One of our most important goals last year was to recruit another class of outstanding young faculty. Clearly, we have done that. I believe we have hired a group of exceptional scholars and teachers who will continue our tradition of excellence for a long time to come.

I would like to say a few words to our new colleagues. First off, no, you will not be receiving tenure this afternoon. And second, much is expected of you. Our teaching loads are heavy and our expectations for your scholarship are high. If you view these two tasks as separate, you are likely to be overwhelmed. If you see that each supports the other, you will find there is no more satisfying and rewarding profession.

We hire scholars both to help advance knowledge and to allow our students to study at the feet of masters. But Aristotle's insight, 'Teaching is the highest form of understanding,' looks at the other side of the coin. The best way to truly understand your discipline is to teach it. I know you will add new energy and new ways of seeing to all the departments on campus.

We are lucky to have you, and I believe you are fortunate to be joining a fine faculty. Queens College's great strength has always been its faculty, and they continue to excel. They have been exceptionally productive in the last year, with new books from Clare Carroll, Andrew Hacker, Hermann Haller, Stanley Hirshson, Madhulika Khandelwal, Jon Peterson, Judy Sund, John Tytell, and many others. They have won more than their fair share of honors: Roger Sanjek received a Guggenheim; Peter Carravetta and Kristin Jackson won Fulbrights; five of our faculty composers received ASCAP Awards; Robert Bittman, Richard Bodnar, Nick Coch, Nancy Hemmes, Samuel Heilman, James Saslow, and many others were recognized with prestigious awards in their fields.

I strongly believe that our top priority must always be our faculty. With our latest hires, we now have as many full-time faculty as we had in 1994, before the sharp decline in our enrollment. As our enrollment picks up, I want this upward trend in faculty strength to continue. The reason for this is obvious: A college cannot be better than its faculty. A college can be better than its facilities, its sports teams, its administration. But the level of its faculty is a level above which a college cannot rise.

I am delighted that student enrollment is up, and so are the grades and test scores of the students we admit. US News & World Report notes that we have the highest graduation rate of any CUNY college and attract more freshmen who were in the top quarter of their graduating class than our CUNY colleagues. We have wonderful students. Recently one of our alumna who runs a very successful business told me that Harvard graduates are great when things are going well, but when there are problems she would rather have Queens College students as they work harder and are better at finding solutions. I think that speaks volumes about our students and the education we are giving them.

Last year at this assembly I lamented the condition of our Web pages. Since then we have hired a Web master and made substantial progress. Our home page is cleaner and much better organized, and improvements are added almost every day. Our students can now use the Web to apply for parking or to take the CUNY Proficiency Exam, and staff can receive software training via the Internet. We have also been able to cut down on our printing costs by using the Web for general announcements and by making forms, applications, and newsletters available there.

Last year I noted that students from over 130 countries choose Queens College as the place to begin their futures. In return, I wanted to give our students more chances to study overseas by expanding our travel abroad programs. I am happy to say that we have done this. We have joined the College Consortium for International Studies, which offers study programs in over 30 nations, and we have reached an exchange agreement with King Alfred's College in England.

Last year I said we wanted to enhance our image; both our physical campus and our image in the wider community; and we have done so in a number of ways. We have improved the appearance of our campus with the opening of Powdermaker Hall and a cybercafe and with new walkways and landscaping. We are on our way to a campus that reflects the quality of the education we offer.

Thanks to the work of our Office of Communications, we have been receiving a good deal of positive news coverage concerning the quality of our students, including several stories in the New York Times, and have earned a great deal of media coverage for our environmental programs at Caumsett and the opening of the Armstrong House.

We are also improving our image by becoming more visible in the community. On November 5 we will join with Queensborough Community College, the CUNY Law School, and CUNY Central to open the CUNY Higher Education Center in Flushing. The center, which is located on Prince Street, right by the LIRR and #7 subway, will offer continuing education courses, an admissions office, an immigration clinic staffed by the law school, and much more.

It is human nature to think that life is tougher now, that we work harder and longer hours than our predecessors, that our problems are more intractable. But is this really true, or do we just feel that way because the problems are happening to us?

Recently, a former student sent us a copy of our first student newspaper, the Crown, dated December 2, 1937. One of the stories on the front page was about an address that President Paul Klapper made to a group much like this one in which he outlined some of the challenges the college faced. And one of the things he was deeply concerned about was, you guessed it: Scratching. Yes, scratching. The man had time to worry about scratching? We're so busy we don't even have time to scratch, so let's not beat around the bush any more: we definitely work harder and have tougher problems to solve than our predecessors did.

In fact, Chancellor Goldstein told us recently that of all the senior CUNY colleges, Queens has the fewest administrators. That means you are working at a high level of efficiency. It means you are doing a fabulous job and should be applauded for it. It also means you are doing more than your fair share of work, and that is something we must address. The library, admissions, buildings and grounds, reprographics, and many other areas could all use more help, and we must find ways to get you that help with new hires or by more creative use of the people we have.

This is a very exciting time to be in higher education because it is a time of uncertainty, a time of change, a time of seemingly endless problems. In such a time we are more receptive to new ideas, to different ways of looking at old problems.

In short, we are more open to all the habits of mind that a strong liberal arts education encourages, the kind of education Queens College has been providing for years. It is an education that is not merely the accumulation of information. It is an education that encourages intellectual curiosity, a questioning disposition, the ability to think for oneself, and to see oneself and the world in new ways. But it is also habits of the heart. Queens College, with its liberal arts foundation, helps students to become men and women of integrity. This has been true from our founding, when we adopted the motto 'We learn in order to serve.'

There are many challenges and opportunities we face in this exciting time, and I would like to identify four as our highest priorities in the coming year.

Our first challenge is financial. Our budget for this year is the same as last year's. The economy is worrisome and unlikely to improve soon. Our friends at the Queens College Foundation will most likely be unable to offer us more assistance than they have in the past. Now is the time for us to help ourselves.

Our grants funding should grow. In 2002 we received about $17 million in grants and awards, a good amount of money. But during this same period, City College and Hunter College received about twice that amount. The difference is certainly not the quality of the faculty or the proposals. The difference is that Hunter and City College were more aggressive in going after funding, and I would like us to be more aggressive also. Grants help everyone: you, your students, and the college as a whole. We have a terrific Office of Grants and Sponsored Research who will help you locate and apply for grants. This year we are already on a record-setting pace as far as receiving new grants. Special grant workshops are being planned for the biosciences and another for education faculty. The Grants Office will tailor workshops to your department, so I urge you to get in touch with them. Without a grant you end up standing in line hoping to get money from a pot that seems to shrink every year.

Our second major challenge is the General Education Review. This may be your only chance to be in on the ground floor of a major curriculum change. Our last major revision was thirty years ago, and it is hard think of a time of more profound change in the way we communicate and receive information than the last thirty years. We need to help our students make the connections between their courses, see how a senior seminar grew out of an introductory course or how a science course relates to a humanities course. They should see their courses as steps to something higher, not as hurdles that have to be cleared in the name of college requirements and quickly forgotten. We must also prepare them for their second and third jobs and for careers in more than one field. It is a great challenge and a creative one. Be sure you make your voice heard. Much work has already been done by both the Curriculum Committee of the Academic Senate and the Education Task Force. We now are at a critical phase where we aim to have a proposal before the Academic Senate in the spring semester.

Challenge number three is technology. Education was once defined as a student on one end of a log and a great teacher on the other end. That statement may soon be updated to Education is a student at the end of a computer terminal and a great teacher at the end of another computer terminal. Over 94% of our students have a computer at home and 90% of these have access to the Internet. A recent survey noted that 75% of students do their research on the Internet and not in a college library; one less reason to come to campus. We must stay ahead of our students if we want to maintain our recent gains in enrollment. With our traditional population, a population that works at least part time, we must make it easier for them to take online or hybrid courses or to be in contact with their professors. The ability to do these things will become more of a factor in students choosing a college. So we must make it easier for students and faculty to email each other. We must also improve our Web services for faculty and students and continue to introduce technological improvements into the classroom.

Our fourth challenge is improving the appearance of our campus. Quality of life issues affect everyone: those who are here for only four years and those who will make their careers here. You should be proud of where you work, what you see when you leave your office and your classroom should please your eye.

I have mentioned how it should be easy for students and professors to interact over the Web, but they also should be interacting more on campus. I want our students to linger here, I want them to feel that this campus is their home-away-from-home. They should have more places where they can meet with friends, or where they and faculty can continue a discussion after class. We have plans in the immediate future for a new cafe in the Science Building and improvements to the Student Union, but there is more work to be done. Our front entrance should be more inviting, our landscaping can be more attractive, the heating and air conditioning of our classrooms and offices should be better.

Those are our four major challenges. And now I have a challenge for you. We recently had screenwriter Jay Wolpert from the class of '64 here to talk to students. Why was he here? Because someone invited him. People love to be asked to do things, they are usually flattered and grateful. I would like to challenge you to invite one graduate to your classroom by the end of the spring semester. Ask your chair for a list of graduates in your field. I am sure you will find familiar names there. Give them a call or drop them a line and see if they would be willing to give a lecture or simply field questions from your students. Many of our graduates have been very successful in their careers and are looking for ways to give back, and this is a great way to put the college foremost in their thoughts.

I think you will enjoy having alumni in your classes. I have met so many of our graduates in the last year, at Commencement and Homecoming, down in Florida, and on the West Coast. I have been especially impressed by the classes of 1943 and 1953. These accomplished men and women received a great education that prepared them for success in the second half of the 20th century. We now must prepare students for the much different challenges of the 21st century. I think of the education we are giving our students as a map, a map much different than the ones earlier Queens College students received, but a map that will take them to the same goal‹the goal of being as accomplished and successful as our early graduates, men and women who make a difference in their communities.

In conclusion, the task before us is exciting and daunting. We must be impatient to be better, but we must have the patience to work until we achieve the results we want. I feel much like that businesswoman who chose Queens College students when times were tough. In times like these I would rather be working with the faculty and staff of Queens College than the faculty and staff of Harvard, I would rather be working with people who over and over again have proven themselves in less-than-ideal situations. I look forward to us meeting all the challenges of the future together.

Dr. James Muyskens