Thank you, Chancellor Davis. I am honored to accept this symbol associated with the office of the Presidency of Kennesaw State University, and the responsibilities that accompany this office. My pledge to you, to Chairman Vigil and the Board of Regents, to Governor Perdue and the people of Georgia, and to members of the KSU community, is that I will lead this university with vision, with integrity, and with fairness, firmness, and humaneness.

Members of the platform party, distinguished guests, colleagues, students, and friends, thank you for celebrating this inauguration ceremony and the events surrounding it with me. And let me add a special thanks to my wife Susan, my sons Billy and Alex, my stepsons Michael and Ben, my brother Dennis and his wife Jennifer, my sister Darline and her husband Dick, my mother-in-law Evelyn, my sisters-in-law Gill and Jane, and my nephews and nieces Tommy, Alex, Jennifer, and Madeline, for being here today.

As I was preparing to write this address, I asked several people what they thought I should emphasize. I got different answers from different folks. I asked some of my Cabinet, and they thought about it and discussed it for awhile, and they told me to be visionary. I asked some faculty, and they thought about it and discussed it for awhile, and they told me to be inspirational. I then asked my sons and stepsons, and they looked at each other for a second or two and said, “Make it short.”

I’ll listen to Billy, Alex, Michael, and Ben, but leave it to you to decide whether I’m visionary or inspirational.

As the third president of Kennesaw State, I am deeply aware that I am following in the footsteps of legends. Dr. Horace Sturgis, KSU’s founding president, came to Kennesaw from Georgia Tech, served from 1965 to 1981, and laid the foundation for KSU’s success. Dr. Betty Siegel, KSU’s second president, served from 1981 to 2006, and retired earlier this year. Dr. Siegel oversaw KSU’s growth from a small institution to what it is today, the third-largest university in Georgia. I am pleased that Betty is here today. Thank you, Betty, for all that you have done for KSU.

The mantle of leadership has now been transferred to me to bring KSU to the next level, to statewide, regional, and national excellence and visibility. This morning, I would like to discuss my vision of the next level and what it means for Kennesaw State. Indeed, this vision has already been discussed and considered by the new Presidents Planning and Budget Advisory Committee, and by the Cabinet. This vision will serve as the basis for KSU’s new Strategic Plan, which will be in place by January 2007.

And what is that vision? In the next fifteen minutes, let me provide an overview of our vision of the next level in five simple but content-laden sentences.

First, we will be among the best learning-centered state universities in the nation.

Second, we will provide access to nationally recognized undergraduate and graduate programs, primarily for Northwest Georgia and Atlanta.

Third, the University will expand its offerings of programs of distinction in select areas of state and national need, thereby improving the quality of life, contributing to economic development, and promoting intellectual inquiry.

Fourth, KSU will superbly educate it students both in the liberal arts and their fields of specialty.

Fifth, our graduates will be highly ethical, technologically literate, and globally aware leaders who embrace diversity, life-long learning, and community engagement.

Let me provide additional details on the thinking behind each of these key points.

First, we are setting our sights high. Our intention is to be among the best learning-centered state universities not just in Georgia, not just in the Southeast, but in the nation and even the world. This is lofty thinking for an institution that is only 43 years old.

And we are not going to be content with describing ourselves exclusively as a teaching institution. We are a learning-centered institution, where students, faculty, and staff alike are engaged in the active transmission of knowledge and understanding. The transmission of knowledge, after all, is the primary reason that state universities exist. At the same time, without becoming a research university, many KSU students, faculty, and staff also will be involved in the creation of knowledge via research, scholarship, and other creative activities. Our agenda will include both the transmission of knowledge and understanding, and the creation of knowledge and understanding. In short, we will be a “community of learners,” a community where all of us, including our alumni and friends in neighboring communities, are actively engaged in the learning process.

Second, we will provide access to nationally recognized undergraduate and graduate programs, primarily for Northwest Georgia and Atlanta. Providing access for qualified students is a task that Kennesaw takes seriously, as does the University System of Georgia. Indeed, in its recent draft Strategic Planning Principles, the University System estimated that by 2020, its 35 institutions must be able to educate as many as 100,000 additional students. Many of those students will reside in Northwest Georgia and Atlanta.

We at Kennesaw and other USG institutions in the region must meet this swelling regional and state-wide demand with high quality programs. And we have such programs. For example, just last month, the Coles College of Business was recognized by the Princeton Review as one of the best Business Colleges in the country. Similarly, KSU’s College of Arts is one of only four Colleges of Arts in Georgia that has all three of its programs accredited by the appropriate national accrediting agencies.

We will deliver those programs here on campus, and in off-campus locations as well. And we will deliver those programs in multiple ways — via traditional formats, via hybrid formats that combine traditional educational methods with new technologies, and via new formats that use exclusively on-line and related technologies.

Access also means making sure that students can move between educational institutions. Thus, in keeping again with the Board’s draft Strategic Planning Principles, we will work with public education systems to make sure that no gaps in course content exist between high-school courses and Kennesaw courses. We will work with sister institutions in the University System, particularly those in Northwest Georgia and Atlanta such as Atlanta Metro College, Dalton State College, Georgia Highlands College, Georgia Perimeter College, Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, and Southern Polytechnic State University, to make sure that students can transfer easily between University System of Georgia institutions. And we will work with Department of Technical and Adult Education colleges, especially with our neighbors Appalachian Tech, Chattahoochee Tech, and North Metro Tech, to assure that appropriate transferability is in place with these institutions.

We also must not forget that access can be an issue of finance and affordability. We will meet this challenge in several ways. For example, our back-office operations will be both efficient and friendly. As important, we will find ways to support students who have special skills or financial need. In this regard, I am pleased to announce this morning that the Bernard C. Osher Foundation has endowed KSU with $1 million to continue programs for seniors 50 years and older, and $50,000 for nontraditional students 25 to 50 years old who are returning to KSU to complete their degrees.

The third part of our vision is to expand programs of distinction in areas of state and national need. It is no secret that Georgia and the nation need more first-rate teachers, nurses, and scientists. Here again, Kennesaw State is doing yeoman’s work, and is well positioned and ready to do more. The Bagwell College of Education increased its output of teachers by 75 percent over the last five years, graduating 316 new teachers in 2001 and 553 in 2005. It also just brought on Board Kennesaw State’s first doctoral program. Similarly, the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services graduated 160 nurses with BSN degrees last year, 98 percent of whom passed the nursing accreditation exam. And the College of Science and Mathematics has over 500 majors in the chemical sciences and 1,100 majors in the biological sciences, more than any other university in the state. It also has the state’s only undergraduate degree in information security and assurance.

We must also look to areas of growing state and national need where we do not offer programs to assess whether we should add such programs. Environmental sciences and environmental policy are two such areas of growing statewide and national need. And in the Atlanta area, which has a large and growing hospitality and restaurant sector, hospitality management and culinary arts bear examination as areas of potential need as well.

The fourth point, educating KSU students superbly both in the liberal arts and their fields of specialty, deserves special attention. While it is widely accepted that the United States has the best higher education system in the world, cracks are showing around the edges, and there is a growing realization that all is not perfect in American higher education. Last year, for example, the PBS documentary “Declining by Degrees,” which also appeared as a book under the same name edited by Richard Hersh and John Merrow, asked the question, “What happens between admission and graduation at American colleges and universities?” The conclusion was unsettling: “Often, not enough.”

More recently, just last month, the National Commission on the Future of Higher Education sent its final report to U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling. It, too, reached unsettling conclusions, charging that the American system of higher education faced problems of access, of cost and affordability, and perhaps most distressing, of inadequate levels of learning, which the Spelling Commission observed were often too low and in some cases declining.

Let me put these concerns another less intellectual way. Let me ask you to think about the word “Academic.” When most of us here who are over the age of 40 were growing up, if you said something was academic, what did you mean? You meant that it was intelligent, intellectually worthwhile, for want of a better word, brainy. But today if you say something is intellectual, what are you saying? Think about it for a minute … most of the time you are saying that it is irrelevant or meaningless … “that’s just academic.”

Clearly, something has changed, and not for the better.

The University System of Georgia, Kennesaw State, and its sister institutions in Georgia, recognize this. Indeed, again referring to the University System’s draft Strategic Planning Principles, “the University System will re-examine its general education curriculum, renew its commitment to a liberal arts education for this century, and improve the quality of undergraduate teaching and learning.”

KSU will be at the forefront of this re-examination, especially with our College of Humanities and Social Sciences, which often has led such re-examinations, and with our University College and other colleges that offer general education and liberal arts programs. We recognize that in the liberal arts and general education, as elsewhere, the only thing that is constant is change. The same is equally true in the disciplines and the professions, where staying abreast of change is often the hallmark of survival. Our students are receiving the type of education that they need not just to survive, but to prosper, and our faculty members are constantly reassessing what students learn and need to learn. We will continue these efforts, and re-double them.

Finally, let me turn to our graduates, who will be highly ethical, technologically literate, and globally aware leaders who embrace diversity, life-long learning, and community engagement.

The emphasis in this sentence is on our alumni as leaders, as people who upon graduation will move toward the forefront of their communities to help provide purpose and direction. But our alumni will not be just any type of leaders. They will be leaders who have humane values and are devoted to high ethical standards. They will be leaders who understand technology and how to use it. And they will be leaders who understand where and how they and their countries — as you saw in the processional this morning, KSU has students from over 130 countries — fit into the broader domains of the wider world.

Our alumni also will be leaders who embrace diversity, which is a fact of life throughout the world including in these United States. They will be leaders who embrace life-long learning, if only because the average employee in the United States in the twenty-first century will change jobs five or more times before he or she retires. And our alumni will be leaders who will be vitally engaged in the life of their community — giving back to others through their leadership and through their work a full measure of themselves.

This is an ambitious agenda for a 43-year-old university. Nevertheless, I believe that it is our responsibility to fulfill this agenda. Indeed, our goal is to create an environment in which every student will graduate, and graduate on time; an environment in which KSU’s faculty, staff, and administration all act on the understanding that each student is everyone’s student; and an environment in which every member of the KSU learning community has the goal of helping good learners become great human beings.

This university has an impressive past, an ambitious present, and a bright future. Indeed, a few years ago, a Canadian musician by the name of Randy Bachman and his partner Fred Turner wrote a couple of songs whose titles nicely sum up the past, present, and future of Kennesaw State. Let me paraphrase Bachman and Turner just a little. Chancellor Davis, Chairman Vigil, Congressman Price, Mr. Lientz, other members of the platform party, distinguished guests, colleagues, students and friends — and with apologies to the Department of English — this fine university is “Takin’ Care of Business,” but “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”