####
 I think I am the happiest person in this room today. I am
thrilled to be here. I am thrilled that this report is done and off my desk and
on to the Chancellor's desk and the Provost's desk and everyone else's desk. So
that we can quickly get to discussion, I will keep my comments brief. As Pete
noted, this report comes fundamentally from faculty and students. It is our
initiative and I am extremely proud of it. This university is blessed to have so
many faculty, students and staff who feel so passionately about this issue. I
want to thank all those members of the university community who participated
either officially as members of the task force or unofficially as interested
citizens who came forward and volunteered at one time or another. And I want to
thank individually those people who chaired the task force committees and
functioned as the steering committee for the task force. They were an absolute
delight to work with. I can't imagine a more energetic, creative and committed
group. So thanks very much to my Steering Committee: Marshall Edgell, Leon Fink,
Lloyd Kramer, Donna LaFebvre and Jim Leloudis who can't be with us today, Linda
Meade, and Laurie McNeil. Thank you.

The Task Force took as its goal, a modest goal, making UNC the leader among
public universities. To reach this goal we envisioned an educational experience
that is student-centered with emphasis on learning how to learn. One in which
intellectual exchange is woven into the fabric of everyday life rather than
stopping at the door of the classroom. An experience linked to life outside the
university through a much greater commitment to service-based learning. As a
result of our deliberations, we've made numerous recommendations. Of course no
set of recommendations, ours included, can easily remove the well-established
barriers or transform cultural habits to produce overnight, all of the sudden, a
vibrant intellectual community available to all members of the university. 
Changing intellectual life here at UNC will involve transforming the student
culture, the faculty culture, and the university itself. Our report makes
recommendations in all these areas and we'll be examining those key
recommendations shortly.

Before we do so, however, I want to make just a few general comments about the
recommendations as a whole. First is that the success of our efforts does not
depend upon the implementation of any one recommendation, for none of our
recommendations can alone change the climate. It's the plan as a whole that
matters. We believe that over time the cumulative affect of our many
recommendations together can and will transform this university. Second, there's
not a single path to improving our intellectual life. There is nothing magical
about this set of recommendations. I know that if this task force had been made
up of an entirely different set of faculty, staff and students, they would have
come up with a very different set of recommendations and they would have been
equally creative recommendations.

So I hope that the creative energies of those of you who have not been directly
involved in this effort so far will come out during the discussion and
implementation phase that we are beginning today. There is always room for more
good ideas. This is the beginning of the conversation, not the end. And, finally,
I know that we will disagree about the wisdom of some of these recommendations. 
Indeed, I know that some of you are very cynical about the entire enterprise. 
Quite frankly I'm relieved to know there are critics out there. If there were no
critics, I would be very worried. If we all agreed I would have to conclude that
the task force had been far too cautious, that we had failed in our charge. So
I'm absolutely delighted that our report has spurred the campus into discussing
these issues. I love to see all the disagreement and I love to hear people
actually talking about this. I hope that as a community we can be productive in
our disagreement and conversations and that together we can affirm the
fundamental value and importance of working together to improve our collective
intellectual life.

I know that it will not be easy and it will not be quick and, God knows, it will
not be cheap to change the intellectual climate of the campus but I am convinced
we must move forward with the process if UNC is to continue to prosper in the
coming years and continue to be a leader.

So, let's together today embrace this opportunity for discussion and real change.
 Thank you all to date for your help and input.

Let the discussion begin.

(applause)

####
 I think as a public institution there are limits on our
resources that many private institutions do not have. I also think that our
mission as a public institution has to effect how we conceive of ourselves and
how we go about encouraging intellectual climate. We have an obligation to the
State of North Carolina and the citizens of North Carolina to be mindful of those
obligations while doing all the other things that a university does. But in terms
of the substantive nature of what creates a thriving intellectual climate, I
don't think the fact we're a public university should fundamentally alter that.
What's exciting at Stanford I would hope would be exciting here and vice versa.

####
 Could you be more specific?

####
 Okay. As a political scientist I know. I'm not sure we have any
communists but I know we have socialists. (laughter) They seem to be prospering! 
(laughter)

####
 I think the report speaks in different parts to different
elements of the educational process. While many of the proposals begin with the
education of undergraduates I think that some of the things having to do with
inside and outside the classroom, with public space, community-based learning,
would all be topics in which professional schools should find some things that
are relevant for them. We did not focus as heavily as we might have on the
professional school subjects. I would hope that that would be one area for future
discussions. This could be a springboard for conversations about how we take some
of the ideas that are more designed for undergraduate education and move them
towards looking at them for the professional schools as well.

####
 I will be brief in my response. I think it would be good if
perhaps you viewed the SACS reaccreditation study. It goes into enormous detail
in examining what it is that's wrong with our intellectual climate. It's not what
I think or what the committee thought but what the faculty here at the university
thought was wrong. It goes into great detail in analyzing what some of the
problems are that have produced the lack of intellectual climate, with the
intellectual climate not being quite what we would like it to be. This is an
attempt to go beyond the criticism. This is an attempt to say, "Yes, there's
something wrong. We're not doing as well as we could." Some students seem to do
fine. Some students enjoy the vibrant intellectual life we're talking about, but
not enough do. What can we do about that? I agree, defining what makes an
exciting intellectual climate is difficult and I think we tried to do that in the
report. What I would hope is that instead of telling us how much we missed what
was important that you engage us in conversation and outline a mission for us
about what you think the ideal intellectual climate is. Something that hopefully
can capture the passion and imagination of other faculty and that you provide us
with concrete recommendations. That way we can group together to create a common
vision. I think it's wonderful, as I said before, to have critics but I hope they
come along with recommendations about improving the climate.

####
 I think that's an excellent point. When I first thought about
teaching a service learning course, it was one of the things I was worried about
was, does it diminish the value of service if it's no longer voluntary. I've had
many students over the years since I started teaching this service basic course
stumble into the course accidentally after the drop period when they couldn't get
out. They were rather upset to discover they were going to be doing 3 hours of
service. In 201 I can say that the ones who were most reluctant and most fearful
and most upset with the idea that they were going to have to do this came to me
at the end of the course and said, "I am so glad that I stumbled into this
course. This experience has been one of the most valuable ones in my years at
Carolina." So I don't think that requiring it in the courses that are service
based diminishes the value of it and, on the contrary, I think sometimes students
who wouldn't do it on their own do it and become, as a consequence of that,
better citizens.

####
 You made several allusions to departments or divisions that
were not doing as well. Has either a committee or someone in administration been
charged with looking at those divisions or departments to see whether there's a
reasonable explanation?