Good morning. My name is Greg Fenves and I'm very honored to say I am the president of
The University of Texas.
Thank you for being here. This morning I've met with two groups very important to the
university's success — I started out with meeting with our facilities folks about three
or four hundred of our facilities folks that keep the university running everyday and I
thank them for all their hard work.
I just came from a meeting of East Austin community leaders talking about important
issues of how the university engages with our community, especially in the East Austin
neighborhood.
Later today I'll be meeting with our students, faculty members, I'll go downtown to meet
with Mayor Adler, and to the Capitol to meet with Gov. Abbott and several others during
the day.
I wanted to speak with you, the press and the media — and by extension, all of your
readers and viewers across the state and across the nation — to describe my vision for The
University of Texas at Austin as one of the premier flagship universities in our nation.
Today, The University of Texas is in great shape. But to continue building our excellence
and become an even greater university, we're always evolving as the landscape for higher
education changes and the needs of our citizens and the state and nation change. We are always
adapting.
My vision for doing this is a concept I call “innovating excellence.”
Innovating excellence begins by strengthening UT as a place where undergraduates routinely
collaborate with faculty, graduate students and researchers – conducting research,
getting involved in experiential and project-based learning that adds to their classroom experience.
Every student at The University of Texas should benefit from an education at a top research
university, our University of Texas.
It also means giving undergraduates the support they need to be successful, to stay on track
and, yes, graduate in four years — this is the best way to hold down the cost of education
and welcome Texans of all backgrounds into our diverse student body and prepare them
for careers of leadership.
Innovating excellence means expanding our research enterprise and our research mission.
whether in the arts & sciences, humanities, engineering, the professions and the other
great fields that are covered at The University of Texas. This allows us to understand our
society better and to address some of the most pressing problems facing society in the
city, in the state and around the world in energy, water, health, education and transportation
to name just a few examples.
Finally, innovating excellence means seeking out new ways to interact with the world – through
online learning opportunities, which we have a tremendous number of and are increasing,
our vast collections in our libraries and special collections, our arts and performing
arts, and our world-class athletics programs.
One new initiative that sums up the concept of innovating excellence is what we are doing
with the Dell Medical School, which will open in just about a year. By partnering with the
community and rethinking health education and the delivery of healthcare, the Dell Medical
School will revolutionize the way Texans and Central Texans get and stay healthy. Later
this morning I'll be going over to the Dell Medical School to get a briefing from Dean
Clay Johnston, the department chairs and the staff that are creating this magnificent new
medical school.
It is a great honor to lead this university into the future, to build our levels of excellence,
to increase diversity and to make sure that our public research university provides value
to the entire state and the nation.