Robert L. Carothers
Press Conference Remarks September 15, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for coming this morning. Linda Acciardo has a printed statement of the remarks I had intended to make this morning, and she will distribute it to members of the media and anyone else who would like to read them or quote from them. But over the weekend, I decided that I would prefer to talk to you with a little less formality this morning. I can see the look of panic on Linda's face.
Each of us spent some portion of our lives going to school, some longer than others, some still working for that passing grade that will set us free. And we never forget those days in school and especially the day each year when we had to abandon the summer sun and to go back to school. For those of us who have lived our lives in the rhythms of the academic community, these September days are rich with memory and with symbol.
For us, September is the beginning of things, of old friends back together again for another year, of new faculty colleagues in the coffee room with new ideas and new problems. There are new syllabi to be written, new grant proposals to get off to the NIH or the NSF or CVS, new technology to learn before the students once again make us digital immigrants feel more ready to immigrate to Florida ourselves.
Each September we welcome another crop of freshmen -- some shy, some bold, some lost, some exactly where they are supposed to be -- each of them another year younger than we are and all full of promise for the future.
For us, the Quad is always full of students and professors, the leaves are always starting to turn into the rich russets and golds of autumn. There is always a marching band playing on some practice field just out of sight. The great debates begin anew with passionate conviction.
And someone is always complaining about parking.
And then we rush off towards October and Homecoming, where those who once walked across that beautiful Quad come home to the green lawns and grey granite they see once again in the rosy glow of memory.
In November, the students head home for the first time for Thanksgiving, now different people from those their parents dropped off at their dorms only a few months ago. Mom and Dad will shortly see that this transformation is a mixed blessing, and most will not be entirely sorry that the vacation is short.
But after a few days during which they will exacerbate the problem of the infamous freshman fifteen, the students will return to URI for those hectic last weeks of classes and final exams, and then home again for the holidays, while their professors celebrate with their own families and then head back to the library or the labs to catch up on the research projects they promised themselves they would get done over the break.
I have learned that each year, during this blessed three-week period of time, with no students and few faculty on campus, the University of Rhode Island runs like a charm.
In mid-January the students will return to snow and mud, but by then the basketball season will be in full swing and we’ll have something to cheer about, or groan about, until we make it to March Madness. In April, without fail, protests of one sort or another will break out, with demonstrations large or small on the Quad, complete with slogans and chanting. The placards will sometimes include the fact of the University's president, with a large diagonal line running across it.
But by May all that passion settles into sentiment, and we march slowly around that same Quad, now adorned with flags, banners and music, all of us in our robes and colors heading for commencement and the new life beyond. Then the faces of the new graduates and their parents are rewards in themselves, and they are emblematic of our purpose as teachers and scholars. We remember again that they are why we chose this profession and this work.
Now all of this is to say that for everything there is a season. In 1991, it was the season of beginning for me, and in 2009 it will be the season for concluding. The years between the banking crises of 1991 and the budget crisis of 2008-2009 have been, despite all, wonderful ones for me.
Together we have built a new culture for learning here at URI.
We've built and rebuilt a few buildings (48 in total).
We've won a few football games (actually very few) and a few more basketball games. I will never forget Tyson Wheeler, Cutino Mobley, Antonio Reynolds-Dean, Luther Clay, Josh King and all the rest on that unbelievable run up to the Elite Eight in St. Louis in 1998. I won't forget their coach and his son either, although for distinctly different reasons.
I have been blessed to serve with my colleagues in the senior leadership team -- especially those who have been with me from the beginning -- and I am proud beyond words of the work of our faculty. That's a story that would take far more time than we have today but one I'll try to tell over the next nine months.
Michelle Curreri, Cathy Sears and Cheryl Tefft, and their predecessors have made me look good for many years now, and I tremble at the thought of being without them. How will I ever know where I'm supposed to be and what I'll need when I get there?
I have gotten to know and appreciate the wonderful alumni and friends of URI, many of them gathered here today, and their support has often kept me going on some dark days.
I met my wife here, and she changed my life in so many ways. I am immensely grateful for her love and her friendship.
I want to thank this Board of Governors, with whom I've really enjoyed working, and with most of their predecessors. I am particularly grateful to Bill Holland and Jack Warner, with whom I have enjoyed working in recent years in their role as Commissioner for Higher Education here is Rhode Island for trying to keep me calm when my instincts have run more towards mayhem than diplomacy.
Together, all of us have been committed to serving our students, their families, Rhode Island and America, and to tell you the truth, all in all, it has felt pretty damn good.
Now I have another nine months to lead URI, and another legislative session to go through, with all the joy that those late afternoons and evenings on Smith Hill bring with them. And as I have told the senior leadership here, I'll be president until I'm not.
But this is the season to seek new energy and new ideas for the future of this great institution, and that's as exciting for me as it will be for all of you.
So, the process of searching for and wooing the 11th president of the University of Rhode Island begins today. To explain how that will happen is the chairman of our board, and our friend, Judge Frank Caprio.
Robert L. Carothers, President
University of Rhode Island