[As prepared for delivery]
On behalf UC Merced students, faculty, and staff, I want to again thank the remarkable individuals recognized tonight with Founders Day medals.
The “can do” spirit you’ve demonstrated over the years is woven deeply into the fabric of this campus. And this gives me great hope that we can continue to surmount whatever challenges come our way as we strive to become the community and regional asset you envisioned and the world’s next great public research university.
We are, I’m very pleased to say, making strong progress.
With nearly 6,000 students enrolled this fall, UC Merced is rapidly becoming a campus of choice for students who want a UC-caliber education in a welcoming, 21st century environment. Applications for admission have increased sharply over the last five years, with enrollment limited primarily by space availability and financial constraints at the state level.
The students who come to UC Merced are extraordinary. They are, of course, academically talented. But many UC Merced students have overcome significant obstacles to be here, and they are grateful for the educational opportunities they enjoy and also committed to giving back to their families and communities. UC Merced supports the largest percentage of first generation, low income and minority students within the entire University of California. Day in and day out, these students are a joy to work with and lend this campus a very special vibrancy.
Besides investing in human capital, UC Merced is also investing heavily in the regional economy. Our most recent report shows we’ve contributed approximately $815 million to the Valley in direct economic impact since we began operations in leased facilities in July of 2000. Statewide, the total is more than $1.5 billion. Students, parents, faculty, and staff multiply this direct economic impact several times over through the ripple effects created by a growing volume of local expenditures for goods and services at grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, motels, hair salons and so on.
Although the Valley economy remains sluggish, recent surveys show real job and economic growth has returned to the region for the first time since 2007. And one national research organization reported that the Merced community enjoyed the largest year-to-year improvement in economic and job growth last year in its 379-city index.
We are pleased to have a growing role in moving the economy forward and helping to ease high rates of unemployment and poverty in the Valley.
Members of UC Merced’s world-class faculty are also making their mark.
Whether it’s studying critical water flow in the High Sierra, health disparities in the Valley, the effect of climate change on forest fires or new technologies for capturing solar energy, our faculty is rapidly earning distinction for the scope and quality of its work. To date, we have attracted more than $100 million in external research awards to the region.
In addition, UC Merced has set new standards in the design and construction of a sustainable campus, with every building earning a LEED silver or gold award from the U.S. Green Building Council. No other campus in the country can make that claim, and we’ve established even more ambitious sustainability goals for the future.
For all of these reasons, you can be very proud of the university you helped establish through your generous support. The foundation we’ve built over the first decade is strong and thriving. But in many ways, we’re just beginning, and the next 10 years will prove equally momentous as we transition from a start-up campus to a more mature and highly competitive research university.
For example, over the next several years, we expect to take a detailed look at our academic and research programs and identify those with the greatest potential to advance knowledge and bring distinction to this university.
We will selectively invest in these programs, and by the time we reach a total student enrollment of 10,000, we hope to be well on our way to achieving national recognition in several important fields of study. Our goal is also to take more research inventions to the marketplace, and to build economic strength through industry partnerships and new start-up companies.
But growing a highly competitive research university is not easy, even in the best of times. It will take hard work, a steadfast strategic focus, and an ample amount of imagination to accomplish the goals we’ve set for ourselves in a state economic environment that continues to languish.
We must be aggressive in our efforts to secure additional external funding in the face of continued budgetary uncertainty at the state level. And we’ll need to modify our physical growth plans to reduce infrastructure costs and make better use of available space, on campus and off.
Among other things, that means we’ll almost certainly establish a more significant presence within the city of Merced. The good news is that this should help further stimulate the downtown economy and bring about a closer working relationship between the university and the residents and businesses of the city.
With the promise of a growing population of extraordinary students, increased research prowess, enhanced competitiveness for external support, strengthened ties to the local community, and accelerated economic impact, the next phase of UC Merced’s development is exciting indeed.
But it is clear to me—and do doubt to you—that we can’t fulfill the promise of UC Merced alone. It took a village of supporters to get the campus to a point where it broke ground for its first building. And it will take a village of supporters to help UC Merced emerge as a highly competitive research university.
As in the years leading up to UC Merced inaugural groundbreaking, our future success and prosperity will require the goodwill and advocacy of community and political leaders, foundation trustees who continue to connect us with those who may have a philanthropic interest in our young university, and the generous spirit of those who can support us financially.
Although the challenges then and now are different, they are no less daunting.
We must find a way to grow and thrive without adequate base funding from the state of California and without depending on the state to meet our capital development needs. This will require support from community leaders for alternative development pathways; support from political leaders to keep college cost affordable; and support from trustees and donors for endowed chairs, funding for critical programs such as medical education, and scholarship and fellowship support for students.
And so I am grateful that tonight’s honorees already know that building a new university to the vaunted standards of the UC system is an extraordinarily worthy cause. We’ve come a long way over the last 10 years, and we have begun to show just how much a thriving research university can mean to the great San Joaquin Valley and the state. It is with considerable excitement that I look forward to your continued involvement as we work together to make UC Merced a growing source of pride, hope and prosperity for decades to come.
Thank you.
