For a little over a year and a half, our academic community has been working on the process of transforming our vision for the future for the University into a reality. Our vision for the future is composed of three elements – to be a university of choice for the best and brightest students; to evolve into a tier one research university; and to be an academic community united in its commitment to service to the people of Alabama.

We have made very good, if not excellent, progress in our efforts to become a university of choice for the best and brightest. This fall The University of Alabama enrolled a record 21,750 students, up 781 students or approximately 3.7 percent more than last fall. Our enrollment includes a record freshman class of 3,739, up 11 percent over fall 2004. We are now the dominant public university for the vast majority of leading high schools in the state of Alabama. This fall’s freshman class includes students from 49 states.

We have grown The University of Alabama without sacrificing quality. In fact, we have grown The University of Alabama increasing quality. The academic profile of this fall’s freshman class is almost exactly the same as the academic profile from last fall. That means those freshmen entered with an average high school GPA of 3.4 and are in the top 20-25 percent on average nationally on the ACT. We had a record number of applications to the University this fall – over 10,700, up 1,600 over the preceding year. Over the last three years, applications to the University have grown by 43 percent.

We have recruiters who live and work full time in Texas, Florida and Georgia, and those recruiters are producing outstanding results. Over the last three years the number of freshmen from those three states has more than doubled, going from 206 to 502 in just three years. We are completing the interview process to place a full-time recruiter in the state of Virginia. I anticipate that by next year we’ll be putting someone in Tennessee.

As we look at our growth, there is no area where the growth is more important or more beneficial to the University than our Honors College. Under the leadership of Dean Bob Halli, Honors College, which opened its doors last year, this fall enrolled 612 freshmen, 48 more than last year, up approximately 8 percent. These students continue to average over 3.8 on their high school GPAs and rank in the top 5 percent nationally on the ACT. The University of Alabama’s ability to recruit students of this caliber is clear and conclusive proof that the academic stature of the University is continuing to grow.

One frequently used benchmark of academic quality is the number of National Merit finalists a university has in its incoming class, and last fall we had 35. This fall, we more than doubled that number to 72. If you look at the three major awards – National Merit finalists, National Achievement finalists and National Hispanic finalists – last fall we had 94. This fall it’s 145.

I am very optimistic that The University of Alabama will be ranked well within the top 20 of universities with National Merit finalists when The Chronicle of Higher Education releases its rankings within the next few months. Part of the reason we’ve been able to make this progress, is that The University of Alabama has significantly increased scholarship support over the last three years. While it’s been necessary to raise tuition, it’s been equally important to ensure that we do not close the doors to The University of Alabama for any qualified student. Over the last three years we’ve increased our financial aid from $10.8 million in the 2002-2003 academic year to $14.3 million last year, a $3.5 million increase.

We have not neglected the important area of diversity as we grow the University. This fall’s freshman class included 379 African American freshmen, up 42 percent over last fall. It is possible to grow The University of Alabama in size, in quality and in diversity.

The second element in our vision is to evolve into a tier one research university, and under the leadership of Vice President for Research Keith McDowell we’re making significant progress. Evolving into a tier one research university is a process that’s going to take many years. We’ve taken some very important steps in that evolution. One of the most important, particularly in the eyes of our science and engineering faculty, is enabling them to be more competitive when they seek federal grants and contracts. Effective this year, a half million dollars was set aside to provide scholarship stipends to cover the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for graduate research assistants appointed against external grants and contracts. By providing that funding differential we’ve enabled our faculty to be significantly more competitive.

The central analytical facility is a location where we are able to place equipment that can be used on a shared basis by faculty. This is equipment that is vitally important but relatively infrequently used by the people who need it. We more than doubled the amount of equipment in the past year and have an inventory onsite with a value in excess of $2 million.

Vice President McDowell has established a travel account. It’s very important for our faculty who want to compete for federal grants and contracts to have the flexibility to go to Washington when they need to go to develop firm working relationships with the officers of the grant and contract agencies.

Federal grant and contract activity for the year just completed was $29.3 million, up approximately $1.3 million or 5 percent over the year before. Admittedly, that’s a relatively modest increase, but its significance lies less in its size and more in change in direction. For the first time in recent years, we are beginning to see increases rather than decreases in federal grant and contract activity.

An integral part of our vision for the future is to be an academic community that is committed to service for our state, and under the leadership of the Vice President for Community Affairs Samory Pruitt we’ve made some very important initial steps. One of his programs bears a relatively simple name, but it’s a program that’s having a profound impact in the lives of those involved. It’s called Planting Stitches. It matches skilled seamstresses in the Black Belt with companies that make hand-made clothing, dramatically enhancing the earning power of women locked into one of the most impoverished areas in our state.

The journalism community services program calls attention to the programs of the Black Belt Community Foundation, increasing the likelihood that people will access these programs and that they will be well supported. The program for rural services runs after-school programs in the Black Belt to enhance the quality of education for many of the most under-funded schools in our state.

In addition to Dr. Pruitt’s work, Nisa Miranda, director of our Center for Economic Development, has several outstanding programs. One of her programs works with Alabama companies helping them to develop their export sales markets. She runs training programs to help them deal with the paperwork for export sales and helps them identify sources of export sale financing and deal with the complexities involved in shipping goods large distances. She plays a leadership role in the Black Belt Treasures program, the establishment of a Web site where Black Belt artists can sell their art literally on a worldwide basis, opening up a vastly expanded market for these talented artists.

A very important recent addition to our staff is Mr. Stephen Black. He will be providing senior leadership in the University’s service learning initiative. That service learning initiative involving student volunteers, I believe in the very near future, will involve tens of thousands of hours of trained volunteer support that will greatly benefit the citizens of Alabama and at the same time make service learning one of the defining elements of The University of Alabama educational experience.

I’ve asked Judy Bonner to undertake two important initiatives. One is to develop procedures for the allocation of new faculty positions to our colleges and schools. We must carefully evaluate the research and service activity of faculty and the current levels of staffing in a college or school, before we make decisions on the allocation of faculty.

I’ve also asked Provost Bonner to address the issue of retention. Our performance is average. We retain 83 percent of our freshmen from freshman to sophomore year, but we’re recruiting a different type of student now. On balance, they are much more able and those numbers should and must move up.

We’ve been in the process of transforming our vision for the University into a reality. We’ve focused on several important factors as we’ve moved through this process. One involves balanced excellence. Attracting the best and brightest students means that at the same time we have to have a faculty and staff merit raise pool sufficient to attract and retain outstanding teachers and staff members. We have made significant progress in faculty and staff salaries over the last two years. We’ve looked back into the University’s financial records, and we cannot find a greater increase in faculty and staff salaries for a two-year period anywhere in the records. I am very optimistic that next year will be approximately as good as this year. We are within merely a few hundred dollars of moving past the Southern University Group average on a university-wide basis, and several of our colleges and schools have already exceeded that 50th percentile. I am confident that over the next several years we will reach and pass the 75th percentile.

In the last two years The University of Alabama has opened seven buildings. We will open seven more this year – three more residence halls, a general dining hall, a dining hall for our student athletes, a student health center and a facilities building to support maintenance operations. In addition to that, we will also finish the stadium renovation and the coliseum renovation. Fourteen buildings in three years is a clear indication of The University of Alabama’s momentum.

As we go through this transformation, we must remain intently focused on a relatively limited number of drivers of our success – outstanding students, outstanding faculty and staff, strong programs, facilities and two additional factors. One is communications. We are doing a much better job of telling and selling The University of Alabama story. But there is much progress yet to be made. I rarely go to a reception in state or out where people do not talk about our ads focusing on academic excellence. We need to continue to run those ads, run more of them and improve them.

Another important factor, another driver of success, is fund raising. Even though our basic financial model is providing the core resources we need, the margin of excellence will come from our advancement office. I cannot say enough about the outstanding work of Pam Parker, Phil Adcock and Sandee Kirby during this past year. The University of Alabama had its first ever $100 million year in cash and pledges. In cash, the figure raised was in excess of $15 million more than the year before.

The dollars are important, the record is important, but imbedded in those numbers is something even more important. People give primarily because of two factors, pride and confidence – pride in what they see and confidence in what they know will be. People are proud of what they see in terms of our progress and they have confidence in the future of the University.

Third, it’s vitally important that we maintain the sense of urgency that we’ve had this past two and a half years. Urgency produces rapid progress, rapid progress produces momentum, and momentum is propelling the University forward. Rapid progress is absolutely essential because our competitors are not sitting still. Our competitive environment is also changing rapidly. As I interact with faculty and staff, students on campus, alumni and friends around the country I am seeing tangible indications that they know, they believe, the momentum is there. And, I’m seeing something equally important on campus – a sense that our success rests totally on a united effort.

As we move into this academic year, we have five short-term priorities. The first and most important one is that we will continue to make significant progress in addressing our faculty and staff compensation. The second one, which comes close in importance, is that we will intensify and expand our recruiting effort.

The third short-term objective is that we will complete all seven building projects currently underway on schedule. Also, we are going to complete our campus master plan this year because we have to have a clear blueprint as we move forward. I’m confident that the building and construction decisions we’ve made to date will fit well within that plan, but there’s a finite amount of land on our main site. We have to be certain that when we make a good decision on where to locate a building that we are not precluding an even better decision on another building in the future.

The last short-term objective is that we need to provide increased research support for our faculty, particularly in the area of technology transfer. Our faculty members are scholars and teachers. If the byproduct of their research labs is intellectual property, which has market value, that is good for the faculty member and good for the University.

In April, The University of Alabama will celebrate its 175th anniversary, but we will be doing far more than celebrating 175 years of existence and achievements. We’ll be celebrating the fact that as an academic community we’ve embraced a vision and as a community we’re executing a plan that is transforming our university. Let me conclude by saying if I could have picked any time in the 175 years of this University’s existence to have the privilege and the honor of serving as president, I would pick now, because the decade we are about to enter will be one of the most exciting and important in the history of The University of Alabama.