Thank you Dr. Staat, Dr. Bob Staat has been a professor of Microbiology
in our School of Dentistry since 1976.
He is the chair of our faculty senate and
a faculty trustee on the board of trustees.
Dr. Staat has done much for the University
of Louisville throughout his career;
join me in thanking him for his extraordinary
service and commitment to the University of Louisville.
(clapping)
In 2006, Phil Lemley retired from his faculty position in the
Department of Political Science at the University of Louisville
but we know that a UofL commencement would not be a UofL
commencement without Phil Lemley as our
University ritualist and grand marshal;
would you please join me in thanking Phil
for his 40 years of service to the University of Louisville.
(clapping)
As President of the University of Louisville it is my privilege
to welcome you the Class of 2012 to our spring commencement ceremony,
welcome and congratulations!
(clapping)
We also welcome your families and your friends to this special occasion.
This is our fourth commencement at the KFC Yum! Center.
We’re honored that a number of community leaders
and several members of the University of Louisvilles' Board of Trustees,
Board of Overseers, and Alumni Association have joined us
today for this special occasion.
I would like to ask those individuals to stand and be recognized and for us to
thank them for their service to the University of Louisville.
(clapping)
At the University of Louisville, we like to say, It’s Happening Here!
A passion for educational excellence,
creating new knowledge and scholarship,
and providing valuable service to our community and state,
it is all happening here.
It's happening here because we have the courage to question convention,
it's happening here because we have the passion to break new ground,
it's happening here because we have the insight to champion community,
it's happening here because we have the imagination to pursue the undiscovered,
it's happening here because we have the will to achieve greatness,
it's happening here because we have the promise of a limitless future,
but most importantly it's happening here
because we have the people to bring it to life.
During your years at the University of Louisville, you the class of 2012,
we as an institution have faced some interesting challenges,
a flood, an ice storm, a windstorm, and most recently the hail storm.
Weather challenges are just that, challenges.
We can repair, fix up, and restore the campus to it's previous condition
but what we can never recover from are the state budget cuts
that we've been subjected too over the last 12 years
we understand the economic downturn of 2008,
but now at the very time the economy is starting to grow and improve,
we're incurring another state budget cut, 9 million dollars,
this is the very time that we should be investing more in higher education
and more in health care,
we should be building a new classroom building for the Belknap Campus,
we should be adding faculty,
when in fact cuts are keeping us from filling vacant positions and
there are some in our community who seek to cut funding
for indigent care in our community, potentially hurting,
not only those in our community who are most needy
but placing a greater burden on the University Hospital
and our medical school.
Yet despite these cuts we as a campus community have not flinched,
we have not flinched from these financial challenges,
we have moved forward as an academic community.
We continue to make it happen.
Since the enactment of the Post-Secondary Education Improvement Act of 1997,
we lead Kentucky's Public Universities in the achievement of the reforms goals.
We're ranked first in the percentage increase in our 6 year graduation rate,
we're ranked first in the increase in the number of doctoral degrees awarded,
we're ranked first in the percentage increase in doctoral stem-degrees awarded,
we're ranked in the top of the state in terms of students performing
in the top 15% of the Praxis II exam, we lead Kentucky in that category,
and we're ranked first in the percentage increase in
the average ACT score of our incoming freshman class.
We're succeeding because we do have the people to make it happen.
Outstanding students, a great faculty, a dedicated staff,
and a committed alumni and friends of the University.
To each of you students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends, thank you.
Let us show our appreciation to all the people
who move this University forward every day.
(clapping)
And so today, this afternoon, we gather as a campus community,
students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends to celebrate
the most treasured tradition of the academy, commencement.
Commencement is a celebration, a celebration of accomplishment,
a celebration of the achievement of an important milestone in your lives.
When you the Class of 2012 began your college
studies at the University of Louisville,
it was impossible to imagine the changes
that would be occurring in our world and the challenges
that we would face as a society today.
We've been through the worst economic downturn since World War II,
civil unrest around the globe,
and an information and technology advances that are multiplying daily,
and while our world is different than when
you began at the University of Louisville,
we know that you are ready to face this changing world,
your faculty at UofL have prepared you to think,
to reason, to communicate, to be creative,
and to take on challenges and change.
When you began your studies, you made a commitment,
a commitment, yes, of money, but even more a commitment of time,
and a commitment of effort.
We applaud you for being true to your commitment.
Congratulations graduates, this is your day!
(clapping)
But while commencement is a celebration, it is more, it is far more,
for it is a beginning, for that reason, your faculty excitedly await for you,
for you, to take your place in this complex rapidly changing world.
For it is a world that needs you, a world that needs your talents and abilities,
your energy, your service, your leadership, and your spirit.
We as a University community pause on commencement day
to recognize and celebrate our successes as an institution,
but commencement is also a time for re-commitment by us as an institution.
For while we are a great institution,
and institution with a long history and tradition of achievement,
our work at the University of Louisville is not finished,
and being the leader in Kentucky is not good enough,
so we as an institution recommit today to our
statutory mandate in these most difficult of budget times,
we must not give up on the job given to us by the people of Kentucky.
We as a campus community must recommit
with renewed enthusiasm and energy,
to our love for teaching and learning,
and to the creation of new knowledge and scholarship,
so that we may improve economic opportunity and the quality of life
for all the people of our community and state.
So on this wonderful day, May 12th, may you the class of 2012,
commit and may we as an institution recommit to making our community,
our state, and our world a better place.
(clapping)