of our exceptional faculty, talented staff and incredible students.
The fact that President Yudof joined us here over the past two days is just one of many concrete demonstrations of his strong support for UC Merced and for the emerging research prowess of this young campus, sprouted in the agricultural heartland of California. On behalf of the faculty, staff, students and citizens of the Valley, I want to thank President Yudof for his steadfast support for UC Merced. He and the Regents of the University of California have defended the continued growth and development of UC Merced despite daunting fiscal challenges, always with a long-term vision of the educational and economic benefits that a fully developed UC campus will bring to the Valley.
Earlier this year, when I was actively considering the possibility of serving as the third chancellor of UC Merced, I tried to imagine what it would be like to return to my home state to help build a world-class University of California campus in the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
Now that I've been on the job for a full three months, I confess that my imagination fell short of reality. I simply did not fully envision what an exhilarating experience this would be — daunting in many respects, rewarding in others, but always uplifting. UC Merced embodies the diversity and innovation that have made the State of California a national and global leader. I am humbled by the opportunity I've been given to guide this aspiring young campus through the next major phase of its development.
I am impressed by what has risen up here in such a short time and by the strong support UC Merced enjoys throughout the Valley. I've spent much of my first three months meeting with key legislators, community leaders, benefactors and others to ensure their continued support. These relationships and the shared sense of purpose they nurture will continue to be a top priority for me as I travel up and down the state and beyond to build awareness of UC Merced's rapidly growing significance to the region and state.
The University of California is the embodiment of a truly great idea — elegant in its simplicity, yet bold and powerful in its reach. That idea dates back to 1868, when the newly minted state Legislature decreed that it would "provide an education equal to that of the nation’s best private institutions and make that education available to all."
For more than 140 years the university has affirmed that great idea through a set of three fundamental principles:
First, to provide every qualified high school graduate the opportunity to obtain an affordable education at one of the world's preeminent research universities.
Second, to conduct cutting-edge research into the world’s most pressing problems, creating knowledge, discoveries and innovations that bring advances and fuel new industry.
And, third, to serve the communities and regions in which the university operates through economic investment, cultural development, community involvement, service learning and other activities that make these communities better for the university’s presence.
As a result of this visionary commitment to the people of California, the California economy is larger than the economies of almost all of the world’s countries. Our state is recognized globally as a cradle of innovation, entrepreneurialism, social justice and cultural advancement, and the University of California is widely regarded as the premier public research university in the world.
UC Merced is a fresh expression of that same idea and set of principles. Opened in the fall of 2005 with just 875 students and 60 faculty members, the campus has grown to more than 5,000 students. The quality and diversity of our student body are impressive. More than half of them are first-generation college students hungry to achieve what their parents were unable to pursue.
The 10th university campus was placed in the San Joaquin Valley to help raise the level of educational attainment in the region — and we have, dramatically, already begun to do so. But this is only part of why we are here. As a campus of the University of California, UC Merced also has a vitally important research mission, which will become a key focus for growth and development in the years to come.
Without exception, UC campuses have distinguished themselves as powerhouses of invention, discovery and knowledge creation, generating the kinds of intellectual contributions that spawn entire industries, create rewarding jobs, advance human knowledge and fundamentally change how we live our lives.
Almost all of the industries in which California is a world leader — from microchips and computers to biotechnology and digital media — grew out of university-based research. Last year alone, in the midst of a stifling recession, 75 companies were formed on the foundation of UC inventions.
Here in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the richest agricultural regions of the world, the prolific output of our fields would not be possible were it not for UC researchers who figured out how to remove salts from the soil more than 100 years ago.
Throughout the world, the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's and diabetes would be much less effective were it not for University of California scientists and medical researchers.
Law-enforcement and military personnel benefit daily from university discoveries and inventions, such as advanced fingerprint technology and materials developed to withstand temperature extremes. Even our state’s vaunted wine industry owes its success to a UC researcher, whose work in the late 1800s helped turn what was then a vastly inferior product into one of the world’s most celebrated commodities.
It was the genius of the University of California Board of Regents to recognize the tremendous long-term benefits that a research university will bring to the San Joaquin Valley — benefits already enjoyed by the more prosperous coastal regions of the state where UC campuses were much earlier established. Like the great aqueduct that carries water from the Sierra Nevada to once barren land, UC Merced is poised to bring greater prosperity to the Valley through research that improves the lives of its people, stewards its natural resources and spawns new industry.
UC Merced has already directly invested over $650 million in the San Joaquin Valley — and that's not counting student spending — and created millions more in economic value through ripple effects. And our talented researchers have already produced scores of inventions that have the potential to change lives, communities and industries.
In the health sciences field, UC Merced researchers have developed a technique that considerably reduces the time needed to diagnose microbial blood-borne diseases. This is just one of a growing number of UC Merced medical and health-related discoveries, including important work on stem cells, the Hepatitis C virus and the health disparities that impact populations in the San Joaquin Valley.
In another field of vital importance to the Valley, UC Merced scientists have created a prototype network of wireless sensors to track Sierra Nevada snowpack depth, water storage in soil, stream flows and other variables much more precisely than traditional techniques allow. This technology is enormously promising in a region dependent on seasonal water flows and has great potential application throughout the world. The work of UC Merced researchers related to the cost-effective harnessing of solar energy also holds considerable promise for applications in agriculture and numerous other environments.
In yet another field, UC Merced computer and cognitive scientists are developing virtual environments that will enable more cost-effective testing of a new generation of experimental computer chips being designed by IBM to emulate the brain's abilities for perception, action and cognition. This work could lead to processors that use far less power and space than those found in today's computers and also to future applications such as traffic lights that integrate sights, sounds and smells to flag unsafe intersections.
These and many other research efforts at UC Merced indicate how very quickly the youngest University of California campus is making its mark. Our challenge now is to keep the momentum going under very difficult circumstances. Allow me to briefly explain.
The cutting-edge and impactful research produced by our nation’s leading research universities historically has been supported through a partnership between federal and state government. But this partnership has faltered over the past few decades as state support for public higher education steadily declined, well before the recent economic recession. As the global recession deepened, states — including California — slashed huge amounts from higher education budgets, and belt-tightening at the federal level is also shrinking the available pots of research funding.
Surely the task of building the 10th UC campus would be much easier under more favorable conditions. But that is not our lot, and together we must work to overcome fiscal hurdles that would otherwise deter UC Merced's continued growth and development as a world-class research university. And so, as I formally accept and undertake the responsibilities of leading this vibrant young University of California campus, I call upon each of you to support — in whatever ways you can — UC Merced's future promise to the San Joaquin Valley.
With the most diverse student body of any UC campus, UC Merced is a bold iteration of all that the University of California stands for — that every qualified student deserves a chance to get a quality education at an affordable price, that research conducted in the public interest can change the world, and that service to the community and investment in the community raises the standard of living for all.
And while this set of principles is currently under siege, it is my firm belief that California cannot afford NOT to honor that promise. California cannot afford not to invest in its future if it hopes to emerge once again as a national and global leader in innovation, and California cannot afford to leave its fastest-growing and most impoverished inland regions behind.
Here in the inland San Joaquin Valley is where UC Merced, with continued investment and support, can make a substantial difference. UC Merced's educational and economic impact will grow exponentially as the university matures, and its research agenda will produce knowledge and innovations that lift up lives and communities.
But to emerge as a mature University of California campus, UC Merced requires considerable further investment — investment in scholarships to keep college costs affordable for the broadest range of students; investment in research facilities, teaching labs, classrooms and space for the faculty and staff who teach and support our students; investment in faculty needed to support core academic programs and also to strengthen emerging areas of research prominence; investment in public health and medically related research — the essential foundation of the future medical program so desperately needed in the Valley.
In short, what UC Merced needs now is for the state and federal government, business and industry leaders, philanthropic foundations and individuals to step up and invest in this young university's extraordinary promise to improve lives and bring economic prosperity to the Valley.
By my lights, that's a promise worth fighting for, and I know that our many long-time supporters on campus, in Merced and in the greater San Joaquin Valley and the State of California agree. You fought to bring the 10th campus of the great University of California to Merced; you created innovative academic and research programs and a campus that stands as a model of sustainable architecture; you donated time, money, expertise and political influence — and all because you were visionaries who understood UC Merced's promise to the Valley and, indeed, to the entire State of California. Today, in these economically challenging times, your visionary and passionate support remains vital to our future.
By way of conclusion, I want to affirm what gives me hope and strength. UC Merced is truly blessed with extraordinary students, brilliant faculty, innovative staff, tremendous goodwill in the Valley and beyond, and firm support from President Yudof and the Regents of the University of California. My pledge to each of you is that I will work creatively and with a laser-like focus to ensure the continued growth and development of the youngest and most daring of all of the University of California’s great campuses.
Thank you.
