To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff
           <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "uipres@uillinois.edu" <uipres@uillinois.edu>

Reply-To: uipres@uillinois.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - PRESMAIL - A Letter from the President




September 5, 2003

Dear Colleagues:

Welcome to what surely will be one of the most challenging years the 
University of Illinois has faced in modern times.  We have more students 
than ever, and fewer faculty and graduate students to teach them. We have 
a bigger budget than ever, but significantly less money from our single 
most important source, the State of Illinois. We have greater demands on 
us for evidence of accountability and fewer of us to do the work. These 
countervailing forces, which can be summed up as "Do more with less," are 
difficult, but I ask all of you to lean into the wind.

Whether you are a longtime faculty or staff member or new to our campuses 
in Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign, I hope one thing is clear: 
this university will move forward, clearing hurdles as we go, because we 
know no other way. It is in our charter that we will teach, that we will 
discover, and that we will serve.

The nation's public universities, which educate fully 80 percent of all 
students in college, fueled the successes of the American Century, and 
the University of Illinois has grown in size, stature, and impact as the 
nation has. The land-grant universities, a special subset of public 
higher education, brought this country's agriculture and engineering to 
new heights, and the University of Illinois was in the vanguard. The 
nation's research universities, another subset of American higher 
education, encouraged discovery and innovation that led to longer lives, 
more conveniences, and, yes, the means to surf the world's knowledge on 
our home computers. The University of Illinois was in the top tier of 
research universities--and remains there. Public universities made and 
kept a promise to be affordable, to be comprehensive, and to be open to 
changing demographics and shifts in populations. The University of 
Illinois works every day to reflect today's world, even as our libraries 
and galleries honor the knowledge and peoples of the past.

All of this work--all of the effort in our multifaceted identity as a 
great public, land-grant, research university of opportunity--relies on 
your contributions. Only your commitment and hard work can help the 
university fulfill its obligations. Those of us who are honored to lead 
the University of Illinois--our Board of Trustees, the chancellors, the 
provosts and the deans, especially--understand the difficult choices 
being made every day up and down this large organization. Their thousands 
of decisions--small and big--are both a burden and an opportunity to take 
a closer look at what we are doing and whether, because of our financial 
woes, we can do some things better or smarter, or not at all. We have 
tried these last two years to protect our academic offerings; 
unfortunately, our students will bear some negative consequences. But, as 
all university presidents must, I remain an optimist and ask you to stay 
with us with the expectation of a better tomorrow.

As always, Joan and I wish each of you a most productive and fulfilling 
year.


James J. Stukel
President
uipres@uillinois.edu
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the President

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