We have been at work for two years planning a year-long fin de siecle observance that will celebrate technology and its ability to link our past with our future. Between now and 2000 we hope to have endowed 125 new scholarships to mark our 125th year. On the cusp of a new century and a new millennium it will be time to launch another campaign to meet the continuing needs of scholarships, technology, library improvement, academic enrichment, and renovation of facilities. We are excited by that challenge. By 2000 we will be a university with optimum connectivity for all its members, resulting in administrative efficiencies and cost savings, fuller integration of technology into the classroom, more active engagement in distance learning, and vastly improved customer service.
Universities are good for society.
Their value far exceeds the sum of the value of the improved life circumstances of their own graduates. They are in every sense a public good, not just a private benefit to those who attend and graduate. But across the country state governments have had to turn their attention to other public needs, such as basic education, health care, and prisons. Public universities, as a result, get a smaller and smaller portion of state revenue and in an effort to contain tuition increases must seek revenue from other sources. IUP welcomes the challenge.