Colleagues:

As you know, we have much to be proud of as an academic community.

Over the past six years, we have faced the worst economic recession in most of our lives; increased our reserves; strengthened our financial position; built a campus to serve generations of students to come; completed the first major fund-raising campaign in the history of Colorado State; made progress in the diversity of our faculty, staff and students and in the treatment of our adjunct faculty colleagues; and consistently set records in enrollment, retention, graduation, research funding, Extension and student satisfaction surveys, and reputational markers.

We should be proud of these accomplishments, even as we acknowledge that we continue to face substantial challenges: the on-going privatization of American public higher education, the continued epidemic of student suicide, the challenge of ensuring our campus environment is as safe as we can possibly make it for all members of our community, and our charge to live up to our Land Grant University heritage in the face of relentless societal change.

In the midst of all of this, we have utilized a portion of our time and energy discussing and debating the issues related to an on-campus football stadium. I believe that most of you know I think this discussion has now gone on long enough, and it is time to make a decision and assure that our focus remains on our role and mission as exemplified in the issues detailed above. Today, I have transmitted my stadium recommendation to the Board of Governors, and it is posted at the Stadium webpage at http://www.colostate.edu/stadium/. The Board will take up my recommendation at its December 5th meeting in Denver.

For those of you passionately interested in this topic, I thank you for your advice, counsel, engagement, suggestions, and criticisms over these past three years. For those of you frustrated with the amount of energy that has been devoted to this topic, I thank you for your patience and indulgence as we worked through the issues. To all of you, I wish a successful completion to our semester and a safe and restful holiday in the break to follow.

-tony

Dr. Tony Frank
President