Average SAT Scores

We have just welcomed our best fall freshman class ever. High school grade point averages rose to 3.6 from 3.5 last year.

The average SAT score was up 14 points from last Fall. That is two years of double-digit increases in SAT, and if we stay on this course, within two years, our entering students should have an average SAT score of 1200.

Honors Enrollment

The number of students eligible for the Honors program rose to 686 this year, and most of those eligible accepted the challenge. This is significant growth, since we have nearly doubled our number of Honors students since 1997.

Merit, Achievement & Hispanic Scholars

With final statistics in, we have 95 Merit Scholars in this freshman class, up from 73 last year. For the past four years we've been among the nation's top 20 schools in recruiting Merit Scholars, and John Barnhill speculates that this year we may advance into the top 15. We also have recruited 24 National Achievement Scholars, up from 19.

First-Time-In-College Admissions

We achieved these numbers while keeping basic enrollment level, as was our goal.

Although we had a much bigger pool of applicants to draw on (nearly 3000 more students applied to be freshmen in 1999 than in 1998), we accepted 200 fewer students than in 1998.

Transformation: Students: Recruitment

Clearly, we've enrolled students this year who are much better prepared and better suited for the challenges of a Florida State education. That comes from recruiting the right students and looking beyond SAT scores and grade point averages. We are now taking a look at transcripts and selecting those students who have earned their high grades through taking challenging courses, rather than sliding through their senior year.

This university owes great thanks to Larry Abele and Pat Hayward for developing the plan to help us recruit better students, and I want to express my appreciation to all those involved in the collaboration among all parts of the university which have allowed us to develop an enrollment management plan and execute it. We have never seen a better example of cooperation on this campus.

I also believe that we are attracting better students because we are paying considerably more attention to supporting them once they arrive on campus.

Clearly, this university has gone through significant changes in the past decade. Thanks to our special philosophy and our experience with pioneering efforts, we've been able to transform our campus, our student body, our courses and the ways we offer them.

And the changes go far beyond the topics we've touched on here. I would be remiss if I failed to mention our Film School and our High Magnetics Field Laboratory among the most significant additions of the past decade.

The Challenge of Technology

The challenge most often linked to the university is that of technology. Peter Drucker and other futurists, believe that, because of technology, the university will cease to exist.

Even those with a less radical vision of the future expect the possibilities of technology to lead us to new ways of thinking about the way we teach and learn, about where we teach and learn, and about who teaches and learns.

Yet, in this area, I believe we have advanced further than any other university in this country. Perhaps it is the pioneering culture, perhaps it is the well-thought-out support and education services, perhaps it is just the native energy of our faculty, but I do not believe that any other institution surpasses us in developing web-based and web-supported courses. We now have more than 1600 web-based and web-supported courses on line, and many more are being developed all the time.

In the area of continuing education, Bill Lindner has brought incredible initiative to his job as head of the Turnbull Center, and we have seen major new projects with government and industry.

Even more transforming has been the development of full course to degree programs by our colleges and departments. I want to express my appreciation to the groups led by Alan Mabe, and the Learning Systems Institute led by Owen Gaede for their support of these efforts and my great appreciation and admiration to the Computer Science Department, the College of Education, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the School of Nursing and the College of Social Science for the pioneering work they have accomplished and thank all the others who have full degree programs in development.

I feel that I should single out the remarkable achievement of the dean and faculty of the School of Information Studies in development and delivery of full degree programs, graduate and undergraduate, for distance learners while at the same time opening a new undergraduate program, developing a usability facility, helping Beta test a major new database and countless other activities. I am looking for a Superwoman cape for Jane.

In every pioneering effort there are very difficult questions that must arise when we go to places we have not been before, and certainly this is true as we assess the uses of new technology.

One of the more important questions is, "How do we know that this new method of learning will be effective for our students?" It is a fair question. The best answer is to ask ourselves a broader question: "How do we deliver the best learning experience to our students, whether on campus or at a distance?" If we will honestly ask ourselves what is best for our students and accommodate ourselves to the answer, we will thrive on this frontier. We ought not fear having classes that are too small or programs that are too large, but we should learn to live with one constant fear -- whether delivering courses at a distance or here on campus -- and that is the fear of lowering standards, allowing shoddy teaching or a bad learning environment.

The Challenge of Reinventing the Residential Campus

If technology is so important, why are we spending so much on our campus and plant? Why are we concentrating our resources on beautifying the grounds and renovating old residence halls and classrooms?

We can say simply that we live in an age of paradox, but I believe that the answer is that we are trying to serve students in the very best way we can. Technology helps us serve students who are place bound and those who look to us for continuing education long after they have left our campus. But the core of this university is and will remain the place that Francis Eppes selected in the middle of the last century. We will serve those whose destiny is linked with this university by assuring that there is a core and that it is both functional and beautiful.

Living/Learning Communities Honors housing in Landis and Gilchrist Academic learning/living communities in Bryan and Broward Halls Substance-free learning environment in DeGraff All women in Jennie Murphie; one floor designated for the Women in Math, Science and Engineering Program Cultural Awareness in Deviney Hall Genesis Freshman Leadership Program in Kellum Hall

One of the most important aspects of the approach to this renovation has been the development of specialized residential living and learning programs -- among them the Honors Program and new facilities first at Bryan Hall under the leadership of George Weaver, but now expanding into Broward Hall and planned for other renovated residence halls.

These experiments are transforming the halls and making them into centers of learning excellence. Experiments like these point us to the opportunities we can have throughout this campus if we think about creating the kind of learning experience that few large institutions offer their students.