State of the University Address

Good morning! I am very happy to be with you today. Welcome to all of the guests joining us from our University and our community and welcome to all of you who are joining us today by live stream. Thank you for taking the time to be with us.

I am deeply grateful to everyone whose dedication, creativity and resilience make this University what it is. You teach, you discover, you mentor, care and serve in ways that are often unseen but profoundly impactful. 

We are here to talk about the state of our University, at a time of significant challenges and also extraordinary strength and opportunity.

But before we start, I want to pause for just a moment to reflect on why the University of Minnesota is so important: important to each of us, important to the people of Minnesota, and, I truly believe, important to the nation and the world.

As you know, this is the 175th year since our universities’ founding. The state of Minnesota and its university – we grew up together! It is a deep, indelible bond that has shaped the state of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota. The minds we educate shape the state, and the students here now will power its future.

The research we are best at is about the things that matter most to Minnesotans — their health, their food, the crops they grow, the animals they raise, the art they enjoy, the fresh waters Minnesota is known for. 

There is nothing abstract about our mission. We are fully engaged with real people, in real places, wrestling with real questions, and seeking real solutions. And they need us to be our best, every day, in ways we can hardly begin to tally.

I was reminded of that this summer when I visited our Morris campus and walked with University of Minnesota research lead Michael Reese through the wind turbines that dot western Minnesota’s landscape. 

Michael and his research team are harnessing wind to help Minnesota farmers and leave the state greener. The vision is to use Minnesota’s wind, water and air to produce fertilizer without fossil fuels. It would keep agricultural dollars here in Minnesota. It would shield local farmers from the volatile swings of global markets. And it would eliminate fossil fuels from a product that accounts for 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

This is what we mean when we say the university is the “energy for change.” The University of Minnesota is creating a better future for all of —for our communities like Morris, our state, our nation and our planet. 

So, when we talk about where the University stands now and where we will go next, we are not just talking about the people in this room, or on this live stream, or even the wide span of our students, faculty, and staff.

We are talking about people and relationships in every county, in every town, in every square mile of Minnesota. We are also talking about people all around the nation and globe with proud connections to the University of Minnesota and many more who have no idea they are reaping the benefits from this place.

Today we will talk about current events and achievements and our future. But whether you are here for four years, or for a lifetime, we are all tied to a much longer history. 

We are stewards of all that has been built over 175 years, by generations of people who made this University what it is today. We are the stewards of what we will pass forward, to untold hundreds of thousands of students and people across our state and around the world in the future.

That is a weighty responsibility. But for me, and I hope for each of you, it is also powerfully inspiring.

As we make our way along a journey that sometimes can be baffling, bumpy, and messy, through times that will certainly test us, we have that inspiration to draw from. And we have one another to lean on and remind us why we are doing this.

And we will need that inspiration because today we face a choice — a choice that seems straightforward, but is sometimes harder to live out.

We are in a time of accelerating change and growing divides, divides in technology, culture, economic opportunity and our civic life. 

AI is transforming every part of education, business and daily life – how we plan tasks, create, make decisions, how we find and absorb information, how we teach and even what we teach.

Assumptions we thought were certain and settled, foundations we took for granted, have evaporated. Developments we thought we would never see, at least not in our lifetime, are suddenly part of our daily reality.

There is no avoiding this change. 

So we have a choice. We could choose to sit back and let others shape our future. Or we can choose to take control of what we can change, and set our own course.

Change is not easy. At times it will be unsettling; at times it will be contentious. At times it will be exhausting. But it’s even more exhausting waking up to a future that someone else has shaped for you. 

And I know enough about the people in this room, the people on this livestream, the people who make up this university, to know that we will choose to create our future. 

Guided by our mission and values, and by all of us working together we will make the University of Minnesota even better and even stronger than it is today. Better and stronger next year. Better and stronger in five years. And better and stronger for the next generation.

We also need to be realistic. The challenges we face continue to grow, in scale and complexity, and they are coming from every direction.

Our state revenue continues to decrease. In the last four years alone, this has been an effective cut of $90M. Our federal funding has dropped and research dollars have slowed. This is true across the country and we are not immune. Federal policies have discouraged international students from coming here. 

Here’s the thing. We cannot use our endowment to pay for our routine expenses. We must use it how our donors specified, and we must stop dipping into our reserves or savings to balance our university checkbook.

We know our students and their families cannot make up our shortfall through outsized tuition increases — especially when they’re already struggling to make ends meet. And we are not asking them to absorb these headwinds. We are committed to keeping our education affordable with a goal of keeping tuition increases near inflation. 

We know our faculty and staff also can not absorb our headwinds by taking no raises or low annual increases when their household budgets are also hit by inflation. We are committed to fair compensation for our staff and our faculty. 

So there simply is no way around it: If we are committed to have affordable tuition, and to fairly compensate our workers then– as we announced in September, we must reduce our expenses significantly over the next two years. 

As we must work to find new sources of revenue and evolve and transform, we will move towards greater efficiency across all of our campuses. We will remain firmly committed to continuously learning. For example, we will assess the work we have done in areas like PEAK  to evaluate what worked well and what didn’t. And we will apply those learnings as we move towards the final phase of its activation.

We will do that even as we continue to invest in our top priorities and lead a world-class comprehensive research university.

But can we invest with all of these headwinds?

In challenging times — think of the financial crisis of 2009 — the universities that thrived in the following years were those that did continue to invest, while moving early to take control of their future. 

We will do that with focus. We will do it together. And we will do it with a higher vision for the University, fiscal stewardship for the next generation and by every part of our university doing its share.  

So in the face of that daunting set of circumstances, why am I so confident we are headed for a better, stronger future? Because we have been facing all of these challenges, in one form or another, for some time now.

And in the last year alone, we have seen plenty of proof that this university can not only endure in the face of hardship, but flourish, innovate, and inspire.

Last year you launched Elevate Extraordinary 2030, a strategic roadmap for the university, and every college, school and campus has gone to work implementing its ambitious initiatives. I say, quite intentionally, you launched it.

One of the things that makes me most proud of that roadmap, and makes it most likely to succeed, is that it is not my plan, or a plan that was cooked up by the senior leadership team. This plan engaged broad swaths of the university and community. It belongs to all of you and in the past year, we have accomplished so much already to move it forward. 

For example, a moment ago, I referred to AI as a challenge. But Elevate Extraordinary also recognizes it as a tremendous opportunity, and we are already taking advantage with the launch this spring of the AI Hub. The AI Hub brings the full resources of the university to bear on this transformational technology  in an ethical, and human-centered, responsible way. And by bringing together leaders in so many different disciplines, the university will lead in applying AI: AI in medicine, AI in agriculture, AI in teaching, AI in learning, and more. 

Last fall, we also proudly launched the National Security Research Institute. National security risks are human challenges that impact our food, our water, technology, environment and health. Food security, water security, cyber security, environmental security, and health security, among others. Researching across these domains, we are working for solutions that keep us safe while also fueling economic growth. 

Another Elevate Extraordinary goal is to help our students’ quality of life by addressing their most basic needs of mental health and food insecurity.  We have made real progress on student food insecurity by expanding locations for our Twin Cities food pantry, adding healthy options with fresh fruit and vegetables and keeping the pantry open through summer for the first time, meeting the needs of many summer graduate students. Every campus is expanding its food pantries to serve more students, increasing food pantry access by over 110% last year.  

This past year, our agreement with University of Minnesota Physicians and Fairview Health System strengthened health and healthcare across Minnesota. 

We also continued to grow the healthcare workforce to serve  the health of Minnesotans. Our School of Nursing is addressing the critical shortage of nurses across Minnesota by increasing class sizes including new pathways for American Indian nurses. We are also expanding our nursing class in Rochester, and we have accelerated nursing degree programs. Our College of Pharmacy has grown its class size to respond to the shortage of pharmacists. 

 Recently we have also launched our first-ever national marketing brand campaign to raise awareness, inspire alumni and donor engagement and of course boost enrollment. 

We have taken steps to create one alumni community, partnering to connect our alumni across the five campuses so students can access a rich network of 650,000 alumni to help open doors and so alumni can better connect with one another and champion the university. 

Through all of this work, we also continue to show our excellence in scholarship and teaching. Thirteen of our faculty members have been inducted into the National Academies just last year  from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors. 

Our faculty continue to demonstrate global research excellence. You might have heard or read of something called Spud Cell? What a piece of midwestern modesty that name is. Developed by two of our faculty in the College of Biological Sciences, Spud Cell is actually the world’s first entirely synthetic cell, with a complete life cycle of its own. This is an enormous scientific breakthrough, with profound implications in fields ranging from engineering to medicine. 

And that’s an extraordinary example, but we are surrounded by that level of excellence every single day here.

And all that I have just described to you is just a sampling of what this community has accomplished in this past single year. We have so much to be proud of.

I am confident we will continue to adapt and flourish. Together, we will reshape this university so that we will emerge stronger than ever. 

Let me be clear: When we talk about change, we are not talking about changing who we are. The university we envision is deeply rooted in the aspirational values that have led us for 175 years. The university we envision is one that is more boldly than ever focused on our land grant mission. 

We will continue to invest in our strengths and to make discoveries that matter. Again, even in times of difficult fiscal choices we must continue to invest towards our future.

We are going to invest in world-class facilities and in faculty that support worldchanging research and learning. We are going to invest in the success and wellbeing of our students. We will continue to offer them an accessible and affordable education that prepares them to succeed in a complex and fast changing world. We are going to invest in the work that will power Minnesota’s economic engine. 

But in order to do these things, we must focus and prioritize. We cannot do everything; we cannot have more of everything. And we cannot even sustain everything we have now at current levels.

If we are serious about our core values, our commitments to our students and to our workforce, we also have to make intentional investments in our future and be fiscal stewards for the next generation. That means we will have to make difficult  choices. And we will have to make them together, guided by our mission and the strategy laid out in Elevate Extraordinary 2030.

Now I’d like to turn to what’s ahead. As we live into our land grant mission across all 87 counties, we are focused on a few key themes that emerge from our roadmap: workforce development,  the health of people, animals and planet, and rural vitality. 

Here are some of the ways you’ll see those themes play out over the next year. These are initiatives we are committed to launching – a preview of what you’ll see more fully introduced throughout the academic year. 

To start, we are the workforce engine for Minnesota, graduating 14,000 students each year. Seventy percent of our graduates stay and work in Minnesota and build our Minnesota communities. From our students – we hear they want to be ready to be competitive for that first job or next career step. Across Minnesota, we hear loud and clear the need for a workforce that is ready to power a changing economy.  

This year to aid in meeting both those needs we plan to launch a new initiative  the University of Minnesota Workforce Accelerator. In partnership with employers across Minnesota, this initiative will help us understand and meet industry needs for the workforce. It will give us the data to design the programs that support the future needs of Minnesota’s employers as well as support our students to be ready for that workforce. 

Through another initiative, the University of Minnesota Online, we will grow our portfolio of online education opportunities. We will create a university-wide, comprehensive strategy for online education that meets the needs of our students and business community. We will educate for the jobs of the future from high school through college, to upskilling workers across Minnesota. 

In addition, we will also innovate  the ways we teach. We have long been leaders in educational innovation – for example the degree in three programs which we were the first in the nation to introduce. That’s why we are bringing together education researchers from all five campuses later this month. They will engage students in co-designing their learning, they will turn educational research into workforce readiness, and ultimately, they will launch programs as we seek to transform how we teach and prepare students for a rapidly changing world. 

We have been listening to employers who tell us that especially in a world of advancing AI, we need graduates who can think creatively to solve real-world problems. To address this we will launch the Minnesota Arts and Design Ecosystem to foster that creativity across our five campuses — bringing an excitement for creativity and problem-solving. These are skills students will bring with them to their communities, their workplaces and the rest of their lives.

A second area of focus is the health of people, animals and our planet. We will continue to invest in areas where our discoveries make a real difference.

At a time when no natural resource is more important — or more at risk — than fresh water, we are investing in a new initiative that elevates our global excellence in freshwater research. Here in the land of 10,000 lakes this initiative will connect freshwater expertise across the university. Based at the University of Minnesota Duluth, overlooking one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, this initiative will advance our global expertise. 

The University also has particular strength in understanding how human health is connected to animals and the environment. Building on that strength, this year we are launching a OneHealth Exchange to advance our university’s world leadership in One Health— an approach where people from diverse fields work together to nurture the health of humans, animals, and the environment. We currently have such projects and initiatives all across the university. This OneHealth Exchange will provide a way for those scholars to share their findings more easily, and to build on one another’s work with a focus on infectious disease and agriculture. It will elevate the visibility of this great work ensuring our leadership for years to come. 

We will also launch an initiative that will improve people’s health across our state by using data from health systems to find and push out best practices. This will focus on improving Minnesotans’ Lifespan Brain Health, Healthy Aging, Digital Health and AIEnabled Care, building a data infrastructure that can quickly identify health needs, find where we are succeeding and make successful practices routine across the state. 

All of the initiatives I’ve talked about today need the right infrastructure and the right people to help them succeed. To accomplish this, we are investing in the infrastructure our scholars, staff and students need to do their best work. 

One example of that is the transformation of our St. Paul campus which draws students from all across Minnesota  including rural Minnesota  to study, learn and live in a vibrant setting. 

We will replace Bailey Hall and enhance the student experience with a new dining facility and a new residence hall, housing students by 2030. By 2030 we will also build a new St. Paul campus Center which will be a hub for social and academic life. There will also be modern teaching and learning facilities, and outdoor spaces that invite learning and social connections. Renovated, modern Active Learning Classrooms will help us welcome more students to learn here, both in  and out of the classroom. New meeting spaces on our St. Paul campus will bring our community in to learn about the impact of our teaching and research a public front door for major youth program events like 4H and FFA.  

With these investments and more to come, we are positioning the St. Paul Campus to continue to lead in advancing agricultural production, infectious disease research, biotechnology, biomanufacturing and climate resilience — all taking place in modern and updated labs and facilities. 

Another way the university will invest is in faculty excellence — supporting deans and chancellors as they work to retain and recruit world-class researchers in the areas where we are strongest. Provost Gretchen Ritter will roll out more details on this hiring initiative over the course of this year. Guided by our strategic roadmap, we will elevate and recruit faculty so we can build in areas of research strengths. 

Finally, we must always remember that our university is here, first and foremost, for our students. Research shows that getting students off to a strong start in their first year of college is critical to their future success. For the last year, Provost Ritter has led an effort focused on transforming the first-year student experience, drawing from best practices that build resilience and connection. We will begin to implement those plans in the fall of 2027 with efforts to enhance the first-year student experience: jow students build their community, where they live, how they learn, their success in difficult early courses, and their preparation to be civic-minded community members.

This means we will move toward a cohort learning model to help students find their communities quickly. We are also planning changes to the first-year residential housing experience to support their belonging. We will provide more information on this in the coming year.  

All of this, in turn, will help students stay here to finish their degrees and to flourish! 

Before we close today, I ask you to take a moment and imagine yourself in the future University of Minnesota.

Imagine yourself  studying in the new St. Paul campus center, surrounded by friends and bathed in sunlight, with tasty food a step away. 

Imagine  working side-by-side with artists-in-residence in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester learning new and creative ways of seeing the world. 

Imagine partnering with your teachers — or your students — to design innovative new courses that combine the best of research and real-life problem-solving. 

Imagine yourself interning at the headquarters of one of Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies. Or riding the waves of Lake Superior on our research vessel, the Blue Heron searching for answers that will help us protect the world’s fresh water. 

Picture yourself training the nurses, doctors, dentists, and pharmacists, from Grand Marais to Lanesboro, who will keep the next generation of Minnesotans healthy. 

Picture a future Minnesota that has the healthcare workforce it needs.

What would it mean to each of you personally to be part of that vision? Part of a future that has built on our strengths, modernized our facilities, and focused more intensely on the very best of the University of Minnesota. 

Now I want to flip that around. Because this university we are talking about — and this university we can and will have — isn’t something I alone can make happen, or the regents, or the senior leadership team.

Just as the achievements of the past year took all of us to accomplish, the university we will become will require all of us. 

So I leave you with this question that I really want you to think about: What can each of us do — today, tomorrow, throughout the next year — to bring this vision to life? How will we support each other through the difficult parts of this change? What will each of us do to elevate the University of Minnesota into its next chapter of excellence, to make it truly extraordinary? 

And what will we each of us do today, together, to get started?

Thank you.