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 Good morning Chairman LaValle, Chairman Canestrari and members of the Senate and Assembly. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the future of New York State's Public University System. Members of the Senate and Assembly, let me begin in earnest. Two weeks ago I was in Shanghai, China at Fudan University, one of China's leading institutions of higher education.
What I heard should give us all pause. The First Secretary of the Communist Party and the Minister of Education spoke to this large group, almost all Chinese. After the pleasantries, the first words out of their mouths - literally - were these: "Our future depends on science and higher education." There was an enormous, spontaneous ovation.
Just last Wednesday, a panel convened in this country by the National Academies reported that more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China, compared to 70,000 in the United States. India graduated 350,000. The panel also highlighted that chemical companies shut 70 facilities in the United States last year and marked another 40 for closure. Meanwhile, of the 120 large chemical plants under construction globally, one is in the United States - 50 are in China.
I would note further that by 2012 in China there will be 200 new four-year universities and 20 new research universities. This will effectively double the current university enrollment within China and more than quintuple its existing university research capacity.
The United States once had a similar, aggressive commitment to higher education. Following World War II, our nation made a compact: Universities would provide a broad spectrum of Americans with access to quality higher education. Government, in partnership with universities and families, would provide funding for the effort.
Access and excellence became allies and we created the most remarkable higher education system in the world. The diversity and achievements of the graduates, scholars and researchers of the State University of New York, including the University at Albany, are manifestations of that commitment.
There is a growing realization, however, that the compact is fraying at the same time the competition in higher education is increasing. For example, a National Academies panel presented Congress with the 20 most urgently needed changes in federal support for research and higher education - if the nation is to avoid sinking into second-class status in this century.
The recommendations included establishing 30,000 new federal college scholarships in mathematics and science and a doubling of federal funds for the basic physical sciences.
The reason for these recommendations was simple: my new Chinese friends in Shanghai had expressed them: "science and higher education."
I note these developments today because, as a new arrival to New York State and the State University system, perhaps I can also bring a fresh perspective and an accompanying sense of urgency on the topic under discussion.
When I arrived at the University at Albany this year, I found a vibrant institution. One marked by a doubling of sponsored research expenditures in the last four years and a university that, despite the absence of a medical or engineering school, is among the top-ranked public research universities in the country.
 UAlbany boasts ten graduate programs in the top 25 in the nation, a world-class research library, and the most advanced nanotechnology research complex of any university in the world. It is a university that is embedded in its community through a host of programs benefiting the region, and our institution brings significant cultural benefits to the Capital District. We have a new Center for Excellence in Cancer Genomics that will bring biomedical benefits to the world.
And, it is one of the most diverse campuses within the SUNY system. We strive to provide quality programming to bring historically under-represented groups into the higher education mainstream.
Despite our successes, UAlbany, to use a phrase of the day, cannot be all that it could be. We struggle, for example, to expand access and maintain quality educational opportunities for our young people. These are the potential scholars who will provide - indeed, who must provide - the innovation that will drive the workforce of the 21st Century. They will become the competitors with the Chinese on the front lines of, to use Thomas Friedman's phrase, our increasingly flat world, knowledge economy.
I cannot overemphasize the role that public universities play in our nation and state. Nationally, they educate nearly two-thirds of workers with four-year degrees and provide more than half of the graduate degrees. They train the future generation of American professionals. They are engines of economic opportunity for the state they serve.
As Richard Florida reminded us in The Rise of the Creative Class, a research university today is essential to building the knowledge society upon which America's collective economic future will rest.
Now, as Richard Florida makes clear in The Flight of the Creative Class, we are losing innovative, creative people to India and China, for example. The United States, once the leader in bringing international students to this nation to study, now lags behind both Australia and England. Florida writes that America's economic future is now in question.
The president of Microsoft noted just last week that his company and other high tech endeavors cannot begin to find a sufficiently trained research and technology work force without reaching well beyond the shores of the United States.
The compact that made access and excellence allies are unraveling in a world of our knowledge competitors who view higher education as one of their most valuable investments.
Today, we need a renewed dedication to the mission of the public university, and that is why I strongly support the message that the Chancellor Ryan just delivered. We must strengthen our partnership and renew our compact, because our competition believes what they say about science and higher education, and they are proving it every day.
Public higher education has become the lynchpin around the world that holds together the goals for an equal opportunity society married to a high tech, information-driven economy.
At the University at Albany, we understand that to be a good partner in the compact, we must do our part. And to do so we are adopting the following measures:
First, a philosophy that turns on three words: Bigger, Better, and Different.
The University at Albany must increase its student enrollment, notably at the undergraduate level. We must get Bigger.
Yet, given our role as a research university, we must do so with Better prepared students. And, to attract these students, we need to provide a unique educational experience, tailored to their needs and reflective of the society they will enter - we must be Different in the several meanings of that word.
Second, we understand that we must be accountable and willing to match our rhetorical commitment to excellence with measures of performance. We must measure what we value, not merely value what we can measure. A step in that direction is our University Performance Dashboard that we prepare monthly, distribute widely, and keep updated on our website. A copy of it and several other items have been provided to you.
Third, we are strengthening our outstanding research programs and expanding them to meet new needs. The Legislature and the Governor have been magnificent in their support for our groundbreaking programs in nanotechnology and biotechnology.
The University, with state and private support, has undertaken several other important research initiatives in such areas as forensic science, cybersecurity, K-12 education, and urban planning.
In August we inaugurated a new college - the College of Computing and Information. Nearly three quarters of the new jobs in the Northeast are information intensive, and the new college will fully prepare students for today's information age. We are making our research program Bigger, Better, Different.
Fourth, we are re-energizing our alumni and development program to increase philanthropic support. We are renewing our private fundraising effort, reinvigorating our alumni efforts, and redirecting the University at Albany's Foundation in support of those efforts. That all means more investment in human capital - through scholarship and fellowship dollars and more endowed professorships. Bigger, Better, Different.
Also, we need to get better in the way we work. We are re-calibrating our basic planning and budget processes - the not-so-sexy, but essential stuff that makes universities work at peak efficiency for our stakeholders, the citizenry of New York, and, most of all, for our students.
And finally, we are refocusing on our commitment to the urban community we live in. The University at Albany clearly plays a critical role as an economic engine for the region and the state, with an impact assessed at more than $1.1 billion annually.
The human dimension of our social compact is one that has received less attention but is, I believe, equally vital. We have begun a sustained commitment to building an urban mission and to the neighborhoods in which we teach and learn, by providing opportunities for the diverse ethnic and racial populations of our greater community.
We are fostering a better working relationship with the City - to help in every way we can with Albany's Mid-Town Re-Development plan, and to provide a safer community for our students living there. And - with the announcement this month of an Albany High School/UAlbany partnership, The Alliance for Young Talent - the University has begun a new exciting commitment to the high school that is right on our back door.
So, yes, we intend to be Bigger, Better, and Different - and accountable at the same time. In short, we are trying to leave little doubt in your mind that we are a good investment that we will hold up our end of the compact, just as my counterparts are promising to do.
To achieve the goals of our compact, we, in partnership, must provide adequate and stable funding for our public universities. The University at Albany is tremendously appreciative of the generous capital support the Governor and the Legislature have provided. It has enabled the dramatic expansion of our research programs. Thank you for that invaluable support. The Chancellor has made excellent recommendations for future capital plans, and we strongly support them.
Campuses like UAlbany have continuing capital and critical maintenance needs and your ongoing support is vital. But as the chief operating officer of a campus, I can report to you that it is operating support that pays for the important human capital that is at the heart of our programs.
Operating support is, to use a familiar phrase in Albany, a three-legged stool: Private research and philanthropic support, tuition, and state funding. We will do our part by growing our research and increasing philanthropy.
Families share in the partnership too, and we need to make sure that all New Yorkers can be full partners, by maintaining and investing in tuition assistance and opportunity programs. And parents should be able to plan for their children's education through tuition policies that emphasize predictability. The fits and starts that characterize current tuition policy mean that far too often the costs of educating one generation are paid by another and that neither enjoy real efficiencies as a result. Chancellor Ryan, as you know, has offered a thoughtful proposal on tuition.
From our State partner, we need stable yet modest growth in operating funds. As you know, operating support in nominal dollars has grown over the years, but state appropriations as a share of state expenditures on higher education have steadily declined over the last two decades. At the University at Albany, the State once accounted for 30 percent of our operating expenses, but that has dropped to 14 percent this year.
We need a continuation of the effort made this year to help universities by paying their fixed costs in areas such as collective bargaining, energy consumption, inflation and enrollment. More important, we need it to make strategic investments in the full time faculty that will drive our innovation, our research and our education program. We urge you to consider operating support as we work in partnership, on our compact for the future of public higher education.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. I emphasize again that the University at Albany is anxious to work with all our elected representatives on these and all other issues confronting public higher education. And I am always available to answer any of your questions.
I, like you, know that the world increasingly recognizes the value of higher education. And on-behalf of public higher education and economic development in the state of New York, I remind you of the words of the First Secretary of the Communist Party leader and the Chinese Minister of Education - "Our future depends on science and higher education."
Our competitors really believe what they say. So we should listen hard. At the University at Albany, we will be responding by being "Bigger, Better, and Different." Join us. Thank you.
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