Below is the text from University of Arizona President Robert N. Shelton's State of the University address delivered today: 

Thank you, Fred. You have been such a great leader for our university system. The people of Arizona owe you an enormous debt, as do I personally for your support. You are someone I count as a friend, but you are far more significantly a huge friend of this University, and I thank you for all that you have done for the U of A and our state.

And thank you all for giving of your time this afternoon to share in what I hope will be a meaningful conversation about not just the current state of our University, but the future we face together and the vision and values we must sustain to be successful in the years that lie ahead.

We have an entire ballroom full of special guests, but I want to take just a moment to recognize four groups in particular.  We have with us today many members of our President's Club, the 1885 Society, the Board of Trustees and the National Leadership Council of the University of Arizona Foundation, and I would like all of us to thank them for their incredible support of our University.

This past year, despite a terrible economy (a subject I will touch on more fully in a few minutes) we had remarkable philanthropic support. We had total gifts of more than $140 million, and those gifts allow us to provide a margin of excellence that helps set the University of Arizona apart.

But those who have given to the University have given not just their money – as important as that is – they have also given us their time and their passion. James Russell Lowell once wrote that it is "not what we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare."

We are blessed by all of you here today who have given so much of yourselves for our University, and I thank you.

In just a couple of months the University of Arizona will be celebrating its 125th anniversary.  It was on March 12, 1885, that the 13th Territorial Legislature (known to many at the time as the "thieving thirteenth"!) passed the appropriations bill establishing the UA.  As many of you know, it was a consolation prize for Tucson, where most were hoping to be awarded the state's insane asylum.  

I know at times around here it feels like Tucson got its wish... but history would tell us that ground was broken for a great university in October of 1887, and then on October 1st, 1891, six faculty members and 32 students met for opening day on the steps of Old Main.

When it was built, the University stood on the frontier of our nation, as America pushed its physical boundaries to the west.  Today, the University of Arizona stands on the frontier of a world of ideas.  It is a world free of borders, in which our faculty are redefining where disciplines meet; where knowledge grows; where the future is built.

But it is also a troubling time. Over the past two years, America has been through the most profound economic upheaval since the Great Depression.  No state was harder hit than Arizona. In a matter of months, the state went from first in the country in job creation to last.  Housing prices plummeted.  Unemployment skyrocketed.  The state's deficit soared to one-third of the total budget.  And amid that turmoil, the U of A saw its state appropriation cut by nearly $100 million.

I want to emphasize that number – one-hundred-million-dollars – because I am continually surprised by how many people on campus are unaware of the depth of cuts that have been imposed upon us, nor the speed with which they had to be applied.

Making cuts of that magnitude is no small task.  Universities are, after all, unique enterprises.  People who do not know better often say that universities should just be run like a business.  But they are not.  They cannot be.

Unlike a factory, that can just stop an assembly line, we have students enrolled in classes, which they've paid for, and living in residence halls, also paid for.  Are we just to send them home?  We have patients needing care.  Do we abandon them?  We have research projects underway for the federal government, many of them longitudinal.  To stop work could be catastrophic for critical national interests.  

We were required to cut nearly one-quarter of our state-appropriated budget. And it had to be done quickly. To do that, we sought the best advice we could get from deans and faculty leaders; from staff and appointed professionals; from Regents and donors; from alumni and students.  

We proceeded to lay out criteria that we hoped would allow us to maintain a quality student experience (something that must always be at the forefront of what we do).  We tried to protect programs that had the capacity to generate extramural funding that could in turn help sustain those programs that lacked access to similar funds; to focus on programs where we had established strengths that could allow us to maintain world-class stature; to invest in areas that were most central to meeting the state's needs (and which would hopefully give us a greater chance at state support), and which would help spur the state's badly damaged economy.

We knew, and I think most people would agree, that if we cut everything equally we were dooming the University of Arizona to a future of mediocrity.  We were not going to allow that to happen, despite the fact that we knew there would be anguish and unhappiness in some circles on campus.

And there was.

For those of you who have never experienced the unique pleasure of daily doses of venomous, often hyperbolic public criticism, let me assure you that it ranks right there with getting a root canal or having to sit through a state budget hearing.  (In fact, of those two, I'd probably choose the root canal!)

Many who have been on the receiving end over the years have been quick to return the favor to their critics.  Sir Thomas Beecham once described his critics as "...drooling, driveling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips."  And Alexander Woollcott coined the phrase "ink-stained wretches."

But unlike my far more lyrical literary friends, I found the criticism that percolated in the aftermath of the cuts to be quite helpful as a reminder of the need to continually seek out faculty input.  Perhaps more importantly, it has also brought attention to the challenge we face and has spurred debate that I hope will inspire creative ideas and new approaches.  Ultimately that's what a university should be about.

Sadly, we will need to continue that dialog, because the challenges in Arizona will undoubtedly persist for the next couple of years.  In July of 2011, when the federal stimulus funding expires, we face a perilous cliff.  Let no one on this campus underestimate how steep that cliff may be.

That is why we will continue to push for increases in tuition – along with corresponding increases in financial aid – so that we are better prepared to handle what will surely be a significant cut in funding in fiscal year 2012.

I would argue that as the state effectively forces us into a higher tuition, higher aid model, we should not despair.  Despite a large increase in tuition, last year our student debt actually declined because we've been able to put more money into need-based aid.  In making our budget decisions, the one area that we said was off the table from the very beginning was financial aid.  And as a result we had the largest, most diverse and best prepared class in our University's history arrive this Fall.

Of all the great successes that have occurred at the University of Arizona over the past few years (and there have been many), the accomplishment I am most proud of is the Arizona Assurance program.  In its first year it brought 600 students to the UA, free of charge to their families, and this year we enrolled another 750 Arizona Assurance scholars, thus  backing up our promise that family income will not be a barrier to a UA education.

In less than two decades we've seen higher education's portion of the state budget pie in Arizona decline from more than 16% to 10%.  Yet what we are seeing in the decline of state support is not unique to Arizona, as similar trends are happening all over the nation.

America's commitment to universal basic education in the 19th-century allowed us to build the foundation that let us lead the world in the 20th-century.  The Morrill Act, which created our nation's Land-Grant universities, fostered a culture of discovery and outreach that ignited industry. The advent of the GI Bill following World War II may arguably have been the single greatest economic stimulus in world history.  The investment in research universities following Sputnik gave America a technological lead that was unsurpassed.

Yet today, as a country, we have lost our way.  We seem to have forgotten how the investment in education has paid off.  We have a number of legislators who are great supporters of higher education, and who "get it" when it comes to the economic, social and cultural impact of a Land-Grant university.  But sadly we also have legislators in this state who not only fail to grasp the value of a highly educated, technologically literate citizenry; they actively work to suppress it.

In a column last month, New York Times economist Paul Krugman pointed out that in the previous 5 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 143,000 jobs had been eliminated in state and local education.  Said Krugman: "That may not sound like much" (although it sounds like a lot to me), "but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that's no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that's exactly what we're doing."

As states around the country eliminate funding for, and positions in, education – P through 20 – our competitors around the world are investing at a record pace.  A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out that "while many U.S. states slash their higher-education budgets, East Asian countries have faced the (economic) crisis by funneling more resources into the future."

According to the Chronicle: "China has invested in a group of select universities that it hopes will become globally renowned hubs of technological and scientific research, while in South Korea, leaders are spending billions of dollars on projects designed to spawn top-notch laboratories and attract foreign universities as partners.  And as Taiwan's economy loses ground to China, it is trying to draw top talent through aggressive international recruitment."

As our competition around the globe invests more in education and Arizona invests less, we face another daunting challenge (or as some may describe it, opportunity) in the form of rapidly changing technology, and what that means for how people get information, how we deliver instruction and how students learn.  The world our students inhabit is changing dramatically.

Last year at a Regents meeting here in Tucson, Regent Fred DuVal presented a video called "Did you Know?" which chronicles the leaps that the world is experiencing in technology. There is a new iteration of that series now out, and let me cite just a few numbers from it, because they are informative of how rapidly the landscape is changing.

For example, if the three traditional television networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – had all aired original content 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from the time that ABC was founded in 1948 – that is 61 years of uninterrupted original broadcasting of the three networks combined – they would not have broadcast as much material as was uploaded to YouTube over the past two months.  

To give you a sense of new media vs. old media, consider that those three traditional networks – ABC, CBS and NBC, collectively draw 10 million unique visitors per month to their news web sites. Not bad, you might think – a little over three million each.  But remember, these businesses have been around for a combined 200 years.

And while they are attracting 10 million visitors, there are 250 million unique visitors per month to MySpace, YouTube and Facebook.  None of these sites existed six years ago.

What's going to happen over the next six years?  What do we do as technology evolves around us at an incomprehensible pace, changing the way knowledge and information are shared and digested?  What do we do as the state shirks its responsibility to invest in future generations and as our competitors around the globe invest more?

Last month I was at a reception at the Lunar and Planetary Lab for a preview of the latest video on the Phoenix Mars Mission that was produced by Arizona Public Media.  As I watched it I was struck by both the creativity that went into producing the video and the creativity that was needed to dream up a mission to Mars.  Those are two completely different types of activity that share the common thread of creativity.

Nurturing creativity is one of the central things we do at a university.  We have on this campus some of the most creative minds in the world.  They embody the creativity in each college of this great university.  We have people here who not only can create a way to get to Mars or create a way to tell that story, but who can create cures for disease; create panels to harness the sun's rays; who can create new avenues to grow food in arid landscapes; who invent new ways to teach; new ways to think; and who create artistic expressions that inspire our personal creativity to reach new heights.

It is through the collective creativity of the people on this campus that we will find the solutions to the problems we confront.  It is through that collective creativity that we will, as a campus community, redefine who we are.

Which raises a question that seems to come up far too frequently: who are we, and why do we exist?

For those of you who are unclear on our purpose or confused about our mission, you need only write down these three words: access, quality and discovery.

It is those three attributes that are central to everything that defines the University of Arizona experience.

We are here to provide students with access to a quality education that is infused by the wonder and excitement of discovery.   It is that simple.

No matter how much we are cut, no matter how obstinate or obtuse certain politicians in this state may be when it comes to our mission, we cannot deny the sons and daughters of Arizona access to our University and the hope that it can foster.

We will not compromise on quality, and we will hire, retain and nurture those scholars whose creativity will alter the world, uplift the state, shape the education of those who come here, and inspire all of us to draw on our personal humanity to improve our society.

I am determined that this University will lead the nation in integrating access, quality and discovery.  Cuts be damned, we have the creativity to do it.

Just think of what we did in a matter of months when federal stimulus grants were made available to competitive bids.  Faculty from every university in the country flooded federal agencies with proposals. And with more grants still to be awarded, our faculty have already received $80 million in stimulus awards.

These include $13 million for Neal Armstrong in Chemistry and Biochemistry to study hybrid solar-electric materials; $10 million to Marcia Rieke at Steward Observatory to support the NIRcam project; nearly $5.5 million to Marek Zreda in Hydrology and Water Resources for work on the Cosmic-Ray Soil Moisture Observing System, also known as COSMOS; $4.7 million to Bruce Wright in Economic Development to develop the Arizona Biosciences Park; $4.3 million from NSF to Jon Chorover of Biosphere 2 for work on the transformative behavior of water, energy and carbon in the critical zone; and $1 million to Andrew Comrie in the Graduate College for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

In addition to these large dollar awards, we have significant funding to Heidi Harley in Linguistics to document, analyze and teach the endangered Hiaki language; and to Linda Green in Anthropology to assist Native veterans returning from conflicts in the Middle East as they reintegrate into their rural, isolated communities.

Do we have creative people here?  You bet we do.

For obvious reasons, much of the attention this year has been focused on our problems, but reflect for just a moment on our successes in one of the most difficult and challenging years in history.  What extraordinary accomplishments we saw!

Despite the budget limitations, we've still been able to make important new investments in areas that will lead us forward in the coming decades, especially in programs related to the environment, health and human understanding.

With the input of our faculty we are developing new majors, new schools and new institutes that reflect the most critical needs of our state and that transcend the traditional academic boundaries, opening the way for revolutionary new gains in knowledge, understanding and student engagement in areas as diverse as neurosciences and cognitive sciences, earth and the environment, environmental engineering, humanities, border studies, and in government and public policy.

Our faculty, as you would expect, continue to do internationally acclaimed, groundbreaking work.  Whether it is UA physicians performing the state's first intestine transplant; our environmental experts shaping the national debate on climate change; discovering water on Mars and better ways to harvest water in the southwest; developing new models for weather forecasting; new insights into aging; new ways to track terrorists; finding ways to help blind students achieve better math skills; promoting language acquisition and preservation; or creating poetry that is gaining national awards, the success of our faculty over the span of our disciplines is simply amazing.

The greatness of our faculty is not lost on prospective students or their families.  As I mentioned earlier, our enrollment this fall reached record levels.  Our freshman class this year, at just under 7,000, is not only our largest, it is our most ethnically diverse, with more than 41 percent of the Arizona resident students representing ethnic minorities.  That is a particularly remarkable accomplishment, considering that only 32 percent of minorities who graduate from high school in Arizona are eligible for admission to any of the three public universities in the state.  More importantly, this is our most academically talented class, with the number of students in the top bands of our academic index more than doubling since last year.

And we have made important improvements to the campus.  You need only look right outside these doors at the Second Street Garage to see the roof covered with new solar panels.  They are the first to be added in a project that ultimately will involve solar power generating panels on four buildings and solar water heating units added to two buildings.  And that is just one piece of an ongoing and determined commitment to find cleaner energy and create a greener, more sustainable campus.

The story this year at the University of Arizona isn't about budget cuts, it is about exceptional people making a difference in the lives of students and the future of our state.

There is no mistaking the fact that the University of Arizona is a different place today than it was 125 years ago.  It is different than it was 20 years ago, and it will no doubt be different in the years that lie ahead.  The changes that are occurring in our world require that.  

How different – how we change and what we become – will be decided in the months ahead by the collective creativity of the people on this campus and those who care about it.

We will undoubtedly have to charge more; that is inevitable.  We will have to do things differently and more efficiently, and there are some things we will simply no longer be able to do.  But in the end our focus will be – as it always has been – on making life better for Arizona.

Thoreau once wrote that "if one advances confidently in the direction of his dream, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

These are not common hours.  In time, historians will record whether or not we had the will to sustain our dream and to stand for what mattered in a time of unprecedented challenge.

We have been a part of the dream of Arizona families for 125 years.  Our task is to keep that dream alive.  Working together, I am confident we will succeed.

Thank you.