President Robert C. Dynes
Video Letter Transcript, May 2007
Hi, as I speak to you it’s the last week of May, and it’s a really nice time of the year. We’re ending a productive academic year on some particularly high notes. I’ll get to commencement in a minute, which is my favorite time of the year. But let me talk about a couple of things before that.
The governor’s revised May budget was announced last week and the governor has continued his strong support for the University of California, and I thank him for that.
The second piece of good news, again, it was last week – our UC-led Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team won the Livermore bid for management of the Lab. This is with industrial partners. But three years ago, when we started down these competitions, we were facing three laboratories, three DOE laboratory competitions and we won three for three. I congratulate and thank everyone who worked very hard for these. It’s a wonderful accomplishment.
And the last thing is that we launched a new model for the university. One university, with ten campuses – it’s the power of ten. I want to talk a little about that. We’re trying to harness this power of ten on our campuses in two parallel tracks.
The first and most important track, of course, is academics; and Provost Hume unveiled a systemwide academic planning process for the Regents just last week. This is where all ten campuses go through their academic plans and discuss them with each other. A really collective and constructive process.
The second part is that [Regents] Chairman [Richard] Blum and I announced an organizational review to improve operations and increased efficiency of the entire system. Together as one university, we can all work better and smarter; we can be much more efficient; and we save money to put that into the academic programs, where it belongs.
Now, let me get back to the reason that I enjoy this time of year so much – and that is this is commencement time.
To the Class of 2007, congratulations! It’s a fabulous accomplishment, stay in touch as alumni, and go out and make us as proud as you can. To their families, to the faculty and staff, who shepherded them over the years through these difficult times, you should take great pride in these graduates. Their achievements and their potential is your legacy.
Thanks to you all for all you’ve accomplished. Enjoy the summer, and we’ll see you soon in the fall. Thank you.
