Penn State Board of Trustees meets; President Spanier's remarks

Graham B. Spanier's Remarks
Friday, September 15, 2006

I want to take a few minutes this afternoon to mention some things that have occurred since our last board meeting in Philadelphia.

Members of the board are well aware that we have been expecting a record freshman class this fall. While we won't have the official enrollment numbers until October, we expect the freshman enrollment here at University Park will end up at around 8,000. Total enrollment at University Park will probably be somewhat over 42,000. At present, we are up about 6.5 percent over this time last year.

We appear to have had increases in new freshmen at every one of our campus locations, and expect total enrollment for the University to be around 84,000.

The increase here at University Park created some challenges, but I have to tell you that I couldn't have been more proud of the way our housing staff worked to accommodate the new students. Similarly, Undergraduate Education and our deans were diligent in making sure that enough lower-division class sections were added so that everyone could get the schedule that they needed. It was a terrific effort by a lot of people, and a great reminder of the professionalism that Penn Staters bring to their work.

The fall is also a time when college rankings come out. Some of them use meaningful measures to gauge a university's progress and some of them are, frankly, pretty silly.

On the silly side is the Princeton Review party school ranking, in which Penn State placed second.

I mention this only because of all the media attention it got. This particular "review" is little more than a publicity stunt to help them sell their guide, and involves people going to a Web site and voting for the school they want to name the winner. It could actually be more reflective of a school's overall popularity, but it has no legitimate basis for its conclusion.

As I have said to many people, we want students who come to Penn State to enjoy their college experience, and we think this is a fun and engaging environment, with lots for students to do. But the ranking is nothing more than a clever marketing trick to get attention to their guide, and the media naively buy into it every year.

The U.S. News rankings are perhaps the most cited of all the rankings, and they too raise a lot of hackles within higher education because of the odd weighting that they give to measures that significantly favor private universities. Traditionally, there are never any public universities in the top 20, despite objective data that would clearly suggest there should be. Penn State was tied for 13th among the nation's public institutions in the U.S. News ranking.

Washington Monthly uses a whole different set of variables to look at how well universities provide access, social mobility and serve the public good of our nation. In that ranking, Penn State was named the third-best university in America.

Newsweek took yet another approach and compared universities globally with a slightly greater emphasis on international reach, and they named Penn State among the top in the world. Naturally, none of these positive, data-driven rankings get anywhere near the publicity of the Princeton Review and their online poll, but that is the media climate we live in today.

I am very pleased to be able to report today that Ted Junker has been elected by the Big Ten Conference Council of Presidents and Chancellors to serve on the Big Ten Network's Board of Directors. Ted was selected from a very distinguished group of nominees, and his election is a great tribute to Ted's reputation and accomplishments. There are only five board members, and Ted will be one of three (and that includes Commissioner Jim Delany) who represent the Big Ten's interests.

The Big Ten Channel has enormous potential and is truly a groundbreaking enterprise for intercollegiate athletics. I know the conference will benefit greatly from Ted's experience and insight as we work to launch the channel next year. Congratulations to Ted on this very important designation.

Finally today I wanted to mention that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce has appointed Eva Pell to our nation's Deemed Export Advisory Committee. As was said in her appointment letter, "U.S. research and industry must have access to the world's best minds to sustain America's technological leadership consistent with America's security interests. As a result, there is urgent need for greater clarity of deemed export policy. There is no better source for such advice than the leaders who navigate these issues on a daily basis."

Indeed, there really could be no one better positioned to help advise American policy on this issue than Eva, and we congratulate her on this important appointment.

That concludes my report. I would be happy to answer any questions.