Joel E. Anderson
Chancellor
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
September 26, 2003
Inaugurations are rare occasions that encourage reflection, and they provide an opportunity to set the stage for future acts. Accordingly, I want to reflect on the power of place, a major shaping force in the development of this university during its first 75 years, just completed. Then I want to announce three important steps we will take as we move more deeply into the 21 st Century.
For centuries people have recognized that there can be a power of place, of location, whether it be controlling the high ground on a battlefield, or being located on the coast with easy access to international shipping, or owning land that below the surface holds a bountiful supply of valuable natural resources.
Perhaps most obviously, our place, our metropolitan region, supplies most of our students. The large professional communities of central Arkansas have always been a source of highly qualified adjunct faculty who greatly enrich the instructional programs we provide our students. The larger urban community has always been a fertile field for internships and cooperative education placements and other forms of field experience. The diversified and stable employment base has been the setting of jobs for so many of our students who must combine work and the pursuit of higher education. The area provides employment after graduation, and a very high percentage of our graduates remain nearby.
We also have an attractive campus that becomes more attractive every year. Someday I hope it will be so attractive and interesting that area residents will drive out-of-town friends to campus just to look.
The amenities of the city, the natural beauty of the area, the outdoor recreational opportunities that are in easy driving distance-these are all great assets when recruiting faculty and staff.
But there are less obvious ways in which we enjoy the power of place.
This university is located in the geographic center of the state, almost the bull's eye. This makes the university accessible to the state and the whole state accessible to the university.
UALR is located in the center of much else in Arkansas-population, government, health care, communications, business and finance including the national headquarters of a number of prominent national firms, and the largest school districts.
This place is a crossroads, made so by land, air, and water transportation systems.
In this place we are blessed with successful cultural organizations-the symphony orchestra, art center, museums, a performing arts center, a repertory theater, a dinner theater, and a vibrant River Market District.
There is a zoo, a minor league baseball team, War Memorial Stadium, the Statehouse Convention Center , a fine public library system. There is Alltel Arena. There is Burns Park , long outstanding and now even more so with its wonderful new soccer fields. The Little Rock Air Force Base. The Arkansas River and Lake Maumelle . Pinnacle Mountain . There are vigorous non-profit organizations and strong communities of faith.
A presidential library is rising on the banks of the Arkansas River , along with the library's neighbor-to-be, the world headquarters of Heifer International.
Through the years our faculty have reached out and developed relationships and otherwise taken advantage of this multitude of community assets. They have used these community assets to enrich the education of their students in every discipline. No academic department on this campus has been untouched by the influence of our urban environment.
This place energizes this university.
For a number of years I was puzzled by something I saw. In visiting a variety of campuses around the nation, while on accreditation visits or for other reasons, I noticed that urban and metropolitan universities, such as UALR, were characterized by more energy, more dynamism, than other universities. They even appeared to be over achieving. I finally recognized the source. They were located in cities, and more importantly, they were intimately connected to their urban environments. Cities are dynamic places. They energize their partner universities.
Faculty draw from the power of this place, as they interact with their professional colleagues around the nation and the world, and as they seek to engage their students in the persistent and universal questions of their disciplines.
We indeed enjoy the power of place. This is a marvelous place to be building a university!
I will repeat something I have said previously--I want "UALR" and "partnership with the community"-this place--to be synonymous. It is good for both of us.
We know that as the community prospers, we prosper. We know that as the community suffers, we suffer. Many of the most vexing problems of civilization in the 21 st Century are found in our Nation's metropolitan communities. More often than not, when we research and address issues in our own backyard, we address issues of national significance that are found in metropolitan regions around the nation.
With advantages go responsibilities. Let's talk about some responsibilities of place.
First, a comment on the students we serve by virtue of place. They are young, many of them, recent high school graduates. And many of them are well beyond the traditional college age, coming to college later for the first time, or returning after an absence, often with job and family responsibilities to discharge along with their studies. Many must pursue their quest for a degree on a part-time basis. A large majority of them commute. A third of them are minorities and a majority are women.
They all need a first rate college education. They recognize that it will let them step up the ladder of success. They need to achieve that education with as little expense in time and money as possible.
Earning a college degree is hard work and requires a costly personal investment. For our students it often requires family sacrifice, financial and otherwise.
UALR should exhibit a constant commitment to helping our students achieve a college education with as little expense in time and money as possible.
Therefore, the first of three announcements:
I am asking the faculty to conduct a review of all of our academic policies and procedures from the ground up, in order to identify and remove bottlenecks and barriers to student progress and graduation.
If we were to wipe the slate clean and start over, what would be different? What would be better?
I am confident there will be faculty enthusiasm for this effort because at one time or another almost every faculty member has pointed at sometime and said, I wish we could change that, or what we are doing there makes no sense.
I believe we can agree that our policies and procedures were not chiseled in stone and were not handed down to Dr. Carey Stabler on Pinnacle Mountain in AD 1957.
The underlying point here is that things change. Policies and procedures which were developed to fit a particular circumstance at a particular time need to be revisited and revised in light of current realities.
I do not need to be hypothetical. Let me give you one example with data.
During the last two years, seven out of 10 students we handed an undergraduate diploma brought credits from another college or university, many from two, three, four, or five other institutions.
Things have changed.
A few decades ago there were far fewer colleges and universities and far fewer people enrolled in them as compared with today. In 1950 only 2.3 million were enrolled in college, whereas the number had jumped to 15.3 million in 2000.
At the same time, changes in the economy and in transportation and communication have produced a very mobile population. In short, a few decades ago, when the current body of common academic policies and procedures took shape, there were few colleges and not very many students. The transfer student was the exception. Today the transfer student at our institution is the rule.
Although there are important two-year to four-year transfer issues that should be addressed, the transfer of credits from one four-year institution to another may be where we need most to devote attention. Despite being taught by equally credentialed faculty who earned their graduate degrees in the same fine institutions we did, transfer students often confront barriers and delays in their majors for reasons that ought to be questioned.
Transfer of credit is only one example of an area in which we could probably serve our students better. There are dozens of others.
I should acknowledge that on a number of our policies and procedures, faculty may encounter my finger prints. Ignore the fingerprints and change things.
That was yesterday and this is today.
I know that UALR students will want to participate and will be very helpful in this project.
I have already met with Faculty Senate leaders regarding this request, and the George W. Donaghey Foundation has provided a grant to support the effort.
A metropolitan university, engaged with its community, should help its community, to the extent university resources permit, to solve the community's most pressing problems. This is a responsibility of place.
My second announcement:
I have asked UALR's Institute of Government to conduct an annual survey of racial attitudes in Pulaski County , beginning this year. The survey will help us keep this biggest of community challenges on our community agenda. It will permit us to document our progress, or lack thereof, through the years. The survey data will provide a basis for informed discussion, whether public or private, of issues related to race.
Why a survey on this divisive subject?
Race, particularly white-black race relations, has been a major problem, indeed the major problem, the biggest obstacle to progress, in our state since it was founded in 1836. Slavery was legal in Arkansas . After slavery was abolished, racial injustice was institutionalized in a variety of institutions segregated by race. The Central High desegregation crisis happened here. Indeed for a long moment in the late 1950s, and not a shining moment, our state was front and center, a symbol of resistance, in the national struggle for African American equality.
Our nation and our state have made much progress since 1957. But let me give one piece of evidence that we still have far to go.
On September 25 1997 , there was a wonderful event at Central High School . It was billed as a day of reconciliation, of closing the chapter of the state's history that began 40 years earlier when the Governor of Arkansas had called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the desegregation of Central High School . I was in the audience. The Little Rock Nine were all present. Mayor Jim Dailey, Governor Mike Huckabee, and President Bill Clinton all participated. After all the speeches, the Governor and the President, in a beautiful symbolic act, opened the doors to the high school, and the Little Rock Nine walked in, this time with obvious approval, as the crowd applauded.
But on that same day in 1997, UALR graduate students, in a course taught by Speech Communication Professor Carol L. Thompson, carried out a research assignment-to determine if there was "any difference in the way an African American and a white American were treated at local stores when trying to return merchandise for a cash refund when no receipt was available." Here was what they found: "In every case, race made a difference. In every case, the white student received a refund against stated company policy. In every case, the African American student was denied a refund even when the store clerks were African Americans themselves." [Quotations from Dr. Thompson's guest essay, "A Day of Wonder, Irony," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , October 10, 1997 .]
This is a difficult issue that in many communities, not just here, has been cloaked by a code of silence, which makes it easier to pretend it does not exist.
You have to face it to fix it.
The problem of race relations will be with us as far into the future as we can see. But I do not accept that it is an issue best ignored. Leadership can cause a better future to arrive sooner. We can speed things up.
I have an educator's faith that people, particularly people of good will, with the benefit of good information and thoughtful discussion, stand a chance of addressing a problem successfully. I believe this annual survey will help us speed progress in our community on a most fundamental problem. I know that a university in this place should try to make a difference on this controlling issue.
Now on to a third announcement.
Not long ago the town cobbler had no competition. Everyone in the village bought shoes from him. Today, the shoes, plus the toys, the electronic items, and the cars that we and our friends and neighbors purchase show that people are moved by price and quality, whether the item purchased is made down the street or half-way around the world.
The global economy is real. It is here. It has benefited us all. It is good for those businesses prepared to compete in it. It can be devastating for communities whose businesses cannot compete in it.
All across this country public universities are facing a growing expectation that they will play a greater role in the economic development of their regions and states. That expectation is present here as well. Let me say to the civic and business leaders that UALR expects to play an enlarged role in advancing the prosperity of the region and state, and we will do it in a variety of ways.
UALR's most fundamental contribution to the economic development of our region and state always has been and always will be the thousands of graduates produced by our scores of excellent academic programs, both baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate. A number of those programs were begun recently and are specifically targeted to area needs. Our new majors in systems engineering and information science are visible examples.
Recognizing that today economic development is a talent competition, a game in which human capital is trumps, we will work even harder to provide the highly educated workforce required for successful economic development.
But today I want to announce a new step this university will take in response to this growing expectation for university involvement in economic development.
Beginning next fall, UALR will convene an annual conference on regionalism in central Arkansas as a means of achieving stronger communities and a better life for everyone in the region. Regional approaches, as opposed to more limited ones, can save money or offer higher quality or both.
We will call on persons throughout the region to help us select issues and participants and plan the conference.
Given the global market, time's awasting in our region. There is a growing list of problems that no longer lend themselves to solution in a single community, and a number, perhaps most, of them affect local economic competitiveness.
A quick list would include workforce quality, transportation, water quality and availability, air quality, waste disposal, law enforcement, cultural institutions and opportunities, public health, and libraries. In a number of communities these challenges exceed local capacity.
We need a regular forum that will increase the likelihood that leaders throughout the region will become acquainted, will see opportunities to solve problems together, and will develop the desire and capability to work together. We need to develop solutions big enough to fit the size of the problems. I fear that if we as a region do not pull together, then the tide of global competition is going to push our region into the backwaters of the world economy.
I applaud the initiative of business leaders and Chamber of Commerce officials in 11 Arkansas counties who recently formed the Central Arkansas Economic Development Alliance (CAEDA). They have moved forward with strong support from UALR's Institute for Economic Advancement, which will continue to give strong support to CAEDA.
We will coordinate university efforts to promote a regional perspective and regional economic progress with the efforts of CAEDA and also with the Arkansas Department of Economic Development.
I must stress that the important decisions to be made will be made by community leaders throughout the region, not by the university. Making those choices for a community is not the role of the university.
The university can call people to the table as a neutral convener. We can provide good information and analyses. We can provide experts. We can shine light on possible paths to a better future. We can facilitate conversations. When desired, we can facilitate decision making. But county and municipal officials, along with business and civic leaders and concerned citizens across the region are the ones who must decide whether, when, and how to join together for mutual advantage.
Why will the university involve itself in regionalism? Because so much is at stake for our region that the university ought to try to make a difference. This is our region, this is our place. If the region prospers, we prosper. If the region suffers, we suffer.
We also know from previous experience that university involvement will stimulate and inspire our faculty and will enrich the educational experiences of our students.
The goal of such engagement is a stronger region and a stronger university.
Let me conclude.
We are engaged in a strategic planning process on campus this year. Out of respect for those involved in it, I decided that there were a number of otherwise appropriate subjects that I should not address today. I did not want to do anything that might undercut that large effort, nor risk getting too far out in front of the people I am leading.
Frankly, this constraint proved helpful because it led me to reflect on a more fundamental force in the past and the present and the future of this university, the power of place. The occasion also provided a platform for the three announcements, which all derive from place.
The three steps I have announced today, though they may seem simple, will, over time, have a profound impact. They are very much about the future.
The first is very much about the future of our institution as it meets the needs of our students.
The second is very much about the future of the greater Little Rock community as it chips away at its biggest barrier to a better community.
The third is very much about the future of our region as it confronts global economic competition.
Worthy efforts all, as we move into our second 75 years and as together we continue to build a powerhouse university for the people of Arkansas here in the capital city.