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

December 15, 2003

Dear Colleagues:

As the semester and the calendar year draw to a close, I want to bring 
you holiday greetings from Joan and me and briefly update you on the 
state of the University of Illinois. I also want to share with you some 
of my activities on behalf of the university.

This is the third consecutive year that we have struggled financially, 
and I know it is wearing. Please know how grateful I am for your 
perseverance and creativity in keeping this wonderful university the gold 
standard for public higher education in Illinois and well beyond.

Obviously, we face the continued reality of reduced state funds, but 
higher enrollments. Fewer faculty and professional and support staff, but 
more work. Less time and energy, but greater demands for our good ideas 
and expertise. As if all that were not enough, we have undertaken a much-
needed technology upgrade that touches every one of us.

In good years--and especially, in bad--we each do our part to make this 
university run at the highest level. Your hard work as a teacher, 
scholar, researcher, secretary, librarian, nurse, curator, plumber, 
computer administrator--whatever you do--makes this university succeed, 
day in and day out.

And succeed you have! From faculty honored by the Royal Swedish Academy 
of Sciences to students named as Fulbright and Gates scholars, the 
excellence of this university is recognized far and wide.

Our chancellors, provosts, deans, directors, and department heads have 
spent the last three years wrestling with budget constraints and being 
forced to make tough decisions that balance necessity against desire. 
They all deserve a special nod of thanks for their extraordinary 
commitment to their campuses and our university.

And as they went about their difficult work, so did I.

Most of the president's business is external--on behalf of the University 
of Illinois I face outward to the Congress, the Illinois General 
Assembly, the corporate world, donors, alumni, and, yes, the media. The 
internal work most typically is expressed through periodic open dialogue 
with the University Senates Conference, campus Senate meetings, academic 
professional organizations, and the like. This year, I even taught a 
journalism course session on myths about the university's affordability, 
administrative overhead, and research productivity.

My calendar, however, by design and imperative is primarily 
outward-looking. Since September, I have met with nearly 40 legislators 
on campus or in their districts; 15 of those interactions were 
specifically about our proposed (and subsequently approved) tuition 
program for 2004-05. Included, of course, are the House and Senate 
leaders and members of the Legislative Audit Commission.

In this same period, I made three community visits to various regions of 
the state, a practice of mine for the last eight years. Typically these 
visits include lunch speeches and alumni receptions, media interviews, 
and editorial-board meetings. I was especially excited by a speech 
opportunity with Rotary One in Chicago and the opportunity to deliver 
remarks at Trustee Frances Carroll's church. The underlying theme of my 
public statements, regardless of the setting, is the value of public 
higher education to this nation. The text of my Rotary One "stump speech" 
is at 
<http://www.uillinois.edu/president/speeches/>www.uillinois.edu/president/
speeches/.


It is the same message I bring to all my public interactions, including 
in the last three months, meetings of the Illinois Board of Higher 
Education, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the 
annual Salute to Academic Achievement for high-achieving minority high 
school students, state agricultural leaders, the Illinois Latino Caucus, 
and the Illinois Coalition. Finally, in November I ended a term as 
chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of State 
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. Three of the last four University 
of Illinois presidents have chaired this important organization, and I am 
honored to have served NASULGC and American public higher education this 
way.

I hope this outline of my activities reminds you that we all serve the 
University of Illinois in the ways our positions dictate. The president 
of the university primarily engages our external audiences and 
constituents in support of the university's missions and goals. But the 
hard work of the institution is in your hands.

We are halfway through the academic year. We are challenged to be 
optimistic as we serve our students, our patients, our many publics who 
rely on us.

Again, thank you for your good work. Have a peaceful and joyful holiday 
season and a healthy and happy new year.


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

-- 
This message sent via MASSMAIL.  < http://www.cites.illinois.edu/services/massmail/ >