Roudebush Hall
Roudebush Hall, home of Miami's administrative offices

Annual Address 2013

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David C. Hodge
September 3, 2013

Another huge milestone for the University was surpassing our 500-million-dollar goal for the Love and Honor campaign. It is natural to focus on the size of that number—half a billion dollars! But the true way to think about the impact of the campaign is what we are doing, and what we will be able to do, thanks to the forward-looking generosity of our alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends. Going forward, thousands of students will have their own unforgettable Miami experience because of the new scholarships—incredible faculty will be recruited, retained, and supported because of new chairs and professorships—and everyone will benefit from the new facilities that significantly enhance our campuses and communities. A campaign is not just about dollars. It is about believing in and creating a brilliant future.

Finally, I would like to highlight the incredible work leading to the adoption of the Miami 2020 Plan. Fifty people served on the lead committees that created and then revised, recreated, and refined these goals with significant feedback from the broader Miami community. In a few moments I will talk about the final steps of implementation, but let me emphasize here the goals themselves. Inspired by our vision that "Miami will provide the best undergraduate experience in the nation, enhanced by superior, select graduate programs," we established a unifying goal to "Promote a vibrant learning and discovery environment that produces extraordinary student and scholarly outcomes."

There is a lot of high expectation packed into this unifying goal. We seek not merely to be very good, but to be the best, an ambitious goal that energizes everything we do. We strive to create an active, energetic environment, inside and outside the classroom, an environment that stresses initiative, hard work, collaboration, and creativity. We seek to dissolve the boundaries between teaching and research by emphasizing (and facilitating) learning that is inquiry-based and encouraging our students to work directly with faculty in their research and community engagement. We recognize that the "vibrant learning and discovery environment" reflects the totality of the student experience, from the classroom, to residential living, to participating in student-led organizations to, well, performing at Carnegie Hall! We value graduate education and carefully choose to excel in a limited number of high quality programs that draw from our strengths and very often contribute directly to our undergraduate success as well.

To achieve this lofty vision, the Miami 2020 effort focuses on three critical foundational goals. First, we seek to create a Transformational Work Environment. We live in a rapidly changing world and, for our incredibly committed faculty and staff to contribute most effectively while growing professionally, we need to "Ensure vitality and sustainability by building a forward-looking, efficient, and caring culture that stimulates, recognizes, and rewards creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, and exemplary performance." Again, there is a lot packed into that goal to inspire our future actions.

Second, we seek to strengthen an Inclusive Culture and Global Engagement. Diversity in all of its forms is hugely important in stimulating creativity, knowledge, and success. We are one of the most diverse nations in a diverse world. We need to reflect that world in our composition and engage that world through experiential learning. Thus, Miami will "Promote a diverse culture of inclusion, integrity, and collaboration that deepens understanding and embraces intercultural and global experiences."

Third, we embrace our mission as a public university by establishing Effective Partnerships and Outreach. In this goal, we go beyond traditional thinking of service by seeking to "Cultivate mutually beneficial partnerships and applied and service-oriented projects that strengthen our local, state, national, and world communities."

The development of these goals and these many accomplishments demonstrate what a great year we had. Now, let's turn to looking at the year ahead. In keeping with the fly-wheel analogy, it is important that we continue to apply new energy to the flywheel. Without it, the fly-wheel will slow down. With it, the fly-wheel accelerates.

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