Main Building Opening Address

October 25, 2004

President Patterson, your building is back!

I have been looking forward to having this conversation with you for a little over three years.

In order to prepare for this conversation, I recently read your biography. I was amazed to learn that you served as president for 41 years! I told an audience last week that there were two reasons you could survive that long. First, it was harder to print newspapers in those days. Second, there were no radio talk shows. Don't worry; you don't need to know what they are.

When we repositioned you to your present location (I hope you enjoyed the ride!), many people asked why you were facing in this direction. I've not given an answer until today. You see, a lot of people don't realize that, a year before the completion of the building in 1882, you pledged your entire personal fortune as collateral against the money borrowed to complete this building. I read in your biography that the bankers were reluctant to renew the loan for fear the Legislature, under pressure from the denominational colleges, would eliminate the one-half cent tax designated for State College. Given your Scottish heritage, I know you were a good steward of your personal resources but you were stubbornly determined, another Scottish trait, to see this building through to completion. So, that is why you are sitting in a position to watch over the rebuilding and operation of “your building.”

There is a second reason why you are positioned in this direction. We have located our Welcome Center in Main Building so that every prospective student and their parents will begin their UK journey in our very first building. And, when they walk out the door to begin their tour of campus, you will be there to welcome them and remind them of the history of this university.

The fire that destroyed the Administration Building on May 15, 2001, was certainly a tragedy. We are all so grateful that the very thick walls, fashioned from campus clay for the bricks and local stone, remained standing. We have made the most of this opportunity by rebuilding upon that strong foundation, by studying the building's past so that we could bring it back such that it “reflects the history of the institution and illuminates its future.”

Regarding its history:

We have brought back the original name, “Main,” because it is no longer simply a facility to house administrators.
We have located two classrooms in the building. This is the first time there have been classrooms here since they were removed in 1948.
We brought back the tower. It certainly looks different from the original but it is exactly the same height, 157 feet. That's why you can see it from your location. The original tower was progressively dismantled and shortened or altered, and in 1919, it was totally removed. The new tower symbolizes the fact that the University of Kentucky, the state's flagship university, is a beacon for education and outreach. Light will shine from the four tower windows equally in all directions: toward downtown Lexington and Northern Kentucky; toward the adjacent neighborhoods and Western Kentucky; toward the medical center and Southern Kentucky; and toward the Main Campus and Eastern Kentucky. Because we are One University and our campus is the Commonwealth.
We have brought the building back to its original grade. We don't know why, but over the years, several feet of soil were placed around the building making it appear that it had a basement. We have removed that soil and exposed the original first floor and its beautiful limestone structure and added much needed green space to the campus.
We have reestablished the chapel, now called the Lexmark Public Room. We cannot seat all of our students as you could in your day but we will use that space for recognition services and will offer it for public meetings. We were very excited the day we found the original pillars that were in the chapel. Over the years, they had been encased in drywall. After the fire, while tearing away the walls, we discovered these two beautiful iron pillars that now form the center piece of the room. Also, as you may have already noticed, the lectern I am using today is the original chapel lectern. It will be placed between the two pillars to further tie us back to the history of the building.
On a personal note, my office is on the same floor as yours. However, I have chosen to be on the back side of the building so I can enjoy seeing the energy of this dynamic campus out of my office window. By the way, speaking of my office, I wanted to tell you that we found your leather-topped work table and the first university archivist's roll-top desk. I had them refinished using a donation from Charles and Grace Price from my and Patsy's hometown, Earlington. I'm going to use them in my conference room where I am also displaying your portrait and pictures of you at your work table and the university's first archivist, Mary Hester Cooper, at her roll-top desk. By the way, I really like the two hidden writing desks at each end of your table and even used one of them today to put the finishing touches on this speech.

Main Building

Regarding illuminating the future, let me tell you about a conversation that took place right here on your plaza. Alice Sparks, one of our outstanding Board of Trustees members, and I were walking to the Office Tower for a Trustees' meeting. She looked at the back of the burned-out Administration Building and said, “It's really unfortunate that when the building is completed, it will have its back turned on the campus.” She knew that we have made a special effort to create a feeling of community at the university by placing hot dog stands around campus, opening Maxwell Place, adding benches to the Patterson Plaza, and bringing Starbucks to the Student Center. She also realized that we were working to eliminate the “silos” between faculty, staff and students; between athletics, academics and the medical center. Well, I told her that we might be able to do something about the design. I had appointed a committee to help us determine how to bring this historic building back. We are really indebted to this group. I asked them if it would be possible to have a door on the campus side of the building at least as large as the one on the front. What's really interesting is that when we were tearing out the interior walls to begin the reconstruction process, we found that there had been a door on the campus side. So we were set! However, they went beyond simply adding a single door. They agreed that we should have a design that indicated our view of openness, inclusiveness and energy. We wanted a design that symbolized the bright future of this institution. Therefore,

To bring energy to the building, we brought back the classrooms, added the Welcome Center, included a Public Room, and designed space to allow visitors to view artwork throughout the building, where we are featuring work by Kentucky artists. We also added two balconies to host special events, to provide a location for informal conversations and to provide an open interface with the campus.
To symbolize the bright future, we added a sky light; we designed glass in the top of the tower to allow the sun to come into a magnificent conference room. The building was also designed to allow us to use the grand windows that were previously in the north and south stairwells for natural light in conference rooms and offices.
To demonstrate our commitment to inclusiveness, we have offices for the Faculty Senate, the Staff Senate, the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Commission on Diversity.

So, I feel we have definitely met our design goals of reflecting the history of the institution and illuminating its future.

We are very grateful to all the people who worked on the design and construction of this building. They did a masterful job. I am also very grateful to the donors who have stepped forward to give us the ability to construct such an outstanding facility. It cost a lot more than the $81,000 you had to spend to build it originally, President Patterson! I could not possibly mention all of the names of those responsible for this accomplishment but I do want to thank my wife, Patsy, our First Lady. She demonstrated a unique ability to bring warmth, comfort and richness to this structure while maintaining and enhancing the academic tradition that this institution deserves. By the way, she was born in Greenville, Kentucky, where you started your early teaching career as the principal for the Greenville Presbyterial Academy following your graduation from Hanover College.

While this building is grand and will serve UK well, the true strength of the institution remains its people. You should be so proud! We have approximately 27,000 students. We offer over 240 degree programs and provide an excellent education. We have 1,800 faculty and 10,000 staff. Most of the major academic programs have faculty members who are the envy of any university in the country because they are recognized as being the most knowledgeable experts in their discipline. We do things never imagined in your days in both basic and applied research. Our outreach programs reach throughout the state to address the needs of Kentucky.

But we do face our challenges. Your greatest challenge was to found this university. You had to fight hard to secure adequate state money and won important fights against those who sought to weaken this institution. We continue to face funding limitations. The lack of fortitude to raise revenue is still a characteristic of our citizens and government leaders. In 1990, when we passed legislation to reform our K-12 system, we also passed a major tax program to provide recurring funding to advance that system. I'm pleased to say, we have made measurable progress.

However, in 1997, when House Bill 1 was passed to reform higher education, no recurring revenue stream was provided. There was money made available for a few years and higher education received funding for innovative research programs. But then the bottom dropped out of the national and state economies. We have endured cuts of $74 million in the last three years. We've had to raise tuition double digits the last two years, and we have cut costs by $34 million in that time period. We have been unable to provide adequate raises for our dedicated faculty and staff.

Main Building

You see, President Patterson, Kentucky still does not understand that it must invest in higher education to change the future of the state. It's more important today than ever before. It is a cultural issue that has haunted this state for years. I was reading some of President Barker's speeches the other day. On August 20, 1913, at a farmers' barbecue in Versailles, only three years following your presidency, he spoke about the reluctance of Kentuckians to pass a tax even if the proceeds would measurably improve their situation. He indicated that it was costing the farmers $2 per acre annually to get their products to market due to the poor transportation system. President Barker stated, “A tax of twenty-five cents per acre, paid in money, would give farmers perfect roads; but a proposition to do this would raise a storm of protest from every farmer in the state. And so we will go on, year by year, losing $1.75 per acre indirectly on our farms, rather than pay twenty-five cents per acre for good roads.” The attitude is not very different today. Dr. Thomas D. Clark, who is with us today, served on this faculty for many years and is the Commonwealth's historian laureate. He has challenged the state on many occasions to strive for greatness in education. However, this state has been unwilling to pick up the mantle of greatness, unwilling to make the necessary long-term investment. Mr. President, we have to whip this age-old problem in this state! We must modernize our tax system and demonstrate the boldness necessary to generate revenue so that we can make the investments in education so our children will have a brighter future.

I want to conclude this conversation by telling you about our Top-20 Challenge. It is both exciting and daunting. When House Bill 1 was passed in 1997, the Community College System was removed from UK and we were told to go forth and become a top-20 public research university. Research funding was provided the next few years, and it really made a difference:

We have added 64 endowed chairs and 158 endowed professorships.
Our faculty and staff have generated over $200 million in new grants and contracts each year for the last three years.
We have increased our freshman enrollment from 3,000 to 4,000 and, at the same time, increased academic quality.
Our endowment has grown from under $200 million to over $500 million.
We are in the midst of a $1 billion capital campaign and have just surpassed $700 million.
We have 13 departments already ranked in the top 20 and others moving in that direction.

We have done what they asked us to do. But with the budget cuts, it's still a struggle to keep focused on our top-20 challenge. Some have asked, “Why not back away from this top-20 goal?” To quote a long-time servant of UK, Dr. Jack Blanton, “The answer is not NO; it's HELL NO!” (You would have liked Jack.) This state needs a big idea. This state needs a “New Way to Dream.”

To dream of being truly competitive and ranked among the best higher education institutions in the nation.
To dream of having an economy that provides proper employment for our graduates and citizens and allows us to invest in the arts and our environment to enhance our quality of life.
To dream of the day when our health statistics are no longer an embarrassment.

The top-20 challenge is tough but we have truly outstanding faculty and staff that are working unbelievably hard and doing amazing things to demonstrate that this goal is not a hollow dream.

Sir, you established some deep footprints at this institution. I was impressed to learn that you were elected President of the Association of American Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges and Experiment Stations in 1902. Your prominence and that of the university was evident in a personal letter you received from your friend, Andrew Carnegie, upon the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of your presidency. He stated, “We have Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Williams, and now add to the list that true Scot and grand American, Patterson, creator of Kentucky's University under more distressing conditions than perhaps any University has ever had to encounter—so much greater the honor.”

Main Building with flags

You had this university positioned on the national stage. We have not maintained that position. We are searching for the footsteps you left so we can continue the march for education in Kentucky and for a national position of prominence for this institution. Cotton Noe, a UK faculty member and Kentucky's poet laureate, said that you were “a man of strong prejudices and narrow sympathies, but of tremendous force of character and indomitable will and determination.” Your will and determination made this university possible. We must have a similar indomitable will and determination today. You had a vision of a great state university, and today we are closer than ever before to the realization of that vision. We have a lot of work to do, but with our dedicated and distinguished faculty and staff, our outstanding students, and our Board of Trustees, I have every confidence that we will succeed. We must!

Well, we must leave you now to go around front for the official ribbon cutting. But as you sit here tonight, alone on your plaza, I hope the moon beams cast a smile across your face because your building is back and your university is doing very well and working very hard to answer Dr. Clark's call to greatness.

Good day.