As spring semester draws to a close, I believe we can look forward with great optimism. Our accomplishments in the 2003-2004 academic year provide a strong foundation for that optimism.

During this year, our campus construction program made significant progress. On May 14, we will dedicate Shelby Hall, a facility that will support our transportation and science programs on a level comparable to any university in the country. Our new medical school building will be finished by the end of June. This week, we broke ground on three new residence halls which will be open by Fall, 2005. The College of Human Environmental Sciences research building will be ready for service by next Fall. The Ferguson and Rec Center renovations will be complete in the near future.

This summer we will seek approval from the Board of Trustees for three additional residence halls to be opened in Fall, 2006. We have formed a new coalition including the University, our city and the owners of rental property in the vicinity of the University. We will work together to ensure that there is a good supply of affordable, quality housing available for our students, staff and faculty — a supply of housing which respects our neighborhoods and our neighbors.

Honors College is on track to open in the fall. Through the leadership of its founding dean Bob Halli, Honors College will this fall enroll a record number of truly outstanding students, putting the University in a strong position to compete for the best and brightest.

Several of our programs have received national recognition. In particular I would like to cite Dean Ken Randall and the faculty and staff of the School of Law for their extraordinary progress in recent years and the recent number 40 ranking in U.S. News and World Report. Our students continue to bring recognition and honor to the campus. Two examples are our four USA Today Academic All Americans and our forensics team, which recently won its 15th national championship and which year in and year out performs at an extraordinarily high level.

As we look to the coming academic year, what are the areas that we need to focus on? Priority number one is faculty and staff salaries. I am optimistic that this year we will be able to make meaningful progress in addressing the deficiencies of our faculty and staff salary structure. I am optimistic that we will avoid the kind of draconian budget cuts that we had to endure last year.

In the coming year, we will continue our emphasis on enrollment management — our efforts to attract more and better students. We will manage this growth very carefully. If, at any time, our rate of growth, which is forecast at slightly over three percent per year, threatens to outstrip available instructional resources or our physical facilities, the rate of growth will be slowed or suspended.

Under the leadership of Kerry Kennedy (vice president for financial affairs), we will restructure, refinance and increase the university's debt. Through restructuring and refinancing with only a moderate increase in the annual debt service, we will be able to provide a substantial amount of additional funds for new construction and critically needed deferred maintenance. All of our activities in this area will be guided by our campus master plan which is currently undergoing revision.

The University's new strategic plan is working its way through the faculty and staff oversight review process. Within the next few months that document will be available to help us chart the future course of the University.

Last week we reaffirmed our commitment to diversity and inclusiveness on The University of Alabama campus. As is frequently the case at great universities, progress often comes from the motivation of our students. Robert, Rondee and Zenobia, the University thanks you. (Students Robert Turner, Rondee Gaines and Zenobia Harris recently led the Coalition for Change in bringing a number of concerns to the UA administration.) Our reaffirmation was based on the recognition and formal remembrance of our University's history including the role that African Americans played in that history. And equally important, our reaffirmation is based on our commitment to define our University not merely with words but rather through our actions to enhance diversity and inclusiveness on our campus.

And finally in the fall, we will seek Board of Trustees' approval for a major capital campaign to ensure that we have the financial foundation necessary to support the University's continued progress.

It was in March a little over a year ago that I had the privilege of addressing the faculty and staff of The University of Alabama for the first time. In the ensuing year, we've accomplished much together. We are now truly a University in transition, a University that has great momentum. To paraphrase the words of the poet Emily Dickinson, we are a University that "dwells in possibility" — the possibility of a true sense of academic community, grounded in inclusiveness and diversity; the possibility of broad-based academic excellence; the possibility of becoming one of this nation's leading public universities — possibilities that I believe will become realities.