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STATEMENT BY
PRESIDENT GRAHAM B. SPANIER |
Penn State is grateful for the state support it has received in the current fiscal year that is enabling the university to make important progress on initiatives in information sciences and technology, workforce development, and agricultural research and cooperative extension. We are eager to continue our partnership with the state and build on these successes to meet the challenges facing the Commonwealth in the future.
The Governor's budget recommendation must only be seen as a starting point for discussing the needs of our university and the Commonwealth in developing a highly educated and productive work force to enhance the state's competitiveness. The Governor's budget does not include the continuation of $7,000,000 in funding for key elements of last year's appropriation, nor does it address our special requests for this year, namely critical funding for our College of Medicine and for our School of Information Sciences and Technology. The budget proposes a 3 percent increase in the remaining items in the Penn State budget.
Overall, the Governor's budget reflects only a .62 percent total increase from our 2000-2001 appropriation. We are hopeful that the Legislature will unite in bipartisan support for an appropriation that more adequately recognizes the contributions Penn State makes to the citizens of the Commonwealth, and the critical needs that are before us.
As the knowledge needs of society rapidly expand, higher education has a more important role to play than ever before. Our new interdisciplinary School of Information Sciences and Technology is an excellent example of Penn State's responsiveness to Pennsylvania's needs. The School of IST, which opened its doors just last academic year, currently has more than 1,400 students at 19 locations throughout the Commonwealth. We have worked closely with public and private colleges and universities and with industry partners throughout the state on a number of programs. We already offer seven different IST certificates, and IST on-line courses are currently taught at colleges and high schools around the state. We sponsor a website for all faculty in Pennsylvania institutions focused on technology and e-learning, and IST is the academic home of the e-Commerce Center at Penn State Harrisburg.
Penn State's School of IST is truly an asset to all of Pennsylvania. We have made unprecedented progress in a short period of time with the encouragement of the Commonwealth and with the assurance of continued state support. Without moving existing funding to our permanent base for 2001-2002, and without the additional funds requested to sustain our progress, the ability of the school to hire top faculty and deploy programs on an ongoing basis is seriously jeopardized.
Among the most pressing challenges of our state and our nation is affordable and high quality health care, support for the most advanced medical innovations and procedures, the viability of teaching hospitals, and the support of the colleges of medicine that provide the foundation for academic health centers. Penn State's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center is the only academic health center in Pennsylvania between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; it is the only children's hospital in central Pennsylvania; it is the sole level-one trauma center; and it has the lone poison-control center in the region. These services would not be available to residents of a large part of the state without the expertise of physicians associated with the College.
Frankly, the future of our College of Medicine is in danger because such colleges can no longer be supported by profits from clinical enterprises, which no longer exist. Most of the nation's medical schools either have a substantial endowment or significant state appropriation to support their medical schools. We have neither.
To continue our longstanding compliance with federal and state environmental regulations, additional assistance from the Commonwealth is needed. Increasing environmental regulations combined with the rising costs of compliance are making it difficult to keep pace. In order to remain good stewards of Pennsylvania's resources, additional funding is crucial.
Penn State also hopes to continue partnering with the Commonwealth in workforce and economic development areas. The educational programs offered by Penn College have been a phenomenal success – producing critical workers for the Commonwealth and its economy. Nearly 100 percent of our graduates have jobs or are continuing their education and 86 percent of Penn College graduates remain in Pennsylvania. The University's recent academic initiatives have focused on areas of strategic importance to Pennsylvania – the Life Sciences, Materials Science, Environmental Studies, and Children, Youth, and Families. The progress we have made in these areas is a key force in the ongoing development of Pennsylvania's industries and also provides substantial support for Pennsylvania's urban and rural communities and families. The funding we received last year for these critical areas was eliminated from the Governor's budget.
Commonwealth residents continue to see Penn State as a top choice for higher education. Our educational programs at every level are in great demand. This past year, Penn State received just under 82,000 applications for admission, including more than 60,000 undergraduate applications. Nearly 22,000 students applied for limited spaces in our graduate and professional programs, including over 1,800 students applying to Penn State's Dickinson School of Law and more than 6,000 students applying for 110 spots in our medical school. Our new Penn State World Campus, dedicated to distance education for location-bound students, already has over 3,000 enrollments.
Your investment in Penn State is important by any measure. Penn State is one of the most efficient universities in America and has reallocated nearly $84 million and eliminated or merged 62 programs since 1992. Our budget plan for 2001-2002 includes further budget reductions and reallocations to selected areas of critical need. We have one of the model long-range planning processes in higher education, assuring both efficiency and quality as we strive to serve the public better.
The states with which Pennsylvania competes are investing heavily in higher education. Further investment in our University by the people of the Commonwealth through their elected officials will return far more value than the dollars involved. I pledge that every part of Penn State will work to promote Pennsylvania's progress and leadership and that the members of our academic community will be good stewards of the funding the University receives. If you support us at the level we need and deserve, I promise that it will be one of the best investments the Commonwealth can make.