I want to just say a couple words about (Provost) Ravi (Bellamkonda), and then we'll get into the importance of the day. Dr. Ravi Bellamkonda is one of the reasons this university is going to be so great over not only the next year, but the next five years. The next 10 years. And the conditions and what he will do for academic excellence for this university is going to change the course of our trajectory at this university. Dr. Bellamkonda, thank you for the introduction, but more importantly, thank you for saying yes to coming to be the executive vice president and provost here at The Ohio State University.
We've got a lot of very, very special people here today, so I'm going to take just a couple minutes to say thank you and welcome. First, our Board of Trustees. We've got quite a number of them here. Brad Kastan is here. His wife, Holly. Thank you for being here. Dr. Reggie Wilkinson is here. Jeff Kaplan. Elizabeth Harsh. Thank you all for being here and the work that you do for our university. Former Board of Trustee, Shirley Dunlap Bowser, is here. Shirley, could you just raise your hand? Thanks, Shirley, for being here. I think you are by far the most experienced former trustee in attendance today, so thank you for that.
Former Student Board of Trustee, Laurel Van Dromme, is here as well. I don't know if I got a chance to say hi to her. Good to see you there.
Our Department of Higher Education Chancellor, Mike Duffey, is here. Mike, thank you for being here. Very special to have you here.
And the City of Columbus Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Angela Chapman, is here, a partner with us, and it's great to have you here as well.
And, of course, the stars of the show today. And I'm going to move away from the podium, and hopefully my mic will pick up. Jim and Nancy Patterson, thank you for not only what you have done for this university, but what you have done to sponsor this lecture. Jim served nine years on the Board of Trustees, finished in 2002, 2003 as the chair of the board, and has been integrally involved with everything that we do here at this university. You've changed the course of lives. And most of your whole family is here today, and I know most all of them are Ohio State graduates. It's really special to have the Patterson family here on the day of the Patterson Lecture. Let's please give Jim and Nancy a big round of applause.
Today is an important day. In fact, the timing of this lecture could not be more perfectly timed. If you just look at the headlines that have been occurring just over the last few weeks and months, higher education is in the headwinds. Higher education is under attack.
“2024 was a terrible year for higher education. 2025 will be worse.”
I've been the head of a higher education institution since 2013, so this is my 12th year of doing this work. And those headlines resonate with me. In fact, I was on a national radio broadcast just recently, and I made this statement. I've flown 125 combat missions under fire, and I could equate the job of being the president of a major public land-grant university to being very similar to that without actually being fired upon. This is a difficult time for higher ed.
And yet, if I were to stand here today, for all that I know about what's happening here at Ohio State, I'd be quick to point out ... Last year, we had 80,000 applications. For an incoming freshman class, that was the largest in our history. Over 9,500. The most diverse student body we'd ever seen. That was completely representative of the state of Ohio. Where, again, as we look at our student body population, 67,000 strong today, I’m proud to say that 70 percent of our students are from the 88 counties of Ohio.
Last year, we graduated just under 18,000 students at the undergraduate, graduate and PhD level. And those students have gone on to do amazing work. Nearly 70 percent of them actually stay in the state of Ohio to go to work.
The research that we did just over the past year ... Just under $1.6 billion in revenue. $775 million from the federal government alone. And life-altering, life-changing, life-saving research. And cancer. Parkinson's disease. Diabetes. I could go on and on about some of that important work. And then the work that we do at Extension in all 88 counties and how we're helping to teach our farmers to work with our teachers to work through a period of time where we are in drought.
And then recently, as we're working through helping our crops, with over 200 commodities in the state of Ohio, probably the most agriculturally diverse state in the nation, and all that great work is being done. On the clinical care side, our Wexner Medical Center is on the rise, taking care of 23 percent of Central Ohioans in a high-quality, high-care facility with a new tower on the horizon.
These are the things that are happening right now. And yet, we live in this paradox. There's this amazing erosion of trust that's happening at every large institution that governs our daily lives.
Now, we're not unfamiliar with this. If we go back and think about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, there was this beginning of erosion of (trust in) federally elected officials, the federal government. We've always seen that. But today, Americans tell us, through Gallup and Pew Research, that one in five Americans have faith in their elected officials. That's a challenge.
But also, Americans are telling us that they've lost faith in just about every other institution, whether it be religion, medicine, pharmacy, science, science, and higher ed is not immune. In fact, only one in three Americans say they have high faith in higher education. In fact, the only two institutions that are seemingly starting to survive in this erosion of trust are small businesses. Three and four Americans have high faith in small business and the American military. Three and four. And the American military has tended to stay pretty high on that list. It started to erode, and now it's come back. But higher education has had this loss of faith by the American public.
And yet, when I reflect on what it means to come to an institution like this, we have to ask ourselves the question, what is the meaning? What was the purpose of how land-grant universities were created in the first place? As Jim and I were talking today, a lot of people don't really understand what it means to be a land-grant. There's 106 of them in the nation today. Ten of them are private. The rest are public. There were 57 of the original that came into being. We were one of those 57 that came out of the Morrill Act from July 2nd of 1862. But we should remember what happened before President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act. Because Senator Morrill, who was from Vermont, had this idea that higher education could be something more than just for the elites.
At that time, most of higher education wasn't around New England. And there was this idea in the country, as we were expanding ... And, of course, remember, this moment in time, this was prior to the Civil War. They'd actually put together this idea of taking 30,000 acres in each State of the Union and creating an academic institution using federal dollars and letting the states be the beneficiary of that to start up these campuses.
And the original version of the Morrill Act was focused on studies in agriculture and mechanical sciences. The beginnings of engineering. And President James Buchanan shot it down in 1859. But it was when they put the military sciences back into it, the act was signed. At the very beginning in 1862, the land-grant university concept was simply about teaching and learning and access for all. That was the concept.
Now, there's been additions to the Morrill Act. There was an 1890 version, a 1994 version, and that was about accessibility. Historically Black Colleges. Tribal colleges. But there are other elements that started to define what the true mission of a land-grant university would be.
The Hatch Act of 1887. That's what allowed us to go and create experimental stations across states. This is the beginning of the research arm of what land-grant universities would eventually become. And then the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. That was the federal dollars matched with state dollars that allowed us to create an Extension, a program that we are very proud that we represent in all 88 counties.
As you look at where we were in 1914, the simple three-legged stool mission of a land-grant university was teaching and learning, world-class research, mostly centered around agriculture, and then this community engagement piece, which is now what we mostly refer to and think about as Extension. Those are important to reflect upon as we think about what our past was. And now as we fast-forward to this moment, are we at a critical time where we are ready to do what I'll call the pivot? Because we can't dismiss two out of three Americans who are saying, "We don't really trust in higher education." And what is it that they're saying to us? What is the problem?
Well, if you look across just over the last 10, 15 years, the cost of higher education has risen precipitously. Now, we could talk about Ohio State and how we think we're a little bit different. We could talk about 54 percent of our undergraduate students leaving here with zero debt. We should be proud of that. That's 20 percent better than the national average. But yet, still, even at public education and certainly in private education, the cost of attendance that goes with everything else, living, eating, textbooks, fees, all of it ... It's still on the rise.
Higher education tends to live in a little bit of an ivory tower. At this moment where Americans see that there's opportunity out there in the workforce. There's jobs out there. Some feel like they're being left behind. Most states, and Ohio is not immune from this, are not seeing more than 50 percent of high school graduates wanting to go to any type of post-secondary education at all. In fact, we're closer to 60 percent not choosing to go to higher education. And again, we have to ask ourselves why.
And then there's this other idea that, if you go to a public institution or private institution, are you going to be exposed to ideological things that are going to make you overly liberal? This is an uncomfortable conversation. And even though I've been very public about this, that's not what happens at Ohio State. There's this perception by the American public that that's what colleges are doing to our youth.
We have a moment in time right now where you can say, "You know what? None of that's really happening. We're good. We're great. We can just keep going the way we are, and we'll be okay." Or maybe we should listen to the American public. Maybe we should listen to our fellow Ohioans. And maybe we shouldn't just dig our heels in and say, "We're not changing. We're going to be just the way we were because we know we got it."
I'm going to reflect on other big things that you might think are really hard to turn around at this moment of what might be a pivot. I'm going to reflect on my 38 years of being in the Navy. I know a little bit about aircraft carriers. Try to imagine a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier for a second. I know most of you haven't had a chance to see one in person. Maybe you've seen in movies or on something. They're massive.
A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, of which we have 10, is 1,100 feet long. If you go into New York City, the first thing you see in the skyline is still the Empire State Building. An aircraft carrier, a Nimitz-class carrier, is the same length as the Empire State Building is tall. Put that on its side, and that's just the length. You got a four-and-a-half acre flight deck that's flat. It's 60 feet above the water. You've got four shafts and propellers that we call screws. Those screws are the size of a two-story building. And those screws, through nuclear power, can turn those things to produce 280,000 horsepower of thrust to move that aircraft carrier through the water at more than 30 miles an hour.
Think about turning that aircraft carrier 180 degrees in a pivot, if you will. Pretty hard thing to do. Probably going to take a long time. If you Google that and look that up, you'll find out it takes about five minutes to turn an aircraft carrier completely around. And, in fact, in the 50-year lifespan of an aircraft carrier, you only do this twice, where you take the aircraft carrier to full speed and put the rudder full hard left or right 30 degrees.
We don't put airplanes on the aircraft carrier when we do this, by the way, because what happens is that aircraft carrier turns hard as it bites as the water goes over those big giant two rudders, and then the aircraft carrier heels. If you're making a left turn, the aircraft carrier dips right nine to 10 degrees. Imagine that four-and-a-half acre flight deck 60 feet above the water dropping down about 10 feet. Everything doesn't stay still. It moves.
And then the keel of the ship, which is 40 feet below the waterline, serves as a giant water break. As the ship is now trying to turn over five minutes just to turn 180 degrees, that's just a giant water break. The ship slows down, and it takes a long time to turn the ship around. That's what happens if you just put the rudder over.
Now, if you think a little bit differently, and we teach our young men and women who drive these ships how to do this, you can actually turn that ship in less than a minute. And by doing that, all you do is you take the advantage of having four shafts, two port engines, two starboard engines, and as the ship takes that bite, you take the port engines, go to stop in a left turn, reverse them, and go full thrust flank speed on the starboard propellers, and take rudder midship. When the heel comes out, put the rudder full over left, and the ship will make a complete flat turn. And you can go from a five-minute turn to a one-minute turn and not even lose that much speed. All from just thinking a little bit out of the box and taking the capabilities that you have, and you can turn that massive piece of steel in short order and be very nimble and safe.
I know driving an aircraft carrier isn't the same as running The Ohio State University. I get that. But we're at a moment of time where maybe we need to be thinking about how do we take our assets, our capabilities, and make this pivot. And time matters. It really does. I think about today. Where is higher ed going to go? How are we going to convince the American public that we get it?
And does the concept of what a land-grant university is, our roots, the thing we care about a lot ... Does that help us define what the future is? I don't think we take the three parts of that mission away. I think those are solid. I think those are important, but it doesn't mean that we can't think about our capabilities, where our strengths are, our size, scale, and scope, and as a community, make the pivot. What does that mean? What does it mean to pivot for the future of higher education, in this era of unpredictability?
Let's face it. Most of our colleagues, particularly our Ivy League colleagues, and I understand most of them are private ... Some of them are land-grant, by the way, like Cornell. Who's going to come out of this stronger and be the future of higher education? I submit it's going to be the land-grant, public, R1 research universities like The Ohio State University.
What do we have to do that's different? I have three points. And I think these are critical. And they will be part of what the future of education for citizenship, this 10-year plan, will be.
The first two are kind of simple, but it's amazing how often people can't execute. Number one, we're going to do what we say. If we put out a plan, and we say we're going to do something, we're going to do it. I've done a lot of planning, and I've done this at a lot of academic institutions, and it's amazing how often people put out that they're going to do something, and they kind of lose sight of it. And then the next thing you know, it didn't get done. And there's a host of reasons why it doesn't get done. Everything that we do here at Ohio State ... When we say we're going to do something, we're going to do it.
We’ve got to recognize that we are a public institution. We're subject to laws at the federal and at the state level, and we will follow laws as they're given to us, even sometimes when we don't like them. That means that we're going to be transparent and honest and show our work and let the public see it.
And the third part ... Maybe this is the most important. We're going to change what it means to have opportunity. Opportunity. And that's what the land-grant (university) was founded on to begin with. And if we are not viewed as an institution that produces opportunity, and not just opportunity for the wealthy, the best educated ... Let's face it. We have become a more selective university since 1990, but we still have to have that part of our mission where we have opportunity for all walks of life. Everyone welcome to the campus. To the Oval. That's what we bring here. We are the experiential academic institution for the United States.
That means we have to think about our scholarship programs, our affordability, our accessibility, how we embrace our regional campuses, who are a strong backbone part of how we bring anybody and everybody who wants to have that dream of fulfilling to get a diploma because that diploma will be opportunity.
We have to also reimagine what it means to have the opportunity to do that type of world-class research. There's multiple phases to this. It's not just the ability to get federal grants, which are going to become more difficult. The volume of research is going to be tough. Again, as I look out across the landscape of my colleagues, there are many institutions right now laying off researchers for fear that they can't get to those federal, state, or private industry grants. We have not done that. And working with Dr. Peter Mohler, I think we'll be able to maintain that. We don't intend to do that.
Part and parcel to that is, who's going into the PhD pipelines to do some of this work? If you're paying attention, almost half of all the PhD pipeline students in our country today are not from the United States. Now, we could argue whether or not we think that's right or not, but how do we incentivize our own US citizens, our own students, to want to go into a PhD pipeline? Again, opportunity. We have to increase the opportunity and show why the type of research that we do will make a difference.
And when I say make a difference, I'm talking about changing lives and saving lives. And, yes, we have to tell that story. And maybe we haven't told our story and some of the visuals that you saw earlier about how the work we do changes and impacts lives.
We also have to increase the opportunity for Ohioans because we are the state's flagship. How we impact their lives. Our Extension is a model for how to do that, but how do we expand that to do other things that are Extension-like, with healthcare, with helping teachers, with helping communities? We have a role in that. Historically, Ohio State has kind of had these walls. Even though we're blended right into the city of Columbus, we haven't always let all those walls down, and we have to do better.
And finally, opportunity in the clinical care space. We are very fortunate to have a world-class medical center here. And I'm very excited about this new tower going up. It's going to be opportunity for us to take care of more Ohioans. And if we're just going to even hold on to being able to support parts of Ohio that are growing, we're going to have to think even more into the future.
And finally, we have to create more opportunity to attract the best faculty that we can find in the country. We need to be the workplace of choice, compensate our people fairly, give them the right benefits, and retain them here because the best faculty will not only attract the best students, they’ll also make them the most successful.
And then create the pathways, the pathways for people to want to transfer here, and then also the pathways to make sure, through meaningful internships with the business community, how we incentivize our students to not only want to go to work but go to work here in the state of Ohio.
All of these are things that we do to some degree now, but we can do so much better.
And when I talk about opportunities, we have one other really big, important strength here at Ohio State. We are financially stable. We're financially strong. As everybody else is now playing in this defensive crouch, and we have to deal with it, too, because we don't know everything that's coming around the corner, but we have managed thus far, and we're going to be looking to invest in ourselves. And when I say invest in ourselves, I'm talking about an increase in the talent of faculty. Thinking of new ways of giving our students all the tools they're going to need. Imagine in five years, every student that graduates from Ohio State will be fluent in two languages, English and artificial intelligence. Every student, no matter what the academic discipline is. Because that will be needed. If you are not, you might not be able to go to work.
These are just some of the themes, when I'm talking about opportunity in this pivot, that we're going to be ready to take on.
Today, the future is here. Today, if I go back and think about that aircraft carrier, I would say to our Ohio State community, “Stand by. Ship and a turn. Stand by to come about. Port engines back one-third. Starboard engines ahead flank. Left 30-degree rudder.” The pivot is on the horizon. And I am proud to be working with all of you to be your president, to be part of this future, as we go forward and redefine not only the future of education, but what a land-grant university has been, is, and will be going into the future.
Thank you all, again, for being here today and forever. Go Bucks.
This is where I get grilled by (Senior Vice Provost) Dr. Trevor Brown.
Trevor Brown:
Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. Hi, my name's Trevor Brown. I'm proud to serve as dean of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs and interim dean of the Max M. Fisher College of Business. As you just heard, I get the pleasure of asking some very friendly and polite questions of President Carter. The grilling was of your tofu and your chicken.
Thank you for that. You painted a very inspiring picture of where we are and where we can go. Most of my questions are going to ask you to elaborate on some things. You mentioned in your remarks that you think the future of higher education will be led by land-grants, and there are over 100. Why do you think land-grants specifically are best positioned to lead the way? What is it about land-grants?
President Carter:
I think that one of the best things about land-grants is this idea of humility. We are in an era where people don't like elitism. And you're seeing that. I have nothing against my colleagues at Harvard or Brown or Princeton. These are elite schools. I fully admit, when I was a youth coming out of high school, that I was inspired to go to one of those institutions. I was fortunate to go to the US Naval Academy.
But as I think about what most Americans see as the future of higher education, they want to be in an experiential environment. Many students want to go to large campuses, believe it or not, but also this idea that we're on a campus that's welcoming to all, and that is part of the land-grant concept. That's the whole reason that they were founded to begin with. And this idea that, even though we are selective, we have pathways for anybody that can imagine themselves getting a degree. And I think that's really exciting. I think it's really important.
And of those 57 original land-grant institutions, I think that you're going to see all of them rise to a certain occasion, and I want us to be in the lead.
Trevor Brown:
Well, let's take that one then. Ohio State. One of over 100 land-grants. In many respects, we could say we're just like all of them. But what is different and special about the Ohio State University that puts us, in your mind, at the front of the line?
President Carter:
The right people to ask this question to are our students that are graduating. I'm reminded just in a couple of weeks we're going to graduate 12,000 students. Every one of them, every one of them, has got a story. And Lynda and I are privileged to host a lot of students at the house. We had the future scholarship winners last night. And I get inspired by their story. And oftentimes, I'll ask them, “Why did you choose us? What made you choose us over that school up north or Indiana or any of our Big Ten colleagues?” Many of whom are land-grants themselves.
And whether they're from the state of Ohio or out of state, what I hear the most is, “When I came to campus, I got this sense of community. I got this sense of belonging, and I just had this sense that I got to experience something by being on the Oval that made this place special.” That's what we bring, I think, that separates us from the rest. It's the experiential learning opportunity.
Trevor Brown:
A little bit of change of direction. We are in a time, as you described, in which higher education is under threat, and we hear a lot about the things that we do wrong, right? Right now, we've been told repeatedly there are failures of the institution, some of which you elaborated on.
Do you think we've ceded the narrative to others to tell that story for us? And how do we take charge of telling our own story about the things that we're doing right?
President Carter:
I don't think we've done a good enough job of telling our story as much as we think we are. We’ve clearly got some more work to do. And again, I go back to that pivot of doing some things differently, about doing what we say we're going to do, about being transparent and honest and sincere, about maybe where we haven't been as good as we think we are, and be willing to say that we'll change.
And I think that will start to change the narrative. And then we do have to be able to communicate it. We have to create this network of ambassadors that can tell our story, not just me or you. Our students are probably the best at this of anybody. And we're very fortunate. The governor and I have had long talks about the need to keep many of our students here in the state of Ohio, and we do much better than other state flagships. I can speak to that. But we need to let our students tell some of their stories, too, and I think that's something we can work on. “Why did you come to Ohio State? What did it take to keep you here?” And all the resources that we are going to and will continue to bring to make them successful.
Trevor Brown:
Follow-up. I really enjoyed the two videos we just saw. And I think we're all familiar and comfortable with having our students be our best ambassadors. But what was really interesting is those were citizens of Ohio that we heard telling that story.
How do you think we get them to tell the great things that Ohio State can do?
President Carter:
We're so fortunate. As I think about some of the themes that are in the strategic plan, I might be the only university president who’s listed sports as a key theme, and I'm not shy about it. And by the way, this was before we won the national championship in football, so it wasn't post-that.
But it gets to this idea that, if you're an Ohioan, you're a Buckeye. And I don't care if you're at any of the public institutions or private. On Saturdays, you're paying attention to what our football team's doing. You're paying attention to the other 35 Division I sports, many of whom go on to either compete or win at national championship level. It's the one thing that brings us all together as an institution. That's one of the reasons that's so important. Now, we could talk a lot more about sports and how that's going through a changing dynamic and how we've got to navigate that, but it is still so important. I call it the front porch of the university. It's the one thing that brings us together. And again, you can talk to students from New Jersey, New York, California, or Ohio, and one of the things they'll say is, “I want to be in The Shoe on Saturdays. I want to experience those one or two games a year because it brings us together.”
And then all the traditions that we have here, from “Carmen Ohio” to Mirror Lake to Orton Hall and the chimes. This is what makes this place so special.
Trevor Brown:
You mentioned the 10-year strategic plan and just made reference to it. Again, I know it's not ready for prime time yet, but as you've thought about putting that plan together, talk about how the land-grant mission informs and infuses that plan.
President Carter:
It can actually be a little point of friction. Let's just think about this in the big picture. When we look at the origin of being a land-grant for us in 1870, September 17th, 1873, our first class ... 24 students. Three women, by the way. Very progressive for the time, but we were founded to be not elite at the time. We were founded to be an institution for all, and yet we obviously enjoy being ranked the No. 15-academic excellent program for undergraduate studies in the nation from all publics. We're proud of that.
And you get that by having world-class faculty, being very selective for your students, having very high graduation rates, having very high retention rates, being the number of students that stay from their first to second year. We're proud of all that, but yet sometimes those two can be in opposition to each other a certain way. We have to be able to find a way to do both and do them well.
And I think we have historically done well. But again, as I reflect on this moment of pivot, we're going to have to invest in both sides of this equation to really be successful. And, yes, the Board and I will be talking a lot more about that in detail as we get ready to roll this plan out and be ready to start executing on 1 July of this year.
Trevor Brown:
We are all looking forward to that. I'm proud to be a part of an institution that is simultaneously trying to navigate these challenging times while looking down the horizon. But as you think about these particularly challenging times, how do you think we, at Ohio State, but broadly ... Because I do think you're right. We are a leader, particularly among land-grants.
How can we stay true to that land-grant mission and values while still adapting to the changing forces around us? What's the sauce on how to do that?
President Carter:
I remember listening to the director of NASA talk about when they were trying to come up with this huge idea about going to the moon. And the thing that they did was they got everybody on board from the astronauts to the engineers, to the planners, to the logisticians, to the janitor. They said, “We're going to the moon.”
We're going to redefine higher education. If we can get everybody on board with that and understand the concept and what it means and then drill down and get into the details, we'll change that narrative.
And we're a good enough community here. There's over 117,000 employees here at Ohio State. We can move that needle. We can do that together as a community and get everybody bought in that we're the institution that's going to make this difference.
Trevor Brown:
One last question. I'm going to ask this in two ways and give you a little bit of time to think about it.
The first is, imagine 10 years from now. It's a 10-year strategic plan, and you're walking across the Oval. It's April 17th, 2035. What kind of university do you want to see? Hold that thought.
Then the second is to take your metaphor of the Nimitz. Of an aircraft carrier. The story is about pivoting. Does the aircraft carrier need to change? And what about the aircraft carrier needs to change to be able to pivot? What might look different in 10 years?
President Carter:
I love this question. Here's some interesting history. Naval aviation goes back to 1911 with the USS Langley. My first aircraft carrier was the USS Midway, now that museum piece out in San Diego. When Midway was built in 1945, tail end of World War II, it was the largest ship in the world for 10 years. When the Nimitz class was built in 1970, it was the largest ship in the world for seven years. These are massive vehicles.
And yet, if we were to have to think of them as instruments of national security and all the missions that they do, the one thing that they have and the reason we still have aircraft carriers and the reason that everybody in this room's grandchildren will still be able to go fly, land, or command an aircraft carrier is because of their size, scale, and scope. They're given the flexibility of mission as a floating city at sea, as a piece of US sovereign territory, that can go anywhere around the world without a permission slip and still have a mission and still be effective. It might not be the same instrument of how to win a war as it was in World War II, but it's still relevant.
You could draw an interesting parallel to Ohio State in that same idea going back to an era just a little bit before that. And as we've grown in size, scale, and scope, we've had to think about how to continuously re-imagine ourselves, repurpose ourselves, to not only be relevant, to not only create the instrument for which we educate young men and women, but if you were to ask me what do I see in 10 years, I'll say two things.
One is that we will have figured out how to create the next great citizenry, meaning the next leaders of the next generation for Ohio, the state, and the world.
But maybe more importantly, if I'm walking on this campus 10 years from now, just as I can walk on any aircraft carrier in service today, and I can tell you within 10 minutes whether that ship is any good or not, it's how you look people in the eye, and you can gauge the morale of what is in the crew all the way up to the captain, all the way down to the youngest fireman, and you can do the same thing on this campus today.
And as good as we are today, I like to think that that level of morale, that level of success, that level of, “I want to be at this institution to achieve something,” ... That, to me, is what will define success. It's beyond the graduation rates. Beyond how many people go on to make six figures in their life every year in the economy. It's going to be that wanting to be here to gain knowledge and create that thirst for knowledge for a lifetime.
Trevor Brown:
President Carter, thank you for serving as today's Patterson Land-Grant University lecturer and, fundamentally, for leading us and having confidence in all of us to be with you on this important journey. Please join me in thanking President Carter.
And as they stand, please join me in congratulating and thanking Nancy and Jim Patterson for their support of this lecture series in this university.
As we come to a close, I want to remind you of the posters that are here. Please enjoy the posters and learn about all the exciting things we're doing in pursuit of the land-grant mission. Thank you, and have a great afternoon.