Dean Frances Bronet
March 2009

Addressing the profound challenges of the 21st century is core to our mission. Community realignments and development, rapidly changing technological infrastructures, mediated messages, globalization, resource loss and reallocation, international negotiation and confrontation, and fiscal uncertainty are part of a web of cultural, physical, political and economic contexts in which our students will be required to lead. In the center of today’s economic conditions, it's becoming increasingly difficult to anticipate the events and opportunities that will define our futures.

This sense of the larger context permeates what is happening at the UO.  The search for a new President of the University and the development of a new Academic Plan will strategically position the Academy to address local, regional and global arenas.  The faculty, staff and students are participating in developing “Big Ideas” connecting disciplines, institutions, cultural bodies, government and industry, around societal concerns and commitment to the local and global community.  Big Ideas are emerging around sustainability, healthy communities, creativity and innovation, human performance, visual culture, and the engaged academy  - all deeply related to our work in AAA and central to a critical liberal arts education.  They will provide the framework for developing ways of thinking and taking action in a rapidly changing world demanding vision, critical evaluation, planning and agility.

In 2009, our practices including leadership in innovation, sustainability and cultural enterprise, were rewarded with the #1 ranking in sustainable design concepts and principles for architecture in Design Intelligence; Interior Architecture was voted in the top two graduate programs admired by Deans nationally.

Our grand opening of the White Stag complex coupled with the successful launches of Materials and Product Studies and the BFA in Product Design and the enhancement of Architecture are hallmarks of our leading in design across scales and to partners in Portland.

Parallel to these successes with opportunities for entrepreneurial partnerships, we are also anticipating transformative budget reductions through limited state monies and decreased revenues from endowments are affecting universities nationally. Cuts at an institution as lean as the UO will have a significant impact on all of us.

We are preparing multiple action options to proceed thoughtfully through unpredictable times and complex situations. We can rely on AAA’s base of critical inquiry, planning practice and design thinking to creatively examine resources, desires and opportunities to offer routes to new and significant ends. Our provost has stated “In economic times such as these the common wisdom is to protect “core activities” and cut from the rest.  But after years of such cuts we are nothing but core activities.”   AAA and the UO are recommending new models for revenue generation, hybrid programs and enterprises melding the academy with the public and the global community.  Complex and exciting.

An investment in education recognizes learning as both an economic and intellectual engine.  As one of our supporters so aptly said, “we cannot afford to lose a generation who are not educated well - or not prepared to deal with the complexities of our future.

Your ongoing support of the School has been seminal. Your advocacy and gifts are now more important than ever, as we tackle these serious budget cuts while advancing our distinction in innovation through teaching, research, and engagement and preparing our students for the challenges of the 21st Century.   Thank you.

http://aaa.uoregon.edu/fbronet/