STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN PHOENIX
By Robert N. Shelton
President The University of Arizona March 3, 2010

Thank you, Mayor Gordon, for both the introduction and for your outstanding leadership of this city.

We are honored to have you as an alumnus, and Phoenicians are very lucky to have you leading their city. You have always had a deep commitment to the role that higher education -- and particularly medical education -- can play in the health of this city (if you will pardon the pun).

That vision and support are deeply appreciated by all of us at the University of Arizona, and I know the feeling is shared by my colleagues at ASU and NAU as well.

So thank you, Phil, for all you've done to make this community better. And thanks to all of you 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 great University, but the future we face together and the vision and values we must sustain to be successful in the years that lie ahead, both here in Maricopa County and throughout the entire state.

We have with us today many special friends, and time does not permit me to individually recognize them all, but I am pleased to acknowledge one person. He is my boss; the President of the Arizona Board of Regents, Ernest Calderon.

Ernie... (APPLAUSE) In a time of unprecedented economic stress, President Calderon has shown great resolve in trying to protect the state's public universities, and I am very grateful for his commitment and personal support.

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the UofA.

Some of you are familiar with the very precarious nature of our beginnings. A university wasn't even the original goal.

Instead, Tucson wanted to acquire the biggest prize of all, the insane asylum, which was going to come with an unprecedented $100,000 of state funding.

But the stagecoach carrying the delegation from Tucson to the legislative session in Prescott, where the state capital was then located, was delayed by rain, and as a result Phoenix prevailed at that session and got all that it wanted, ending up with both the insane asylum and the state capital...and I'm going to let you fill in your own joke here.

We actually have some great friends from the legislature here today (who probably sometimes feel like they are working at an asylum) and we are very appreciative of their support in a difficult and challenging time.

The University's very beginning occurred at a time of great uncertainty in Arizona's history. The territory (we weren't yet a state) couldn't afford to purchase land for the University, so a local citizen was able to twist the arm of two gamblers and a saloon keeper, who at the final hour agreed to donate 40 acres of desert scrub that became our Tucson campus. The people of Arizona at that time didn't have much money (some things never change!), but they had something more valuable. They had a vision.

At the groundbreaking for Old Main, the Honorable C.C. Stephens, who was Pima County's representative to the 13th legislature, said this: "The world may forget its heroes but shall remember its teachers. The name of Alexander may fade from the scroll of history but the name of Plato, never; and the memory of this day and its actors we trust will live as long as men walk the earth, aspiring toward intellectual growth and progress, revering liberty of mind and cherishing independence of soul."

Those are the very sentiments that underpin what we have tried to be for the past 125 years.

As we reflect on our history, it is important to note that while we may have started on 40 acres in Tucson, from the very earliest years we have also had a prominent physical presence in Phoenix and Maricopa County.

In 1887, after the passage of the Hatch Act, which established agricultural experiment stations, the very first permanent director recommended that experiment stations be founded not only in Tucson, but also in Yuma, Phoenix and Tempe.

And the Regents quickly concurred.

Soon thereafter, horticultural students planted a wide variety of fruit trees, nuts and grapes at the experiment stations in Tempe and Phoenix, where they also studied soils, climate, and the care, propagation and marketing of plants.

In the early 1900s, trains loaded with experiments and demonstrations would travel the state, sharing the University's discoveries, and Phoenix was a regular destination.

Today in Maricopa County, we still have our cooperative extension office, but it is no longer just about agriculture.

Today, among many other things, extension offers training for child care professionals through the John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Resources, along with everything from food safety courses to classes in grand parenting.

In Scottsdale, you can receive an Eller MBA - one of the most highly regarded business degrees in the country. Most recently, we have partnered with Maricopa Community Colleges to establish two-plus-two programs, and have identified 14 UA degree areas of critical importance to the district.

We are focusing on Chandler and Paradise Valley for physical delivery of what will be a lower cost, more readily available UA degree here in Maricopa County.

The City of Chandler has committed to five years rent-free in lab space and ten years rent-free in instructional space, with Management Information Systems and optics programs available in Chandler this coming year.

Paradise Valley articulation is focused not only on high-access programs such as retail, consumer finance, and family studies and human development, but also on collaborative laboratory experiences in life sciences programs.

But clearly our biggest commitment - that which will have the most profound impact on this community and this state - is in biotechnology and medical education at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

Central to that campus is The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix, in partnership with Arizona State University.

Additionally, the University of Arizona Colleges of Pharmacy and Public Health have a strong presence on this campus. As you may know, Arizona has a serious shortage of health care professionals.

In nursing, Arizona has 681 nurses per 100,000 people, compared to a national average of 825. That is a huge gap.

In the field of pharmacy, there are similar shortages, and among physicians, the most critical and time-consuming to train, Arizona averages 214 doctors per 100,000 patients, substantially below the national average of 250.

And we are even farther behind in the category of primary care physicians.

The demand in Arizona, driven by our state's demographics, would suggest that we should be above the national average, not trailing it badly.

We must educate more doctors in Arizona if you and your family are going to get the care you expect and need. The College of Medicine in Phoenix is critical to meeting that demand.

Already, we have had great success.

We were able to put together very quickly faculty and staff to launch the school.

We received accreditation in record time before the first class began their studies. The first cohort of students passed the first board exams at a near-perfect rate, much higher than the national average.

Importantly, the students who have enrolled here are not just committed to becoming the next generation of great doctors, they are also committed to serving this community.

As medical students, they work providing care in homeless clinics, do screenings in senior centers and are inspiring and mentoring young students to become the physicians and health care workers of tomorrow.

While continuing to teach, the faculty here in Phoenix have garnered important awards recognizing their scholarship and generated millions of dollars in research grants to help define the cutting edges of medicine. Even though this campus is in its infancy, the faculty have already passed the national average for the number of research dollars generated per faculty member.

The potential impact of this campus greatly exceeds just the creation of new physicians, as critical as that is. The impact on the economic well-being of Maricopa County and on the quality of life for those who live here is going to be enormous.

There is no question that biotechnology will be a driving force for our nation's economy in the decades ahead.

And where will biotech flourish?

More than sixty-percent of biotech companies are spun out of university medical schools.Eighty-percent of biotech companies are within 60 miles of a medical school campus.

How hard is it to envision the importance of this campus in this community, or its potential impact on the fortunes of our state?

Working with our partners at ASU, NAU, the City of Phoenix, TGen and the State, this campus that has risen on the site of the old Phoenix Union High School will create the physicians that Arizona needs; advance cutting edge research that will improve health care; drive the biotech industry that is so critical to the economic future of our state; and serve the important clinical needs of patients in this region, particularly as we build out the University of Arizona Cancer Center, which will play a prominent role at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus site.

The Arizona Cancer Center here in Phoenix will be larger than its counterpart in Tucson, where research supports more than 5,000 jobs and we've seen the spinoff of 14 biotech enterprises.

Ten years from now we anticipate that the Cancer Center here in Phoenix will serve 64,000 patients each year. Building a campus from scratch is an enormous undertaking in the best of times.

It is an ambitious endeavor, and even if we weren't in the midst of a recession, there would still be those who would yell "stop".

Sadly there are always some in any community who just can't bring themselves to envision the possibilities of a brighter tomorrow. The singular objective of these naysayers seems to be blocking those who dare dream of something better.

You may recall the story of the patent officer who resigned in the early 1900s because he was quite sure that everything that could ever be invented had been. Thank goodness our country had people with more imagination than he.

Now, more than ever, our state needs people with imagination as well.

A critical stumbling block to our success in Phoenix is the delay in construction of a Health Sciences Education Building, which we must have if we are going to increase the enrollment in both pharmacy and medicine, and fulfill the plan for this campus.

HSEB, as it is called, will enable us to go from 48 medical students currently, to 120 students per class - taking us to 480 total medical students on campus - with an additional 80 students in pharmacological studies. That building was approved by our Board of Regents.

A bill supporting it was passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor. Bonds, payable through the lottery and not the general fund, are ready to go.

But one legislative committee - JCCR, the Joint Committee on Capital Review -- has refused to give it a procedural hearing.

They don't have to pass it to have the project go forward, they just have to put it on their agenda.

More than 5,000 construction jobs and a future economic engine for this region hang in the balance and wait. It is my hope that business and community leaders here in Phoenix will be help us get this project moving forward.

It is time.

Investing in education has always been the right thing. The returns are enormous.

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 - including the University of Arizona -- 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. Despite the indisputable evidence of the importance of education in our nation's history, our state is going in the wrong direction.

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%.

Over the past two years, state funding for the University of Arizona has declined by $100 million, roughly one-quarter of our state appropriation.

As a result, we have had to eliminate 600 positions. We closed 24 academic programs; merged nine other academic programs and consolidated four colleges into one.

Simply said, we have cut all we can cut if we are going to continue to fulfill our mission to the state.

Yet there are some politicians in this state who want to cut us more.

In fact, some have told me they relish the idea.

There is clearly no logic in that, given the obvious economic advantages that come from investing in higher education.

And just as importantly, it flies in the face of what the people of Arizona want.

The Center for the Future of Arizona, a think tank established by former ASU President Lattie Coor, did an important statewide survey last year entitled "The Arizona We Want".

Through their survey work they were able to identify eight goals that formed a citizen's agenda.

The first three goals related specifically to what higher education can do for us as a state.

The first was to create quality jobs for all Arizonans. Well, you don't create quality jobs without quality education.

The second was to prepare Arizonans of all ages for careers in the 21st-century workforce. Again, that is not possible without a public investment in higher education.

The third goal was to make Arizona "the place to be" for talented young people.

In other words, develop what is commonly referred to today as a "creative class" - exactly what universities do.

The people of Arizona are no different than people in any other state. They need, require and want basic services. They want roads without potholes and they want the police to arrive in an emergency.

They want good schools for their children, and they want them to have the chance to unleash their potential by having access to top flight universities.

In the end, the old dictum still holds true: you get what you pay for.

And there is no place where that is more true than in education.

More cutting is not the answer.

It is time to renew the investment in our state's future.

The tragedy is that it doesn't actually take very much to restore the funding the UA has lost. It would cost about $15 per Arizonan per year -- a little over a dollar a month.

The question we have to answer as a state is should we threaten our future to save a buck a month?

We are, as a state and nation, entering the most highly competitive era in the history of humankind.

Never before has education been so imperative to a nation's health: the physical health of its people, who are dependent on new advances in science; the health of its economy, dependent on those who are tech savvy and capable of interconnecting traditional disciplines and operating in a diverse and rapidly changing world business culture; and for our national security, where we need people who are smart about other countries and their cultures, as well as capable of breaking ground in those academic areas that will keep us ahead of those nations and groups that wish us harm.

The areas of importance to this country and our state ALL require research-centered university educations.

It is not an overstatement to say that the future success of this state depends on the success of the University of Arizona, and our mission to foster access, quality and discovery.

In the early 1920s, Frank Lockwood, who was then acting UA President, predicted that in 100 years - just about now - "the University will have grown until it will be the most noteworthy and honorable institution in the entire state of Arizona."

We think we have made good progress in fulfilling President Lockwood's vision.

Arizona families continue to see the value in what we offer.

Our enrollment this fall reached record levels, and applications for the coming fall are 2,000 ahead of last year's record pace.

The freshman class that enrolled this year, at just under 7,000, is not only our largest freshman class in history, 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. Those students are being taught by some of the finest and most talented faculty in the world.

They are faculty who create knowledge through research and scholarly activity, and involve their students in that adventure of discovery.

Just think of what our faculty were able to do 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 $84 million in stimulus awards.

When this year is completed, we will reach over $600 million in total research funding.

Those research grants that our faculty bring in create thousands of jobs and open the door to advances and new knowledge that make life better for everyone in Arizona. Our world is changing dramatically.

There was a story in the New York Times last month that reported on a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It reported that American children, aged 8 to 18, spend seven-and-a-half hours a day using electronic devices - smart phones, computers, television.

The Times went on to report that "because so many of them are multi-tasking - say surfing the internet while listening to music - they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven-and-a-half hours."

That access to technology is having a dramatic impact on how young people digest information and learn; about how they interact with peers; about their expectations for a university.

Just think of how MySpace, YouTube and Facebook have changed our culture.

None of those sites existed six years ago.

So what's going to happen over the next six years?

What impact will the rapid technological changes sweeping society have on how we teach and connect with coming generations of students?

People may think we are hidebound enterprises, but believe me, universities are constantly evolving and reshaping to meet the demands of society.

At the University of Arizona we have changed a lot over the past 125 years, and we are clearly going to have to change a lot in the years that lie ahead.

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.

An important part of our future will be built here in Phoenix.

In time, historians will record whether or not we had the will to sustain our dream for this state and this community, and whether or not we were willing to stand for what mattered in a time of unprecedented challenge.

I am hoping that I can count on you to stand with us. 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 in every corner of this State where we have a presence, and particularly here in Phoenix.

We are proud to be a part of this community, and grateful for your support of our mission here.

Thank you.