Furthermore, we have extraordinary opportunities matched by few other institutions. We have the prospects of strong student demand, stable budgets, and a continuing infusion of talented new professors. I am very enthusiastic about Miami's future and hope you share with me my enthusiasm. Let me now bring these remarks to a close by offering you a final thought. One of the difficult challenges we all face is retaining a sense of perspective.
Academic communities are complex and fractious societies.
I know that in the heat of this struggle, it is possible to become discouraged. In fact, disillusionment is the great enemy of all of us at universities, not only because the demands placed on us are difficult and unrelenting, but because the stakes are so high. Ours is a war we cannot afford to lose. The future of our children, and their children, and their children's children, rests in our hands. As members of a university community, we are among the few in the world whose lives are enriched by genuine meaning.