Aside from addressing the start of his sixth consecutive fall semester at Iowa State, President Martin Jischke shared his future plans for improving the university.

He also told the crowd of more than 300 faculty and staff members at the Memorial Union Sun Room Thursday of the momentum that has been generated at Iowa State during the past five years.

“Indeed we have made tremendous progress toward our aspiration of becoming the best land-grant university in the nation,” Jischke said. In the months ahead, Jischke plans to go on a state-wide road tour to the 10 biggest cities. He will present Iowa’s business, professional, educational and political leaders a comprehensive report of the land-grant’s accomplishments over the past five years complete with a slide show at various service clubs.

Jischke shared many positive signs that strongly point to a continuation of progress. He credited the rise of enrollment to the university’s efforts in raising money for student scholarships. “We are adding 100 students each year through the Hixson Opportunity Awards program and we are attracting more and more National Merit and National Achievement Scholars.”

He noted that this year Iowa State has 154 new National Merit and four new National Achievement Scholars which is nearly three times the number of Scholars last year. “Both are the result of our very successful efforts to raise $26 million for the President’s Scholarship campaign, which will result in similar growth in the number of outstanding student leaders and minority students, and in our ability to be competitive for the very best student-athletes in the nation.”

The scholarship campaign proved to be part of the most successful private fund-raising year in the history of Iowa State. “We raised just over 75 million dollars,” Jischke said. This was made possible in part by two large donations from alumni Stan and Helen Howe for the Engineering Teaching and Researching complex and the Wendell Miller estate trust which Iowa State shares with the University of Iowa.

Jischke said that significant progress was also made in the area of graduate education and research. “The National Research Council rankings of our graduate programs…showed improvement virtually in every program that was evaluated.”

Progress in the undergraduate program that began with learning clusters and services offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence last year are being expanded as well as more computer writing labs being added to the residence halls, he said.

With the mention of a flat retention rate, Jischke said there is much reason for optimism in the year ahead. “In particular, I would like to call attention to three aspects of our work where I believe we should focus our energies this year…I would like to emphasize extramural research, the undergraduate experience and Extension.”

Hesaid that although the progress of research and graduate education in the past decade has been breathtaking, the shifting priorities of the government and private sector are making funds scarce and increasing competition.

“In response to this changing environment for research, I believe we have to be more interdisciplinary, more flexible and more innovative in our approach to generating support for our research activities,” Jischke said. A new task force, under the leadership of the provost will be appointed to review the University’s strategy and organization for pursuing funding.

“In the area of the undergraduate experience, we will continue to be challenged to effectively meet the needs of our undergraduate students and to attract and retain them in sufficient numbers to this university,” he said.

He noted a renewed vitality of the faculty’s interest in undergraduate education and claimed widespread evidence of this: “…from the writing laboratories of Freshman English to the revised courses in biology; from the Center for Teaching Excellence to the new academic support programs in the residence halls.”

In an effort to ensure the university’s commitment to diversity, Jischke announced the appointment of Professor Derrick Rollins as Advisor to the President’s Cabinet on Diversity. “Professor Rollins is a very distinguished teacher and scholar who will work with me, the Provost and others in the central administration to ensure that our diversity objectives are achieved and that this university fulfills the land-grant promise for all citizens,” Jischke said.

He also appointed a task force to study the possibility of organizing a new Student Services Center. “This would be a one-stop service center where 80-90 percent of the students could take care of their needs. Such a center would include representatives of most of our important student service offices in a convenient central campus location, so that students would not have to travel to several different buildings for many of the service-related things they need.”

Jischke said that Extension must become more efficient and more effective, including its administrative structure. “Our resources should be focused on providing more services to Extension clients—services they need and services they want.”

In closing, Jischke said that society has no tool of progress more powerful than public education. He quoted George Washington Carver; “‘Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.’ That is why I am here; That is why you are here, This is why Iowa State is here.”