Leadership Through Collaboration

Remarks delivered by UTA President James D. Spaniolo at the President's Investiture & Convocation on April 12, 2004

video remarks (QuickTime movie, 18 MB)

James D. Spaniolo It is an honor to be the 7th president of The University of Texas at Arlington. I want to express my deep appreciation to Chancellor Yudof and The University of Texas System Board of Regents (including Regents Krier and Estrada) for providing me with this exceptional opportunity. In my first two months as president of UTA, I have been welcomed with great kindness and friendship. To think, a year ago I had never been to Arlington and had not seen this impressive campus. Today I feel right at home in Arlington, at UTA and in Texas. In our first conversation, Dr. Nedderman advised me that all you need to become a Texan is to be willing! ... I am willing. I plan to break in these new boots working for my new university and my new home.

In the course of a lifetime, we experience certain moments that will be etched in our memories forever. This is such a moment for me…and for my family. I am pleased that so many Spaniolo family members are here today, including my wife Sally and our son and daughter, my brother and two sisters … and my mother. The only member of my immediate family not here is my father … but I know he is watching from above … and smiling.

I’d also like to thank Clif Wharton whose thoughtful address set the right tone for today’s events. Even more, I want to thank him for being an inspirational role model and for giving me a chance to see first hand how to be a courageous and effective university president. He and his wife Dolores, who also is here today, have been pioneers and have exemplified the true meaning of “partnership” in all their endeavors.

I want you to share my joy in participating in this majestic ceremony, one that has not been held on this campus since Jack Woolf became president of Arlington State College 44 years ago in February 1960. I’m pleased that Dr. Woolf as well as Dr. Nedderman and Dr. Sorber could participate in this investiture today. Your presence reminds us that this university has a proud history. I pledge my best efforts to serve with diligence and collaboration in building on the foundation you helped create.

We are here not only to celebrate a new chapter in the life of a great university but more importantly to recognize academic excellence and research in the accomplishments of our students and faculty. The success of any university president cannot be separated from the excellence and accomplishments of the university’s students, faculty and staff. Knowledge is the product universities provide, but our students and graduates are our prize.

Some of our best and brightest students are here today to be recognized in this convocation. I congratulate you on your pursuit of academic excellence.

You remind us that we are only as strong as our student success. We are only as vibrant as our faculty scholarship and research. We are only as relevant as our impact on the state’s vitality. My pledge to you is that we will be strong and vibrant and relevant during my tenure, and we will work together to make it so.

In my first two months I’ve been asked frequently about my vision for UTA. Thus far, I have refrained from making any pronouncements. I find wisdom in a statement made by that legendary Texas Congressman and Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn. He said that to be an effective leader you have to listen in order to learn. So, I’ve been doing a great deal of listening…and learning…and I’ve developed some initial observations. Let me briefly share a few of them with you.

UTA is an outstanding university with strong traditions. There are significant strengths and great expertise across the university. Every day I learn more about our distinctive accomplishments.

Consider these very recent examples:

An accrediting team described the School of Architecture has “one of the strongest design schools in the country.”
The College of Business conferred MBA’s on 95 senior executives in Beijing, China last month. The UTA program is the largest of any American university in China.
The School of Urban and Public Affairs and the School of Social Work were rated highly in the just released U.S. News and World Report rankings.
The Colleges of Engineering and Science are central to new corporate and national laboratory partnerships with our cutting-edge research in nanotechnology playing a critical role in these initiatives.

In this spirit of dynamic excellence, we can be --increasingly -- a hub for new ideas and new growth, whether that growth is intellectual or economic.

For too many people UTA is a ‘best kept secret.’ Too few know about our unique assets. Too few have a current picture of UTA. For example, this is not the so called ‘commuter school’ it may have been at one time. More and more students are living on or immediately adjacent to the campus.

In the fall, we expect approximately 5,000 students to live in university housing. This is just one example. We must begin telling the new UTA story, the many UTA stories, in a more strategic way to paint a new picture for all to see. And we will … with the active participation of the entire campus making our voice strong.

Recently I saw a sign in Arlington that proclaimed “We are first in the heart of the Metroplex.” It struck me as a perfect way to view our university. We are in the heart of the Metroplex, an equal distance between Dallas and Fort Worth. We are a most valuable asset and partner not only for Arlington but also for those in Fort Worth and Dallas.

UTA must see itself and be seen as a powerful resource for education, innovation, knowledge generation, technological discovery and economic development. We are an engine for advancement. We must take full advantage of our strategic strengths and location.

We are ideally positioned to build partnerships and collaborations that will enhance the university as we strengthen our communities. Our recent agreement to establish a research and teaching partnership between Vought Aircraft Industries is an excellent case in point. This partnership will provide benefits not only to UTA and Vought, it will contribute to the economic prosperity of Texas. We also need to build stronger collaborative relationships with other universities, including those in the University of Texas System.

I am pleased that we are collaborating in an $18 million joint research project with UT-Dallas and UT-Southwestern Medical Center on medical imaging. And just three weeks ago, our three universities entered into an agreement to develop collaborative research projects with Sandia National Labs that could lead to breakthroughs in homeland security research. Our fellow universities and medical components should be our collaborators not our competitors.

Strong partnerships are also crucial to our relationships with the City of Arlington where we already have several key collaborations underway, including the new Center for Workforce Development and Continuing Education, which will open next month, and the Arlington Technology Incubator. You will be pleased to know UTA is working closely with the City and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce to develop a new commercial and retail presence close to the campus. That success and other similar efforts will enhance both the City and UTA.

I also look forward to building an even stronger relationship with and increasing UTA’s presence in Fort Worth. I look forward to strengthening and expanding our partnership with Tarrant County College, to building new partnerships with Texas Christian University, The University of North Texas Health Science Center and Texas Wesleyan University. The synergy we can create by working together can transform higher education in our region.

Partnerships and collaborations on the campus also are critical. Critical to academics, as we build more and more multi-disciplinary and even multi-institutional programs. Critical in student and residential life, as we create a richer, more vibrant campus environment which draws more people to the campus. The completion of the 200-seat, state-of-the-art planetarium in the new Chemistry and Physics building will serve K-12 students, teachers, and practitioners throughout the region as well as UTA students and faculty.

We’re creating Living-Learning communities such as K.C. Hall, opening this fall that combine rigorous academic, community outreach and service, and faculty mentoring components in a student residential environment. Finally, events like the recent speech given by Archbishop Desmond Tutu filled this hall with diverse peoples from the entire Metroplex, uniting to hear his personal messages of inspiration and hope.

I plan to more fully develop these themes in the months ahead through a series of strategic conversations on and off campus. This will not be a solitary exercise. Rather, presidential leadership must be collaborative and connected with both the capacities and the aspirations of the entire university community. Likewise, it’s not the president’s personal vision, it’s our shared vision that emerges from conversations and consultation with all those who care about our university, including our elected representatives whose support is so important to us.

As I look across Texas Hall today, I see a thousand points of hope, optimism and light for our university. I see it in the eyes of our outstanding students and in our committed faculty and staff.

At UTA we take pride in saying, “Expect Great Things.”

Today, I say we should expect greater things of each other because our best days lie ahead of us.

By partnering and collaborating with the world around us, we will meet the challenges that face us, tell a new story about UTA and make a brighter future for generations to come.

In the words of Robert Frost, we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep, and miles to go before we sleep.