A Message from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton
This letter serves as the first in a series of occasional messages from key University leaders as a part of the Plan for Excellence process that will guide the development of Washington University in the next era.
Throughout its more than 150-year history, Washington University in St. Louis has challenged itself to seek new knowledge and gain a greater understanding of an ever-changing world. From the early dreams of William Greenleaf Eliot and Robert Brookings to our own accomplishments and aspirations for the future, these challenges are at the heart of our mission to be among the world’s foremost research and teaching institutions. Where once Eliot envisioned a college for the citizens of St. Louis and Brookings set about transforming medical education for a new century, we now create knowledge and educate minds in ways unimaginable to these early pioneers of higher education.
Still, they had the foresight to know that one day this great institution would and must carry on without them. They planned not just for themselves and their generation, but also for all of us living, studying and working here today. The results of this careful planning and financial stewardship by these leaders—as well as that by more recent leaders like Chancellors Shepley and Danforth—surround us now in the forms of our beautiful campus and buildings, hundreds of chaired professorships and the University’s healthy endowment. None of these things, of course, happen by chance.
This is the challenge that faces our generation and us today. How do we go about planning for the next 150 years of Washington University? How can we ensure that all that has been done and all we are doing now will pay great rewards to the scholars and the students of the 22nd century? In 2007, Washington University, along with the entire world of higher education, is facing a period of unprecedented challenge. Rising costs and rising expectations of students, along with ever-present competition for financial resources for literally thousands of worthy initiatives, require us to manage our operations very carefully, but without compromising our mission.
In other words, despite our healthy financial outlook and our high achievements and recognition in the academic realm, we must continue to enhance the University. We must develop a holistic and disciplined approach to the way we address the complex daily interactions of research, teaching, responsible management of financial resources, and the effective operation of our facilities. To not do so would be to negate the legacy left to us by so many others.
You can expect to see more of these messages in the coming year as I ask some of the administrative leaders of the University to explain in more detail the challenges of enhancing a great research and teaching institution like Washington University. I hope you will welcome these messages and use them to spur conversation in your own areas. For this idea of enhancing the University is not something a small group of people can do. This must be something we do together, with the common goal of carrying forward the dream set forth in 1853.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about our efforts to assure the enhancement of Washington University, please contact me.
Sincerely,
