A message from the president

The great 19th-century American novelist Herman Melville once wrote: We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men (and women); and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

When we think of the United States of Melville’s time, we picture a nation of vast unsettled spaces where rugged individualism reigned supreme. But people still knew they needed one another. On the vast uncharted frontier, they built communities.

Today, modern technology brings the world to our television screens, to our computer terminals, to our cellular phones. Clearly, we are in touch with one another, but sometimes the human connections seem tenuous. Amid that flood of communications, we must not lose hold of those quiet words of wisdom: “We cannot live only for ourselves.” We still must strive to build communities. In the wake of September 11th, we are even more fully convinced of this necessity. As members of a community of learning, we reaffirm the rule of knowledge over ignorance, rationality over violence, understanding over prejudice.

Especially in this changed world, that’s what makes working in higher education so satisfying. Conveying our intellectual and cultural heritage; adding to society’s store of knowledge; bringing together people of diverse backgrounds; establishing a foundation for critical thinking and lifelong learning—those are all vital aspects of community-building. So, too, is helping create the 21st-century economy in which the people around Indiana, around the United States and, yes, even around the world, can find opportunities and prosper.

You never finish a job like that. But every so often, you need to pause, take a look at how you are doing, how far you have come and where you are headed. That’s the reason for this report.

For me, this report is a welcome reminder of the exceptional work that is being undertaken by so many of our faculty members on all eight of our campuses. They are the foundation of our university’s academic reputation. You will read of teaching and learning, and, of course, of outstanding students. Their academic successes are individual achievements, but those triumphs reflect our institution’s dedication to building a supportive educational community where a wide range of qualified students can thrive.

This August, one of our campuses received a distinct honor in this regard: Time magazine named IUB its College of the Year among research universities. It was a tribute to the coordinated efforts of our faculty members, staff and students. The Time honor was based on the targeted programs that help new students succeed at our university. The Time editors and the nominating panel of educators were impressed by the range of those programs and by our improved retention rates, particularly among minority students.

The only way for our state to achieve its full potential is for all Hoosiers to achieve theirs. We can’t allow artificial barriers—of age, ethnicity, economic status or family educational background—to keep people from reaching their higher education goals.

The success of each of our students, faculty members, scientists and researchers adds something to our society, to our communities. Their actions run as causes and come back to us as effects.